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Zachary Grenenger | Photographed by Dan Hilburn for Alchemy Magazine

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My two Brother sewing machines. I've been making myself jockstraps and underwear. Just some of my elastic featured...black and white. Also elastic cloth not seen.

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Your search for my poetry can also take you to

https://agereasonmistake.blogspot.com

There you'll find 560 plus poems. Thank you all my readers around the world. I'm a retired radio personality and salesman.

I ended up poor financially, but rich in words and memories...and friends. I hope you all have a rich life like I have. It's rich, not in money or things, living on SSA and SNAP...but rich in the appreciation of my simple life. I wrote this age 73. None of us know how long we have, just thank the universe with every breath and vision.

Barry G. Wick

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Jupiter

In the dark of space

Floating in the dark of my life

Is Gustav Holst’s bringer of jollity

A gaseous giant

Circling the only star

We two have known

He's been seen by every life

Here on our world

I also am mostly gas

But not worthy of a laugh

I am hydrogen and oxygen

Jupiter's helium keeps him afloat

Just as my gassy thoughts

Keep me floating

I see you great godd

Holding your twinkling throne room

In the power of both day and night

You may be the Roman godd

Of lightning and power

Though my life has been simple

Lacking the power to make changes

I see my dear moons my friends

Revolving around me

Undiscovered by Galileo

Yet I discover their love of me

Which seems to make no sense

We two have large spots

Yours is red and mine invisible

Perhaps the visible and Unseen

Are the same as each gives us

Strength and uniqueness

Of all about our orbits

My years will be shorter by far

But unlike you dear Jove

I'm on fire and you will never be

Until our sun expands to take you

Both our atoms will share some space

We are neighbors in the Universe

Ready to join whenever that year

Decides we are ready to love

And be loved by the other

Barry G. Wick

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Old Photo

An indigenous man

Of this continent

Turns to retrieve

An arrow from his quiver

The attached strap around

His neck and shoulders

His right hand fingers

Surround an arrow

While his left hand

Caresses his spring bow

The power of which

We only guess

His dark hair wrapped

In leather on two long tresses

One tucked behind his right ear

That hangs across his bare chest

To the edge of his breechcloth

His face turned to direct his hand

The high cheekbone reveals

A smooth careful thought

At the end of his long hair

His loins covered in tradecloth

Reach just above his knees

Held by a braided cord

His left hip exposed

The warmth of his skin

Shows all the way

to his bare feet

Thin moccasins almost visible

Behind him a stand of birches

Frame him on his hunt

For game he might see

Scared away by his movement

To notch his arrows nock

On the taught bowstring

His anticipation is not evident

Though his slender muscles

Have been fed by the meat

Of his previous kills

He found in forest

And on prairie

As he waited at the draws

For his prey to hesitantly walk

With care on grass and rock

He teaches me correct words

In black and white

To admire his concentration

The feel and quiet of bare feet

On dry grass and small rock

His movement so slight

Noiseless on a gray day

I only wish were colored

For my heart to worship

This hunter’s stealth

The wealth of generations

Father to son

The soft cloth unable

To chafe him in summer sun

Or alert rabbit or deer

He's a quiet man

Used to few words

Scraping hair and remnant meat

Quiet hours spent tanning

The animal’s skin with its brain

Each day his thoughts calmed

By his careful respect

for the whole of creation

That surrounds him

A quiet prayer unheard

At the bright mornings

At the edge of dark

By a warming fire

Soft hides of his own creation

Each hour warming him twice

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Moon

In the early dark morning

Of mid fall

The moon shows me

It’s bĺoated self

Through a trailer window

An old fat moon

Looks at an old fat man

Laying on a mattress

With a centered deep

Ass created crater

Moon we are old friends

I watched you

Through self made telescopes

As a dumb teenager

Who tried not to show it

Your reflections of the sun

Mingle with a Strauss quartet

Music that doesn't fit

What I think of you

As if you cared what I think

I change stations

Suddenly an old galliard

On plucked strings

We dance to old music

I let you lead

Barry G. Wick. Part of over 560 poems by this poet at https://agereasonmistake.blogspot.com

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Sometimes

Sometimes that's all life is

Is being a stone

On the edge of a great forest

Seeing the stars move overhead

Feeling the breeze

Of a cool summer night

And every once in a while

A flower will grow next to you

Shading you

Amazing you

And making you feel

That you aren't so alone

In your place

From which everything

Seems to revolve around you

And yes you know it doesn't

But those special moments

When you're sure it does

Are full of wonder

When the whole of creation

Belongs to you for just one

Remarkable second

Barry G. Wick

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To the Sea

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

Barry G. Wick

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Pink triangle necklaces and pins I've made for pride in Davenport, Iowa this weekend.

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We Wear Our History Again

A hundred years ago passed a great world war

In Germany’s years of tears and starvation

One man who served in war as corporal

Began to think about all the times ahead

When the Reich will rise again to rule the world

When all the problems will be solved

Deep in his heart was hate and anger

For all the people he could blame for death

The jews, the Catholics, the queers,

The Roma, The Russians, The Pols.

His list grew long as seeds of hate fuel his quest

To rid the world of the problem people

We all know what happen after he had died

The count was fifty million or more dead

Nations wrecked by a second world war

What didn’t die was that evil man’s thoughts

That have been translated to the world today

Where men now think the home of the free is wrong

One group of different people are now singled

To represent all that’s wrong with America

People with real medical needs are vilified

Given the current atmosphere the laws are made

To stop their care and end the truth about kids

Who call themselves transgendered

Those of us who are queer, gay, lesbian bisexual

Adopt those hated children and adults

Who government leaders once again conspire

What we know and what we see across the land

Has all been seen before in camps fenced in

Where ramps lead to the of walls of murder rooms

Separated by what they are triangles are sewn

Upon their tattered clothes in hateful words of color

Some yellow, red, green, blue, purple, black and grey

But for those men who wear dresses and heels

For the few women who went to camps as lesbians

For the sexual varied a pink triangle was given

Because of all the hate growing in the land of the free

We are singled out for legislative hate

When states make laws most Americans

Don’t even think about as words of hate

Are words of law showing how much they care

Leaving people to nod their heads in support

Even doctors are punished if they try to help

Real diagnoses are left out of the new law

These people have conditions too complicated

To explain to a propagandized people who listen

All day long to hosts on radio and television

Who leave out the truth and the real story

So here we are in the echo of the past

When one man created a world of hate and war

When he had not seen enough of it

Your children will once again wear triangles

Whether real or not upon their clothes and faces

We are once again the children of the Pink Triangle

Barry G. Wick

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Your last breaths seemed painful to me

I am certain of your last thoughts

As mine may be the same as I say

good-bye to the world of pain I created

Speaking to you like Neruda speaks

To his mother would not be possible

I am tired beyond those black years

When I constantly cared for you

I did tell you I loved you as I put

My flabby arm around you that you

Could not put around me like your sister

Who showed me affection I missed

Your mother's words came to me

In missed caresses as you explained

Her cold Norwegian upbringing

And the distance between you and her

What did you get from her in those

Years of vocalizing in Dakota's enclaves

As I remember her in her last year's

I felt little warmth in my failed heart

These vacancies have passed down

To my children and to me doubly

In these years of distance and emptiness

That have been left to me unpolished

Barry G. Wick

Part of nearly 500 poems by this author at

Https://agereasonmistake.blogspot.com

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https://agereasonmistake.blogspot.com

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On the Porch

The winter sun is low

In the warmer afternoon.

I think about

What I sew.

Wispy clouds hang overhead,

The sky's tangled thread.

Snow melts to send

Rivulets of water

Down sides of the street.

Slight wind damage to the home

Next to me has peeled

The skirting down half the side

Which faces me with a reason

To call the office to complain.

No no no. I'm not that sort.

My complaints are about me.

They cover my eyes before sleep

To wonder about all my poor choices

And the basics of my gay life

Or lack of it now.

Old men need partners that began

In the warm days of life

When porches never needed me.

Sunny life follows those days

As two men should follow each other.

I lived in fear of everything around me.

Every thought was a question.

Then the day came I stood for myself.

It was just a minute.

Those seconds have guided these years

Into the quiet and alone.

I make my peace with those I hurt

Many mostly in silence.

There's no one to call.

There's no one to help with dishes

Or to share the handle of a vacuum.

Now the breeze gets colder.

The sun is deep in the West.

So I am needing to find some warmth

Off the porch to be forgotten.

Barry G.Wick