The Obituary of a Gay Man in a Small Town

Narlo Titian Schmederlickenberg, age 27

passed away suddenly

from a work related accident

in the family home

in Yayferbville

on Plowday, the 4^th of Whadember.

He is remembered

for having established the need for and fondled

the local theater group eight years ago.

He especially enjoyed children,

as they were of him,

or so his neighbors thought.

Narlo was an exceptional cook

always challenging Grocer Fatts Germainski

to find piqued oysters and morose beef.

When not working on the family farm,

he would sit for hours creating costumes

for the productions at the Yayferbville Opera Auditorium.

His long, family illness prevented him from being seen

as he wore a large ox mask at their insistence

on his daily rounds of Yayferbville and

the Gillbenfurfer County seat of Hoof City.

He always talked of leaving Yayferbville

for unknown reasons, but just never got around to it.

He is survived by his numerous friends and large family

that includes his parents,

Mendro and Yerka Schmederlickenberg,

brothers Bedot, Kerfit, and Synoshish,

sisters Colvae and Opplolly,

plus numerous aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins,

many of whom refused to talk with him
alone
without all his happy family around
to celebrate his presence.
He touched them all
or so the family thought.

He will also be remembered

by his special male friend, Herty Wahndertut,

who had recently

moved far away to Malcrington on the coast

and didn't leave a forwarding address.

Services for Mr. Schmederlickenberg will be held

10 RD, on Grubersday

at Our Savior of the Unforgiving Prairie

with Father Axy Marfcob officiating.

Services are being provided

by the Yayferbville Funeral Home.

Miss Gelvina Flaaharty will play with his organ

at the church which he never

did himself until he donated it

several years ago

to the church he barely attended
only when Father Axy was there
since he was a child.

Narlo loved flowers, dogs and cats.

You may dissect any of them to the funeral home
before the service.

Large knives and cutting boards

will be provided
before the wake.

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

The Old

It is darker than normal

on this windy day

stone wears grain by grain

even new leaves are ripped from branches

as the air sneaks through tiny cracks

forced by invisible fingers

that sing in ghostly moans

the fireplace flue squeaks

as even here something tries to get in

it is The Old

that pries the gaps

between the outside and in

it comes for us

laying some extra fat here

a wrinkle there

a forgotten set of keys

god knows where

cracks open in the finish

of the furniture

a bit of paint peels unnoticed

and this lessened light

is pondered by a murky brain

to suggest that cataracts

begin to form on drier eyes

on these days The Old prowls

to scratch its grim messages

across this place

where even the water

slows its acheful meander

as its joints creak

through a rocky canyon

On such days I am cranky

enough to think I can

argue with this vagabond

that splits the ages

into torn down walls

and roofs that sag

The Old laughs

as it turns

hopeful into hopeless

I am your future it says

in a voice filled with chasms

and featureless plains of sand

I am what you fought to get

away from in your mother's womb

I am the torn skin of your first cut

I am the regret of lost friendships

from senseless words

I am the given on days

of sadness and rankor

I am The Old who tears your pages

and turns them to dust

I am these words

whose meaningful gaps

widen into the misunderstood

And as my wind sings to you

you close your eyes

for the last time

for the very last time

this is my victory

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick
Follow this link to a recording of the author reading the poem.



xxxx

The Great Soul Glows from the Body Electric

Who could hold the wings of these wingless butterflies?

As they flutter through the air to Great Souls unknown,

When the words ceased in that long ago,

We knew that everyday begins another year,

And every word you wrote begins another tear.
Through wars and peaces yet unknown
We feel the rocks beneath this water,
With feet that once walked across your friends
Now floating in the air and in the deep.
O Walt, my Walt! You sing today across the wires.
O Walt, my Walt! Your body lays upon my desktop
Full of life for all the cheers where my screen is docked.

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

The Big Lie

when I first started my education

the morning began

with the pledge

the indoctrination of the young

when all is fresh

and christmas is still believable

just so the words

that later begin to take on a dull chill

giving myself to a piece of cloth

covered in three colors

that flood the sky

and the walls of gymnasiums

hanging in classrooms

from the form of government

that has surrounded my daily life

since I began to see and breathe

cloth that rips and tears in high winds

cloth I'm suppose to worship

as if it were the promises it can't fulfill

we stand claiming we are united

believing in an invisible being

who overlooks our classrooms

to give us stars for spelling

and smiles when we've raised our hands

to say something that correctly follows

the question we've been posed

then the promises end our little speeches

when we know we're all the same

expecting everything from this static symbol

two words that lie each time we say them

liberty and justice

liberty and justice

liberty and justice

when awaking 55 years from the first time

the words were asked to be repeated

in Miss Knutson's kindergarten

when asked to believe in a lie

and we are no different

from the one

who grows up proud of his uniform

playing his drum

and thinking others are less than he is

that he is superior

that we are superior

for all

above all

who are neglected

who stand next to me

in their first day's dress

or starchy jeans

proud mothers and fathers

who bought this lie and pass it on

to their children just as they were passed it

a sagging pigskin

that has lost all its air

that won't make it to the 30 yard line

when kicked from the 20

a red, white and blue

gasbag of a nation

sagging at the front of my classroom

with little lungs trying to fill it

like the holey sail

on a sinking stick

we play with after rain during recess

oh, these colors don't run

except from the words

unsure children are expected

to repeat repeat repeat

in an endless mantra of of illusion

that forgets

some of these little voices

won't be allowed

won't share

won't have

its last six words

to eat today

in the meal of promises

it exacts from their innocence

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

I Am Hansel

Winter sun lays upon these south windows

unwashed for years

upon which tree shadows make it easy

to see through the filmy dirt

if the shadows were not there

the windows would be a mottled white

opaque to all outside or inside

seeing though air is the same

the shadows of tree or window frame

even others hide what is beyond

what is beneath

unlike the shadows of tree branches

that make the window dirt invisible

we have no such luck

when it comes to shadows that fall

upon the interior walls of our eye

so we must do our best to create

an understanding of our world

inside of minds

quickly, someone flash a light

through all these illusions

and give me what I want

a chance to see beyond what is here

even if only for a minute

so that I may know

the difference between what I see

through dirty windows

and what my eye tells me

is in front and beside me

because I do not trust

anything I see anymore

and even less of what is inside me

or at the end of my arm

fingers probing for something solid

in a dark world

where photons

are the magic of witches

and every wall is made of poisoned sugar

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

Three Hundred Words

for Clifford Abbott Dodd 1952-2012

and Kitty Tyler, his wife

The husband of an old friend passed away recently,

younger than I am now, which stuns me just a bit

and while I never met this bearded man

who played Santa and served his nation,

I think about what the world knows

about him from the words of his obituary

sent to me by his wife, my friend of 50 years.

And what do our lives boil down to when the kettle

is turned on high and we are rendered mute

by the ages that follow our brief visit to this planet.

For Cliff, the eyes of his neighbors will read

just under three hundred words that describe

his life, his loves and his family

word that speak to millions across the future world.

Many who have shared this air with Cliff

will never even have that many words, if any,

that prints their stamp upon the earth

in the language of their people to tell where

their feet took them across the variegated surface

of this mostly blue planet we call Earth,

a place from which a rare few will step away.

And in these lines we read, we are to fill

in the blanks and the pauses between the letters

with what we know of this life,

the birth and all the happiness of his parents,

and their struggle to keep a roof over his head,

food in his mouth and clothes on his body

during all the weather that played through his growing years.

So too, the first day of kindergarten and all the years

he learned and breathed the measures of life

into his youthful mind, dreaming what and wheres

he would make a mark and do the bidding

of his soul, to stand with all the others

who swirl around him as he walks each day.

What of his service and his generosity

and all the good he did in the smallest moments

when he forgot himself and pushed another

forward into a better world with a kind word

or the effort of his life with a gift of money:

we are the benefactors of the time he learned

to be human after all the growing days

If we are to read between these lines

that so many will know today;

his mother's sleepless night when teeth

became her nemesis, when his tears

and screams kept the night awake,

when she imagined horns growing

from his little head to haunt her rocking body.

What of forgotten playground fights

from sass of youthful swagger and fist

that started with a piece of candy

or the first love shared by two young boys

who each felt it necessary to defend

their love from the other's advancing

ardor that surely could not stand the test of time

We know all this and imagine more

that is common to every man and woman,

where through this path of words

must come an end to what is told: a place

where we exchange our thoughts

with those he loved through all the years

where tears become a knowing smile.

So to Cliff we say so long

and I thank him from afar

for his care and love for my friend

returned to me through wires and glass

qwerty keyboards and glowing screens:

its up to us to support her now

our Kitty of new memories and ready smile.

Here now is the end of what I write today

about these moments we all must face

when wonder begins to stir my 60 years

of what will be written for others to read

and if I shall measure up to Cliff's three hundred

a man I never met who sold books

and spoke to children through their sugar plum dreams.

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

with permission for his immediate family

to reproduce as they see fit.

The Echelons

As I get older I see the dreams

that soared through clouds of mind

the daily hopes

turn into a lemon's tart

that no amount of mental sugar

can sweeten

These moments aren't bitter

just soured at the edges

I see no chance to celebrate

with my own days of dance

My freedom to look up

and sense the sun of my life

has been submerged in the dark

of another's closing door

While I continue to be

the light along that edge of darkness

I dim into a visual whisper

These bandages of buffoonery

surround me in a binding

that is no longer loose

over old wounds and sores

the smiles and jokes that hide

the sour and sorrow

It is as if I see a hierarchy

of self-inflicted pain

the echelons of failure

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

The Folly of Faggots

Farley is a fireman

from Fargo.

Farley's fella Fritz is a fiberglass finisher

from Faulkton.

Farley and Fritz:

fun, fashionable,

fapping and frenching friends.

Farley and Fritz are fathers

for Frank and Felicia,

founding a family

from failed flings.

Father Fred fulminates inflexibly,

“Foolish faggots,

freedom is for fundamental families,

forebears of forever!

Faggots forsake families!

Freedom is a folly for faggots!”

For Farley and Fritz

Father Fred is a freak

and a fuddy-duddy.

Father Fred influences fanatics.

Friday, the first of February,

Farley and Fritz

feel fractured fingers, forearms and faces

failing to fend off

ferocious fighters forging fatalities:

fiends of the fist in a frenzy.

Finally,

Farley and Fritz

are phantoms,

a foundation for a field of flowers,

favorite of the foxes.

Frank and Felicia are afflicted

and facing fears of the future.

Farley and Fritz:

fallen friends,

forever focused,

famished for freedom.

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

Guardrails

On my route home

along the highway

are guardrails

three wire strands

between zink-coated metal posts

punched into the ground

that will hold back

errant drivers and their cars

from the ditches

on either side

The memory of you

punches through the invisible

barriers I put on my road

where once I drove into your ditch

and was hooked in the brambles

you created for me day after day

This is not fair

I made a recovery from the accident

that was us

I sent out the crew

to make those repairs

truckloads of beefy guys

with hammers and wrenches

in their hardhats and toolbelts

I even inspected their work

in photo after photo

touch after touch

thrust after thrust

I've just sent a wrecker

to pull my thoughts

away from you

and I expect to be on my way

after I make the payment

old memories force me to make

the fresh pain of poor driving

along this rocky backroad

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick

238 Ghosts

[Part of a multi-part, epic poem currently being written surrounding events of June 9, 1972, The Black Hills Flood, during which thousands became homeless, hundreds and hundreds injured, and 238 people lost their lives in one night of flash flooding.]

They roam the land where I live

and yet I don't live here

they do

I am as invisible to them

as you are

They go shopping

for their invisible lunches

full of twigs and broken glass

they walk through the wrinkled hills

filled with steep evergreen canyons

as deep as wooden coffins

looking for nothing

but what they see

just empty towns

and houses without people

These collaborators in a dark parade

occasionally meet each other

nod, say hello

some know each other

others do not

Their silent conversations

contain broken tail lights and splintered siding

with knowing glances inside knowing eyes

unseen portraits to each other

slashed canvases covered in damaged oils

seething with life and love

none of it loud

quiet ghosts filling empty spaces

Magnetized by one day and the hours of rain

they stick to the sides of canyons

bits of bark trees and grass

an occasional coffee pot

part of a chair

the springs of a twisted bed

across the creek from a house

that stands to this day

Sometimes naked

they breathe as they remember

their last breath

the chest rises and falls

their last breath goes in and out

seconds after second minutes after minute

hours after hour days after day

their last breath makes them live for us

Copyright © 2012 by Barry G. Wick