Out of the Way

Out of the way

Oh you were thinking

Of some little restaurant

With checkered red tablecloths

Surly but fun waiters

Or some highway dive

With truckers

And gravy drown

Hot beef sandwiches and mash

I was thinking of my life

That began at four

When my mother Jean

Started me on piano lessons

I hadn't heard enough music

To form an ear 

So my ego grew

And while my output was 

My fingers and vibrating strings

I was there and music was not

Here later

After long years of not playing

I'm listening to everything

Made by greats that filled

The radio and television

I never really heard

I'm out of the way

I'm not the center

Mom thought I should be

Music fills the early morning

Cab Calloway

Peggy Lee

Woody Herman

Willy Bobo

Minnie the moocher

Eats Fried Neck Bones

And some home fries

Loading Sixteen Tons

And

That's all there is

Barry G. Wick

Time

Time

Every second is a little day

The morning comes

Rising reveals the light

To guess the time

Is a game to play

It was lost by 

Forty-five minutes

Living began in dark mode

The sink is now 

An open mouth

About to spit

On an aging face

The mirror turns

The hours to years

Eyes wrinkle

Arms flap

These muscles

We're once able

To fill and work

Without a breeze

The same shirt

The same shorts

Each decision

Makes the day grow

Eyebrows shade

As face skin droops

In half circles

Its another day

As this second

Drags itself to another

Only slower

This time

This measure

This breath

Barry G. Wick

Morning Shock

Morning Shock

Out of bed

To the plastic sink

I hit the light switch

Thinking of all my failures

Refreshed to me by

The opening image

On my phone

Tall in white underwear

I think of Montana

So many passed though

Every one a winner

And I rejected them all

Out of fear that my family

Would be hurt

I only hurt myself

Keeping myself from 

Adventures filled with love

Now as light hits my eyes

Old irises close as eyelids

Late upon this sour scene

Shut me off from wrongs

The towers climbed

Falling to hard ground

The morning filled with memory

Barry G. Wick

Awake at the End

Awake at the End

I remember my birth

In hazy images

In a struggle for light

Laid dreamy upon my mother

You will carry the memory

Of my last day

That seemed so long

As it came to an end

Every step was noted

Every ripple of music

That hid upon the shadows

I am there in breath

A glissando of dreams

Enfolded me always

That is where I spent days

Instead of being awake

Barry G. Wick