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

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