Busy in the Kitchen

Busy in the Kitchen

To be a chef this time of year

Takes guts no fear

Carefully

I choose this soup's flavors

I ignore the ravers

They know what's ahead

As the chopping board

Turns bright red

First a Norwegian stout and strong

A Chinese laborer gave me a frown

Then African and Indian

Polynesian and Russian

This big pot has me in awe

For my Halloween mirepoix

Barry G. Wick

Fame

Fame

The story was about a teen boy

Who killed his family to be famous

I write poems to be forgotten

When I tell someone I write poems

Their eyes glaze over in a stare

Who knows what images crackle

Inside their voluminous brains

I feel as if I just exploded before them

It's a comfort that I've planned 

To be so little to most of humanity

Poets recite at inaugurals

To forgetful applause

Unpublished and I'm certain

It's a social death greater than HIV

There are pills for that now

A cure for forgotten poets

Will never be found

Even in rat infested gutters

Where clubbing rats is lauded

Barry G. Wick

Phosphorus and Hesperus

Phosphorus and Hesperus

(after a painting by Evelyn De Morgan, 1881, at the De Morgan Centre, Guildford, Surrey, England)  for Brian and Patrick    (this poem lost a contest for ekphastic poetry that cost me 3.5 British pounds to enter.)

Two young men

Sit on a beach enjoying the twilight

Phosphorus is going to sleep

From a hard day as the morning star

Hesperus is rising to brighten the evening

Their arms intertwined as lovers might

Hold each other tenderly

They are naked and not afraid of it

Anyone who sees them should not

Take notice or offense

For love is no offense

We sympathize because one

Starts the day and the other

Starts the evening

They live opposed

Yet find time to enjoy the twilight

With the gentle moment seen

In this painting by Evelyn De Morgan

She understood the love of young men

Giving it a platform to be seen

That hangs on a wall

We all know love is not something

That hangs on a wall

Will they play in the surf

Seaweed enrobing their manhood

Foam on their lips

They enjoy a sky love light

That doesn't exist on cloudy nights

Stars are so lonely that they

Gather in faraway clusters

Each with a different color shift

Reflecting their souls in chemicals

To the uneducated in searches

They do wet themselves in shallows

With sand that becomes a gritty shot

Of thrills for lovers on bare feet

It lives always both night and day

Phosphorus is the evening star

Hesperus is the morning star

Leave it to the Greeks to give

These lovers their names

Based upon what is seen in the sky

We do not judge them for their love

And those who do are probably from Troy

Phosphorus has gone to sleep

Just as Hesperus will 

After the work is done

Their love spills over Troy’s walls

That will come down forever

Just as forever these two 

With love 

give light 

 and Hesperus

(after a painting by Evelyn De Morgan, 1881, at the De Morgan Centre, Guildford, Surrey, England)  for Brian and Patrick

Two young men

Sit on a beach enjoying the twilight

Phosphorus is going to sleep

From a hard day as the morning star

Hesperus is rising to brighten the evening

Their arms intertwined as lovers might

Hold each other tenderly

They are naked and not afraid of it

Anyone who sees them should not

Take notice or offense

For love is no offense

We sympathize because one

Starts the day and the other

Starts the evening

They live opposed

Yet find time to enjoy the twilight

With the gentle moment seen

In this painting by Evelyn De Morgan

She understood the love of young men

Giving it a platform to be seen

That hangs on a wall

We all know love is not something

That hangs on a wall

Will they play in the surf

Seaweed enrobing their manhood

Foam on their lips

They enjoy a sky love light

That doesn't exist on cloudy nights

Stars are so lonely that they

Gather in faraway clusters

Each with a different color shift

Reflecting their souls in chemicals

To the uneducated in searches

They do wet themselves in shallows

With sand that becomes a gritty shot

Of thrills for lovers on bare feet

It lives always both night and day

Phosphorus is the evening star

Hesperus is the morning star

Leave it to the Greeks to give

These lovers their names

Based upon what is seen in the sky

We do not judge them for their love

And those who do are probably from Troy

Phosphorus has gone to sleep

Just as Hesperus will 

After the work is done

Their love spills over Troy’s walls

That will come down forever

Just as forever these two 

With love 

give light 

The Throwaway Poet

The Throwaway Poet

Thumbing through the offerings

Of an online low price book store

A book of collected poems

Of a famous poet whose life

Spanned part of mine 

Came with a very low price

Paperback I thought

A book I did not purchase

When it hit the stores

Just five short years ago

Because I did not have

The muti-decibuck price

For such a hardback tome

Here the same book shows

For less than the price

Of a small beef roast

I would have devoured

With all the drool deserved

It arrives in the post with another

Group of collected poems

Only these two great lives

Have set me back

Less than five dozen eggs

And a gallon of milk

Depending on the market

And the health of the flock

I'm udderly shocked

These great writers penned

Their lives upon these pages

Published most in small

And mainstream magazines

Gaining fame and stature

And here collected in books

Post life upon this earth

I could Ill afford when first

Their empyrean language

Was laid upon gold-covered

Shelves in fancy book stores

One book in paper so moderately

Priced I could scrape the price

From my bill of rotting food

The other hardback in hundreds

Of pages of fine paper

Covered in preserving plastic

A library so gently blessed

For all its readers now marked

Officially withdrawn from

The eyes of educated patrons just

Five years after publication

Now sitting so graciously

In front of my eyes bulging

With the voice of this god

So here is your life dear Sir

For me to gobble and ponder

The fate of my unpublished

Life and mediocrity galore

But such are the lives

Of all poets tossed upon

The heap of burning paper

The fuel of my cremation

Another throwaway poet

Devoured by worms and years

Barry G. Wick

To the Sea

To the Sea

I cannot speak to the Sea

I've been on its shore infrequently

Here I know it's predecessors

The rain the rivulets the gutter water

I have seen the remnants

Of the fast water in volume

That came down deep canyons

Destroying old banks of simple creeks

Scraping trees and rocks

Into torrents that rammed houses

Into kindling and people into graves

I have seen the Sea as adult

But mostly as a child falling 

From the sky to begin it's gathering

Into creeks and rivers

The teenagers of water 

That grow to fill the Sea 

I have seen the Sea as a youth

Petulant greedy for a bigger life

Away from small towns

That only remembers the father

That only remembers the mother

Oh you are the son of the June storm

What was it's name that doesn't matter

As all names that disappear into time

Soon surrounded by more and more

Waterfalls as they roll to the Sea

Does a river learn more or see

Itself corrupted by the society of water

As it heads towards your incessant

Lapping as if it were a thirsty dog

Even the breath goes high

Into the air to create the puffy screens

Hiding sun and stars appearing

And disappearing into the earth

All people are promised to you oh Sea

This ends all I know or suspect

All that surrounds the animals and plants

Who live in you that you surround

Be kind to me when I come to you

Let me see what I do not know

Even if your terrors split me dry

Barry G. Wick

Reflections

Reflections

Up this morning tuning

My internet gateway to music

Sitting in my walker

At the sink and the mirror

Shocked at my face

With long hair and beard

How many mirrors has

Seen this face and think

The first mirror was

On Quincy Strreet

From then on every day

Until the face stares back

Mirrors in three countries

Have seen this face

Not enough travel for most

But every emotion seen

From self-hatred to ecstasy

I'm in the mirror reaching

Barry G. Wick