First, continued apology for not answering your comments on recent posts. Doing my best to catch up, so don’t give up on me, OK? This is a dark take on the Sunday Whirl prompt; wordle is listed below. Thanks, and peace, Amy
The Ward and Me
Shadowy business, this
Nestled in the crook of a couch
for another shrink rap
My balance, shaky at best
This ward filled with walking open sores
Memories ooze from their psychic wounds
The runoff seeps up the floorboards
leaving smudgy, evil footprints
Traces of ghosts linger, follow us inmates:
Xeroxed Marleys, hovering phantoms whispering
what happened back when
back then
Grandma Blanche was a frequent flier,
restless for answers to
bizarre questions that made Grandpa cringe
and then commit her
They’d strap her down
They’d scorched her tortured brain
A sick science fair
I know that old game, how they
sucked the fun out of her
so I play along
I’m afraid but don’t let it show
I whistle a happy tune
This will all be over soon
I think
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl: Straps, Balance, Sores, Ghosts, Smudgy, Bizarre, Scorched, Shadowy, Restless, Nestled, Whistle, Know, Seeps. And, as always, to be found in the right column of my poetic kith and kin, Poets United.
Coming Back to Life
In a busy café,
a couple – hard not to notice
the incision showing through her
clinically shorn hair.
Her husband is her guide
as they clear their table.
“Garbage in there.” In go paper napkins,
delicately, like presents under a Christmas tree.
“Recyclables here. Which ones are those?”
She points to a plastic cup and a Coke can.
Her husband nods in appreciation
of her returning awareness.
“Dishes go in this bin.” She picks up a spoon
and looks to him for reassurance.
Then a coffee mug, and her husband chimes in,
“Don’t forget the fork.”
Suddenly peals of laughter erupt
straight from her gut, and he asks,
“What’s so funny?” She gasps,
“YOU SAID ‘FORK’!!!”
The whole place cracks up, joining her
in her first joke since brain surgery.
And, as tears stream down his cheeks,
he starts chortling too.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Written for Sunday Scribblings; the prompt was “Wit.” Also posted at my nearest and dearest, Poets United.
Crystalline
The perks of being a backup singer
were the free drugs supplied
by folks who’d tend to linger
after the show, back in the hotel room
Finest weed from finest seed
Took her right back to the womb
Times change, from rage to new rage
Thai to cocaine, then rock in a pipe
First hit flew her to an infinite stage
The saddest moment she’d ever know
was a bright shining synapse pinging
Gogogogogogogogogogo
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore
Bobbi’s Mom
After the weeping wears down,
the fog of loss and regret
After the last interview (because
inquiring minds want to know)
After the blur of has-been celebrities
trading her confidential secrets for
visions of their own names in print
After her life has been ransacked,
laid out in pieces like a tacky
Hollywood lawn sale, as customers
lay claim to a bit of her charms
We will remember the girl who had to
grow up too soon, the bronzed beauty
with the punk-ass husband who put a KICK ME sticker
on her back and showed her his belt
and helped her to addiction she couldn’t kick
We will honor the icon – but let’s not forget
she was a daughter, a mother, and a fragile soul
No one can outrun an Achilles’ heel
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Sunday Whirl: Belt, Fog, Sticker, Interview, Weeping, Visions, Blur, Ransacked, Confidential, Customer, Charms, Trade.
Rest in Peace, Whitney. You will never be forgotten.
Memories of His Dad
Antique, the shaving brush atop his side of our bathroom counter.
Memories of his father come forth,
back when Dad used soap and an old-fashioned razor,
how the blade grazed his flesh with precision.
Later, his father lost that control
as Lou’s legacy sent him flailing
Hard for a WWII vet, an engineer, a man of science,
to revert to unexpected infancy, utter dependence.
The badger-hair brush reminds his son
of happier times, watching Dad pull up his nose
to stop that mustache from gaining ground.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday: Razor, Flesh, Control; also at Poets United.
Image courtesy of http://www.tjrakowski.com
WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
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Two different views of the same woman – one from across the room, one within. A true story, based on experiences with a multiracial social justice group. Eventually, we came to an understanding… Amy
Dissonance: The Races, We Run
See that white lady
She so smug, so set
Grew up in suburbs
Daddy workin a steady job
Mom at home, waiting for kids from school
See that white lady
She grew up with privilege
No latchkey, no projects, no “free lunch” line
She told me they had a pool out back with sharks in it
What the hell she talkin
See the same white lady, staring in the mirror
See her take all those prescription drugs
to keep it together, 50 years after the fact
After the house on the cul de sac
Watch her heaving sobs in the therapist’s office
‘Cause some nights, the swimming ended and
The Shark grew lungs and feet and
a heavy, stumbling footfall
He’d open her bedroom door
and feast
Peel back the siding of the placid ‘burbs
Tread carefully the manicured lawns
Pick up a spyglass, examine the nasty underbelly
Throw open the drapes at midnight
Breathe deep – the stench of incest and vermouth
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Also for ABC Wednesday (brought to you by the letter “D”) and, as always, Poets United.
Remember the book I helped edit? IT’S HERE! Read this poem and I dare you to tell me you don’t want to read this guy’s story. Fred Weintraub tells it like it is, like it was. He admits he can be a schmuck, but as for me, he’s a MENSCH – a real human being who knows how to laugh at himself, and when. The most powerful man in Hollywood you never heard of. So if you want to get a great slant on the 50s and 60s and beyond, follow this LINK to get your e- or hard copy of Bruce Lee, Woodstock & Me. (He even mentioned my “sharp little pencil” in the acknowledgments!) Thanks to my old friend David Fields for hooking me up to an incredible project. Peace, Amy
FRED WEINTRAUB will never rest –
in peace or otherwise
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
He’s kickin like Bruce Lee
Full of chutzpah and
ready to tell the tale
Tasted the Bitter End
Made the brick wall a comedy club icon
Helped nunchucks whirl their way
into the American vernacular
as well as Bruce Lee
Woody, Cosby, Pryor
Peter, Paul & Mary
Wandered the world
Saw a Cuban jail and
a lot of women
Played piano in a cathouse
Anything to keep away from
the safety of a picket fence
and an ordinary life
If not for Fred
No footage of feel-good hippies
in Woodstock mud
No historical record of the
defining, deafening cry of the 60s
Vulnerable to sentimentality
Seriously blessed by serendipity
and occasionally a real pain in the ass
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
And he’s telling all…
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Season’s Grumblings
With each passing year, diminishing cheer:
I feel less festive at Christmastime.
Perhaps it’s the sprawl of malls,
gaudy displays of “Holiday Cheer,”
a politically correct wink,
as though I’m supposed to know they
really mean “Merry Christmas,” but
corporate beliefs leave them no choice.
No voices ringing with carols, but a veritable
barrel of secular songs: Motown, Nashville, or worse still,
Burl Ives (that rumpled fool who sang like a choir boy
during the Red Scare) offering “Yuletide cheer.”
Or Maurice “I’m an entertainer, even when the audience
is all Nazis” Chevalier pretending he’s fun and nice.
Santa’s real elves are exploited Chinese child labor.
Neighbor, don’t listen to me. I’ve little glee.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Three Word Wednesday challenged us with Belief, Festive, and Rumple. Ha! I took up the challenge and delivered this exquisite poetic case of heartburn. What a Grinch! For those who are believers, have yourselves a Merry Christmas, and remember whose birthday it is, teach your children. And if you’re a secular Christmas person, hey, pay no neve-rmind to me, except for the part about the Chinese kids. Peace, Amy
The Door to Deceitful Delights
The door to deceitful delights
she discovered within as she was
plied with that first fizzy fun punch
Pried open wider by a toke of particularly prime pot
Finally flung open with the abandon possessed by
twenty-something Immortals
This same door had dwelt
in her mother and others long passed
Smothering, smoldering smoke and
various places to place opium
by hookah or
by whodahthunkit
Twenty-something was wise
She grew tired of wasting time
Time to grow up
We can’t all be Peter Pan
or Tinkerbell, even
She shoved her full weight against the door
Forced it shut and with it all the shit, shove-stored
She knows she could open it again
on a whim or over a heartbreak
But she willingly tossed the key
into a pool of other bad memories
where she chooses not to swim
knowing she’d only sink like a stone
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse Open Mike Night (check out the links!) and my poetic hearth and home, Poets United.
Sharp Little Pencil 