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Thank you to those who support me via my Paypal account: rikwrybac@yahoo.com. The government doesn't read my poetry. You do. Out of over 560 poems here on this blog by me, I hope you find one or more you like. Thank you for my readers. Thank you for your comments.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Winter Haiku


Winter Haiku

Winter's sudden fright
Curled oak leaves wind-blown down
Spiders crawl on snow



Barry G. Wick

The Shadows


The Shadows

I stare at the morning from the window
to the snow. The shadows of branches
demonstrate the measures of music.

With reverence. gray fingers play slow
notes of an organ from a star to recreate
the keys caressed by Cameron Carpenter.

Barry G. Wick

For Poet Nanny Gunderson


For Poet Nanny Gunderson

Mother told me about your
pacing the house in Vermillion,
picking words out of the air
as if they were flying to you.

Then you'd speak with your mother
in Norwegian and her blindness
in a silent room with her knitting
that you'd pull apart every day.

I don't float through a dictionary.
A few useful words stream
through the ice striped window
while snowplows bank the useless.

We are all blind in our rooms
knitting some sense to our lives
with gODD pulling things apart
each night for our next day.

Barry G. Wick


Night Travels


Night Travels

I wash clothes
in a small room
that was coupled
to my childhood
I compliment the new owner
on the white cupboards
that I don't remember
from years ago
Back and forth
from the patio
to the kitchen entry
I see the two dogs
who meant the most to me
the white Great Pyrenees
and the St. Bernard
who hangs around my leg
begging for the touch
I give him in these clouds
I go no further inside
and make a call
to the Frenchman
who lived with us
after his years fighting
in Algeria
I hear his voice
saying that he can't stay
on the line for long
when an insistent woman
calls my name
in a tone that wakes me
and I'm left with the feeling
I shall be here again


Barry G. Wick

Saturday, February 2, 2019

Silence


Silence

I love communication
with silence
It says so much more than
the flicker of lips
in candlelight
It's especially useful at a distance

The planets and stars
told humanity
truth with it
Wives and angry friends
use it frequently
After one extended silence
a person knows exactly where
the switches are
since darkness surpasses
even a wordless dream
Any query brings
the dreaded
“If you don't know...”


It is not gold
because gold will purchase
all the chatter
anyone can stand
at the end of your arm
staring into the noisy abyss
A length of rope with which
to hang oneself
brings on
the kind of noiselessness
we are all applying for
at the moment
of our first wail
Return us to a heartbeat
it says
or less
much less

We only have to wait
much too long
through interminable
meetings and industry
best left for the deaf
How I envy them
some days
With deafness
all say the same nothings
the hearing can't understand
those useful hand gestures
one has to learn
in order to
get yelled at
Imagine a world
where the numbers of hearing
and deaf are reversed
There would be no mufflers
on engines
There would be contempt
for musicians with no support
for concert halls and orchestras
who performed badly


With silence
we know where we stand
at the center
of a great city
a nothing
a nobody
a zero point zero

Chopin or Led Zeppelin
will lead you away
from your own creations
Something as small
as a poem
is a noise
with which to rend
all others
with bombs in their heads

See?
I am the king of crash
the wandering boom
from whom you flee
Only the ice that
falls from the eves
into a drift
is the Aztec knife
ripping open my chest
sending me where
even friends want
me to be silent

Silence is my destination
all I ever knew
all I ever will know
will be lost in its library
Here is my ticket
to an empty shelf
no one will dust
My silent cough
attests to its reality
its gold-less beaches
filled with unknown beauty
illuminated by a cold sun
on a tumbling rock
that watches itself slow
as the light recedes
across its expanding years
which cannot count themselves

Barry G. Wick