Irrelvant

Irrelevant

We are here on the typer

That Bukowski mentions

Except mine is a bit more

Technology

Technology

Technology

I also don’t drink like I used to drink 

At every bar

Or like Bukowski

I suppose it’s a shame

I have no chemical inspiration

And no doubt

Your notice of my bad poetry

I have to write

I have to communicate 

Anything to the universe

And uninspired on every level

Something artificial could

Do better

But that's not me

I breathe and I

Think with flesh

You may dispute that

You have my permission

There is jazz music in the background

That's inspiration from the 1950s and 1960s

Which means I'm not relevant

I get that

On this yellow checkered table cloth

Beneath a ceiling fan

Salt peanuts

Salt peanuts

Thank you Dizzy

Barry G. Wick

The Limited Life

The Limited Life

It was a Life Magazine

From June of 1964

Governor Scranton on the cover

The article about homosexuals

That opened my eyes

And closed my life

I am 12 years old

I know I am different

I could be arrested

Shame my family

This founded my thoughts

For years

Even in college I couldn't

Tell my student shrink

Who and what I was

On days the gay group

Met at a religious house

On campus

I'd walk outside back and forth

Until the fall of 1972

Following a summer

At a cabin with Mike

Just one week of love

And discovery

Stonewall never made the news

In my hometown

Even with my college experiences

Falling in love and rejecting it

Denial upon denial

Hurting others for years

Hurting those who loved me

Wanting acceptance

Wanting real love

Now comes the loneliness 

Of old age

Alone nearer the end

A heart

Still full of shame

No one to talk to

No one to love

Just words to others

Just words

My children could never

Understand this emptiness

Or at least

I hope not

But for some of them

I'm nothing

Just someone walking

In the desert

Waiting for that pile

Of bones and meat

And buzzards

Real buzzards

Barry G. Wick

Steatopygous

[While listening to American Theater Organ Society Radio]

Steatopygous

Shall we dance to this organ

From the days of over the top

Theater decor in major cities

And just who am I asking

To pretend he would not trip me

It's my own enlarged posterior

Sliding so easily in my shorts

Across the blanketed chair

From which I shall not rise

As gentle flutes sing their invite

He can't pretend that ten pounds

Now lost to these months

Is spectacular to everyone

Who'd watch this festooned nob

Sway in elegant elephantisms

I shall remove this extended hand

To remain seated while embarrassed

That such a thought would cross

My sleepy and swampy thoughts

Barry G. Wick