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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 400 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.

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Shrink

Shrink


I'm getting smaller

sliding away from all this

Each year is slippery

as the mind finds

new memories

to make pain

which didn't exist then

seem eternal and obvious

No one told me

lonely years hurt 

So I tell you

Each moment comes back

Fill now with kindness

You may be forced

to explain to your

wandering mind

six questions you'd pay

a shrink to ask

to make you understand

all you ever did


Barry G. Wick

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Truth

Truth


How narrow your loincloth

is directly proportional

to the size of your fine

Donuts are depressed

Elvis is eating lunch

Angels have hollow bones

Whatever you believe

Is true


Barry G. Wick

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Poem of Day

Poem of Day


Here come the drums

Their sound not unlike

The crunch of dry needles

Strewn upon a pine floor

Sometimes rocks tumble

In the creek at night

Heard outside my room

In the basement 

Where the glass door

Slides open 

And the water sings

To me in the dark

In the morning turkey

Feed in the grass

Visible through screens

On the door and porch

Oh I miss that home

That comes back

In dream and memory

But it belonged to her

Neat and perfect

Where I live now

Chaos and confusion

Breakfast now over

The piano of dark melody

Mysteries of quavers

And depressed peddle

Hanging on the moment

Cross the room

From the radio

At one time my fingers

Now enjoying the temple

Of his left hand

And the odd ghost line

Speaking across my emotions

I am sound of life

That was my training

Where words came later

Both appeared for me

In these short years

I am the better for these gifts


Barry G. Wick


Monday, March 22, 2021

The Last Gasp of Similitude

The Last Gasp of Similitude


Before

So much depended

Upon being like something

Copying an image

Doing a curtsey to an equal

Your children must fit

The mold

So out they came

Little automatons

In suits and sport coats

Dreaming of their statues

The same fires

From the same sparks

No one prepared

For vive la difference

Well aren't you confused

As you search the world

Of images for you

The tired clone

Subway bumping

Midst the brothers and sisters

Larking at beaches 

Comparing every body part

Every gesture of adjective

And compromise

What happens when

Expected visions

Gladiatorial spectators

Discern a change in the card

Oh my the confused

Strike their drums

Polish their cymbals

Tear apart their symbols

Anguish and gnash

Destroy and punish

Curse the variant

And so we separate

Into our villages

Seeking our dreams

Only to usher away

The seeker

You have seen similitude

In all it glorious patterns

Only to spit upon it

Clouding the waters

With your feces

Great angels

With gaping mouths

African river monsters

Floating above it all


Barry G. Wick


Sunday, March 21, 2021

At Bed's Edge

At Bed's Edge


Will I find a good morning?

Night was fitful and long

I turn to that which I take

to bed

to kitchen and living room

They fit in spaces of my walker

my phone and glasses

I think of grandparents

who picked up their glasses

before joining day

but they didn't have a cell phone

or the case I made to protect mine

They had no interruptions at night

no quick openings of glowing screens

to add news from around the world

to their brains that slowly drain

Their proper twin beds

were separated by a night stand

a glass of water and small lamp

Their radio was at the entrance

just inside the front door

far from their bedroom

a large wooden cabinet

made of mahogany

Were Grandpa's first stumblings

to turn it on and wait for tubes

to glow in order to bring worlds

into their lives or was silence

and permutations of first conversations

what started his day with Grandma


Age brings questions

with few answers

My grandchildren

will have questions

for me in 50 years

Consider them answered

as the last breaths drain

from failing lungs

as chemical thought

burns out

the last of years

when loneliness tugs

at painful joints

Your inventions will trail

like two parts of Bach

that disappear

one at a time

Rest well


Barry G. Wick



Thursday, March 18, 2021

Old School

 

Old School


There is no such thing

No one can teach you to be old

Now that phrase means

that something is done

with technical procedures

from a previous time

For example wood working

with no power tools

Fixing your buckboard

with tools you made

at the forge in the shack

out back of the sod house

you made when you

settled on the prairie

I'm sorry but you didn't

do that

Prairies are now tilled

seeded and harvested

with giant corporate made

monstrosities

with ultra designed computer

controls that really don't need

the farmer to do much of anything

except sit eating lunch

If they're good farmers

they'll service their monsters

with new rubber this and that

oil up the beast

check the tires

and keep it inside after

a good power washed

replacement of the bean head

for the corn head

talking to their brokers

on their cell phones

Even this poem if you can call it that

is written on a glowing screen

actually typed old school

with spellcheckers ready to announce

my stupidity to the whole world

if I let it

I can sit here in my old school

breechcloth on a Sunday morning

listening to music of Vivaldi

played on recorders and drums

from the frequency modulated

radio miles away

a program likely to be

available on the net

for weeks months or years

What's more my computer froze

and even though I couldn't save

a few lines having saved

most of this poem

I took my cell phone

and photographed the screen

to save eight or so lines

that really weren't all that important

since most of what I write gets

thrown away before you get to see it

with a casual swipe of my thumb

across the tiny screen

below the keyboard on my laptop

or did I make changes just by speaking

into the microphone and tell this

piece of shit

it fucked up

and start over from where I'd saved it

in a pile of unintelligible ones and zeroes

Now all I wanted to tell you

was that I knew what growing old

was like for me

and how you could learn a thing or two

from this crazy old grandpa

who is going through the throes of age

This was my idea waking up from

the dreams of night

well actually early morning

and not one dream worth

repeating to anyone

Seriously, my Grandma Ella

never taught me anything

about being or growing old

while we sat at her kitchen table

in the little white house

on West Boulevard

sipping coffee and eating crackers

that she set up for me

It wasn't until years after

when I thought about it all

and her short curly white hair

that her stories about

her family and my grandfather's family

with the old pictures

of Minnesota and Iowa farmers

who barely had horses to pull

the plows and threshers of their day

An old man in bib overalls

standing in old school corn

that some company didn't own

the patent on

I'm off the track of teaching you

how to be old

Forget it

Even the doctors and researchers

who have written thousands of books

on gerontology and geriatrics

like my father's book on

Vision in the Aging Patient

won't tell you what you'll remember

from your childhood

and what you'll learn

about your parents and grands

by just sitting in your retirement

thinking about every word you heard

and remembered about them

and why they did the things they did

and why they were the person they were

and why I am the person I am

and why I can't remember names

and phrases of words

that trickled off my tongue

just ten years ago

I'm losing it

just enough so my children

and mostly my grandchildren

don't want to be around me

So I have to leave these words here

just in case they want to learn

old school

by reading instead of

looking at the video

on their cell phone

stumbling at the curb

of the street

or having an accident

in their battery solar car

hum hum hum

with the computer that avoided

the accident in the first place

when I realized I had

to take my pills

with the breakfast I'd forgotten to eat

when I started all this

staring at the upper screen

at a photo of a dead native

with scarified arms

or the fundoshi

of the Japanese

at the naked festival

bodies festooned

in tattoos

and me with none

in my t-shirt and breechcloth

old school clothing

a dumb old man

who knows why I'm here

and why my family

was the way it was

being born and growing old

the old school way

control S


Barry G. Wick


Saturday, March 6, 2021

Lonely

Lonely


I've always been lonely

Sitting on a piano bench

Practising scales

Practising alone

At her insistence

Not from love

But for her ego

That I make her

Look good

To her friends

To the town where

She wears her clothes

Where she wears me

A living cloth covered

In lonely notes

From a piano


Barry G Wick