Iowa
In the stifling summer of ‘34
when drought hit Iowa hard
like brick on bone
my grandma Blanche packed up the family
for another Midnight Shhhhh! Move
(before the landlord came for the rent)
This time they hitched a ride
out of Council Bluffs to Lake Manawah
and settled in a summer cottage
They squatted there year-round
as did other families, who had
their own stories of landlords
Blanche fed every man who rode the rails
They put up signs for the next hobos:
A cat (“kind lady”) and two shovels (“work here”)
She felt that every person deserved food, medicine, and
shelter (today, this is called Socialism) and that
giving the men a task helped build their egos
So Dorney swept the steps and Gibb fed the chickens
(“borrowed” by Blanche on their way out of town)
while another collected eggs and so on. They never
stayed long. Blanche later insisted the term “Hobo”
was not slander but, as in H.L. Mencken’s writings,
it meant “homeward bound.” Indeed, some went “home”
right in their back room, too sick, too weary to go on.
Blanche knew the doctor, got them morphine, helped them
sip broth. She also washed them, like family, before burial.
When I asked my mom about those days, it began a years-long,
booze-fed, continuing conversation about poverty, the
Dust Bowl, generosity, and the human spirit. Blanche, before her
in those days, was Ma Joad incarnate, with a touch of
Woody Guthrie. “But Mom,” I said, “you got to live in a
cottage by a lake. Where did Grandpa get that kind of money?”
My mother Charlotte, Blanche’s only daughter,
gazed out the back window and smiled ruefully: “Child, it
may have been a lake, but there was no water in it back then.”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings, the prompt is apropos: Drought. The Great Depression coincided with one of the worst droughts in American history. Bad agricultural practices were largely to blame, and it seems all we’ve learned is how to bio-engineer Frankenseeds to forestall the inevitable. Indigenous Americans knew how to plant and harvest; how to move south in the colder months, giving the land a chance to renew; and how to treat the earth with respect.
NOTE: Ma Joad is one of the main characters in John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes Of Wrath. The movie starred Henry Fonda as Tom, the eldest son, and Jane Darwell as Ma. Her embodiment of that character, Ma’s feistiness and compassion, won her an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress of 1940.
I like to think of Blanche in those days as part Ma Joad, part Steinbeck. Although she never wrote a book, Blanche was a voracious reader and self-taught scholar. That’s how she knew about Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and the like. She went to her grave despising Ayn Rand’s opinion that “altruism is evil” and her novel, The Fountainhead, which espoused that every person should look after themselves: “If we hadn’t lived near the tracks, who would have fed them? All the other houses had hobo signs like rectangles with a dot in the middle, ‘Dangerous.’ People thought I was nuts to try to feed these men. I guess that’s why I got committed eventually – Bill thought so too. But what’s crazy about taking care of each other in hard times?”
I’m proud to be Blanche Laughlin’s granddaughter. This is also at my poetic lake with water IN IT, Poets United.
Following a three-day “manic panic” and the PTSD (Post-Trampoline Stupid Depression!) that followed, I’m back on an even keel. Even tried a new form today, which is the first poem, and answered a Wednesday prompt within 24 hours! Now that’s what I call progress. Peace, Amy
My Blue Plastic Nurse
Compartments are labeled, one for each day
I’m keeping track of keeping track of me
Pill boxes can be fun if you like play
Varied colors bring mental harmony
Blue, turquoise, tangerine, help color me
Curved, tubular, round; all help shape my days
Some score scarred, others numbered clinically
Count it wrong and I’ll be in stupor gaze
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse, the amazing Gemma (an Aussie whose blog is Greyscale Territory)schooled us on the Huitan – basic structure being eight lines of eight or ten syllables, with rhyme scheme A B A B B C B C. A much more instructive post can be found HERE AT DVERSE. My first time with the form, and I must say, it was more fun than I thought! As always, this is also at the blessedly formless, shapeless void of pure poetic love, Poets United. But wait, there’s more!
Greenwich Village, Late 60s
The pulse of Bleecker
measured in bongo bangs
In the Beat poets’ Howls
and comic harangues
That mellow café scene
One coffee took all night
Pressure built over Nam
The Man made a fight
Scene took on substance
as poets and folkies
took on the rhythm
of Guthrie’s Oakies
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday, Beat, Pressure, Substance. Also at my poetic café, Poets United. Coffee’s always on and the conversation is fabulous! Peace, Amy
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (haiku)
Face like a barn door
Heart of a lioness; she
craved justice for all
Franklin got the press
But her work on behalf of
others is legend
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “E,” and for my poetic haven, Poets United.
Eleanor Roosevelt was, in my opinion, the greatest First Lady in history. Not only was she an invaluable advisor to her husband, but she constantly fought for human rights, for women’s causes… and she did so knowing that she was neither “comely” nor possessing of any powers other than her own personal tenacity. She loved Nancy Hickock (AKA “Hick”) for years, and although her embarrassed family attempted to destroy any evidence of that relationship, many letters survived. Franklin, likewise, had extramarital affairs; however, they remained a couple committed to the common good.
Eleanor is a hero of mine. A class act, a diplomat, she could talk to haves and have-nots with equal comfort and lucidity. She was, as they used to say, “a game girl,” ready for anything. God rest her soul. Peace, Amy
BLISSFUL BALM
O, the wondrous healing balm
comforting confectionery consolation
Whether this wellspring of pain
came from a broken romance
a broken promise
or a broken nail
All is made whole and well
by the soothing, sensual touch
of chocolate upon one’s tongue
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, a little something sweet. No ranting today…
Also at the poetic bakery where I needn’t press my nose against the glass, but simply walk in, Poets United… proud to be a member! Peace, Amy
Broken Angel
(based on “Angel,” my poem for Poetic Bloomings)
Back then
Back when Christmas was fun
And it was Santa’s birthday again
We had a tree
Same one every year,
Balsam fir, short needles,
dressed in pure red
A huge Mrs. Claus,
a “mama tree”
Cherry lights strung to perfection
Middle sis righting every
incorrectly placed bulb ‘til it was
PERRRRRfect
Then the satinsheen red ornaments
(a hand-me-down from Aunt Pris,
the holiday window dresser at Fowler’s)
So fragile, handled like dynamite
lest one explode, one wrong move
revealing shards of thin glossy insides
We had no angel atop our tree, though
we three made many in Sunday school
and in every single grade –
back when Christmas was not a whisper
but a SHOUT ON COMMAND: HE IS BORN!
and to hell with the handful of Jews in the hallways
(some wishing they had trees and stockings too)
But angels? Our folks’d have to pick
one of our three… they’d have no trinity
And white would spoil the symmetry
Our angel, last year’s broken one
when a single slip lopped the top off
Stuck on top of the tree, inverted
Blood rushing to its head
crowned by needly thorns
“Lllight it up, plllug it in, Bud!
Girllls, outen the llllights!” slurred Mom
And there it stood
flooding the living room with
every gimmering shade of red
From the street, our tree was
a blazing hearth streaming
light onto snow that glowed
vaguely pink in its wake
“Oh, look,” said a neighbor
as folks strolled admiring
one another’s holiday handiwork,
“The Red Light District,
the Barlows’ cat house is once again
open for business!”
* * * * * * * * * *
That bulb on top
the bloodied, upside-down talisAngel of
all the other 360-some days of the year
Behind perfect suburban clapboard exterior
the heartbeat of interior fear
of inferiority comples flexing
my first scrawny girlish muscles that were
destined to beat up only myself
We’ve grown
Our kids’ angels, our new objects d’nativite
With grown-up arms, we
beat back the Barlow Bordello curse
But Christmas is still sad for me
Those shimmering red bulbs
Cherry ambulance lights on rescue that never came
A cry for help but
Dad’s hand was clamped over my mouth
A broken angel.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This experience is based solely on my own experience and should not reflect on my siblings in any way other than before the asterisks (but middle sis WAS very meticulous about lighting, and I know she’d admit that, ha ha).
I wrote “Angel,” the part up to the “snowflake” asterisks, for Poetic Bloomings (childhood memories), but Sunday Scribblings wanted a poem about a Talisman, and this version goes deeper into the meaning of that ‘little red angel’ on our tree. Also for dverse Poets Open Mic on Tuesday, and as always, stuck in the stocking at Poets United, my “every day is a holiday” safe space. Peace, Amy
Parking Lot
The Golden Arches aglow tonight
Aglow every night as
teens collect, connect
Giggles, yo mama jokes
A squeal, somebody got tickled
Waitin’ for Bruno to get off shift
Scent of sensamilla
snakes through blades of my fan
I peek out; their shadows pass the joint around
Outside, they pack into someone’s car
squeal out of the lot in a cloud of exhaust
leaving a trickle of oil and a trail of fun
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This is for dverse, “Meeting the Bar.” Claudia asked us to write as though we were Impressionists, with quick brush strokes and hints of lighting. My inspiration was the early work of Edward Hopper, who is not known as an impressionist but had a brief foray into the style with such works as “Soir Bleu.” He is simply my favorite artist, and the humanity of his work informs my eavesdropping on this group of kids last night. Also at my poetic canvas, Poets United!
Birdcage Liner of the TV Screen
Staying at a friend’s house, I switch on the TV. No cable, but
anything will do as I sip my Black Irish heartstrong brew.
My heart sinks… The Evening News. I listen, trying to look past
fluorescent teeth and blonde helmet hair, at the redwhiteblue flag pins, de riguere.
What kind of News Hell is this?
Gone, the anointed news anchor who
actually decided which stories were aired.
No more fastball pitches in interviews, only slow, sliding grapefruits,
and once they get to the nitty-gritty comes: “We’ll have to leave it there.”
Edward R. Murrow dug to the marrow.
Walter Cronkite, trustworthy and true, integrity personified.
The current crop of dopes read from teleprompters
and think they know the story. Or they’re ‘embedded’ (in bed)
with troops and get to wear fatigues and EV-rything!
Unsinkable twinkies at the helm, naifs who
answered casting calls for Wide-Awake 6 am hosts,
all mammary glands on deck. And in the evening,
pitch-perfect choirboys or gruff cuff-linked old smokies
navigate the stern schedule of the 24-hour news cycle.
Rail all we want; Murdoch is Captain of the Stinking Ship.
FOX is the purveyor of FCC-approved misinformation,
but networks are in this way worst of all:
Infotainment silk-and-velvet-clad bobbleheads who
smile as they read you the story of a deadly car crash.
Treat politicians like celebrities and fawn over them.
Never ask a question that cannot be answered by
a sound byte, scripted before the interview started.
William Randolph Hearst is grinning in his yellow grave.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (wordle below, thanks Brenda!) and also at my poetic port of call, Poets United.
No matter what I post, I always make a point of mentioning my poetic hearth, or home, or launching pad, or cafe… I am proud to be a member of Poets United, and all my poems are backtracked there to a constantly updating feed. Today, they had a specific prompt, and so I was thrilled to write something just for them.
HeLa
Blacks abused, a story
that seems to have no end.
Obscure beginning for HeLa.
One woman’s cancer cells were
scraped away as she lay dying, more
from the treatment than the cancer itself.
Johns Hopkins implanted radioactive rods in
her womb until all inside her turned bomb-black.
The cells taken from her uterus, much like a skin shed
in death, were put on the market and migrated from lab
to lab until they were all over the world. But no one told
her family, nor did they give them any of the money… quite
a considerable amount, not to mention the intellectual property.
Henrietta Laks was used, over and over, by whites, for profit.
First, in life, by cruel poverty, segregation, inability to
care for her own, to see to her kids’ well-being, to their
education; one daughter was institutionalized, as she had
married her first cousin, like folks did back in those
days. Her cervical cancer was detected far too late;
she died so young. Then, after her death, her
“immortal cells,” truly a medical miracle,
proliferated without anyone’s say-so,
and only by chance did her daughter
find out Mom had been to outer
space, survived bomb blasts,
outlasted most of her kin,
but only bits of Mom.
Black folks always
feared Johns
Hopkins.
Now
they
know
why.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Poets United’s Think Tank Thursday asked us to write a poem based on a book. Henrietta Lacks is the subject of a book I recently read, called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. On the cover is a picture of a vibrant, fun-loving girl, dressed up to go out on the town. A few short years later, she was dead of cervical cancer… but scientists “harvested” her cells, which seemed to have immortality; whatever they did to them, “HeLa cells” (they used the first two letters of first and last names of all patients from whom they harvested cells, and all without family permission or compensation) survived and proved to be hearty. Of course, members of the scientific “brain trust” also perpetrated other atrocities on Black Americans, including the infamous Tuskeegee sterilization of thousands of fertile men and women, in hopes of narrowing the race to “controllable” numbers.
Henrietta’s daughter, Deborah, eventually teamed with the book’s author, Rebecca Skloot, a white writer who gained Deborah’s trust. Together they embarked on a journey back in time, tracing the history of both the woman Henrietta and the HeLa strain of cervical cells. Read it – horrifying and fascinating history. For more on Henrietta, and to view the picture mentioned in the poem, click HERE. Peace, Amy
Rocket Ship To The Sun
“Last call for boarding the
Sharp Little Special Rocket Ship to the Sun!”
(now that’s what I call a red-eye flight)
(They’re all showing up because
it’s free, no matter the destination
That’s how dense they are, accepting my invite)
“Your pilot, George W. Bush (in a codpiece)
Co-pilot, Marcus Bachmann (he’s submissive)
Flight attendants, catering to your every whim:
“Britney Spears, Michelle Bachmann, that preacher who
keeps predicting the end of the world” (I just want to help)
“All the Wiggles (sorry, kids, it has to be done)
“Your mechanic, Ted Nugent (resume too long, see below)
Your super-secret incognito flight security man
will be Tom Selleck, replacing Charleton Heston
“The guys who checked you all in but will skip
the actual flight: Scooter, Glenn, Rush and Dick”
(should get those last two too close, it’s Dick Cheney)
“As for the passengers: Neo-Nazis, skinheads,
bullies, homophobes (too bad Anita Bryant didn’t
stick around for this one, she would have loved it),
“Christians who think anyone who’s not ‘their brand’
is banned from heaven, from America, and of course
from their church of undesignated affiliation…
It’s a mighty big ship, so there’s room for everyone.
No need for safety precautions; just sit back, sip
a martini, and enjoy the music, which will be
428 hours of Slim Whitman, plus an in-flight movie,
First Class’ Tom Cruise in “Rock of Ages” (barf bags provided)
After that, your final destination will be a relief
Enjoy your flight!
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Trifecta, who wanted us to use the world “flight” in a poem, as in: a trip made by or in an airplane or spacecraft; a scheduled airplane trip. Also at my poetic launching pad, Poets United.
My dear friend Jason Ward introduced me to the concept of planning his “rocket ship to the sun.” His roster changes from time to time, but mine is startlingly similar.
NOTE ON TED NUGENT: He’s a darling of the Right now because he offers his ranch to Iraq/Afghanistan veterans, mostly amputees. He gives them assault weapons and lets them shoot animals he’s imported for their killing pleasure. (Mind you, many of them have PTSD and this is the last thing they should be doing… if Ted really cared, he’d pay for their counseling and psych meds.) Yet the same TED NUGENT, when it was his turn to serve in Vietnam, smeared himself with feces and pretended to be mentally ill at the draft board. Anyone who avoided Vietnam, hooray, it was another stupid White Guys Know How To Rule Everyone war… but to come back years later and claim solidarity with people who actually served and were wounded? Please.
If you don’t see your favorite purveyor of hate and would like to have them added to the passenger list, feel free to mention them in your comments. I will review the list before issuing final invitations. (When Pres. Bush heard the pretzels were free and we’d have N.A. beer, he said, “Hell, yeah, when do we take off?”)
Yeah, I’m going to catch heck for this one, but somebody’s gotta say it. Amy
After a weekend of seeing our brilliant youth and their adult mentors in the church’s summer musical, then ministering on Sunday morning with the Edge Band, you’d think I’d be all tuckered out. In truth, it’s those busy weekends that sometimes set me behind the 8-ball of posting to last week’s prompts! Ye,t last night, I was up until 3 writing to a prompt from Joseph Harker (see last post, an ekphrastic poem), bitten by that late-night manic muse.
Here are two poems written for three sites. Enjoy, as I bask in cool air here in Wisconsin, an increasing rarity these days.
FOR ABC AND REAL TOADS:
Depression Hates Sunlight
Cloistered in my corner
Life passes by bay windows
Fresh air beckons
Big sis is on her horse today
Rides her farm, inspects the hives
Middle sis building a new home in the woods
I should be peeking at a wedding at the Gardens
Instead, birds taunt from the broad tree out back
now aglow in the burnt orange hues of sunset
Frozen in place, in space, I remain
tethered to an uneasy chair
Hiding from rays of healing
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday. This, written for the letter D, is about my Big D, Depression. Also for The poem’s imagery comes from Teresa of Razzamadazzle, hosting the prompt at Imaginary Garden With Read Toads. If you’d like to see the images from which this poem arises, please click HERE, as I didn’t have time to write Teresa for permission to reproduce them on my blog… believe me, they are stunning photos. If you’d like to read more of Teresa’s work, try here: Razzamadazzle.
FOR THREE WORD WEDNESDAY:
Empty Nest
A mother nurses her newborn
Emotion wells within me; my aging womb falters
I long to touch the face of my only child
even as she is grown, gone to graze in new pastures
Later, in the night sky
even stars mock me as they glimmerglow,
each seems a crystalline soul out of reach
None will glow within my empty nest.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image from Breastfeeding.com. I strongly support moms who nurse their babies in public. We have enough “Wardrobe Malfunctions” on TV; why are folks repulsed by what Mary did for her baby, a ritual as old as time, and always practiced tastefully, lightly covered. I also know some women aren’t lucky enough to experience this bonding, and my heart goes out to them.
For Three Word Wednesday (yeah, I’m running behind on this Monday morning!), giving us the words Emotion, Falter, and Touch. Thanks to Thom at 3WW for hosting this wonderful weekly challenge!
Peace be with you all. Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 