Barry G. Wick, poetry

As an old man I have

Memories of life and adventure

In this new age of instant visions

I've seen a photo

Of a naked twenty-something

Peter Hujar running

In his photo from the Met

An unprompted artist

Like me

His beautiful body should not

Be my desire

Because I know the truth

With a capital T

As age, isolation, and failing health

Can't entice any friendship

Such a sudden image delivery

Only reminds me of the travails

Of my youth witnessed by the scars

Both outside my empained frame

And the ones unseen

That I carry to remind me

How I must live now without

A careless walk through

Mental jungles and those dangerous

Smooth lawns throwing and hitting

The balls of game and competition

Surely an old man could love

Though an older man

With his own scars of battle

Would be more appropriate

As I review my own marks

Upon my aching physique

And a soul whose thunder

Is rolling away hectare by hectare

In remembrance of storms

No longer sending me

To seek the shelter of known

And unknown gods and spirits

A young man will find his own

Scars

Many years in the future

LIf he's careful to value every gift

I will continue the last crawl

Only searching for a worthy end

Another image comes to mind

I think how lucky Whitman was

To have the help of Bill Duckett

Who posed for Thomas Eakins

In the same natural clothes

I have seen today

Old Walt was closer to a dream

Than I will ever be

I only have to sit granite still

As memory's attack begins

All the marks are gently reviewed

I am their victim and joyful subject

Filled with life that continues

To massage my scars

From a cloudy sky

To a bright blue morning

Barry G. Wick

Just 1 of over 530 poems

(after a painting by Evelyn De Morgan, 1881, at the De Morgan Centre, Guildford, Surrey, England) for Brian and Patrick

Two young men

Sit on a beach enjoying the twilight

Phosphorus is going to sleep

From a hard day as the morning star

Hesperus is rising to brighten the evening

Their arms intertwined as lovers might

Hold each other tenderly

They are naked and not afraid of it

Anyone who sees them should not

Take notice or offense

For love is no offense

We sympathize because one

Starts the day and the other

Starts the evening

They live opposed

Yet find time to enjoy the twilight

With the gentle moment seen

In this painting by Evelyn De Morgan

She understood the love of young men

Giving it a platform to be seen

That hangs on a wall

We all know love is not something

That hangs on a wall

Will they play in the surf

Seaweed enrobing their manhood

Foam on their lips

They enjoy a sky love light

That doesn't exist on cloudy nights

Stars are so lonely that they

Gather in faraway clusters

Each with a different color shift

Reflecting their souls in chemicals

To the uneducated in searches

They do wet themselves in shallows

With sand that becomes a gritty shot

Of thrills for lovers on bare feet

It lives always both night and day

Phosphorus is the evening star

Hesperus is the morning star

Leave it to the Greeks to give

These lovers their names

Based upon what is seen in the sky

We do not judge them for their love

And those who do are probably from Troy

Phosphorus has gone to sleep

Just as Hesperus will

After the work is done

Their love spills over Troy’s walls

That will come down forever

Just as forever these two

With love

give light

Barry G. Wick

Hark the Herald angels

Santa Claus is coming to town

Born in a manger

Signaled by a star in the east

Next to the new Wal-Mart

Sometimes

A few billion photons

Will hit a polished surface

To reflect someplace

Where the movements attract

My eyes

It is the same with people

II see what they reflect

Good or bad

Some reflections

Become rainbows

I see them and smile

From my dark life

Knowing the universe

Loves the colors

As much as I do

I cannot speak to the Sea

I've been on its shore infrequently

Here I know it's predecessors

The rain the rivulets the gutter water

I have seen the remnants

Of the fast water in volume

That came down deep canyons

Destroying old banks of simple creeks

Scraping trees and rocks

Into torrents that rammed houses

Into kindling and people into graves

I have seen the Sea as adult

But mostly as a child falling

From the sky to begin it's gathering

Into creeks and rivers

The teenagers of water

That grow to fill the Sea

I have seen the Sea as a youth

Petulant greedy for a bigger life

Away from small towns

That only remembers the father

That only remembers the mother

Oh you are the son of the June storm

What was it's name that doesn't matter

As all names that disappear into time

Soon surrounded by more and more

Waterfalls as they roll to the Sea

Does a river learn more or see

Itself corrupted by the society of water

As it heads towards your incessant

Lapping as if it were a thirsty dog

Even the breath goes high

Into the air to create the puffy screens

Hiding sun and stars appearing

And disappearing into the earth

All people are promised to you oh Sea

This ends all I know or suspect

All that surrounds the animals and plants

Who live in you that you surround

Be kind to me when I come to you

Let me see what I do not know

Even if your terrors split me dry

It's great to be nobody

Who lives alone

Who has no one

Who has no arguments

Except in the silence

With dark days and rain

Of no importance

It's a great time of life

To be alone with the mind

Except the days

With memories of a past

Full of mistakes and stupidity

Everyday

Then I see Wanbli soaring

By the window

As he searches his valley

Along the creek

I feel he is my lifeblood

Come to visit

To take away this nobody

Inside of me

To screech his greeting

Sitting on the fir

Next to the house

He is the king

And I am his servant

It's all there is

To have a great life

As I scout

the water’s edge

for big fish that jump

Into the talons

Of his majesty

Thumbing through the offerings

Of an online low price book store

A book of collected poems

Of a famous poet whose life

Spanned part of mine

Came with a very low price

Paperback I thought

A book I did not purchase

When it hit the stores

Just five short years ago

Because I did not have

The muti-decibuck price

For such a hardback tome

Here the same book shows

For less than the price

Of a small beef roast

I would have devoured

With all the drool deserved

It arrives in the post with another

Group of collected poems

Only these two great lives

Have set me back

Less than five dozen eggs

And a gallon of milk

Depending on the market

And the health of the flock

I'm udderly shocked

These great writers penned

Their lives upon these pages

Published most in small

And mainstream magazines

Gaining fame and stature

And here collected in books

Post life upon this earth

I could Ill afford when first

Their empyrean language

Was laid upon gold-covered

Shelves in fancy book stores

One book in paper so moderately

Priced I could scrape the price

From my bill of rotting food

The other hardback in hundreds

Of pages of fine paper

Covered in preserving plastic

A library so gently blessed

For all its readers now marked

Officially withdrawn from

The eyes of educated patrons just

Five years after publication

Now sitting so graciously

In front of my eyes bulging

With the voice of this god

So here is your life dear Sir

For me to gobble and ponder

The fate of my unpublished

Life and mediocrity galore

But such are the lives

Of all poets tossed upon

The heap of burning paper

The fuel of my cremation

Another throwaway poet

Devoured by worms and years

Shutdown the government say some

Let the halls become silent and dark

Return this nation to what was here before

Indigenous folk are ready rubbing hands

Around their waists are chains covered

In shiny new padlocks and handcuffs

Throw away the words of the Declaration

And burn all copies of the Constitution

If they want it back there will have to be

New documents that stand for the truth

How does anyone shut down equality

Turn out the lights on already blind justice

Where shall we meet to decide how poor

Elderly citizens will starve in cold homes

Who will become strange fruit in hot sun

Box freedom telling people that is all

There's only so much to go around today

Be sure to shred all the money in banks

Melt all the coins and turn in all bonds

Nothing has value until a new government

Let us gather to decide what this all means

There are no leaders so shut the old away

Until the nobodys filter to a new voice

Better than Franklin and good old George

All books of law are full of worms and wrong

There are no bills to pay until value establishes

In something better than gold, silver, and paper

With simple words agreed to write it all away

Start it over to never care for your security

Let the States all die until a king is found

Make just one man decide for all people

Who will live and who will die by any decree

Line the naysayers up against existing walls

Bullets are free for believers to exterminate

All the children they want to bleed on streets

The victims no longer exist since power is all

The enemies come across all borders in peace

Willing to die for the nothing that now is wrought

Stone, paper, leather parchment cannot hold

What these acclaimed people glue with dust

He stands in front of the studio camera

This space is designed to tire and hammer

Only money or email will save

Everyone from geegaws not needed

But are supposed to crave

This studied pitchman

Is magically slick

In a comfortable suit

He asks his audience to pick

Whatever he's selling

He answers all questions

In a calm steady voice

He says they're only suggestions

The world will never rid the glowing screens of them

They'll glow and they'll grow each with their own special gem

I haven't a thing to sell just silly old words

The world is chock full of spewed

Alphabetic turds

Hart Crane raged his alcoholic depression

Wondering if his writing was any good

I'm depressed but haven't had a drink

In many years

I don't care if my poems are good or great

I made my decisions for all of it

This life will throw me off the ship

Soon enough whether anyone

Bought my pitch or not

I've been bobbing in the sea a long time

There's plenty of time to drown

I threw away my journals After many years of writing Tiny letters upon painful pages Just as I was making the me So public that required I Destroy my life before it Went any farther so as To have the many dig Through those years Almost thirty years ago

All words from college To Chicago on a train Of paper rail cars Now neatly shredded By Craig's machine secretly Screaming words torn So they bleed into a plastic Bag their letters separated Much like cutting a chicken Into unrecognizable parts Only the shredders teeth Will enjoy these memories unseasoned and raw

These many minutes with Multiple books all five With many pages Of black inked dreams And lovers kissed or held Reduced to indecipherable Polluted trees for the benefit Of others who don't want The real me to read as I've always done thinking What others may want from Me instead of me for me Happily me on my terms

I've now discovered this branch Where I don't drag all that With me across the tear-soaked Years that shadow other writers Full of childish learning Fumbles on the paginotions My own word of my own life Belonging to me doing it better For no one else alone Or read to a crowd I'll never meet The ridiculous boredom That clouded Larkin and others Like Rochester telling me She thought the painting I bought for forty bucks Should be destroyed Like young men's words No one can stand to read

the disease disappears yet

the isolation remains as the gorilla

a small room where it rips my face

as I wash it in the morning

rinsing the little dirt from the White cloth

the brain drys from the inside

or is it the new pill that grows teeth

yes teeth growing in my head

that chew up words more like

old strings of chicken removed

there seems no reason to leave

no one knows me here like old friends

Who never visit from miles away

phone calls useless chat in the dark

here we are behind closed doors

brothers of the dirty carpets

disappearing bags of food

that never nourish the tears that fall

onto a useless moment never ending

below our surface we starve for arms

hold on for the door knock

from someone never wished

to be seen in rude trances

up the ramp answer the door

never again it's only rice and salt

Barry G. Wick

a

as I wash it in the morning

rinsing the little dirt from the White cloth

the brain drys from the inside

or is it the new pill that grows teeth

yes teeth growing in my head

that chew up words more like

old strings of chicken removed

there seems no reason to leave

no one knows me here like old friends

Who never visit from miles away

phone calls useless chat in the dark

here we are behind closed doors

brothers of the dirty carpets

disappearing bags of food

that never nourish the tears that fall

onto a useless moment never ending

below our surface we starve for arms

hold on for the door knock

from someone never wished 

to be seen in rude trances

up the ramp answer the door

never again it's only rice and salt

It's a board game played

To give common people

A sense of power

Once only available

To kings and generals

Who saw that taking

Land and people brought

Great wealth and power

Every man becomes a king

When he is loved

by another

Love is the greatest risk

My country pieces

Have been removed

From the world map

I am now an unloved

Subject

A subject eats cheap hotdogs

Letting them fry in a small pan

The heat makes them pop

As they turn themselves

When a side becomes

Blistered and burned

Burned blisters come

from battles

In Risk