Poem of summer 2019

Poem of Summer 2019

Humidity
Turbidity
Vapidity
Senility
Argue these auspiciously
Regulate suspiciously
This pot is stirred
My life is blurred
Nothing's meant maliciously

Barry G. Wick

(Haiku Stream)

(Haiku stream)

Fingering my way
Through a keyboard alphabet
Phone words save big trees

Somewhere squirrels play
Unaware we have saved trees
To save life for all

Heating our planet
At a frightening death rate
Cars boil oil

Only we can know
What we daily do to earth
Destruction's our way

At work or at play
We file our plastic waste
The water trash bin

Belching smoke still reigns
Despite an earth awareness
We know smoking kills

Barry G. Wick

(Poem)

Flying on a dream

Falling in love

With an arm around someone

Who pushes me away

To later see them talking

To someone else

Even in my dreams

I am rejected

My question becomes

Wondering if this is karma

Or me rejecting myself

Waking to sadness

The dream holds me

When no one will

Barry G. Wick

(Poem)

A small light creates shadows

In the dark of my night

Awake as an old man

Traffic is heard 

as it bumps over bridges

Tires sing their Doppler song

I touch my leg

In a wish for your hand

And soft voice that asks

if I'm alright as I return to bed

You're not there

You have never touched me

You are a dream for me

That speeds through the night

To take your love

Far away from a small light

Which dims in my heart

Never to have met you

Barry G. Wick

(Poem]

     

        Drops of last night's rain

           Remain upon the window

     Their tiny magnifications

        Slowly drying

     The eyes of the dead

        Upon cement

        Their last vision

             Revealed by hate

          Barry G. Wick

The Bore-a poem

The Bore-a poem

The bore had one or both parents

and relatives

who could talk on for hours

about the most meaningless things

forcing those around the bore

to either fall mentally asleep

or wishing they could leave

since the bore knows how to capture

the audience in a corner

or behind a desk

The bore never knows when to

Barry G. Wick

Spinning Blades

Cutting the air above 
The spinning blades of a fan
Air stirred causes the hair
On wrinkled arms 
To slightly move
Small trees in a storm
That will not flag
Like the ponderosas
I saw on the hill
Above my childhood home
And yet
My branches move away
From the direction of all winds
Which tells me
The long quiet is coming
My bark shall fall from branches
Split by gales that have me
At their mercy
To where it will nourish the sod
All these reminders
From a cooling breeze
Inside on a hot day

Barry G. Wick

Split Thought

Split Thought

A fingernail is rough

To my right a large pill bottle

now filled with what

is useful and useless

small scissors

letter opener

small bandages

pink and green paper clips

tweezers

an old key

several metal fingernail files

All inherited from my mother

I retrieve a file

thinking about her

sitting on a flowered loveseat

using this

beside the bay window

looking up the hill at The Rock

I wonder how far

through the family

these items will travel

All this just rattles in my head

as bits of my nail

fall to the carpet

becoming the dust of the world

along with the lives

that fully explain

memory of yesterday

Imaginations of tomorrow

And the mystery of today

Barry G. Wick

Tech Collapse

Tech Collapse

A hard drive, a circuit, something

is dying in my computer

I'm beginning to weep

though it's more about

what phone-fix hell

I'm gonna go through

rather than

an actual fixer

who would show up at my door

taking the system in hand

smashing all conventions

actually fixing something

rather than taking my time

to talk with Malaysia

or the Philippines

nice people

but not an American fixer

with tools

and replacement parts

a box full of replacement parts

like the old guys who

put tubes in black and white

televisions in the 50s

their box of mysteries

at the ready

priests of the tube

as we knelt in awe

waiting for the next opportunity

to let our eyes get too close

to the glow our parents

didn't want us near

fearful of blindness

or too much communist control

kneeling with open mouths

waiting for the electric wafer

to confess our sins

to Captain Kangaroo

Say five Kukla, Fran, and Ollies

wait for “What Time is IT!”

and scream at the screen

knowing Howdy Doody

will personally hear the prayer

as we guzzle sweetened corn flakes

with milk and spoonfuls of sugar

each spoonful roaring like Tony

Barry G. Wick

A Plague at the Sink

A Plague at the Sink

Humans are not

without their diseases

Some physical maladies

have their inoculations

for prevention

some have other medical cures

or none at all

The disease of old age

has no cure

There is no hindrance

to the advance of time

Its toxicity is memory

of ingratitudes

and wrongs against others

The symptoms rage

in the lonely darkness

with no physical pains

It is the soul set afire

No matter how deep

our head sinks in prayer

for forgiveness

the flames lick at us

with their raspy tongues

raking each moment

as if we'd been fed

through a grater

Creation is a temporary salve

music

art

poetry

nature

a change in how

we treat others

making amends

where possible

These reduce

the terrors

as dishes are washed in the sink

Barry G. Wick