Thoughts on censorship from a free speech advocate.
COLD AS A SWASTIKA
And when they had gathered all the books
Works of Jewish and other subversive writers
Thoughts of Einstein
Dark musings of playwright Bertoldt Brecht
(every time you hum “Mack the Knife,” remember him)
Lenin, Trotsky, Zola (politics)
From Sigmund Freud to Ernest Hemingway
Ironically, Jack London’s Arctic went into the pyre
And then the flames – everyone pulled out matches to participate in
a funeral worthy of a ship-bound Viking
The death of thousands of words
too dangerous to read
Thoughts polluting the minds of
pure-blooded, ‘real’ Germans
The chill pored over intellectuals
Jews and Christians alike
Frozen in time, these works
Alive elsewhere, but here during the Nazi regime
forbidden fruit
Icewater veins of torch-wielding youth
who, had they read the books
might have understood what was going wrong
Here, in America
that same icy atmosphere prevails
over “Harry Potter”
over “Huck Finn”
over “Catcher in the Rye”
We don’t burn ’em; we ban ’em
And the North wind keeps on blowing
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
VICIOUS CYCLE
First up and around in the house
Brewing coffee for The Beast
who will turn into my mother after her first cup
She stumbles down the hall
First Bel-Air in hand
I make my breakfast and my lunch
Even at seven, I knew this cycle
would never end
Keeping Mom happy enough to live with
In later years, after I had indulged, passively by
breathing others’ smoke in late-night jazz clubs, and
actively by drinking, snorting, and toking
I decided there was another path
and that this merry-go-round of “self-careless”
must have an exit
Today, smoke-free, drug-free, booze-free
I know she was caught on that carousel from Hell
and that choosing otherwise was possible
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
CIRCLES (You know, for kids*)
My sister brought it home
we all fought over it
until Dad wisely bought enough
for all three sisters to have their own
Three grade-schoolers shimmied, did the hula
Pint-sized Balinese dancers
practicing the ancient, seductive art
of the hula hoop
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Special kudos to whomever can name the movie reference first!
At Poetic Asides, we’re writing about the future. This is my dream:
FUTURE HEALTH CARE
Bandaids will heal
Surgeons won’t harm
Counselors will hear
taking to heart
all the hurt
hidden in the heads
of those whose health
depends on wholeness
Wholeness
Harmony
Here
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
BALL OF FIRE
She started off in Brooklyn
Ruby Stevens was her name
Petite, brown-eyed, brunette, lithe
She was destined for fame
First it was those small parts
The best friend or the maid
Then they saw beneath the sheen
there lay a bright-edged blade
Some years further down the road
Changed her style, her dress, her spiels
Stood tall to kiss Gary Cooper
Seven books beneath her heels
Throughout the years she played ’em all
from tough-as-nails jive dancer
to executive and old West rancher
to cute and sly romancer
But the role of hers I love the most
was never shown on screens:
Simply being Barbara Stanwyck
playing cards with the boys ‘tween scenes
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
FUTURE FUTURE BURNING BRIGHT
And she said, “Let there be no more war.”
She challenged leaders who had disagreements
to meet at round tables, with mediators
In the event of violence
the leaders themselves were escorted to a boxing ring
where they could keep their fight personal
and not send the young to die over what was essentially
hubris and hurt feelings
She was a wise leader who set the stage
for a new age of peace
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
TEACUP
Sad Lisa was a hard-headed woman
She was miles from nowhere
on the road to find out
where the father and son had gone
Had they boarded longer boats
Sailed into the night fog, into white
She brews tea for the tillerman and whispers
“But I might die tonight”
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
From Cat Stevens’ “Tea For The Tillerman”
We were asked to write a poem incorporating song titles from our favorite albums. Showing my age here, but…
AMERICAN BOOKENDS
Voices of old people in the park
Old friends haunted by a hazy shade of winter
At the zoo, Punky’s dilemma lingers
as Mrs. Robinson cries, “Save the life of my child!”
Like it or not,
we’re all fakin’ it in America
Our lives are bookends:
Beginnings and overs
but mostly
overs
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
from all-time fave album (vinyl) Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bookends”
We were prompted to write about a fork in the road; a change in direction; a crossroads, and the path taken – or not taken.
As usual, I took a different path… on the prompt! Enjoy a bit of whimsy. Amy
SILVER WHERE (Writer’s Island, Imagine)
Humid sultry unbearable walking-through-hot-water August midday
Trying to catch even the echo of a slight breeze
Wandering in the shade trees of Topanga Canyon
A glint
A glimmer of shiny something
half-hidden under leaves blown to the side of the road
during yesterday’s languidly moving air
A fork
Did someone toss it out the window with their takeout Chinese
forgetting that it came from a drawer in their home
(the ants feast on leftover Boiled Tripe and Things in a nearby discard0
Was there a fight and it was flung in a rage? From a moving car?
Or was it Julia Butterfly Hill, who takes environmentalism so seriously
she packs knife, fork, spoon, napkin, cup, and plate in her handbag
lest she be served on styrofoam with plastic utensils
Did her legendary self wander this road? Did the fork get tired of wandering?
Did it share tearful, tarnish-inducing goodbyes
with her fellow knife and spoon
before skinnying out a hole in the bottom of Julia’s bag?
The fork is with me today; I shine it often and smile at happenstance
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 