Inner Beauty

Page after page

of what photographers

believe is beauty

today's fearful face

is the tin can that waits

for the gun to go off

some epicanthic fold

a dimple on the chine

will attract the meat seekers

who will surround the subject

for a short twinkling

then off to another lad or lady

left-behinds

slide down the greased poll

of fame and beauty

as the symmetry begins

its inevitable sag

former beauty becomes

a beggar in the street

their eyebrows run away

clutching a nasal hand

that falls away

as next year's bullet

tears away the perfect abdomen

Narcissus clouds his mirror

with no face

Barry G. Wick

A PDF document on Dropbox...to a scanned poetry chapbook from 1973 by Barry G. Wick (writing as B. W. Soutar) and Don Stayner

Andy Warhol Advises ISIS

Oh, you're doing it all wrong

you only need one beheading

you take the picture

and repeat it over and over

Take the neck wound

use it to print

by dipping it in different colored paints

then onto the canvas

One canvas will be pastels

another canvas rainbow colors

another black and white

photograph the apostate

only once

his accepting face

his grimacing face

his dead face

his dripping wounds

his headless body

repeat these images over and over

By killing so many

you remove potential buyers

of this art from the market

and upset potential supporters

they will be grateful

so grateful they'll buy

the images you have to sell

you'll make lots of money

enough to buy

tanks and planes

so you can march into Rome

and plant your flag on the obelisk

in Vatican Square

on the Washington Monument

and the White House

Art galleries

will see you have talent

it may take a few years

just look what I did

with 32 soup cans

just one victim is necessary

to make millions for your caliphate

That's another idea

just take the word caliphate

and repeat it over and over and over

on a canvas

before you print that word

paint a color in the space

of that word then print

the word

print the word

using different colors

for each letter

It'll catch on

It'll be art

Instead of killing

cartoonists who make fun

of Mohamed

Use art to make fun of cartoonists

Show them having sex

with sheep and donkeys

Say, that would make a great

black and white movie

I have lots of friends

who will help you make

this film

We'll show it in Central Park

People will pay admission

on Pay-per-view

across the world

You can make cartoons of singing and dancing

lifeless heads

You'll make so much money

that you can build a mosque of gold

as the central image

of Caliphateland

Kiddies will ride little rolling carts

made to look like pigs

with the heads of bad world leaders

who are your enemies

Get someone to write

It's a Muslim World after all

the song will be infectious

repeat it over and over and over

and over and over and over

After dusk, jets will drop fireworks

above the crowds eating chickpea hotdogs

The children lick candy suckers

in the shape of the lifeless heads

Barry G. Wick

Moustapha's Dead

Here at the end of desert

there is nothing but the sand

clearing its throat

of the air in the city.

A fan tail of dust

becomes the next storm

of wounds named by their depth.

His childhood pillow

a dented can empty of food

he never ate in his threads,

so few they cannot be called clothing,

growing from the peace of his mother

and the drowned man he knew

to be his sweat-drenched father,

unable to lift him after a day

of cement sacks or mud blocks

from wherever a dinar would descend

from the garden of heaven

Allah promises for the righteous

Then Allah's righteous

came to this outside world

as they trail 

the dust-turned bones

of martyrs

This is the day the liars

will profit from their lies.

This is Moustapha

grown to man

who prays for the world of peace

many times each day,

so that He will rule the world

and call Moustapha His true son.

So judgment rolls across the sand

sad in its history

looking for unbelievers

where Moustapha sleeps,

for sleep is a sign of power.

Here is Moustapha's bed

as a drain turns the desert red

for next to it

is Moustapha's head.

Barry G. Wick 2015

The Resurrection of General Custer

It's the middle of a long winter

The townspeople gather around the grave

The government keeps it green on top

below it's frozen granite

as if to say somethings are best left alone

Men begin to dig

Their shovels strike bone

Ol' George is looking bad today

The women call “time”

The potato salad won't wait in this heat

The scribes look amazed

Flash powder warms the meal

Up he comes full of arrows

split from groin to brain

quickly the women tell men

to stand aside

pliers and thread are utilized

Fur coats are needed next winter

the women say

and a new red sports car for shopping

The men dream of fishing poles

Soon George begins to sputter

The women have triumphed

Men begin to mutter

realizing they must tell him

what has happened

beer has been spilled

The Indians are angry

General George calls for the Captain

The men tell George

Captain Yates fell at Little Big Horn

A Custer epiphany

Any captain will do says George

Soon a Captain drives George

and the spirit of businessmen

with deep pockets

that keep getting deeper

towards the reservation

to soothe the savages

It's a rough meeting once again

Captain Hooky Jack rushes George away

Returning to the graveside

George is once again

full of arrows

this time invisible

they have been cemented

into the bones

Little notes tied to each arrow

provide a list of grievances

that again will go unheeded

Motels will be empty

bars will serve fewer beverages

fast food goes unsold

and still refuses to rot in the dumpsters

The women of Hay Camp

no longer dream of fur coats

The men can live with their black SUVs

one more year

George decides the grave is boring

and opens a store

in a fancy building

The sign reads

Arrows 25 cents

The inventory grows daily

in this greedy town

where jail provides a warm bed

houses can be cold

and children are abused
by rich...white...men

Barry G. Wick

loopy droopy

A loopy droopy takes the bus,
he goes around right by us,
and when he wakes he feels much better,
but when did he buy this Irish Setter?
Must be the drug, he thinks,
that made him buy
this doggy pal with a rusty eye.
So off to the bus he goes, red dog in tow,
bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to go.
Oh, what's his name our droopy asks,
this dog, this pal, his name me tasks.
I should know, I bought this dog,
and now he follows me like tied to a log.
Oh pooch thy well-worn name escapes me so,
you look not like the well-worn Fido.
AND as he muttered this old time name,
the doggie's ears went up like flame.
And so our loopy droopy homeward found,
a loving friend, a reddish hound,
And Fido truly was his name,
and only loopy droopy was to blame.

Barry G. Wick   September 2013

a friend was talking about taking too much cough medicine on Facebook...and I just wrote this in the next space...just off the top of my head...a dumb little poem about a guy and a dog.   he actually only  noticed this poem 5 months later and "liked" it on FB....and I had to read it to figure out if I was actually responsible for it.  guess I was 'cause it came back to me suddenly...yeah, I forget I write stuff and toss it away or put in a file.

Barrys Christmas Card 2014

The Facebook List

Since numbers never lie, I see one number less
of friends on Facebook now, my friend page makes me stress.
You dropped me as your friend, so now it's not so fun.
We were on Facebook then, but now you've had to run.
I don't know why you left, or who in life you are,
You, a friend so distant, and now you're really far.
It seems unimportant on why you're missed  today,
I went to check and see which friend escaped my play.
And since I keep no list of who jumps ship on me,
I'll have to wonder why this memory persists.
I knew you once it seems and now you think me nuts
or maybe thought occurred to you that now I am a putz.
I'd friend you in a minute and ask you what I did
to piss you off so bad and why you now are hid.
Oh, I think, okay to leave, we knew each other long,
since you said I was friend, I chose another song.
I wish you well enough to say your flame goes on
inside this well-worn heart, your day again will dawn.
So bye for now, dear friend, you're gone from daily eyes,
I maybe saw your posts, or who you did despise.
So fair you well, old friend, I, too, must go away,
I won't be weird or mad, if you come back one day.

Barry G. Wick
(I write rhyming poetry that can easily be tossed away...on passing issues of the day...and don't care how far it spreads.  It's not my intimate, important work that is usually not rhyming.  So if you wish to share it, just please attach my name to the bottom so someday people might find my serious work.)

Cereal Murder

Good morning bowl, good morning spoon,
good morning milk, I sing your tune.

Upon the box of oaties sweet,
law in black words quite small, but neat.

From snakes of York law words with charm
protecting them if they do harm.

So now, I'll eat my breakfast, dear,
as I feel sure the poison's near.

Protect me, someone, from all that's bad
in my red bowl: this food I had.

Barry G. Wick