Gertrude House
Alice and the door. Wood of hallway mouth. Come and go, go there to other.
Greet days of tokens that go, away. Type the write of it. Desk the way to thought of chair and desk, Alice and hand.
Oak. Oak the way to Alice. Fro and for.
Chocolate Stein
Chocolate is. Color brindle barn, silent the waft.
Smile chocolate of kitchen, orange stain the bowl.
The bowl brindle; chocolate fine and feeling, cat nips at cream for dream.
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
In the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, we are conjuring Gertrude Stein. Does it all make a bit of sense now? I sort of hope not! Amy
Cacophony © 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil (Click to enlarge, lots of detail)
My Wednesday night, up until 4 am, still fritterminded. Shared with ABC Wednesday. Miles to go before I sleep…or even shlep! Amy
Absinthe Minded
With the grace and delicacy
of a tea ceremony
Wedge-lipped crystal
with bulbous bottom
aswirl with the
green fairy muse of
Wilde and vanGogh
and so many others
A magnificent silver spoon
to pour water over
a sugar cube, to stir
the emerald drowse
Sipped silent/slowly
Connoisseurs’ craving
Slip into halcyon heaven
Linger and luxuriate
Imagine
Create
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse Poets’ Pub, the third anniversary of a vital, vibrant voice in our community. Hope they have the proper equipment behind the bar to pour a round of these! Peace to all, and thanks to Brian, Claudia, and the bartenders for continuing this wonderful tradition. Amy
Dance With Me
Possessed of a prominent nose
Sloe eyes and sensuous smile
Regina, dancing muse
Real-deal belly dancing, repleat
with silver – snaking around
slender arms, on her ankles
shandangling about her svelte,
supple, flexible waist and hips
Her ultimate adornment was
her boa, whose name time has
swallowed, but whose image is
indelible; the trust, the sure
partnership, he lovingly
encircled her neck and arms,
living jewelry and friend
Slow their duet, slithering
in a Roma-tinged tango,
she so proud of her partner
The two cast a potent spell
Regina often allowed me to
help deliver him back to the
safety of his Indian woven
basket, his genie bottle
He graced my arms with
a cuddle. Warm skin, still
damp with her sweat from
his beloved perch, Regina.
Years later, still dancing,
Regina contracted that
slow-eating cancer, yet retained
her smile, her love of life
Now Regina has crossed over
to the side where pain is no more
Snakes in the hereafter are lining up
for the chance of just one dance
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Regina Star was just that – a queen and a celestial being. She worked with us at the fabled Great American Food & Beverage Company. I have combined several instances in her life to create this portrait. Having love snakes all my life, I was humbled by Regina’s trust that I carry Jack’s basket around at the GAFB 30th anniversary. Cancer had ravaged her body, and yet she danced with the same grace and self-assurance, Jack extending his head past her hand to view the audience. A whirling force of nature, our Regina. May she be at peace.
Oh, and one word to the “eeeew, snakes are slimy” crowd: The next time you are near a boa constrictor (preferably one recently fed!), if you aren’t game to have it be on your body, at least caress it. The smooth skin, the warmth, the decidedly non-slimy nature of snakes… trust me, you’ll dig it!
Written for the Poets United prompt for poems in praise of snakes. Peace, Amy
Summertime 60s
Back in the 60s
Not the Beatles 60s and
before Carnaby Street
and Twiggy and Verushka
The Roger Miller 60s
Peter, Paul, and Mary
Nat “King” Cole
Peggy Lee still made the charts
Radio was on all day
Mom was calmer then
Her heroes had not
been gunned down yet
“Trailer for sale or rent”
Most songs, we’d sing along
Drinking coffee and
listening for the mailman
“Is that all there is?”
Yep. And it was enough
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
dverse Poets asked for the theme about each poet’s hisTORY. I poked along on this one and missed the chance to link this poem there, but do visit dverse and read some amazing poets!
Sure, there were difficult aspects to my childhood. Many of you can relate to parts of THAT story. But this felt right for the prompt, and it’s good sometimes to accentuate the positive. Peace, Amy
Folks, as often happens with my precarious mental health circumstances, I must take a week off blogging. I’m sorry I haven’t been posting regularly, and I decided it’s poetic fatigue… need to go out and catch a star, but first must rest my mind.
Thanks, y’all, for hanging in with me through thick and thin! I’ll sharpen my pencil in the next few days, but for now, I bid you peace. Amy
WHEN WE WERE YOUNG THINGS
When we were angels
swimming in the stars,
we were but boy toys
hanging in the bars
When we were divas
dressed in les Diors,
we were with shlumps who
didn’t open doors
(Bridge)
Looking glass, tell me
When did the view change
Why not forever young
Rather than cue change
When we were sirens
singing from the cliffs
we were a jumble of
“whens” and “whys” and “ifs”
(Bridge)
Looking glass, tell me
When did the view change
Why not forever young
Rather than cue change
When we were young things
slinking down the street
we’d ne’er imagine
that ourselves we’d meet
Now we were older
greyer each season
Now we are bolder
We’ve found our reason
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were asked, at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, to write a song… a chanson, a lieder, anything that might be set to music. This is a slow waltz with a pause after the bridge (at “cue change”). Songwriting has long been my business, so I guess I’d better pen the tune now! Also “in the margins” at my poetic concert hall, Poets United. Peace, Amy
Diva (little cat feet)
Cats change the landscape of plans.
When orphaned Diva poked her head
out of hiding, a loving thread
filtered from her heart to ours.
She sniffs shoes, jumps at
her own shadow, eats bread crumbs
off the kitchen floor. She defies
gravity, leaping from carpet
to couch back with ease at 11 years.
She salts us with the reality that
we are parents again.
Her soft breath, her purr,
sends me into blissout mode.
We all sense the sea change
and we love it.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (see Wordle HERE); also in the margins at Poets United and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. We adopted Diva this week, and she’s a vocal little old girl whose “daddy” died suddenly… she’s grieving, plus she was scared by two of the man’s daughter’s more aggressive cats. Still a bit hand shy, she will climb up on my lap (when she’s ready) and purr… sounds of the heart. Peace, Amy
Moongazing
Moon
Silver
sliver of
fascination
Her slow turn tango
across a black dance floor
No partner, save the sun’s light
No audience, save one wistful
woman gazing heavenward, wishing
this divine song would play on forever
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons; permissions granted by photographer, Dori
Hedgewitch at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads offered up a form challenge: the etheree. It’s a form I can handle… one syllable, two syllables… on up to ten. You can even take ten, go back to nine, and down to one to for a reverse or double etheree (ethefour?!).
The extra challenge was to make it ethereal as well. To me, there is nothing as ethereal as the moon in all her phases, whether obscured by wisps of clouds or viewed on a stark, clear night. Hope you enjoyed mine! For others, click HERE. Also linked to Poets’ United’s Poetry Pantry, where we all come out to play with words and thoughts. Peace, Amy
Are We Not Meat Puppets?
They say jump
We don’t ask why; we say, “How high?”
They say pay
We don’t question “Evil Axis”; we ante up the taxes
When did we become a numbskull nation of
Stepford meat puppets? Coughing up money to
support the Machine that pukes out bullets and drones,
that rains down death on the defenseless and our kids,
that defends “democracy” like it’s alive and well
in this incestuous hellhole of a republic that should be
called the Citizens United Shambles of Anglophiles.
Now a 200-year old experiment gone horribly wrong
reveals the abysmal truth: We were set up to fail.
Ben Franklin knew it; we blew it according to his
prediction that the predilection of the predator rich
would supplant rights of the “lesser born.”
American royalty (the Bushes, the Kochs, the WalMartons),
bred and more often inbred into simpering, faded Xeroxes
of hypocrisy, invading Congress (or buying a senator or two,
plus a Supreme, a real bargain these days)
They co-opt the middle class covertly
Privatizing public schools
(Susan B. Anthony reels in her grave)
Privatizing health care
(Big Pharma wanks the banks)
Busting unions and demonizing the rank and file
(Mother Jones rattles her bones)
Abusing immigrants
(State of Liberty or Torch Your Ass, Amigo?)
Espousing the Trickle-Down Theory
(Paul Ryan, please pass the toilet paper,
or your budget – they’re the same thing)
Citing voter fraud and discouraging minority voters
(we NEED ID because four cases were proved)
Continuing worst practices in banks
(FDR was a socialist; rich people deserve bonuses)
With help from some bastard pastors who live
in mansions, drive limos (or are driven in same),
who wouldn’t give Jesus a dime or the time of day
if they passed Him on the street (Private police
will handle homeless, and they won’t have any
Big Government oversight in how they handle it)
With help from us, the pathetic apathetic…
they strain our brains and even our mercy through
media propaganda and corporate corpulence
And we fall for it, fall into it, ground up into
walking, talking, FOX-spewing meat puppets
And as Monsanto and their ilk skip off to another
Koch Brothers cruise to the mutilated, prostituted
Caribbean, we say
Have a nice day and
Why doesn’t somebody do something about them and
Kim Kardashian is really getting fat and
Honey Boo-Boo is on, microwave some popcorn and
Wow, this (genetically engineered, dye-infused,
growth hormone-laden, e coli infected) beef is
too expensive, but fire up the grill and pass me
a cold one or two or twelve
Where is our indignation?
Is it American Idol or American Idle,
cause this sure ain’t American Idyll
NRA, FOX, ALEC: know your acronymns and
dismantle their poisonous, licentious, homophobic,
woman-hating, war-profiteering, racist, divisive
shitmongering, unconstitutional, IMMORAL machinery
By any nonviolent means necessary
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
So Kerry at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads wanted a rant, in remembrance of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Since this angry state of mind is so utterly foreign to me, I did my best to act like a political activist and member of the Christian Left. Hope I succeeded. (wink)
Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 