This is when I realized that I was, indeed, THAT far behind. Here is the Wordle from the current week’s Baker’s Dozen, followed by one from last week’s words. Brenda Warren, you are a creative source and very much loved by this here sharp little blog!! This is also at my poetic meeting place, Poets United.

Ironically, the two poems could be a “before” and “after” sequence. But as it is, I’ll pray for peace. Amy

RECRUITED

Ain’t no draft in this war
‘sides, the rich folks’d
pull strings so their kid’d
be son-of-a-Bush Leaguin

We got through Boot,
crack troops, they say.
Yeah, there’s crack for sure
here, and some good weed

Bad meth got Duffy in
a zombie trance then BOOM! he’s
beatin his chest, temper real high,
hell, he was real high, making a

racket, kickin over the table
beer makin soup outta my
Lucky Strikes. Now Duffy, he’s
locked up, latch like a dog.

Recruiter, he says at the BK,
“Currently (yeah, they talk like that)
we require troops who refrain from
drug use and talk straight, you know?”

Yeah, I can hear him now over the bombs.
Straight, but you know that ain’t about talk,
it’s bout the showers. And somethin bout drugs.
“Hey, I can do that,” I say, “sign me up.”

© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl: Draft, Crack, Spare, Refrain, Strike, Temper, Chest, Blend, String, Racket, Trance, Latch, Current.
——————————–
DAY 38

Crawlin to another meeting
in my rust-stained Corona.
Dirty jeans and the same shirt
I wore overnight in the back seat.

Parkin in the shadows, near
little bluffs where prairie grasses
brush against the very air,
I swear, it’s a real trip.

Now the willow slaps the roof
of my car, dippin low to whisper:
“Here we are again, my friend.
Remember the first time, you
trembled, decaf in one hand,
12-Step book in the other.
Three days out of the mud then,
not stoned, not wasted?  One nerve
short of suicide?”

Damn if the tree ain’t right.
I remember that night,
I was sure enough that scared,
cause the meeting was downstairs
in a church. Only sacred vessels
are in there, not homeless guys.

The willow creaks and sighs,
“Don’t forget the man
with a nail in each hand.
Never a pillow for his head,”
the weeping willow said.

© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For LAST WEEK’S Whirl: Crawl, Shadows, Nail, Corona, Vessels, Brush, Stain, Bluffs, Trembled, Stones, Willow, Mud.


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