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