Poem

 Poem

I am not alive now

I breathe

I move though less

I hear my radio

I feel pain

My home is a prison

My thoughts don't end

My memories are grief

My life is failure

My feeling is shame

This second is endless

This air is stifling

This noise is ugly

This being is nothing

This is joyless dark

Barry G. Wick

 Lil' Bits

Whatever you sign up for,  there are consequences.

.

Paraphrasing Lincoln: some yawn, some cheer, some scream

Newton N. Minow called television a vast wasteland.  The internet is all that and more. It's a dead planet. And yes, what I write is part of the dead planet.

The greatest causes are freedom and democracy whether you command a weapon, a camera, a keyboard, a pen, a brush, paint, a musical instrument, tools, the body, or just your voice.

Hopefully, you will wake up from sleep everyday. Then, one day, you will wake up, not from sleep but from the slumber of a false life. Everything will be changed and you will have to navigate a new life in a new world. This awakening may happen many times in your life. 

I write many bad poems.  I've written roughly 3500 poems in 50 years. Most stink. 1 out of 10 is acceptable. 1 out of 100 is okay.  1 out of 500 is good. 1 out of 1000 could be really good and 1 out 3500 I'm hoping is great.  In fact, I don't know. My readers are my editors. Oh, I do change my poems often removing or adding words. Nothing in the boxes or online is written in stone. If I allowed publication, I couldn't change anything. That's why I don't try to publish. I've sent out poems. But even with a SASE I don't hear back. Also, if published in a small or moderately sized or famous publication, it's locked there forever. 

Also, mailing submissions is expensive.  If I put everything online, I can make changes. Also, when poems get more traffic, I know poems have been shared. More sharing means, I hope, a better poem.  

If you find 1 poem you like. Thank you. If possible, help me out by sending something to my PayPal account: rikwrybac@yahoo.com. If you think I'm getting rich doing this, far from it. I squeak by on Social Security mostly. Medicare. Part D meds with "extra help." Yeah, I qualify for that. Thanks if you do send something, and thanks for reading. I just write. It's an urge. 

If anything, tell someone about my blog so they can read my bad poetry...or 1 or 2 good ones they might like?

Barry G. Wick

(Poem September 2020)

 (Poem September 2020)

I thought I was important

The joke was always

On me

I don't think this now

I'm convinced my importance

Encouraged by my stage mom

Was so misplaced

And inappropriate

I should apologize

My mountain top now

Is an old trailer in Iowa

In a park filled with

Good people 

And a few bad

Like everywhere

So I pontificate to the walls

My smartphone is convinced

I'm a genius

My day starts with oatmeal

The rain is heard as I slurp

My cheap coffee

A few eggs go into a pan

Unwillingly

I hear violins on a radio

My fingers brush fabric

On the bed sofa towel

Just to feel

And my clothes

These will decide

To abandon my body

For a dollar rack

I shall return to dust

Just as dust covers

My furniture

Whose dust is this

I know but I request silence

Of the spirits I've tracked in

Barry G. Wick

Sold Pangaea!

 Sold Pangaea!

"It pays to advertise"

          Business aphorism

Unbeknownst to Agmunha

In his narrow skin

Loincloth

His customer's benefits

Are seen

That eventually create 

Dale Carnagie's

Attention

Interest

Conviction

Desire

And close

At a quantum speed

Naughty Agmunha

Revealing his

Substantial assets

The original

Salesman

Barry G. Wick

The Binge Watch

 The Binge Watch

You think of

Your favorite video program

I do that

I'd change those hours

If I could watch

My babies sleep

Someone I could love

Walk through the door

A dark green forest

Of ponderosas

A garden full of new growth

The top of my desk

In my grade school

Small mud dams

Made in spring

With friends

The view from the top

Of the hill of my town

The angel Michael

As he steps 

From a rock-ringed lake

Those were my favorite

Moments on the binge

Some were thrown away

As easily as I clicked

Off the video unit

And now I see the fool

I was on a stride away

From those hours

When the binge burned

All those memories

On some fatty cells

Inside the skull

Full of less important

Hours that never mattered

Barry G. Wick

Eternity's Cookware

 Eternity's Cookware

I went forward into obscurity

For the same reasons most

People enter their finality

Everything is behind in life

Rotting pears collecting wasps

Memory isn't pleasing anymore

Photos have all been seen

All that's wanted is the blank

It is not controlling depression

It is not a repetitive mind 

Simply put its the metal bowl

Struck with a handy can opener

That sounds a ring of a bell

From a monastery overseas

The monks gathering in a hall

The bowl echoes with itself

Of countless loaves of bread

Meatloaves filled with oats

Bits of onions spilling outward

Timelessness as it strikes

The hour of a last supper

Drink up and taste the dirt

Eternity cooks your universe

Barry G. Wick

Another Wasted Image

 Another Wasted Image

I would not complain

If I could find

The happiness

I see in the photos

Of other people

Or reveal the faces

Behind the voices

In a book I could

Not finish

Too many voices

Spoil this soup

Just as too many

Faces make me feel

I've missed something

I can never find

So I tell myself

To keep reading

As the obcession

Pulls me into a smile

On a body

I'll never have

Barry G. Wick

Invisible

 Invisible

This is me

Outside alone

Sitting on the knoll

Looking west

At the city below me

Through grass

And pine trees

I am like I will become

Separate and different

The sun in my face

Thinking of nothing

Being nothing

Being with no one

Because I was raised

By a lonely woman

Who shopped every day

For herself

Because shoes and clothes

Filled the hole inside of her

Once a year she'd shop for me

Or give me stupid clothes

At Christmas I'd wear once

Like her closets full of dresses

And shoes

She'd cook dinner while

I practiced piano

Yelling at me to play

It again

Or angry at me

Enough to slap

Or trot out for her image

So I created different worlds

Than the one I was in

With puppets or dreams

Because no friends lived

Next door

Our house was alone

Where my parents were alone

Where I was alone

At the end of our road

On the side of a hill

Behind lonely pines

Invisible

Barry G. Wick

Unlimited

 Unlimited

Unlimited does not mean

Unlimited

In any other language

like American English

Unlimited would mean

there is no limit

please note the small letters

Unlimited means a limit

not unlimited

In the world of smartphones

unlimited means

they will cut your service

at a limit they believe

to be enough for you

you piece of shit customer

Spend your money for no limit

you will get a limit

your money ends

when they say it ends

There isn't even an option

for no limit or as the word

promises

UNLIMITED

And so I believe I have

reached my limit

and will write nothing more

My patience has a limit

My words have a limit

and so I am cutting my reader

off right...

but, my name is free

Barry G. Wick

Bat Shit

Bat Shit

I'm certain this isn't some crazy notion

of why the world has used this phrase

to denote one kind of sanity

Let us review

Insanity

Insane

Crazy

Bizarre

Odd

Loony

Off the rocker

Lost the marbles

One sandwich short of a picnic

Lights are on and nobody's home

Shit for brains

Crazy as a soup sandwich

Crazy as a dog in a cat factory

and a few thousand other references

to personal oddities and limitations

plus all the psychiatric diagnoses

But to be truthful

we are living in a world now

that truly came from bat shit

I've been in my home many months

I fear going out because

a virus has attacked our nation

and our leader has a voided skull

Between anti-maskers who think

liberty gives them license

to infect everybody

and the anti-vaxers waiting

in the sidelines for a vaccine

they will tell everybody not to use

I only want to survive without illness

or death

Truly

this is all bat shit crazy

Barry G. Wick

The Diggers

The Diggers

Today will be like any other

during this time of disease

They will dig the graves

for the people who bring

the members of their family

The body will be wrapped

in sheets from the final bed

Coffins are not available

So many have died today

the supply of wood is lean

There is always crying

No one cries for the trees

that are now being chopped

for some other use than shade

A digger's tears are dry

His face is always creased

At home the teapot sings

This is the wail of oceans

for all the dead in rows

Too many shrouds yell

from the earth for change

These people were all unique

before the diggers came

We all reappear in the dust

Barry G. Wick

The Revolt of the Dandelions

The Revolt of the Dandelions

Spring began on time this year

the winds of April

the rains of May

not too much of either

Deep in the soil

a root begin its wake

a little parachute broke open

to send the shoot aloft

Soon jagged green leaves

with a stem like a small pipe

floating high above the ground

the popcorn of flowers

opens boldly 

buttered by the sun 

A bee who acts

in the movie of new life

sits atop the waves of yellow

to enjoy its early flavor

as the script unfolds

and evil dares this thriller

saturate the observer's fear 

Then from beneath the porch

in his gray uniform

sporting the slicing teeth

of floral doom

a munching tank called rabbit

rolls across the verdant carpet

to rip at this undulation

this wave of solar freedom

Down its maw the victim

descends in rended beauty

Oh this first of spring

screams its final message

REVOLT! REVOLT!

Just as this moment proceeds

while teeth finish a first meal

from every hole in the ground

from every seed and stem

an explosion so violent

is seen and felt by this vicious

this steel-eyed Lagomorpha 

Oh yes this awful Leporidae

as every dandelion surrounds it

in sudden opposition

to protest this herbivore

that upsets the order

of this green universe

One sign

then the next

a protest of thousands

marching from the earth

to the warmth above

surrounds this viciousness

that now runs back to its hole

having taken their message to heart:

Eat Grass not Flowers

Leave this lawn

you you

Oryctolagus cuniculus

Frightened by their language

and apparent intelligence

it changes its mind in sleep

dreaming of my garden

as a shudder fills my body

only fences and foxes can allay

Barry G. Wick

Morning in America

Morning In America

On the edge of a bed

facing the window

open to the sound of day

construction on the highway

distant sirens chasing

or rushing to some scene

The images of my mother

and her sister

begin to dissipate

and the urgency of cleaning

the carpeted floor

where a broken mirror

and  light bulb fragments

have me spinning

from dreamland catastrophes

these two siblings created

Worry of injured feet

have my vanishing thoughts

joining this world

rather than the imagined

visitation of specters

I begin to push aside the night

to once again isolate

from all I know 

and have known

to escape an illness

just being in my home

doing the dishes

taking my pills

realigning the cans

in my cabinets

throwing away the useless

as I realize how useless I am

producing little nothings

at the edge of language

It takes the music of Glinka

to spin me up

from this reverie

to go on

into my day

as if I had value

locked in a cage

behind my prison walls

Where are you?

You have never 

come to visit

You are the only one

I would let in without

a mask

to protect me

from the one thing

I sometimes desire

So I wait for you

reminded of our days

and how few they were

All this from the edge

of a bed

as the curtains breathe

in and out

the lung of my house

unaffected by the disease

currently in fashion

Barry G. Wick