Remember the book I helped edit? IT’S HERE! Read this poem and I dare you to tell me you don’t want to read this guy’s story. Fred Weintraub tells it like it is, like it was. He admits he can be a schmuck, but as for me, he’s a MENSCH – a real human being who knows how to laugh at himself, and when. The most powerful man in Hollywood you never heard of. So if you want to get a great slant on the 50s and 60s and beyond, follow this LINK to get your e- or hard copy of Bruce Lee, Woodstock & Me. (He even mentioned my “sharp little pencil” in the acknowledgments!) Thanks to my old friend David Fields for hooking me up to an incredible project. Peace, Amy
FRED WEINTRAUB will never rest –
in peace or otherwise
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
He’s kickin like Bruce Lee
Full of chutzpah and
ready to tell the tale
Tasted the Bitter End
Made the brick wall a comedy club icon
Helped nunchucks whirl their way
into the American vernacular
as well as Bruce Lee
Woody, Cosby, Pryor
Peter, Paul & Mary
Wandered the world
Saw a Cuban jail and
a lot of women
Played piano in a cathouse
Anything to keep away from
the safety of a picket fence
and an ordinary life
If not for Fred
No footage of feel-good hippies
in Woodstock mud
No historical record of the
defining, deafening cry of the 60s
Vulnerable to sentimentality
Seriously blessed by serendipity
and occasionally a real pain in the ass
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
And he’s telling all…
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Season’s Grumblings
With each passing year, diminishing cheer:
I feel less festive at Christmastime.
Perhaps it’s the sprawl of malls,
gaudy displays of “Holiday Cheer,”
a politically correct wink,
as though I’m supposed to know they
really mean “Merry Christmas,” but
corporate beliefs leave them no choice.
No voices ringing with carols, but a veritable
barrel of secular songs: Motown, Nashville, or worse still,
Burl Ives (that rumpled fool who sang like a choir boy
during the Red Scare) offering “Yuletide cheer.”
Or Maurice “I’m an entertainer, even when the audience
is all Nazis” Chevalier pretending he’s fun and nice.
Santa’s real elves are exploited Chinese child labor.
Neighbor, don’t listen to me. I’ve little glee.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Three Word Wednesday challenged us with Belief, Festive, and Rumple. Ha! I took up the challenge and delivered this exquisite poetic case of heartburn. What a Grinch! For those who are believers, have yourselves a Merry Christmas, and remember whose birthday it is, teach your children. And if you’re a secular Christmas person, hey, pay no neve-rmind to me, except for the part about the Chinese kids. Peace, Amy
The Door to Deceitful Delights
The door to deceitful delights
she discovered within as she was
plied with that first fizzy fun punch
Pried open wider by a toke of particularly prime pot
Finally flung open with the abandon possessed by
twenty-something Immortals
This same door had dwelt
in her mother and others long passed
Smothering, smoldering smoke and
various places to place opium
by hookah or
by whodahthunkit
Twenty-something was wise
She grew tired of wasting time
Time to grow up
We can’t all be Peter Pan
or Tinkerbell, even
She shoved her full weight against the door
Forced it shut and with it all the shit, shove-stored
She knows she could open it again
on a whim or over a heartbreak
But she willingly tossed the key
into a pool of other bad memories
where she chooses not to swim
knowing she’d only sink like a stone
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse Open Mike Night (check out the links!) and my poetic hearth and home, Poets United.
Home At Last
Cuddled under my favorite purple afghan,
(“When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple”)
contemplating the months just passed;
dreaming of the year to come…
How did it happen that we landed in Madison?
These people, who see me not as troublesome,
but a graying sprite with her feet solidly on earth
(even as her mind lags, or revs – or does somersaults).
A faith community of solid citizens
who know that worship is not some game
of collecting brownie points with God,
because God always grades on a curve.
Our choir sings with gusto.
The bell choir rings sweetly.
The praise band brings it,
makes the Spirit spring within us.
Was it luck that landed me here in this state
of Badgers and Packers, a hundred varieties
of cheese, and even more kinds of beer? This
hearty stew of politics and action and reaction,
as we fly toward the audacious goal of
booting the Guv back to his Brothers Koch?
Students who actually live downtown near
the university? Poetry readings and buskers?
What brought me here? I’m in heaven, yet all I did
was follow the love of my life to a new church,
a new ministry. (Wither thou goest, I shall go…)
It wasn’t luck – it was God. And it was love.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Brenda Warren’s Sunday Whirl gave us a dozen words to weave into a poem: year, fly, earth, happen, citizen, luck, states, dream, trouble, purple, lag, and game. Check out The Whirl and give it a try!
Dear Friends,
Three of my poems have been included in a new anthology called, Prompted: An International Anthology of Poems, edited by my good friend Pearl Ketover Prilik and featuring the works of Pearl, Barbara Ehrentreu, Jacqueline Hallenbeck, Michele Krause Hed, Buddah Moskowitz, Brian Slusher, Laurie Kolp, Nikki Griffith, Janet Rice Carnahan, Mike Grove, De Jackson, Iain Douglas Kemp, and many other talented poets. All styles of poetry are represented in this volume, and I do hope you will consider donating to our chosen charity by purchasing a copy.
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO LitWorld, an organization dedicated to putting books in the hands of children. We agreed as a collective that we would submit our work for free; the anthology has about forty poets, with multiple submissions by each.
If you would like to order a copy, it’s available at Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.
Also, a plug for “Really Love Your Book,” the publishers who worked to hard to get this out by Christmas!
Peace, Amy
During all the recall mishigoss, I had time to write something more all-encompassing! Here’s to the new America, as envisioned by Newt, Rick, and (depending on the day) Mitt (featuring backup vocals by Michele and Sarah):
Anthem for a New Party
Harken to the new American song!
The mating call of the vulture.
“Take wing and we shall restore prosperity.”
Blood drips from his beak,
from his talons,
trickling down upon the rest of us.
The offspring of this vulture are
vile, virulent creatures
who cannot fly but still flock together,
plotting, under the right wing.
Taking tea with spiders whose backs bear
hourglasses, betraying the truth:
Time’s almost up.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Also at my poetic nest, Poets United.
WARNING: NOT for the squeamish. (So if you read it, you have only yourself to thank or blame.)
For those who don’t know me well enough yet, this happened to me when I was a kid. Feel free to comment, ask questions, or engage me through email if you prefer to speak privately (ask and ye shall receive my address). I’m open about this (and my mental disorders) because I want survivors to shed their unearned shame and get the help they need to sweep the monster from under the bed and LIVE their lives not as victims, but as true survivors. Peace, Amy
Too Close, No Comfort
She feels the proximity of the monster
Hears his footsteps
Smells his acrid third-martini breath
She should call out, scream
But it’s useless, no one comes to
help the child until afterwards
It’s over. She wet the bed again
but he never noticed, too busy with
her small, slack-jawed mouth
Will she ever tell the secret everyone knows,
or will she block it all out to preserve
what little sense of self remains?
Little girls have a capacity, as do little boys
to save retribution for adulthood,
when they are able to handle the history
Tears witnessed by a therapist,
perhaps meds to ease the trauma as it is relived
again and again, until the haunting stops
My dad never did the perp walk
Mom never admitted she knew
but my sweet revenge was forgiveness:
After all, he was the sick one.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday: Immobile, Proximity, Retribution
Lindy at Poetic Licensee wrote a lovely poem today, memories of her mother. I promised her I’d blog a poem I wrote a year ago about my mom, because we had some bits in common, so here it is… This was also part of my chapbook, Dance Groove Funhouse. Thanks, my new friend Lindy, for reminding me of this one! Peace to all, Amy
THE WRINGER
I was the baby so I
spent a lot of time with Mom
watching her perform the mundane tasks
of suburban housewifery
that would eventually lead her to alcoholism
But back then they were fun
The radio was always on
Roger Miller singing King of the Road
We’d sing along
She taught me to harmonize when I was four
Downstairs to do laundry
A humungous circular washer, a wringer
And a clothesline out back
To her this was heaven
having survived the Depression
All these conveniences
meant just for her
In those days, she saw her life as luxurious
And she saw me as company
and the only friend around
After poking a stick into the washing
to make sure the detergent had really dissolved
She drained it and refilled to rinse
Man, she really took the stick to that
Everything had to be clean, perfect, worthy
But the best part
Before the hanging on the line with wooden clothespins
(Someone should invent something with a spring,
she said absentmindedly one day
Her mom was a genius, too)
Was the wringer
The clothes being strangled as they
gave up almost every drop of their being
I pretended they were bad people who were being punished
I prayed for them but secretly relished their fate
Back then it was easy
We’d go upstairs and have coffee (mine was mostly milk)
She light a Lucky and we’d sit
gazing out the window to the fields beyond
Soundtrack by The Lettermen and Peggy Lee
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Also at my poetic touchstone, Poets United.
Youth and the Journey
Youth…
the journey’s a swagger
then a stagger
and a dagger
cutting through to
the heart of the matter
what spatters is
a smattering of truth
diluted by
a well of self-doubt
All too soon
the new moon wanes
giving way not to sunrise
nor to hope
nor surprise
but a wisp of wisdom
too late to impart
as the last truth
trickles from the heart
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 