Singer, Poet, Activist
Sings of love, peace, acceptance
Writes of mental illness, protest, LGBT alliance
(plus incest, sexual abuse and other taboos)
Acts to make the second shed its shame and
be embraced by the first
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Trifecta, we were asked to write about “three things in one,” in exactly 33 words. Also at my poetic all-in-one site, Poets United (proud to be a member!). Peace, Amy
And So, He Goes
(for our traveling friend, George)
Can there be
any better place
than just around the bend?
Goodbye once again
His car crammed with stuff,
fairly brimming with
all the absolute necessities
plus a few luxuries- an old quilt
to nestle in, dreamgazing
Sojourning toward Someday
Will it end, this road,
this exquisite journey?
Or will he fall
Touch down softly
where peace and love are waiting?
Where he feels
alive, vital at last
At present, tense – but future…
Don’t give up on
these outrageous dreams
of belonging somewhere as unique as you are
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Fall, Absolute, Nestle), and posted at The Poetry Pantry, Poets United.
Our friend George (buddy since high school) has been traveling for so long, it’s almost a game, like Where’s Waldo? Where in the World is George Sandiego? He’s on the type of quest we all dream of making, once we’re of an age and a mindset to understand the meaning of the Taj Mahal while standing in front of it. He’s taking his time, keeping in touch, and Lex and I pray for him always, as he figures out this grand scheme, this labyrinth of possibility we blithely refer to as Life.
These poems are dedicated to the women of Afghanistan, and I thank Kenia at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads for introducing us to the landai, the form of which is explained below in notes, along with other information. This is also on the sidebar at Poets United and at ABC Wednesday, where we are on the letter “J.” This is my favorite J word. Peace, Amy
JUSTICE for women in oppressive regimes
How can ‘women’s spirits hold up half the sky’*
when their earthbound selves swelter under the burqa
Women nurture their baby boys at swollen breasts
only to watch them grow up and oppress their mothers
I am ten paces behind my husband, I make out his shape through net
I am ten generations behind my husband – this burqa, my ceiling
She wanted only to read, write, work figures, create
Acid was tossed in my little girl’s face for this grave sin
Mullah in the madrassa, my brother’s fate in his hands
Mother in the market, her fate already decided
How can I find peace with Americans on my street
when uniforms and guns serve as their faces?
The Prophet (PBUH)** elevated women to rights and inheritance
Ayatollahs strip us of those rights and instead force upon us burqas
On a day I will never live to see, my daughter will shed her burqa,
renounce the veil, leave this town, go to university, be free
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Kenia encouraged cooperation and playing off one another’s landai. This line, an old Chinese proverb, was used in a landai by Sherry Blue Sky – view her collection HERE.
** “Peace Be Upon Him,” traditionally said after invoking the name of either “The Prophet” or “The Prophet Mohammed.”
NOTES: According to Kenia at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads:
“The word landai means “short, poisonous snake” in Pashto. The poems are (two lines and) collective — no single person writes a landai; a woman repeats one, shares one. It is hers and not hers. Although men do recite them, almost all are cast in the voices of women.”
I had only to think of a movie I saw yesterday, Kandahar (2001). A woman who had escaped Afghanistan years before seeks to return, as her sister has written she plans to take her own life. Based on the story of Nelofer Pazira, who stars in the movie, I was struck by how the burqas had festive colors, since the burqa itself stands as a disgrace upon the leaders of conservative nations. It is a socioeconomic stance, country by country, as to what women are allowed to wear, whether they may attend school… whether they can stay alive when they fall down and accidentally show an ankle. Another movie about the lives of women in brutal regimes, also based on a true story – tough to watch but important to witness: The Stoning of Soraya M.
Incantations in Jazz
Back in The Day
jam sessions were serious affairs
Jazz hinged on trust, ears, collaboration, and rotgut
Cat would stay
Play for no pay
‘Til break of day
Strayhorn charts in clouds of smoke or
off-the-top-of -your head bebop
Slammin duels or cozy duets
Soubrettes mimicked Ella, got laid
Torchettes dug deeper, got respect
Getz and Jobim brought bossa to the scene
Miles straight up in any incantation
Trane proclaiming A Love Supreme
but his lover was the needle, the ride
Recording sessions went straight to vinyl
Benny, Lionel, Slam – his high-pitched, mellow voice
doubling his bass lines, so fine, class, no sass
Basie showed Sinatra how to swing
(before the “ring-a-ding-ding”)
All live, driving, vibrant, vital
Women with ample curves strung like pearls
Billie moaning, Ella owning the scat, Bessie howling
Flat-out fine, no whine about the need for pay
Getting laid, getting high, getting by
by the grace of jazz, flowing like honey or
slappin you upside the head like a pissed-off date
He’d make love to her later
after the session cooled off, horns packed up.
Then everyone got down to real business
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “I”; Three Word Wednesday (Need, Hinge, Lethal); the open call at Real Toads, AND Trifecta’s word, “Ample.” Also at the place where I’m always jammin, Poets United.
This is the soil from which I spring. Call it a dangerous environment for a young girl, but I was right at home with the old cats, the ones who gave Art Tatum driving lessons (he was blind)… the ones who ruined their voices on bathtub gin and took up the drums to keep bread on the table. Imagine my luck, a little white girl who could sing blues, accepted by musicians of all colors and lifestyles! Peace, Amy
TODAY (a shadorma)
It’s today
Came upon me fast
Heard a bird
Opened my eyes
Surprise! Before I blink twice
It’s over
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden with Real Toads (doncha love that name?), the suggestion was to reach into your jar of short scribbles, pick out a slip (or the back of an envelope, or a cocktail napkin, or the back of a church announcement!), and expand into a poem – surprise, a shadorma from one who generally eschews form. Peace, Amy
OCD (Overwhelming Crucial Demands)
Rituals ruled his life
Tapping the front window four times when passing
Adjusting his chair twice after sitting down
Most noticeable at table, where his mother
would fret over her son’s obsession
Each bit chewed exactly 18 times
and finishing first the meat, then potatoes, and finally
vegetables – no portion touching the next
as his dish was divided into three compartments
Followed by a milk in his blue glass
swallowed in five long, perfectly even gulps
Napkin folded into a perfect triangle threading it through
a silver ring placed just so on the table
Brooks arranged first by genre, then by author,
then by color – spines aligned in precise rows
He measure boundaries for his daily routine;
I understand the gravity of crack avoided
One thousand, two hundred and eighty-nine
steps to the psychiatrist’s office downtown.
Unfortunately, he never opened the door,
lacking a Kleenex to ward off germs
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings, “I Understand” was the prompt. Yeah, ya think?
Kids are cruel, and peers pick out students like this boy to bully, an easy target. While OCD is a minor part of my chemical imbalance, it loomed large when I was younger. One example: If I misspelled a word in English class, I first was compelled to complete writing it in full, and then, with a calm sweep, I would erase the entire word… but finishing it was critical. There were fingerprints by the exit to our bedroom from my habitual taps, and grazing a fence with a stick, if I missed a picket, it meant going back and starting the whole fence again. I get this kid because I was this kid, but the symptoms abated when manic depression started to take over. One pain in the ass replaced by another is small comfort.
Notice these traits and show understanding to the “different ones,” those who may not be diagnosed but whose disorders are easily recognizable. Good example, if you see a “twirler” who eventually singles out one hair to pluck, be aware. It’s called trichotillomania and can be managed NOT by drugs, but by behavior modification.
Peace and health – physical and mental, Amy
Black Sheep (a tale of three sisters)
Our mother, civil rights fighter
Big sister
Rebellious, slutty teen
Now Fundamentalist Rightie
Middle sister
Former activist
Now Tea Party
Little sister
Feminist, liberal Christian social activist
Two drank Kool-Aid
I’m an orphan
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Trifecta, the challenge was to use the “Rule of Three,” in exactly 33 words. Hope my sisters do not read this, but, hey, if they do, it’s true! The number three was always tricky, as Mom (social justice applying everywhere but in our home) often pitted us against each other.
Triangulation, thy name is Charlotte. Love you, Mom, but really…! Peace to all, Amy
SPACE CADET (for my fellow bloggrrrls)
Can’t forget
Space Cadet
who flew through the halls
of our school.
Weird freak cool
radical with balls.
Never was
one to buzz;
never came to dance.
Hall pass? No…
Hell, she’d snow
teachers in a trance
Knew her well?
Who could tell?
She skipped town too soon
to New York
to uncork.
Then, who knows? Rangoon?
Blogging now,
caught hers, wow.
Some shit flies so fast.
Sticks to those
who once chose
to call her “outcast.”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads… “Rebel Girl,” and for Trifecta’s “Radical.” This is dedicated with love and respect to all my bloggrrrls… who embrace life with passion, courage, truth, and the kind of joie de vive not afforded those with limited imaginations or poor opportunities. Some choose their Inner Emily, but many are tuned into that take-no-prisoners style.
NOTE: This is a cantilever, a rare moment when I embraced a form for the post. Ironic, since my poems of rebellion are almost always free verse! Peace, Amy
Comes the Revolution…
(For Riley)
Comes the revolution,
I want you in my trench.
Comes the day we say “No more!”
I want you at my side.
I schooled you on our rights;
you’re steeped in the shameful history
of slavery, of suffrage, of civil rights denied,
of how it’s always someone else’s turn
to be not white enough, not male enough,
not straight enough, not American enough;
to be trod upon, to be spat upon
especially via metaphor and the airwaves.
You, a Jew raised in the U.C.C.
(Upfront, Confrontational Christians!)
In your blood, remnants of the Holocaust;
in your training, social justice for all.
That pedigree makes for speaking truth to power,
for passion, for radical, unconditional love.
This revolution will be
one of words, not weapons
Only the undereducated run out of words,
falling back on hate speech and violence.
Though their sound bytes nip at our heels,
we will not run. We will turn and debate.
Comes the revolution, our trench will be
filled with books, journals, and understanding.
So keep sharp your mind, daughter mine
because the revolution is at our door:
The War on Women – our rights,
our bodies, our station, our future.
What we do now is “not for ourselves alone,”
but for all females in generations to come.
We claim our right as citizens of the world
to be who we are, love who we may, and
figure out for our selves what is best
when put to the test of The Pink Stick Follies.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings, Revolution – and for dverse Open Mic Night. Also “in the margin” on Poets United. Also for Trifecta: Radical.
The quote “Not For Ourselves Alone” is usually attributed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but its first usage came from a man, Marcus Tullius Cicero: “Non nobis solum nati sumus. (Not for ourselves alone are we born.)”
NOTE: When Riley was a senior in high school, I wrote a piece for her yearbook, as did many parents. Mine included the phrase, “Comes the revolution, I want you in my trench.” Since then, she has come out, moved West, entered an art institute, and continues to blossom. Happy birthday, beba.
It seems quite ironic that we are indeed on the verge of an actual revolution, and the stakes could not be higher. We are lucky to have so many enlightened men alongside us in the fight. Let’s hope that the “White is Right and Women Should Shut the Hell Up” militias disband… due to pressure from their mothers!
HOOPLA!
In silly, obtrusive hats
they banter on the floor of
the convention, knowing
the intention and the rules.
Their duty, to nominate
their candidate… yet, they’re
only in their element
acting like damned fools.
No matter which party,
they’re mostly foolhardy.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Banter, Duty, Element) and ABC Wednesday (H). Also at the convention of brilliant poets (who let me write there, too!): Poets United.
PROCESS NOTES: Yes, I watched BOTH the Republican and Democratic conventions, as much as I could, some online. The stupid behavior and outlandish dress displayed by members of both parties was truly a turnoff, considering the solemn duty they are to perform.
I hope all voters will take time to watch the speeches (now that they are so easily accessed online) and visit the various fact-checking sites to evaluate, to discern… not simply go for the usual line. However you vote, GET TO THE POLLS! Otherwise, I really don’t want to hear your complaints. Get active, get American, get real. Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 