The Shutdown

Shutdown

Shutdown the government say some

Let the halls become silent and dark

Return this nation to what was here before

Indigenous folk are ready rubbing hands

Around their waists are chains covered

In shiny new padlocks and handcuffs

Throw away the words of the Declaration

And burn all copies of the Constitution

If they want it back there will have to be

New documents that stand for the truth

How does anyone shut down equality 

Turn out the lights on already blind justice 

Where shall we meet to decide how poor

Elderly citizens will starve in cold homes

Who will become strange fruit in hot sun

Box freedom telling people that is all

There's only so much to go around today

Be sure to shred all the money in banks

Melt all the coins and turn in all bonds

Nothing has value until a new government

Let us gather to decide what this all means

There are no leaders so shut the old away

Until the nobodys filter to a new voice

Better than Franklin and good old George

All books of law are full of worms and wrong

There are no bills to pay until value establishes

In something better than gold, silver, and paper

With simple words agreed to write it all away 

Start it over to never care for your security

Let the States all die until a king is found

Make just one man decide for all people

Who will live and who will die by any decree

Line the naysayers up against existing walls

Bullets are free for believers to exterminate

All the children they want to bleed on streets

The victims no longer exist since power is all

The enemies come across all borders in peace

Willing to die for the nothing that now is wrought

Stone, paper, leather parchment cannot hold

What these acclaimed people glue with dust

Barry G. Wick

We

We live with our choices and what is within us.  We live with what we see in the mirror.  We live with our illusions.  We live knowing we can't see how others see us.  Through these facts appear the ghosts of those who gave us life over all the centuries of the earth.  Boo!

Pitchman

Pitchman

He stands in front of the studio camera

This space is designed to tire and hammer

Only money or email will save

Everyone from geegaws not needed

But are supposed to crave

This studied pitchman 

Is magically slick

In a comfortable suit 

He asks his audience to pick

Whatever he's selling 

He answers all questions

In a calm steady voice

He says they're only suggestions

The world will never rid the glowing screens of them

They'll glow and they'll grow each with their own special gem

I haven't a thing to sell just silly old words

The world is chock full of spewed

Alphabetic  turds

Hart Crane raged his alcoholic depression

Wondering if his writing was any good

I'm depressed but haven't had a drink

In many years

I don't care if my poems are good or great

I made my decisions for all of it

This life will throw me off the ship

Soon enough whether anyone

Bought my pitch or not

I've been bobbing in the sea a long time

There's plenty of time to drown

Barry G. Wick

Beneath This Minute

Beneath this Minute

Beneath this minute

Are the lies I tell myself

I think I’m okay

No better and no worse

Than others around me

The truth is that I’m both

I don’t read enough

But I read more than most

I’m fat and want to lose weight

But I find myself in a monthly binge

My home is fairly dirty

Justifying not cleaning with painful shoulders

These older years have taught me

None of this matters

I will lie to myself whether I think not to lie

Or whether I think I change to the truth

What is most important in my breakfast

And the tea I will make for myself

I look to the stove and see its on

Heating the water in the kettle

The outside of the kettle is a bit greasy

But the water soon to boil will be clean

I think about what I will eat

And the two choices might wind up

As eating both to my detriment

So I lean into my brain and scream

You don’t respect me Mr. Brain

I’ve now jumped onto the side of the worse

All of this before breakfast

Of either dry something

Or fried something

The third option is

Search the neighborhood

For a pet

To rip its throat

With my teeth

To enjoy my vampire tea

Barry G.Wick

The. Plastic Bag of Youthful Death

The Plastic Bag of Youthful Death

I threw away my journals

After many years of writing

Tiny letters upon painful pages

Just as I was making the me

So public that required I

Destroy my life before it

Went any farther so as

To have the many dig

Through those years 

Almost thirty years ago

All words from college

To Chicago on a train

Of paper rail cars

Now neatly shredded

By Craig's machine secretly

Screaming words torn

So they bleed into a plastic

Bag their letters separated

Much like cutting a chicken

Into unrecognizable parts

Only the shredders teeth

Will enjoy these memories

unseasoned and raw

These many minutes with

Multiple books all five

With many pages 

Of black inked dreams

And lovers kissed or held

Reduced to indecipherable 

Polluted trees for the benefit

Of others who don't want

The real me to read as

I've always done thinking

What others may want from

Me instead of me for me

Happily me on my terms

I've now discovered this branch

Where I don't drag all that

With me across the tear-soaked

Years that shadow other writers

Full of childish learning

Fumbles on the paginotions

My own word of my own life

Belonging to me doing it better

For no one else alone

Or read to a crowd I'll never meet

The ridiculous boredom

That clouded Larkin and others

Like Rochester telling me

She thought the painting

I bought for forty bucks

Should be destroyed 

Like young men's words

No one can stand to read

Barry G. Wick