The Clock

The Clock

When today's children get old

Will they want to change

Their clock’s battery

Surely they won't remember

Clocks that used to be wound

My mother collected clocks

Each with their winding key

It's how I feel

Get my key to the slot

Give it a turn or two

I'm winding down

There's dust on my head

Worn paint on my hands

When fingers updated my time

Spinning around minutes or

Hours

It seems no one will reset

My hands on this old clockface

My time begins to stop

Millenia will pass

I'll be right twice a day

If there will still be days

Yet my face could be blank

Just like those new watches

Who's battery discharged

My time seems near

Truth is no longer

On the face of clocks

There are no faces

We agree upon

Barry G. Wick

The World Changed

The World Changed

 A man eats ice cream every night

to gain weight for the person

who is looking for a "feedee"

Fat sells the body for love

Another man loses weight

looking at slim young men

not hoping for their comfort

but to recover a youth he lost

A woman invites men to join

her on a website for spam

or love that will fill her heart

her secret is untold so join

Everywhere looking for something

and finding nothing but lonely

hours in the electronic faces

that fill a screen in the hand

There are no reasons for this

except your eyes are the profit

for a large corporate raider

expecting money to buy more eyes

Barry G. Wick

Purification

Purification

The orange peels are drying

There are a few candles

Some glass jars are filled

With fuel and wicks

There a few poems

It's likely they won't be read

No one will hold hands

The body will be gone

Must the spirits do it themselves

Surely the person will have

Begged for forgiveness

For all their sins and mistakes

There is no common process

To give someone an entré 

Into the afterlife up or down

Some tribes and the popes

Create their ceremonies

But atheists just chew crackers

And slurp homemade soup

Or from some tasteless corporation

Say a quiet prayer to whatever

The deceased did not believe

No legacy will be extoled

Lives just disappear now

More and more families break

Friends move where no one knows

Dreams are just ignored

At the end of the day

Valued things are stolen

Or sold to a bidder who

Did not know it's possessor 

Bits of spirit go with each

Barry G. Wick

Boiled Eggs

Boiled Eggs

Yesterday I boiled a dozen

Brown eggs my friend

Brought from the food bank

Even when I had plenty

All the other eggs 

Had not been boiled

Sitting quite happily

In their carton lounging

On the stove water heated

Like starting a small torch

To seal the edges of elastic

I might use in sewing a jockstrap

I wear the jockstrap from yesterday

While my eggs sit unboiled

In their carton with other eggs

Egg cartons are like jockstraps

When the water starts to roil

I prepare an ice water bath

To finish eggs outside their hot bath

I think about dipping my eggs

One by one the eggs jump in

To the boiling water dreaming hard

My timer starts counting ten minutes

My friend reads the book I gave her

I check the timer like I

Watch the pot boil that bubbles

Around the brown eggs

My jockstrap itches for a dip

Near the end of ten minutes

I watch the seconds drop off

The ends of the earth

Like ships scream into space

The bowl of ice water dances

With the ice and chilled water

In anticipation of having eggs

In its belly when turning a page

One by one I transfer eggs

From hot water to the stainless

Ice bath wondering If these eggs

Will shrink in their jockstrap carton

Much later the eggs still 

In their shells go into

The refrigerator for tomorrow's 

Breakfast Raisins and toasted bread

I scratch myself in a clean black

Jockstrap I sewed several

Weeks ago while dreaming 

About my eggs being cool to love

Barry G. Wick

Awake

Awake

What is this again

I'm awake like I woke

To see something then

I'd never seen

Fifty years of sleep

Lulled into darkness

By needs for money

By needs that tore me apart

Now here in this year

I see flies that sing

The yoke of music

Blistered notes of jazz

Dear Meandra I slept

In your loud bed of tranquility

Heavy breathing between dreams

As I tour these jumbled measures

Barry G. Wick

Losing Weight

Losing Weight

Everywhere I look

There are thin men

Without an ounce of fat

They live in their pictures

Their short videos

When women complain

They are objectified

They don't see the world

Of objectified men

In tight clothing or nude

To show every artery or vein

In their semi hard or erect

Penises 

Muscles or not

I don't fit in their world

More than not

I've carried fat 

Looking in mirrors

Hating my fat

Hating myself

Now in my old age

I lose weight

With veins showing

In my old hands and arms

Skin hangs under my arms

Stretch marks show on

My stomach and legs

I eat less and less

I'll never have what I see

In other men

That I objectify

They will never 

Come to see me

I will grow older

Smaller

Lonelier

Trauma

Trauma

Shut away from a world rage

Creates a place on your own stage

Where light is turned down dim

Breakfast cooks on a recent whim

There is no more incessant pain

As the joy brings sleep with simple rain

There won't be any touch or scratch

No hurt with mother's words that match

Careless children in a weakened state

As beans and salad flee the plate

Be alert to this simple sign

The lines that fall to page with rhyme

Behind them is a needed time

For rest and peace this home is thine

Barry G. Wick

Puer natus est nobis

Puer natus est nobis

My Latin is a little rusty

Where rust never formed

Not a dead language

Just parked in some corners

Designed to force

The less-than-catholic

Into translation frocks

Where we uninitiated

Wear a temporary collar

to pretend we are moved 

By such erudition

I had my own reason

To leave my church

Yet some still cling to theirs

To spray the world

With their Roman candles

Creating flame spewed

Over the rest of us

To grow the weeds 

That should have been sprayed

Sparked centuries ago

Filled with hate and stakes

For refuseniks of accepted lies

Barry G. Wick

-

the way it for me today

June 24, 2025

Hi dear readers,

I'm 73 and get around badly on my stage 4 osteoarthritic knees.  I use a walker.  My plans began a few years back.  With no money except Social Security and gifts from friends.  I knew I'd need a mobility scooter some day.  I've lost close to 160 pounds with more weight loss planned.  Mobility scooters are rated by weight.  More weight, more money.  I grew very heavy sitting with and caring for my demented mother.  But yes,  I opened my mouth and shoveled in food.  I weighed 530 pounds when I moved to the Iowa City area.  I'm now around 370 pounds and going down.

A mobility scooter has to moved somewhere in order to go into shops and malls....or parks.  That takes a dedicated carrier.  With gifts from friends I purchased  this carrier for my 20 year old jeep.  Used, normally priced new $170 to $240.... this was for sale for $100.  

Months ago I acquire a huge sail for free.

When I'm able to find a mobility vehicle

I'm going to sew a cover.  If haven't checked lately, sail cloth ranges $28 to $36 per yard.  I estimate I have 20 plus yards I acquired yards free from a nice man cleaning out his shop.  I have yet to take out the sail from its huge duffle, but there's time.

This message is my prayer to the universe

To help me get an electric scooter of sufficient strength and power to help me around the rest of my years.  Here I am as of mid-June 2025.  Ì

If you Or the universe can help in some way my PayPal account is: rikwrybac@yahoo.com 

I'm grateful for everything I have now.  My life.  My new friends in  Coralville and Iowa City.  My old friends from Rapid City, South Dakota.  My poetry tutors, my simple inspirations.  Oh,  out of the over 560 poems here, I hope you find just one you like.  Who knows.  I may have written just one good poem.  One great poem?  Probably not.  But that's for the ages to determine.  Your PayPal gifts?  Simple gratitude is all I have.

Barry G. Wick

  

Dance

Dance

We have to dance even if we sway

In our wheeled chairs

We have to sing even if we just hum

We have to know art

Even if we only feel sculpture or

Touch a wall hanging made of rope

With tin cans full of dents

Many feelings fall from us

The fruits that grow

From the rain of lìfe

Barry G. Wick

The Lonely Audience

The Lonely Audience

We stay silent in this passage

From visions of a bright stage

To bones in padded seats

It's as if clouds pass over us

As they create flashing shadows

Leaves sparking in the trees

Bees circle in front of Spotlights

Here we watch a world baking

Unable to throw itself into fire

Insane leaders driven by gods

Soak the earth in living color

A puppy laps it up to live

Boys stomp in playing  puddles

The lonely audience picks losers

Barry G. Wick

All the Questions

All the Questions

Midtown New York

People outside the library 

My mother worked 

At the library

Probably Flushing Meadows

But who knows

My parents are visualized

Sitting on the steps between

The lions silent unmoving

To the roar of traffic

Did Leo 1 beep?

Ah, just a horn

During the war conversation 

About their work

About their fears

I never asked the many questions

I could have asked

While they lived

My children are silent

Without the dialog

I ask them of their lives

Their children and growth

Old like me they'll want to know

All the answers I never heard

Barry G. Wick

The Deflating Balloon

The Deflating Balloon

There was a pressure

As I gradually put my lips

To the elastic nozzle

Inhaling precious atoms

To fill this old balloon

I held it's contents in

Until I could no longer

Tolerate my memories

Of how I filled it

Day after day

Hour after hour

Being cajoled by family

To fill the balloon

At every special event

Then every day after day

Tired of the pain of pressure

I let go and watched it

Zoom about the rooms

Deflating in a flight of fear

How will it look in the mirror

As the wrinkles appear

It's not a diet

It's eating less more and more

I have no one to please

Making their meals

I'd lived to eat

Now I die to feel better

To be me in my deflated body

Barry G. Wick

Kodokushi

Kodokushi

[Lonely death in Japanese.  Many older Japanese die alone in their homes and aren't found until days or weeks.]

The last day I see my face

What thoughts will be in mind?

How grateful I was to be alive?

How sad I am I hurt so many?

How shamed I feel for actions

I did not stop?

These and more 

My children and grandchildren

The little I could do for them

The list of failures that plague me

Over and over and over.

There will be no next life

That so many believe.

I haunt myself

I am my own ghost

Staring in the mirror

Ready to disappear

Nothing remembered

No more pain

Sagging skin fading away

To songs I cannot play

Or sounds of my own heart

That pumps the day through me

Hours go up in smoke

With my mind ablaze

Turning to its last dreams

Barry G. Wick

Dear Missoula

Dear Missoula

Your service at my table

Was friendly and worthy

Of a closer time

A few kisses and the pleasures

Of our bodies

We fell in love 

I held those memories

With me all these years

I hope we are lonely

And worthy of the remainder

Of our lives together

Yes, this is my proposal

Neither of us will be young

We will have kept our memory

All these long years

I hope the years have treated

You with respect and you survived

All the trials that came our way

All the losses we felt.

All the hurt of our separation

Please come to me

Give up what you have

To share the little I have

Where I cannot leave

Write me now

Believe in my love

Barry G. Wick

Going Under

Going Under

Are these waves

Nothing about them is wet

They are full of memory

As painful as it gets

I'm reminded of guys

I knew years ago

Remembering every one

Their special qualities

I lose them at every step

Whether by their action

Or my telling them to go

My reasons were always

My family who would disapprove

I never thought for myself

My life didn't belong to me

So all I'm left with is sad memory

My later years alone

It's all my fault

This negativity continues

This emptiness is in charge

I can't step forward

What would they think

Who would I be

There's no profit

There's no benefit

Illusions continue to pile

As I tell myself I'm happy

Insert laughing here

Barry G. Wick

Pine Bark

Pine Bark

As a child

I was drawn

To the largest beings

In my neighborhood

The ponderosa pines

They lined my trail to school

They held a tree house

Made with injurious nails

Burned in our fireplace

Railings for a fence

Sitting next to one

I could peel  pieces

Of bark full of tiny holes

Pink and white underneath

The darkened and weathered

Surface chipped away

With a child's fingers

Little did I realize

Life would strip my bark from me

I was so strong and tall

Standing against the violent sky

The trees of the hill where I lived

Are still there so faraway

Their bark now seems

The softest skin̈

As I reach out to their motherhood

Barry G. Wick

Flakes

Flakes

Snow falls on an uncleaned porch

Kids knock to offer service

With their shovels

I have no money

To pay their price

Later

Opening the door

still snowing

The porch would have been

Recovered

Who would charge

To remove the new snow

I wait for the sun

Luckily still free

But you can bet

Someone tries to charge

For the open space to sun

LIke they do for the machinery

That cleans the streets

After the snow flies

Ah, the layers of government

In service of the economy

That won't send boys

To shovel my ramp

But who would visit me

And where would I go

The boys who want money

Would charge me for their use

Of my snow covered porch 

That no one will visit until

Until

I don't know when

Barry G. Wick

Death

Death

There is no rest in death

It takes effort to never breathe 

Just try to stop decay

It's terribly tiring

Then there's the dark

Provided your body was found

And coffinated 

Can you believe it

There are people who want

To be dead

Decoffinated

They accept being turned

Into ash

Ash

Then it's death as cement

Or some kind of clay fixture

Here's uncle Bob

He became a statue of Venus

Well he always was that way

He just loved shiny silk and such

Some go to space

It wasn't enough to be dead on earth

I suppose they couldn't take

The constant tears and wails

Having given some thought

I want to be loved by dogs

Where they leave their excrement

On some grassy ground

Chasing a ball

And maybe just maybe

Chewing on my bones

Barry G Wick

The intruding world

The intruding world

Here comes another bill

For healthcare needs

Another shock

When after fears

Of losing leg

Became a scream

To wake up to the

Last of life

The last days

The last week's unsure

It's just today buster

It's just now

When all I want is silence

The silence of Ramana Maharshi

When these words written

Or spoken or thought

Fail to live the way I do

Inside

Barry G. Wick

Grey Day

Grey Day

Sitting staring

The window spotted

A screen blotted here

This is a wait

For any change

In a darkened sky

Winters finger

In your eye

Barry G. Wick

Snow

Snow

Large flakes of snow

Fall on Iowa

These are reminders

Of the flakes of ash

That fell on Nagasaki

I feel their heat

As I wonder why

This comes to mind

Is it history

Or a forecast 

Of the fires to come

Barry G. Wick