Imaginary Garden With Real Toads presented me with a real challenge – a new form! Not my strong suit, but once I got going, I was on FIRE, baby! I’ve also placed this on the shelf of the Poetry Pantry at Poets United. Process notes below.
I.
She sings
for the lonely
whose martini glasses
teeter their moods to sighs of “then”
Choosing songs with good bones, timeless, misty
Watching hookups destined to fail
Witness to a rapt drunk
who cries; to whom
she sings
II.
The blur
of is/is not
falls upon her lightly
winds around her soul so tightly
She seeks solace in the bitter bottle
Battles blues with burn of bourbon
Diff’rent bottle, the script
would help her beat
the blur
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
PROCESS NOTES:
First, thematic: She Sings is from my days in piano bars, where I was the only performer. Some nights I found that the sights and emotions of my customers were more interesting than my music. The reference to “good bones” is, of course, from old houses in terms of reconstruction.
The Blur can be any sort of mental disorder, when the person chooses to self-medicate rather than follow the doctor’s plan. In this case, she has received her diagnosis, gotten her meds, and won’t “play along.” Most heavy drinkers I know don’t gave the insurance or don’t realize they need a psychiatrist; I’ve seen this lead to the worst ends possible, including several suicides… and my mother’s lifelong battle with booze.
AS TO THE FORM: A Rictameter is a “form with a shape.” The syllable count is 2-4-6-8-10-8-6-4-2.
A bit of history from the Real Toads site: Created in the early 1990s by two cousins, Jason D. Wilkins and Richard W. Lunsford, Jr., for a poetry contest that was held as a weekly practice of their self-invented order, The Brotherhood of the Amarantos Mystery. The order was inspired by the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society.
Artwork by Chelsea Bednar, used by permission of artist
In the Forests of Time
In the forests of time
grows a tree of great stature
and mythical powers
A statue and a garden and
a haven for those who crave
a little time
The Key of Life stands guard
ensuring time is not wasted
but hasty exits are seldom
Linger in this forest with me
as we examine the footprints
of the mysteries of life
Take a branch, any branch
Hunker down a spell
Lost in the growth of time
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Chelsea Bednar is an up-and-coming artist; she lent us use of this image for Margaret’s “Artistic Interpretation” prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. I was inspired by the clocks and the small ankh on the left side, known as the “key of life.” For more poets’ interpretations, click HERE, and for Chelsea’s website, click HERE. Also for dverse Open Mic Night. Peace to all, Amy
First off, I had the pleasure of chatting with Isadora Gruye (AKA Izy) for a featured interview at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, where I am now an Official, Honest-To-Goodness Real Toad! Izy, our resident correspondent, asked some candid questions, and I did not hold back. Hope you like the interview – CLICK HERE TO READ.
Meanwhile, at my other poetic home, Kim Nelson at Poets United wanted offerings about the universe. Here is mine. Peace, Amy
The Universe Within
Deep inside our outer skin
Underneath that layer, within
Past the muscle, stretching leather
and our arteries’ coursing tether
Deep within our very bones
a universe that cries and groans
Waters of our bodies’ form
Chemicals upset the norm
Feel the balance quiver, shake
Know that inner, dark earthquake
Hormones, drugs in all our meat
Stay within us, to compete
Weak, our natural defenses
Only diet recompenses
Choosing the organic way
Balance will once more hold sway
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The effect of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, also known as Factory Farms), where animals are captive and packed tightly together, means not only growth hormones but antibiotics in grocery store meats are partly stored and partly excreted into sewage. Meanwhile, Monsanto continues its stranglehold on the produce farms, expanding to a point where their air-sprayed delivery of (sometimes human waste) fertilizer is threatening to migrate onto organic farms. Your best bet? Buy local, organically grown produce – and support small, family-run farms.
Peace and health to all, Amy
Yes, it’s Mother’s Day on MY planet, too! Riley is deep into finals, doing so well in art school. If it were not for her going to full term, I might see this day as just a Sunday to miss Charlotte, my own mother, and mourn the two babies lost before Riley. Today, it’s a TWOFER!
So first up, Poets United’s Poetry Pantry wanted posts for moms. Second, Poetic Bloomings called for computer-generated lists of anagrams of our own name – and a poem written with ONLY those words that appeared on the list. Well, “Liberatore” just about blue-screened my computer, so it’s my birth name I used.
FOR POETS UNITED
Mama, Mommy, Mom
Mama,
tell me story ’bout
going to Sleepytown
and then we gonna
say prayers.
I love you, Mama.
Mommy,
can I join the Brownies?
Really?
Mommy,
can we go over my
spelling words?
Cool!
Mommy,
they want me to play
softball – maybe pitch.
Can you –
You’re gonna be an
assistant coach?
Wow, Mommy,
you are so busy
but you always have
time for me.
You rock!
Mom,
just a text for now,
I’m in the middle of finals,
but I’ll call you tomorrow.
Happy Mother’s Day,
dear mother, I love you
more than chocolate!
Now matter what name Riley called me,
I was always there for her.
And I always will be.
That’s the blessing of being a mother.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image from Amy’s collection, “Riley, one day old”
———————————–
FOR POETIC BLOOMINGS (anagram poem)
All in My Name
(Amy Louise Barlow)
I’m a bluesy limbo mouse
Alias, lousy bellow yowl
Bosomy ruby allure, yum
My morals: slim, wily, muley
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Prelude to a Kiss
First time I saw him,
I had that feeling.
We would either be
friends forever…
or we would be, forever.
Eyes so warm and
chocolate brown,
that stubble after a day
of fighting The Man
for social justice.
His voice so warm,
slightly scratchy from
day-long phone calls
to legislators over
rights for others.
He showed up on my
doorstep, after leaving
a red heart-shaped vinyl
single of Bobby Caldwell
and a little anonymous card.
Admitting he was the
“secret admirer,” he
carefully waited until Riley
disappeared into her room,
leaned in with a smile, and…
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
That was what sealed the deal. We both knew it was fate, from the UCC New Members’ Class to his thoughtful, appropriate dealings with my daughter to launching a praise band to flirting while we helped at the kids’ fundraising car wash. The teen girls who had crushes on him asked repeatedly if we were sister and brother. I asked why, and they said it just seemed like we had known each other forever. From the mouths of budding “babes”!
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the prompt was “prelude.” Couldn’t think of a sweeter introduction to fifteen years and counting. Also at my poetic place for conjuring, Poets United.
Peace, Amy
My Favorite Poem of All Time (Click above to hear it read by Amy)
Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads
Masses
By Carl Sandburg (1878–1967)
from his Chicago Poems, 1916
AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers, mothers lifting their children—these all I touched, and felt the solemn thrill of them.
And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor, patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars; innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble ruins of nations.
Last day of Poem a Day, or National Poetry Writing Month. It’s only fitting that I should “pass the torch,” in the form of a poem about our girl Riley, the artist. I’ve included one of her recent works, so PLEASE respect her copyright on this. For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, an “A to Z” write. Enjoy! Proud Mom Amy, who also took the picture years ago, when she was three.
Portrait of the Artist as a Little Girl
Artist, budding
Crayons, drawings,
echo from goodgone hours
I just kindled logical moppets’s
newfound outlet
(preference, quietude)
Riley, shading timber umber
Visioning whales,
xysts, yurts… zebras
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Painting by L.R. Weinberger © 2013, all rights reserved.
Used by permission of artist.
Yes, it’s true. I went back to Friday and answered ALL the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads prompts, to keep up with NaPoWriMo (I didn’t have access to a computer at the hotel, but I did write other poems daily). So here come Fireblossom Friday, Saturday’s International Frog Day (yeah, I know… but I chose a toad!), and Sunday’s call for poems inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (I did one about seeing the movie. Hey, it’s Gregory Peck and Robert Duvall as Boo Radley; what’s not to like?) In order, starting with Friday. Enjoy! And WHEW.
FIRST POEM, “inhabit an animal”
Black Kitty Tells All (for Carolyn Bowes, fellow Kitty Voicer)
Why do they hide me on Halloween?
I bin stuck in this room like they
shamed of me or sumpthin
Rest of tha time
I’m
lickin what’s stickin
Clawin up the couch
(got no claws but I
got helldamn hard knuckels)
Oops I did a swear
I tha only cat who LOVE
goin to the vet cuz Dr. Jane,
she luvin all over me
Pritty kitty, she say
Strokin my shiny sleek fur
(I clean it just for her)
Sometime I get a shot
but Dr. Jane is pritty, too
so I don’ mind (much)
At home I get my own treats
This is tha truest story of all tha
stories you ever gonna hear. Reddy?
Mommy say, “Open it!” and I
put my paw around tha handle of tha
Treats For Missy and Not For Gable Drawer
an I pull the drawer open cuz I
smarter than Gable.
But I share him some treats anyway.
I love bein a cat all day
Cept for Halloween, I herd Mommy say
kids do bad things to black kitties then
We don know why.
They must be bunch of bitchholes
Oops, did it agin sorry
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
image from Wikimedia Commons
Fireblossom, Shay, asked for a poem in which you inhabit the skin of another animal. Shay, I know this is not what you expected, but truth be told, Missy was a oner. I could write about her all day and not repeat a line. I used to do her “voice” all the time (my friend Carolyn and I used to do kitty voices at our survival job in NYC – people would plead for us to stop! We’d look at each other, shrink up our shoulders all goofy, and say, “Hee hee hee hee they think they so smart, buttparts!” or some such foolishness.
God, the salad days. I miss ‘em. But I still see Carolyn, her hubby Duncan, and their madly creative daughters, Lily and Fiona, in Chicago. And yes, they have cats, plus a very sweet dog (who is dumb, say the cats). Amy
SECOND POEM: The Toad one.
Tell it to the Marine Toads
Cake gig in Bermuda
Got my own ‘scootah’
(Don’t be a yokel,
talk like a local)
“Watch out for toads,”
warning of the road
Marine toads on street
Poisonous, not sweet
Also quite slow
And that, even though
the speed limit’s lower
the traffic is slower
Fall off your bike
and scrape your chin
Next day you’ll know
the pain you’re in
Even dead, they secrete
poison in their “meat”
Flat as flat, concrete
retains this sad treat
But ‘specially keep them
From dogs, who eat them
Behind the eyes,
their poison resides
and dog will wake
with bad belly ache
Toads on the road, dead
flattened by mopeds
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Bermuda “road toads” (called that because they are usually seen flattened on the road) were imported by some guy named Vesey, in hopes they would control the insects in HIS yard. Like they were gonna stay there. Like they would not multiply. But the genius of the Marine Toad’s anatomy is twofold: They can tolerate and breed in the brackish salty ponds around the island (no freshwater ponds there), and they secret a toxin behind their eyes as a method of self-defense. I flipped off my moped once, slid on the pavement, and got coral sand bits in my elbows and knees, plus some toad poison, which survives long after said toad is squashed. UGH. I do think they’re cute, though!
FINAL POEM, the Harper Lee prompt
Of Mockingbirds and Mayhem
My folks couldn’t afford a sitter
so they’d bundle us three in the back
of our Rambler, girls and blankets
and go to the drive-in, secure in the fact
that we would fall asleep during the
first feature, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Instead quietly we absorbed the movie,
Atticus shooting that rabid dog, the folks
in the balcony telling Scout, “Stand up…
Your father’s passing by.” I cried. Then
came the second feature, when we were
supposed to be sound asleep: Elmer Gantry
Between falling in love with Burt Lancaster,
seeing what cheesy preaching was like
(we were Episcopal, the “frozen chosen”)
And oh! the scenes with Shirley Jones in
her little slip and long hair. You might say
this was our first dirty movie, at our age.
Next day, Mom knows we’re all in our
room, which usually means mischief
She knocks on the door: “Come in, Elmer!”
We’re all in slips, sipping ginger ales out of
champagne glasses. “What on earth do you
think you’re doing?” asked She, horrified.
“We’re Slip Girls,” we replied, in unison.
“We sit around all day, waiting for Elmer.”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
True story. This upshot of this free verse piece was not inspired by “Mockingbird,” but if that movie had not been on the bill, if our parents hadn’t drunk all the babysitter money, if
“Mockingbird” had not been so wonderful that three girls (11, 8, and me, 5) actually stayed awake for it… we would never have learned how to dress up like prostitutes! Amy
NEXT:
A Brief Hello
Fruitless labor
Pitocin-dosed
forced contractions
Tears doubled
by knowing
what’s to come
The final push
The heartbreaking
silence
She holds the baby
who will never
suckle at her breast
Tiny boy, gone
before he arrived
An empty promise
Yet, she holds him
Swaddles him
Kisses him
Strokes him
Adores him
Names him
One photo
Mom and Gabriel
Her little angel
Goodbye
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Well, after the fun with Shakespeare yesterday, I fell into memories of my mom and her telling me about “the one that got away.” Times have changed since then: Even though my mother’s baby was about six months old, she never saw her second girl child. Susan at Imaginary Garden With Read Toads, where I’ve been posting daily since the first of April, asked for a Hello or Hello/Goodbye poem, so this allowed me to put my emotions into words. This will also appear at my poetic birthing center, Poets United.
Nowadays, they take a picture, they do name the baby, they have a funeral, a burial or internment. I think it’s a healthy part of the grieving process that will come no matter what, for the mother with swollen breasts and no baby to feed. I wish my mother could have met her baby girl. May all babies be born healthy – and wanted. Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 