He sits in comfort, here in the crammed confines
of the sweaty summer subway
As they say in Brooklyn, “It ain’t the heat, it’s the humanity.”
The ticket is a token, but the price is man-spreading white guys
in fine shoes, slick hair, and no car
So lame, these day-trading types
Maybe if he were eight months pregnant (as I am),
he would understand the pull of gravity, that need for a relatively clean bathroom… relatively soon
But he occupies the space of two people
Until I whisper, “Give me your seat, or I swear I will
pee on your shoes so hard the tassels will shrink”
Thus, my discomfort is avenged
© 2021 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl, and damn! I used almost all the words! It feels like winning.
And thanks to my Luka for their contribution, by way of residence in my womb at that moment
THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM
Going on ten p.m.
Ready to relax… reflect… boot down
Don’t forget tomorrow’s appointment,
which means:
Get up early (but I won’t sleep)
Take a shower (so I don’t reek)
But first, tonight, I must
clean up kitchen mess from dinner:
Meats, sweets, culinary treats
Counter’s a bloodbath of
beet juice, nibs, rice shards
Now to bed – first, cat fed
Now to bed – wait, take med
Now to bed – oops, brush teeth
Now to bed – shit, no sheets!
Now to bed – yoga first
(muscles stretch and tension burst)
NOW to bed – meditation
Plug in phone, pull up station
Guarantees a good night’s sleep
(takes two hours and three repeats)
Soothing voices, never boring
Long night’s journey into snoring
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, K is for kerfuffle.
We (I and my bipolar) are currently in manic phase. I downloaded the free “Insight Timer” phone app, and they have everything from soothing music to calm voices talking me through various relaxations. Anyone with insomnia, GET THIS APP!
Unfortunately, when the manic is in sway, I can get through the whole thing with my body buzzingly relaxed and happy, but my mind is still running circles and twisting about. So yeah… my therapist says I may have ADD, but frankly, the bipolar, PTSD, and OCD are quite enough, thank you. Amy
DISSOCIATION
They say I have brain imbalance
I say I have special talents
When attention starts to wander,
what I see, I never squander
Though it seems I’ve gone away
when my glassy eyes hold sway,
I’m right here! Yet, for a minute,
seems like hours I’ve spent within it
Parallel to conscious thought,
there lies treasure – can’t be bought
Worlds of wonder close at hand
when I stray to Neverland
They call it ‘dissociation’
I call it a free vacation
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Tuesday Platform.
My therapist noticed – Lex, too – that I sometimes drift off. I call it, “over there,” just to the right of my conscious being. This was a hallmark of my school years, and it’s probably why I graduated by the skin of my teeth. Now I can enjoy it, because I know what it is and no longer fear it. Don’t worry – I never do it while driving! Peace, Amy
All That Glitters
A friendly, energetic employee
sits me down before my complimentary workout
She’s motivated
to sign me up for $29.99 a month
plus a “one-time $149 contract fee”
plus an annual $5 “enhancement fee”
(I asked. It helps pay for “cleaning and maintenance.”)
Rows of rowing and
shiny – if plastic – elliptical mills whirring
Designed to tighten sculpt lift renew energize
in classes or
in earbudded solitude
We’re sweatin to the Gold-ies
This gym, a starship enterprise
Squeaky clean, pristine
None of the primal potpourri afforded me
by my local community center gym
After pedaling pushing pumping up a sweat
I do due diligence in the changing room
A woman, quietly cleaning the bathroom
She, a little English
I, zero Ukranian
We talk with our hands and eyes
She mops up their leavings
Swiffers their sweat, and most importantly,
is not allowed to take tips
She is paid eight bucks an hour
Always on call, seven days a week
So who’s really sweating
at Gold’s Gym?
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, The Tuesday Platform
It’s true. I went to Gold’s Gym with the shameless intention of getting one free workout, because our local community center is closed this week for an intensive cleaning! Madison’s Goodman Center pays their people a living wage, has no fancy frills, and houses a small – but totally adequate – workout room. The Center also has a senior café; an afterschool and summer program; a food pantry; a splash park and playground in summer; and a loyal, friendly staff.
When we visit a hotel or a restaurant, I always talk to the gutbucket staff. Those holding mops and bus trays. I ask about unions, about pay, about how well they are treated. And Lex and I consume services accordingly.
Stay human, folks. Amy
She’s a Classic
She’s a classic
antique, silver
Smooth lines
Smart mouth
Knows the score
Gives what-for
Loves change
Changes for no one
but herself
Reads, learns
Sees, remembers
Shares with abandon
Abandons no one
Wants for nothing
Her needs are easy
Her burden is light
Her way is forward
She never looks back
except, perhaps, to smile
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the second poem for April PAD. (yesterday’s prompt was “Horse,” and I had nothing. Not even a pony.) The prompt was “The Classics,” but I had another little “dickens” in mind…
Amy
CLOSE BEHIND
I can feel her
close behind
and catching up
There’s a bounce to her step
I can hear it
Fwoop, fwoop, fwoop
Matching my stride
She’s gaining on me
I turn to confront her –
and she’s gone! Turn again to
resume my journey and
fwoop, fwoop, fwoop
How foolish am I
It’s only this:
my ass is following me
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
There’s no fool like an old fool (except a fool who is young at heart, but aging). Put on some weight over the winter; now, with every step, I’m twerking while I’m working.
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the first poem, from the prompt “Fool,” for April PAD! Taking up the challenge to compose a poem each day this month. I hope I start getting inspiration from somewhere else besides my BUTT tomorrow…but I am not making any guarantees.
Peace, Amy
LOST WORD
I awoke, musing
(first thoughts of morning, always sharpest)
that President Obama’s endorsement
of Debbie Wasserman Schultz was
an implied endorsement of Hillary Clinton
(yes, I actually wake up thinking this stuff)
I then planned a tweet
to that effect
In my mind, typing abbreviated text
(abbrev’d txt)
“Prez hypes DWS; tacet hype of HRC
Didn’t even close the quotes
Stopped short
“tacet”
Is it “tacit”? No, doesn’t look right
Is there a tacet/tacit usage comparison?
Should I google it?
Is “tacit” a word
or a typo?
Or is “tacet” wrong?
At that moment
This very morning, in my bed
I realized, “This is how it can start, with
a lost word.”
Hear this, cruel Fates:
I don’t lose words
I use words
to great effect
(Effect? Affect?
Naw, I’m screwin’ with ya now!)
Poets, writers, artists
write and paint their truth
Individual as brushstrokes
If my truth were
that mental facility would begin to leak
To fallfunnel
an hourglass
emptied
s
l
o
w
l
y
I watched the first grain of sand slip
today
and documented it here
Now, that would be ironic
That precision of loss
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Connie Peters and I play Words With Friends. She asked this week whether I would be doing the April Poem-A-Day challenge. At that time, I told her that depression would probably get the best of me, so NO. After this experience, and her musing that “sometimes, it can help,” I have decided to take the plunge after all.
Thanks, Connie! See, we never know when the little words of encouragement will stick. Friends rock.
Alzheimer’s does not run in my family. Just the usual shot livers, lung cancer, and other addiction-related stuff that is preventable when you know what’s up. My real fear is that, since my mom lived a long time WITH fallout from addication, I will have to be put down like an old horse when I am 128. Find a quiet corner of the garden, you know…
For ABC Wednesday, the letter is L… for loss/lost. Amy
PLASTER CRACKS
One of those unexpected glances
A happenstance mirror
The old lady looking back at me
with curves in places
like her face
and craggly bits about the eyes
Who is this woman? She
looks off her feed, or depressed
No, I replied, it’s just you, ya old bag
Your fault for smiling so much
For choosing to live with your depression
rather than finding a way out
And so I settle into almost sixty years old
I let gravity, cruel mistress, have
her way with me
It used to be boobs and the
skin over my knees becoming
a canopy for bone beneath
Now it’s the more obvious sites
The ones one cannot hide under
clothing, beneath makeup
It’s the glorious blooming of
A New Amy, crone delighting
in the fact that she can still.
make new things, such as wrinkles
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
It’s true. That little sag under my jaw, the crows’ feet that have morphed into Crow Valleys. It’s happening, and I can either get pissed at God (which seems quite useless, and I owe God so much) or dive in, feet first. I choose the dive.
This is for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Play It Again, Toads. One of my poet buddies, Fireblossom, had a previous prompt called, “The Crack in Everything,” and we have written to that prompt. Thanks, Shay, for always being an inspiration! Love, Amy
PATRON SAINT OF JAZZ
She lived in the corner
in the record rack
Her face, flat on an album cover
but spin that vinyl and ooooh
She sang about life
About the sad truth that
black lives didn’t always matter
Especially in the south in the 30s
Her voice gave witness
to a woman’s weary world
Her curls pressed, ironed
Her veins spiraled in junk
Her attitude, defiant
Her circumstance,
forced compliant
by companies and creeps
No one could deny her
power, the flower behind
one ear; the blossom
gardenia, always
The voice got harsher
as did the years, but
Billie was the patron saint
of one little abused white girl
who understood without knowing
there was anything else to be
but to be a musician, or
anything else to do but sing the blues
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Decades before cultural appropriation was a thing, I was a white girl singing blues and jazz (from the age of around 6). I copied no one, truly; probably had more Judy Garland in me than anything. But the feeling, yes. I got that. Grew up around it, heard so many singers and musicians, both black and Anglo, who encouraged me. They never made a distinction about my race, they just said, “Sing it, baby.” The depth of feeling was natural for me, it ran through me like my own blood.
Having said that, I DO “get” cultural appropriation and am PROUD I never thought to copy any of Billie Holiday’s stuff. Too many female singers of all ethnicities adopted the gardenia behind one ear; I always thought it terribly corny and a bit disrespectful.
For Poets United, the Midweek Motif is Patron Saints.
Peace and a spin on the turntable, Amy
GREEDY BASTARD
He was always greedy
Wanting more buildings with his name
emblazoned in new neon
Then, when customers
found flaws and defaulted or fled
he got in bed with the State to
deflate his debt. Bankruptcy,
more than financial, substantial
penalties were paid by ordinary Joes,
like schmoes, we sat by and watched
as he snatched victory from the
jaws of the Street
When his first wife was no longer
trophyworthy, he moved on
And again
And again
Like a rich white kid tiring of a toy
Or a car
he traded his women in
for newer models
Sometimes foreign, sometimes domestic
(sometimes actual models)
All with solid chassis and
that new-wife smell
When he tired of Atlantic City
he moved on to TV
the natural place for such as he
Bombastic, plastic,
spasmodic delivery
When he got fired from TV
he moved on
to the real big deal
And now his greed dictates
that we should grant him
Gold toilets in the White House
Do we really need
to cater to his greed?
© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Hey, I have not posted anything about Tr*mp (whose name is a swear in our house, like, “Go tr*mp yourself”). Sometimes it’s good to vent.
No image, because ewwwwww. Tagged under “Jerks” for ABC Wednesday.
Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 