The Communal Campfire

The night surrounds us

and we are not alone

A mother feeds a child

A father worries over debt

Someone has pain

in their back

in their legs

in the emptiness of their soul

The enemy is just over the rise

Workers fulfill their duties

or ignore them
 

This darkness

might as well be a cave

water drips

bats fly

insects crawl through slime
 

The fire just started my refrigerator

burns inside four bulbs

and sends me across the worlds

to where you are

I wish you'd finish

decorating my loincloth

I'm feeling a bit chilly

sitting on this folding rock

listening to Vivaldi
 

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick All rights reserved.

The Click of a Lock

 

The spots on my skin

begin to form

as feet ache

and grow numb

My joints aren't in their twenties

anymore

anymore

will there be anymore

as my father used to say

old age is not for sissies

but I am a sissy

at least to that generation

and perhaps

a few here and now

My eyes must have

their reading lenses installed

pulled from their black case

whenever I can't see

the wrinkles on my hands

to remind me once again

that anymore

is this day

with it's sun

as it creates trapezoids

on the green carpet

While winter approaches

I listen to music

only I hear

as it passes through my heart

my empty heart

that ages with each

empty day

as I wait

for the only moment

that will complete it

 

the sudden note

of the lock on the door

through which I can't return

Copyright © 2013 by Barry G. Wick

Familiar Music

“When the music's over turn out the light”--Jim Morrison

Often the music is the same

a few tunes that express

this constant mood

repeated

like the stuck records of old days

that would regurgitate a single word

or phrase as many times

as possible

until the finger slaps

the needle to stop it

bad needle naughty record

except now

it's possible to have

one or more

musical moods play

until either the gun goes off

or something breaks

the concentration of the player

two songs today

repeated ad nauseum

were it possible to end

all this

the music would play

as the soul slipped

into the expanding universe

until the electric was cut

or someone found

the remnants of a final act

that can never happen

who would even call

or check to see

months perhaps

until a concern revealed

the truthful corruptions

of an evacuated head

its dessicated last thought

upon the wall

what chance

that the exploding brain

creates the written score

in blood upon the wall

of music heard

the final second

as the universe

repeats itself

this scene might play

again with theme and variations

or create

the greatest symphony

this self-possessed victim

would never write

or go unrecognized

as a musical score

by crime cleaners

in protective white suits

lost greatness destroyed

by chemical swipes

so somewhere this orchestra

that you cannot hear

plays on unknown instruments

the music

of desperate love that soars

through an audience

so suddenly come to grief

by the story of this piece

the entire house is gassed

to end the shrieks and sorrow

the flood of instant tears

that flows through the aisles

the symphony of suicide

plays

only one performance

where even the orchestra

sees the music for the first time

and despite its vast creation

five movements with a choir

no performance has ever made it

to the second movement

or passed its initial

8 bar reading

it must be difficult

to populate so depressed

an orchestra and chorus

surely someone just had a baby

got a new job

bought a few new recordings

to play over and over

over and over

over and over

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick


{{It's an unusual poem.  The question was asked if I'm alright.......and no place within the poem do I suggest that am the potential victim....it was a train of thought based upon some listening I was doing this morning...that turned into a dark, albeit morbid examination and surreal set of images....after I wrote it I was assisting mother in her bedroom and since we had no internet this AM....I had put on a large playlist that included The Doors....and the Morrison line came up...almost as if there was some sort of muse working here. I am quite alright and have NO intentions. I have much to live for...much. So I appreciate the concern....there are dark corners of my mind that must given light during creative times. They are examined and tossed away as easily as one would toss away a used tissue. NO basis in reality.   I'm quite fine. I write...I am a writer. Not famous, never likely to be famous....but one could also ask the same question of Steven King....}}

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

Quintet for the Confused Mind

I am flying through

Antonin's mind

perhaps some European scene

or Iowa

when nearly 94 my mother

says this isn't very good then

your trees are blowing outside aren't they

they aren't my trees

you own them

they belong to you

those trees?

Yes

they don't look like anything I ever had

Perhaps Dvorak owned them

as his piano glided

like Dakota air

through the branches

of these spruce

and the Box Elder

beside the creek

Copyright (c) 2012 by Barry G. Wick

Ben and Peter, beside the Sea

remembering

Benjamin Britten 1913-1976

Peter Pears 1910-1986

The excitement of a radio studio

at the time

the best source in the world

the microphones to everywhere

to be heard and be enjoyed

in the great days of radio

the same year

that Adolf murders all his gay friends

in the long night with knives

and here in this radio studio

the singers prepare

rehearsal for the great British audience

where a handsome young composer

meets a handsome older tenor

only to fall in love later

at the worst of the war

when going to jail in their country

meant shame and shun

Ben wrote songs for Peter

Ben wrote parts for Peter

while Hugh Auden and Ben

made a habit of art

and Isherwood made a pal of Ben

at the bath on Jermyn Street

Ben and Peter friends for 42 years

in love from the war on

collaboration at every level of music

in a freer America

to spend bright summer days with

Aaron

and all the boys

who weren't allowed to fight

the powers of Paragraph 175

who had to keep their secret

and they kept the secrets of others

pianist composer and tenor

the dreamer and his voice

open even to the Queen

and they would remember the war

with minor chords

of the saddest music

Ben with his requiem

and Peter singing the debut

at Coventry Cathedral

lionized by the audience

as they privately remember so many

secret friends who went away

in the fight.

Now remembered in the moments

of “Moonlight”

when one hears the soft

love words they say to each other

together for eternity

unmarried except

for the shared notes

they sang and played

the rings of golden vibration

that circle their boney fingers

side by side

north of St. Peter and St. Paul

in Aldeburgh, Suffolk

as they shimmer beside the sea

KENNETH GREEN (1905-1986), PETER PEARS AND BENJAMIN BRITTEN, 1943.

Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick

“Mozart! Mozart!”

(Gustav Mahler's last words)

While my attentions were on a glowing screen
movement on the other side of windows
and suddenly I'm looking at the fast beat of wing
or the dancing of hooves across the creek
today a heron
some little red-headed, yellow-breasted bird
all these and the higher, moving water of spring
on the anniversary of Mahler's death
when all at once the green of this new season
given rain and sun
and the motions of wind and nature
become symphonies and songs
Oh, Alma, you were there for his last words
when a sadness spilled over you wearing you thin
his hand growing cold
And now each time we hear
his love for you
the colors of the outside world
fill us with new notes
as if he wrote this world I see
he composes still
and reminds us
with his dying words
that even he was limited to the palette
of another before him
that he could not achieve such a sunny day
or the life that fills it.
Oh, to be Mahler and think another was greater.
That is essence. That is spirit.
That is the view from my window.


Copyright © 2011 by Barry G. Wick