Sharp Little Pencil – Amy Barlow Liberatore

Once again I find I’m lapsing
My brain is not synapsing
quite properly, and still
(as life requires we will),
I must do family taxes.
No time for “poem-relaxes,”
nor room for fun with Wordles
My cocoa sits and curdles
as I, ‘sharp little’ in hand
do battle with The Man.

But… one real poem for the road, what say? I’ll be back soon!  This will be at Poets United, where the math is easy… but the social studies can be a bit challenging!

TOOLS OF HIGHER MATH

The utile compass pinpoints
and twirls
Traces my brain
seeking sense in vain

Its sharp center
pierces a fold and
the golf pencil
circumnavigates
in search of principles
and edicts, only to find

bloody rivers of
flowing memory
Streams of unconscious longing
Thwacking rhythms of
a gutbucket blues

Tintype verses
Blowfly curses
Meandering forgetfulness and

a singular kaleidoscope
filled with broken shards
of a life
and a city and
things that happened

© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil

Psychiatry, according to my former practitioner, is in fact experimentation. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit,” he said, explaining that the details lie in the psychiatrist’s ability to listen, to ask questions about how the counseling is going, and to be sensitive to the patient’s vibe. I imagined what it would be like to look at my brain from a clinical, almost forensic, standpoint… except the practitioner is Tim Burton. Peace, Amy