The Hourglass
“Like sand through the hourglass,”
so goes the daze of my life…
a hazy mix of meter and mantra:
Shy shy little girl;
emerges from shell
only if she’s to sing.
Singer takes to the road,
works with the rude,
hangs with the rowdy.
Faces the raid of AIDS
on the dearest friends,
the dearest men…
Mentors anxious daughter
from dread-the-world to
worldly wise vixen,
fixin’ to show them all,
to know them all,
to grow from within.
I am all in this timekeeper:
A grain of salt or truth falls,
skims the surface of my past.
Don’t care how much is left
to sift and flow, but the
bottom bits… these, I know.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Hourglass image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Day 22 of NaPoWriMo! PAD (Poem A Day) in April…
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads has Open Link Monday, so I will post there a wonderful prompt from my friends Walt and Marie Elena at Poetic Bloomings, “Time Flies.” When I thought of the hourglass, the next “tape” from the Music of My Life was the theme to an old soap opera, along with its catch phrase: “Like sands through the hourglass, so go the Days of Our Lives…” and I was off and running for my pencil.
Hope all had a good weekend. I know I’m enjoying a break in the Wisconsin snow-spits of the past few days. Peace, Amy
KELLY LUNES
Sad Girl
She lives in the past
Hindsight rules
Her head in the ‘coulds’
Tender Tummy
Gable scarfed cat food
in seconds
Wait, here comes… feed-back
Mornings With Mom
Gin bottles rinsed out
Coffee’s on
Time to wake her up
Tentative taps on
her closed door
Muffled confusion
Soon she will emerge
eyes squinting
hands, shaking and cold
Wrap them ‘round the mug
Warmth stops shakes
Caffeine soothes her pain
All Lunes © 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Three-quarters of the way through April’s Poem a Day for National Poetry Writing Month! Today, Grace (AKA Heaven) of Imaginary Garden With Real Toads asked for “lunes.” I chose the Kelly Lune form, an American haiku form based on syllables (one line of five, one line of three, last line of five; in a single stanza or multiples of same). The Collum Lune is based on number of words: Three, Five, Three; however, that form is for another day!
Thanks, Grace, for another lovely prompt from the Garden. Peace, Amy
Second poem of the day, I could not resist the dverse prompt about Spring, which means play, gardening, general silliness coming as a consequence of long Wisconsin winters, and… wordplay! Amy
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
SPRING AGAIN
Midwesterners aSPiRING to a quick thaw
as laSt year’s caPRIs cliNG to our memories
We know that SPRING is not far behind
and we’ll Soon bitch about sPiRitING away
A/C to ward off intenSe PeRspirING
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Slowly, Slowly (an ekphrastic poem: inspired by an image)
image: Blondine and the Tortoise, Virginia Frances Sterrett: Old French Fairy Tale
Slowly, Slowly
Dim, the forest
Hushed is the breeze
Stars sing o’er us
Quiet, the leaves
Travel slowly
on her smooth back
through the midnight
rambling, the track
Dodge all fauna,
trees of the ages
Carry me home
in dreamlike stages
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Kerry O’Connor granted me welcome release from events of the past week by gaving us several works by the same artist, Virginia Frances Sterrett, an American artist who died of tuberculosis at 30. The illustrations, so intricate and dreamy, were the antidote, for a while, anyway, to Boston and its nightmarish week. Who can imagine what this wildly talented woman could have produced, had she been granted a fuller lifetime?
I saw this image of the woman riding the tortoise and was thrown into a dream all my own. Who could see her work and not be entranced? To view more of her sumptuous illustrations, click here. Peace and prayers for the same, Amy
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, my April Poem A Day hangout, wanted poems about “melting,” but with an interesting twist: NO use of words like hot, cold, fire, or ice! So my original thought, “What a world! What a world…” a la the Wicked Witch was out the door. Ditto romantic heat. So I turned to… the news. Also at my hearth and home, Poets United.
Boston Meltdown
“We’re stuck in our house,
Diane,” she tells ABC News.
“Trying to figure out what’s
for dinner. My husband’s
defying the cops, going over
to the butcher shop… that guy’s
gonna make a mint, Mike’s
buying filet mignon.”
“And how do you feel
about this ordeal?” intones
Sawyer, safe in the studio.
“What ordeal? This is America,
and yeah, now we’re on lockdown.
My confidence in personal freedom
may be melting around the edges,
but now I kind of understand what
Afghanis go through every day.”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Based on an ABC News interview of a Cambridge, MA resident. I am glad they caught the second suspected bomber alive, and I hope he makes it to trial. Peace, and prayers to all in Boston and West Texas, Amy
Susie Clevenger at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, my April Poem-a-Day hangout, asked simply for poems of encouragement. Who deserves more encouragement than a brilliant, beautiful daughter as she prepares to graduate college? This is also at Poets United, a source of endless encouragement for me. Peace, Amy
For My Daughter As She Enters The Real World
Sure, there will be chaotic days,
storms, trials, and simple
misunderstandings.
In the wider world, you’ll see
fights, flights, frights.
(Some people are best at being their worst.)
All these will be moments in
your timeline; some will leave
scars – but those heal with time.
Others will transcend reality with
luminous grandeur, majesty.
Some moments will simply be.
Hold onto patience. Be kind
to fools, for they know not.
Most of all, be patient with yourself.
Be mindful in all you do.
Remember that, no matter what,
there is love even in
crevices of broken bones or
wedged in the cracks of
distortion’s thin places.
There is peace in silence.
There is beauty waiting for
you to bring it into being.
There is God in everything,
especially you.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
FIRST: Still hanging in the Garden for NaPoWriMo, where Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Aprille challenged us to write a “double dactyl,” which is best explained HERE. Not sure I managed form correctly; I would love any constructive criticism. This is also at Poets United on the right “crawl.” Finally, my prayers to anyone else out there with PTSD, because I don’t know about anyone else, but I was hyperventilating into a paper bag last night. Too much.
Pointless (double dactyl-ish)
Ever since Boston, the
TV preempt, I’ve been
breathing through paper bags,
tot’lly farklempt.
PTSD holds me
in its sad thrall, what’s the
point of my watching the
TV at all?
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
——————————–
SECOND: A free-verse rant about media in general… with specifics.
“Liking” Murrow on FaceBook
Yesterday, some hundred years ago,
we used newspapers for news flow
Radio then put us “In the Mood”
TV babysat us, totally glued
Roof antennae, CBS on the air
Dad adjusted via attic stair
Test patterns nightly, with droning tone
Cronkite and Murrow stood out… and alone
Then came the cable, a crapfest galore
With QVC “gotta-haves,” plus prime-time gore
Televangelists weeping, shouted HOMO
Then they begged money on bottom-crawl promo
All-night-long movies, MTV Michael
Later, the twenty-four hour faux news cycle
Now, the addiction is this Internet
Needn’t leave one’s snug abode to get
housewares, clothing, and even free porn
(Hide your identity, saves you from scorn)
Facebook, all social networking, damn!
Farmville, un-friending, broadcast nastygram
Huff Post huffs and puffs ‘bout the Right
By day, the Tea Party (dons hoods at night)
Hackers and hucksters, scams and teen passes
Internet: Opiate of the new masses
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The bottom of my email signature has a list of causes I support, along with a tag line: “Stop complaining; become part of the solution!” Seems like folks blow off steam on Facebook and via email forwards (some network blasts from Tea Partiers I know have been answered by me with calm, bullet-point questions and even suggestions… these are often answered with one line, like “You’re sadistic” or “Stop pushing your homosexual agenda at me.” (Ahem, who started the “dialog”?)
Manners are gone. Thing of the past. All that matters are angry birds, more cows for one’s farm (cyber-greed), and ranting online without doing much of anything other than spreading the word. Some is vitriolic, some is obscene, some is so darned funny I laugh my butt off and am immediately ashamed (as with Jim Carrey’s recent “Cold Dead Hands” song on a Hee-Haw set).
The Net is good for calls to action such as petitions, but the best action of all is LOG OFF AND MAKE A PHONE CALL. I have all my legislators’ local offices on speed-dial, plus the White House for my daily “Please stop the drones and bring our kids home” call. Most of the volunteers who staff those lines know me by now!
Log off. Pick up the phone. Give ‘em all hell, because they wheel and deal while you and I suffer and end up addicted to this interactive Oxycontin. Peace, Amy
Before I launch into the poem… It’s late at night, and I’m thinking about today’s horrific tragedy. I pray for the day when people won’t have to kill and maim others to “make a statement,” to draw attention to their cause, or whatever it is. The fact that today is also “tax day” may prove relevant, I don’t know. My prayers to all in Boston, to all who have lost someone or whose loved one is in hospital. My prayers that another entire class of people aren’t stigmatized because the perpetrator suffers from a particular mental disorder. My prayers for the soul of our nation as we continue to install puppet figureheads and then turn around a drop bombs on them when they don’t do our bidding. As we drop drones on innocents to “get” one “bad guy.” I guess I’m just praying for our world tonight.
I wrote this poem today while Lex and I lolled in a cafe, our favorite day-off pastime – this was written hours before Boston. Hope you can enjoy it despite what’s going on. This is for Poetic Bloomings’ prompt, Rain. Peace, Amy
Half a Rainstorm is Better Than None (Bermuda, 1987)
Favorite haunt in Hamilton.
A day-off treat, strong coffee
dense shortbread, and
small talk with a friend.
Sky darkens, pavement is
wet across the way.
We emerge, fully
expecting immersion.
Yet we’re on the “sunny side of the street.”
Rain spatters cobblestones in
a literal line drawn down the lane.
A meteorological DMZ.
Island storms are that specific.
I pass my hand into the storm and
pull it out again; palm to fingers, drenched.
It dries in the sun as we ponder miracles.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I still remember that day. I had never seen the “edge of the storm,” nor did I know the concept existed. I’m not even sure Riley believes me! (“Whacky mom stories,” like meeting Bob Dylan and realizing he has zero charisma… or that my right ankle is thick because of an unfortunate intersection of tequila, Quaaludes, and hopscotch.)
Skipping Rope at the Threshold
As often as we might come here
We are never skeptical of the weather
Even a slight shower will not control
our bold urge to unwind en la parque
I am the first of eight; I control the sign to
go or stay. Mama is home; the ninth hermano
almost here. At the threshold of womanhood,
I wield my sword of power gracefully.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Painting by Joaquin Sorolla, Public Domain
Day 14 of NaPoWriMo finds me once again in the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, where Hedgewitch suggested an ekphrastic piece based on the artwork Joaquin Sorolla y Batista, a Spanish painter whose works emphasized the natural light of his homeland and the people who dwelt under that light.
Also for the Sunday Whirl, where I managed to get the dozen words in two stanzas. Whew! Thanks, Brenda, for the prompt. Also for the Poetry Pantry at Poets United, where the weather’s always fine.
Sharp Little Pencil 