Les Wicks
I have heard the water’s everywhere, when
does it finish? Our arts peel, fade. Money’s disappearing
my knees are a wasteland
love is a perilous adventure &
of course we’re all dying.
Salt subsumes rivers, the aquifers are gasping
even as sea levels rise in the Pacific.
It appears our blue world is sopping.
Bodies are made of this
plus a bit of carbon.
Life is all about pumps, the bass line.
Summer wakes up, it is a poem written with sweat.
Dan was with us just last month, his raptor intellect
great futures while
bailing out his lungs.
We cried a little as the crematorium curtains closed.
Carlyn’s eyes rise to the sea eagle called Endurance with
the library of airmaps on its wings.
With a butcher’s inner peace
this prodigious raptor pauses, we are
natural & delicious. You could say this avian
is a good omen
if thought of no ending terrifies.
It too is a prisoner of a greater gyre
but the atmosphere forgives almost anything.
This feathered death has always been going places
far above the arguments of our water.
Les Wicks Over 40 years Wicks has performed widely across the globe. Published in over 350 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 28 countries in 15 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 14th book of poetry is Belief (Flying Islands, 2019).
