Written for the “Envision” prompt at Writer’s Island, my Saturday hangout. Peace, Amy
HEAVENVISION
Unthinkably vast
Earthly limitations banished
Swirling channels of gold
Soft, dry, enveloping
The comforting experience of a universe
you never recognized, yet never left
The essence of your spirit
breaks through an eggshell membrane
Penetrating a place that is not a place
but a pool, ocean, sea, sky
constellation of love and nothing more
Picture love’s embrace
in a place called Eternity
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
HEALTHY FOOD, HEALTHY LIFE (for We Write Poems)
The prompt was about cooking, but I got stuck on ingredients! Amy
HEALTHY FOOD, HEALTHY LIFE
Don’t eat Red Dye Number Two
Skip the yellow, green and blue
Sure, your kid wants blue-tongue bliss
But there’s poison in its kiss
Wheat flour that has been enriched
Grips your colon like a stitch
Keep hands off the soda, too
Even diet’s bad, it’s true
No plastic in the microwave
Lest you crave an early grave
Phthalates leach into your food
That cannot be any good
Lest you think I’m paranoid
Thinking all food births typhoid
Rest assured, I’m very healthy
Even though we’re hardly wealthy
Whole foods do taste great, you know
Sure, they cost some extra dough
But the outcome’s worth the cost
Fat Cats bought control – we lost
Skip the fructose, shun the dyes
Don’t believe the corporate lies
Lots of crap is on those shelves
Read the labels. Protect yourselves.
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sure to tick off the White Separatists and the Black Separatists and… go ahead, give me your best shot in the comments section! Just remember, if you burn a cross on my lawn, my husband is a pastor, so you’ll look really dumb. Amy
NATURAL BRONZE
In Sunday School we were taught
subtle suburban racism
“Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in his sight”
Less a melting pot than a box of crayons
Let’s lay it down:
We’re all shades of brown.
Humans began in one place
Call it Garden of Eden
Cradle of Civilization
Where the Aliens Landed and Changed Stuff
It was Africa, and we all know it
Some roamed to the north and
their penance was loss of melanin
Climate, diet, you can’t deny it
Beige, buff, tan, taupe
Copper, bronze, sienna
Native Americans are not colored henna
Asians aren’t yellow
(nor are they “inscrutable,” so stop saying that)
Africans aren’t black, but ink is
And this page is white.
If we were made in God’s image,
why do we pick creation apart with prejudice?
Questioning God… the eternal flaw, the ever-present sin
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The prompt at We Write Poems was Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Bleak but possible. Amy
AND SO IT ENDS
Yesterday
the flash filled the evening sky
blinding us at first
A fireball, unearthly and
something told me to hold my breath as long as I could
Then came strong hot winds from the North
and with it, ash, falling slower than snow
suspended in deathly calm air
the stillness, the dreamlike atmosphere
Today we’re still waiting for Mom and Dad to
come home from work
The generator is working but we’ll need fuel
Tommy said Let’s see what’s up in town
People were stealing stuff from the store
No one was at the checkout so we came away with
cans of fruit and Spaghettios, juice, milk
some eggs that weren’t smashed in the carton
The ice cream melted overnight
We drank it out of the carton
and chugged warm soda trudging back home
through sifting ash in the middle of the street
Tomorrow I pray I wake up
and it will all be a bad dream
But Tommy and Sandy are counting on me
til our folks get home
Sandy cried tonight because SpongeBob wasn’t on TV
(nothing was on TV, I checked)
Tommy hauls out board games we haven’t played
since we got the X-Box
We roll the dice
and wait
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
While I don’t view abortion protesters per se, I am pro-choice for the simple reason that rich women will have and have always had access to safe, doctor-performed abortions. Why should the Karadashian sisters be able to have an abortion when they have an OOPS!, while a girl who was hit on by daddy, or a woman worn down by dealing with the eight kids she already has, and bound by her religion to not insist her husband wear a condom, have less? Opponents of abortion should also put themselves in the shoes of those poor sisters. Amy
ABORTION PROTESTER (WWP, walk in the shoes of enemies)
Man and women together in mutual embrace
create life within the woman’s womb
At first it looks like tissue, merely a cyst
but so quickly it assumes human form
How can a woman who created in love
vacuum away this baby like so much flotsam?
How can a man stand by with no opinion
as this precious fruit is torn ruthlessly from the vine?
A doctor who swears to “first, do no harm”
is murdering an innocent child
and, offering no counseling to the mother,
calmly points her toward the desk so she can pay
Small wonder I’m out here with my sign
and a fake fetus in a jar, here in the hot sun
I’ll scream til this profitable industry is ended
I don’t believe in the death penalty, but then again…
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Well, I had two people on my mind this week. I pray for them both, as Jesus told us to pray for our enemies. My prayer life is very busy – for the first, I pray that the true spirit of Islam enter his soul; for the second, I pray that he find his way past the pretense that he’s a model Christian. When wars are fought, God – Allah, Jehovah, Adonai, Mother and Father – can only weep.
TWO MEN, SO DIFFERENT, SO ALIKE (WWP Prompt)
I was called by God
to seek revenge for what they did to us
Gathering my forces
Forging alliances as I was able
(usually with cash aplenty)
Together we blew up symbols of
their greed, their avarice, their hubris
And now they whittle away what resources they have left
trying to make sure we don’t hit them the same way again.
In this way, I have led our people to triumph.
I am Osama bin Laden
I was called by God
to seek revenge for what they did to us
Gathering my forces
Forging alliances with one major country and a few smaller ones
(and borrowing the funds from the Chinese)
Through no-bid contracts and undercover torture, we fought
their conspiracy, their evil, their hubris
And now they are running, hiding, cunning
We will never catch them on their home turf.
By handing the quagmire over to the next president, I retired, smug.
I am George W. Bush
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Dorothy Miller Richardson’s “Pointed Roofs” was presented to us at http://www.wavepoetry.com/erasures/ by Angie at We Write Poems, where we answer a weekly prompt on Thursdays. The process is fascinating; wavepoetry gives you the chance to click and unclick different words in a block of text until you come up with what is essentially your own poem, but always giving credit to the source text. Mine is entitled, “Long Lace Faces” and is rather serious.
I attempted to write mine out and to save it in different formats; having failed at that, here is the link so you can see the finished product in its original form. When you’re done reading, have at my second erasure, also listed under “more poems,” (a funny one: “Mooning Has Its Consequences,” based on Aristophanes’ “Clouds.”
Then try one yourself! All I’m saying is, words are fun to play with, and the Internet has provided, through sites like wavepoetry.com, opportunities to stretch oneself.
http://www.wavepoetry.com/erasures/erasures.php?poemid=2445
Sharp Little Pencil 