OK, I know I’ll get heat for this one… another “stacking” poem for Poetic Asides.
BRICKS AND MORTAR FIRE IN BABEL
What is holy about the Holy Land?
The Dome dominated by one faith
as Americans do little except contribute
to Israel’s continued building of a wall
choking off Palestinians under slabs of
mentality and political polemic.
“It’s in Israel’s defense and protects American interests.”
It prevents Arabs from getting to the doctor.
How Christian, how Jewish, how holy is that?
And Americans, who cannot feed and clothe
and care for their tired, poor, hungry,
are footing the bill for the contractors.
People who defend Palestinian rights
are called “anti-Semites,” even the Jews who
choose to show mercy on Islamic people.
As though the heads of the State of Israel
speak for all Jewish people around the world.
Tell that to Jews who think Zionism is just another power grab.
Apocalyptics take joy in much of this,
feeling we’re stealing ever closer to the Rapture,
sure they know the year, if not the day and hour,
surer still that they and they alone
will ascend with Jesus, patted on the head,
and to Hell with everyone else!
Until true Godliness prevails, when
Jews, Christians, and Muslims remember
they all worship the same God,
Jerusalem will remain divided at its heart.
So many languages, so many translators,
but no one is listening in Babel.
Spare me your prophesies and Revelation.
If you really love Jesus, you have to love us all.
If you really follow the Torah, you have to love us all.
If you really follow the Prophet Mohammad, you have to love us all.
Israel is not real estate; Israel is a people.
Mr. Netanyahu, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we were asked to write about stacks. Stacking, unstacking, stacked decks, stacked (you can guess), unstacking, dismantling. Click on the Poetic Asides blue link to read them all! Here’s one of mine, attempting to form a poetic pyramid!
GYM CLASS
Never picked for
basketball or soccer.
Short, uncoordinated, shy.
The leftover, default choice.
I excelled in this singular activity:
The Pyramid. I was so little and so light
they proclaimed me The Ultimate Top Block.
(For just one class a year, they found me of use)
Sturdier girls lined up below like so many
Dawg House cheerleaders, and proudly
bearing the brunt to come… five rows
I had to carefully ascent to claim my
place as “Cleopatra’s Crown” (hey,
this was gym class, not history!)
A sudden sniff from Row Two.
Sue sneezes and CRASH!
Our proud
pyramid
reduced
to rubble:
A jumble
of giggling
Jenga Jills.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I finally got around to creating a chapbook, self-published and quite the attractive little pamphlet, if I do say so myself.
Dance Groove Funhouse is a group of 23, count ’em 23 poems in an environmentally friendly format of 8 pages plus cover (I know, the purists say “one poem per page,” but I am not psychologically equipped to kill that many trees in the name of self-expression).
For just SIX BUCKS (including postage), you can thrill to poems about:
Dance Groove Funhouse (where anything goes)
Memories of washing clothes “the old-fashioned way” with Mom
A lark that morphs from songbird to a complete pain in the ass in two stanzas
Stargazing in upstate New York
A love poem to my husband (Nothing graphic. I said “love poem,” not “sex poem”!)
Amy Island (more of anything goes, but there’s beer on tap in this one)
The fork I found in the middle of a road… an actual fork. On an actual road.
My mother’s progressive comments on black musicians going in ‘the back way,’ circa 1940s
A locket with two views of my daughter, both entertaining
…and (as they say) much, much more!
I don’t have PayPal or any of that high-tech stuff, so let’s do some snail mailing, shall we?
Send a check for $6 (also covers postage) per copy and received your PERSONALIZED, AUTOGRAPHED COPIES soon. Order for friends! They also make great bathroom reading – ask my husband and neighbors!
Make the check out to Amy Barlow Liberatore and mail your request to:
Amy Barlow Liberatore
48 Main Street
Attica, NY 14011
…and don’t forget to include any dedications you’d like in the autograph. You know, “To Polly, for the bottom of your birdcage, Love, Amy” and stuff like that. Seriously, thanks for supporting this Sharp Little Pencil! Amy
WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF GREGORY?
It started off like usual, boy and girl meet,
make the trip to City Hall, marry.
Start a family with a beautiful boy.
Then Mom relapses, synapses lost to
crack addiction come back to haunt her
like Jacob Marley, chains and all.
Dad bails, few details known of his whereabouts,
so Mom goes to work and leaves Gregory in the house.
When the State workers came, they found him,
three years old, still in a crib, pillows packing him in
“to keep him safe,” mutters Mom, as she is
taken into custody (so is her son).
A year passes; Gregory waits for foster parents,
but he is no poster child for adoption. First,
they see his bright blue eyes and big smile…
then ask, “Why doesn’t he walk around?”
Workers explain that he just learned to crawl;
crucial development of muscles was delayed by the crib.
All potential parents pass him up like a misfit toy
until one day, the right couple comes along.
They see him as a creation of God, worthy, worth the fight
to take him to therapy, get him walking upright.
Take him to worship – he’s the church’s bright, shiny penny.
Pastor says, “You can’t spell ‘congregation’ without ‘Greg’!”
Finally, the big day, the whole church goes to court
to support the new family, to make it legal. Gregory looks
regal in his little suit and tie, smiling, smiling…
The joy on his face, applause when the papers are signed.
Gregory was put on this earth by a sick mom and a deadbeat dad,
but he knows he can always count on his two moms.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Another Poetic Asides take on “forget what they say,” this one with no holds barred!
CALL ME WHAT YOU WILL
Call me too tolerant for
respecting those of other faiths.
Call me a bad Christian
for saying that God created us all equal, including Jews and Muslims and Taoists and Buddhists and non-believers.
Call me a bleeding heart
for wanting everyone to get health care.
Call me an alarmist
for insisting that hydrofracking is dangerous.
Call me an n***** lover (and they have)
for supporting an African-American president.
Call me anti-civil rights
for wishing to disband self-styled militias.
Call me anti-Constitution
for insisting semi-automatic weapons are not needed to hunt.
Call me a coward
for being a steadfast pacifist.
Call me a moron
because I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth.
Call me a bad mother
for not trying to talk my daughter out of being lesbian.
Call me a bad American
for pointing out that “under God” was added during McCarthy’s reign of terror and anti-Communist hysteria.
Call me a bad liberal
for listening to Rush and Glenn at least once a week.
Call me unbalanced
because I’m a responsible mental health consumer.
Call me a socialist
for wanting the rich to pay more into the kitty.
Call me a snob
for encouraging kids whose only adjective is “fuck” to dig deeper in their brain pan.
Call me a traitor
for believing a former president should face charges for ordering waterboarding and lying about WMDs… and laughing about it publicly.
Call me a bra-burning bitch
for having the temerity to insist on equal pay for equal work.
Call me naive
for wanting undocumented aliens to be granted citizenship (hey, if it was good enough for Reagan, it should be good enough for the Tea Party).
Call me whatever you want.
I stand by my values, no matter the consequence.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
DON’T FORGET TO TAKE POLAROIDS
Never one to take instruction
well, welcome to
THE EVE OF MY DESTRUCTION.
That’s me, going to hell.
Hand-basket by Longaberger.
So say the Bible thumpers
Because I insist my daughter’s
Divinely made, perfect…
and, yes, she loves women
If all she did daily
was love women,
I’d be worried, but fortunately,
she does other things, too:
art, music, movies;
she has a full life.
“I’ll bet you and Lex
do stuff besides
hanging in bed being straight!”
That’s right, baby, it’s true
We get up
sometimes for breakfast, lunch, dinner…
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thanks to Riley for permission to use her experiences for this poem.
Our Poetic Asides challenge was “Forget What They Say.” My kind of prompt, Robert! Click on the link to see what others came up with. As for me…
AGING DISGRACEFULLY!
Old age ain’t for sissies, said Bette Davis
and she was doggone right
Boobs hanging so low I have to
set ’em in rollers at night
and shoved into “woman-friendly” bras daily
The way they swing wouldn’t make Frank
sing “ring-a-ding-ding”
Took up yoga to get flexible
advice courtesy of my physician
(not “Physical,” thanks anyway, Olivia)
Noticed that, in the Down Dog position
my skin of my thighs draped off my legs
like a curtain valance, but at least
I kept my balance.
That is, until the Salutes to the Sun,
when I grandly and loudly fell on my face,
laughing so hard I snorted at my own contortions.
This got other 50+ women chortling and
soon we were all flat on our mats doing
what older girls do best: Sharing a laugh
about ourselves, on our own behalf.
We finished class and Betsy blurted:
“A latte! Who’s with me?”
Soon around a table filled with decadent desserts
(which we dutifully split, counting calories somewhat)
we decided: Stay with yoga class, stretch at night,
walk in pairs or groups, eat (almost) right.
But never skip dessert: Old age ain’t for sissies,
nor for grumps, nor frumps. Just real women,
having our say and doing it (cue Nelson Riddle):
“Oooooooour Waaaaaaaaaay!”
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, today’s prompt, “No one wants _____,” brought to mind an incident so funny, so ironic, so disgustingly true… and to think I volunteered to edit the copy for the yearbook and was turned down. The principal said, “I have professional secretaries to do that work.” Riiiiiiiight…
No One Wants (or likes) (or should depend on) SpellCheck
Savior of those who type in haste?
Harbinger of the lazy mind?
Neither.
It’s just SpellCheck, here to stay. Like the flu.
Example #25,286:
Parents participated in the yearbook
by writing personal notes to their graduates.
Mine included a line employing the vernacular:
“You’re gonna do great things!”
Fresh off the press, she ran all the way home
to show me an impressive array of signatures.
She had made lots of friends, and they all
noted she was “HOT!,” “Valedictorian,” and “Out!”
Turning to the parent’s dedications, she said,
“In the words of Al Jolson, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!'”
There, bearing my signature, was the side-splitting line:
“You’re gonad do great things.” GONAD??!!
SpellCheck, ShmellCheck.
LOVE IS ALIVE
They hold hands in private
They “kiss in a shadow”
They go separate ways for
family functions, from
weddings to Christmas.
They always stay home
each Thanksgiving, sharing
bountiful blessings with
friends, more their real
family than relatives
(except Aunt Sandy and
Uncle Lou, who always bring
sweet potatoes and hugs).
They’ve been beaten bloody
for daring to share a
peck on the cheek in the park.
They can tell you all about
Stonewall because they were
there. They met in Harvey’s
Castro District and clicked.
They are part of a generation
of gay men, closet doors open
only to their neighbors, friends.
To families, pastors, and former
classmates, they’re just two guys
who never found the right girl
and sharing a house saved money
in the long run.
Forty years of keeping a lid
on their love.
(For John and Tony, RIP)
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
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