A Note to Someone Who Doesn't Feel Loved

This is a happy day

because of this discovery

Laugh into your hands

then write

love is missing

on your onion skin soul

Perhaps love plays a childhood game

of hide and seek

Was the count

to one hundred completed

as all the little lovers

escaped into their hidden selves

or was love disguised

to the point of invisibility

a camouflaged bug on the bark

of a tree

or it crawls beneath rocks

swims in dirty water

ready to attach itself

a leech

You face New York City

with hope to make

it's world see you

when it's blind

to pictures you take

to show you are

what it wants

You might be better going home

to the small town

from where you came

The nightlife will be horrible

The people more than real

each digging their cisterns

ready to catch

your love as it falls

from the cloud

you live on

Soon

these drops

will nourish new growth

in the soil of your dreams

something concrete and steel

never could

and who knows

I might just pop up

from this cracked mud

ready to kiss your feet

your sequined feet

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick

Love in the Internet World

There is a light breeze

through the spruce

The apple trees droop

laden with ripening fruit

that only the squirrels and deer

will eat to keep away

the cold of winter

that approaches in just two months

From far down the wires

there are tentative notes

from those who want friendship

perhaps more

Their world is desparate

for a real touch

a message that will stir them

into heights of emotion

the sense that someone cares

I feel no such need to raise

the heat of my heart

It is enough for me to see

the first sun painting the tops

of the trees to the south

as darkness receeds to the north

in this canyon

the last darkness of a cool night

The mountain rises across the creek

where trees begin their pirouette

into yellow and reds

The words can be sent

but not the feeling

of the twitches in my muscles

from the chill of a fall morning

And soon I shall return to sleep

with another day of the same

day after day and the repetition

of the same words the same smiles

the same questions

from the aged head I guard

It is not love from distant souls

or readers of the lines that tumble

across the streambed of my life

I tell the world

peace is what I need each day

in moments all by myself

when no one wants me

Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick

In Chicago, not at Home

There is no sense of home for me here

and I'm not even there anymore

except for now in my memory

as I wind through the streets

going from here to there

in the Green Mill

underground downtown

waiting for my love around the corner

The sense of home comes to each of us at birth

otherwise we are tumbling

through the waves of an electrified field

we are unfamiliar with

imprinted on us at the moment of conception

or perhaps the moment of our birth

or learning to sail through it as we grow

and from then on it is everything

This reminder came to me listening to Metheny

ask if I was going with him

and for that moment I was

standing on a train platform

heading for a studio downtown

to record a commercial for a furniture store

inconceivable to me now

that I would follow him into the city

But there is the power of music

the piper pulls you through another life

just listening to a melody or a beat

that passed through your world

a long time ago in another life

and suddenly you are transported

into the sights and feelings

the pain of not being at home where you are

But I can pull myself away now

and I'm back in the Black Hills

surrounded by my magnetic field

so comfortable and warm

and hearing another city move through my mind

I move back and forth

swaying between home and hurt

the pain of a city where love went away

Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick

A Man Alone

"A man alone is obviously crazy."--Paul Goodman

here at night

I look at the dark

and edit the instrumental

parts of a song

not unlike

snipping pieces of my memory

and pasting them

forwards and backwards

in my mind

as I try to come up

with something that means

anything to me

the visions of the past

youth and growth to manhood

the sparks of a past life

create lightning in my closed eyes

and all the while this music

echos through the house

trying to find its way

back to where it came from

these notes are lost

to the new generation

who have their own revolution

to pretend they can win

and no matter what I do

I want to race into the street

and scream for the world to change

for wars to dump their arms at sea

for hatred to change into hugs

for hunger to slink away starving

as the gaunt turn into the chubby-cheeked

All this time alone has turned to years

and I can't decide

if what I feel

are the sharp edges of sanity

instead of the smooth curves

of a happy day

filled with what I once wanted

flowers, peace and love

flowers, peace and love

Copyright 2012 by Barry G. Wick
Follow this link to the audio version of this poem read by the author.


xxxx

The Empty Life

I've been wondering all my days

why I haven't found you

and why the ones I find

are always wrong for me

in some overt or secret way

You're always with me

I always know you're there

but every street is empty

when I check on every face

and look through passing hearts

Did I forget the time I sensed

you nearly touched my hand

or driving down an empty road

you head-on drove towards me

and my headlights gave you form

And when I talk with others

I always wonder if I've found

your voice that's heard inside

the emptiness I've come to know

sweet music in each word

With verdant flowers of spring

I've decorated our painful lives

because I know you feel the same

the emptiness of rising daylight

half dark half light half life

I'll keep my vigil though this hour

searching through every minute

for you I've never found

and send my every thought

my deepest love for you

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick