Military Schooling
Son of aristocracy, 1922
Flinty Mayflower stock
Brittle china lay at table
Burnished tea set
He was cocooned and at age 12
sent away to military school
The train’s scenery, a blur
from his first-class berth
The boys, also Sons of Sons,
were bigger, rougher than he,
raised as he was with two austere sisters
and a chalky-pale nanny
His first evening, knees scraping
the bathroom floor, drenched in sweat,
tongue rancid with the barnacles
that clung to the older boys’ yachts
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl: Blur, Cocoon, Tongue, Scrape, Burnished, Brittle, Austere, Flinty, Drenched, Rough, Barnacles, Chalk. These words formed themselves into the best account I can figure of the “schooling” of delicate boys in the old days of private, all-male schools. Always a “new fish,” just like prison.
Also at Poets United’s Poetry Pantry, which welcomes poems of all types.
The Last Time I Danced
Grocery store run
Jeans with a big raggy hole
where my knee protrudes
Tan sneaks with pink shoelaces
(no big panama with a purple hat band…
but then, that’s a long time ago)
Chugging along with a cart full of
healthy foods for our responsible diet
and in consideration that we are both
in our 50s now and then
over the intercom
“Dancin’ in the Street”
Martha and the Vandellas,
none of that Mick and whosis crap
Another woman looks at me from
the cereal section and then we both
lay excited eyes on a dude in
Harley jacket and old boots
trolling the Gatorade
Who’s on first?
As if you have to ask
I take the lead line, inciting the riot
The three of us break into song
and dance like the freaks we were
like the freaks we still are
with every ounce of hippie left in us
She’s showin her tat of Marley on her
left arm, he’s swappin a picture of Jesus
on the back of his neck and me, I got no marks
but smile lines chiseled on my cheeks
We’re reeling in total abandon and
oblivious to the folks at either end of the aisle
Even the vegetable guy left his post
And at the fadeout, we’re fading out too
back to our carts as though nothing happened
The other shoppers burst into applause
and we all run back together in the
middle of the aisle to take a bow and
hug each other like there’s no tomorrow
Haven’t seen them again
Perhaps we were all each other’s angels
if only for that moment
Reminders that you can always let that
freak flag fly high enough to glide
as long as you keep enough freak inside
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse, who called for Carefree Hours, or the last time you did something out of pure delight. This is delight, rebellion, and a three-person unplanned flash mob all in one package! Also for “Strange Bedfellows” at Sunday Scribblings and “Walk of Life” at Poetic Bloomings. I don’t walk; I dance, and as for strange bedfellows, I thought it would be nice to have them be total strangers with something in common but NO business dancing in the middle of the grocery store!! Peace, Amy
Face Down in it When I Die
It’s my last wish
that I shall leave this world
drowning in chocolate cake
The dense layers slashed by
thick, sweet frosting and
dusted with Mexican cocoa
But for now, seeing as
I’m pretty much alive
and kicking, I’ll settle
for a plate, a fork, and
a cup of espresso,
swirling mocha on my tongue
The nearest thing to good sex
is rich, sensual, forbidden…
and sitting in front of me
Excuse me while I
indulge in the bliss of
this final piece of pleasure
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image from Dessert Devil
For the delightfully named Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, courtesy of Ella, whose blog appears HERE. She challenged us to write about food porn. Also hanging about in the kitchens of Poets United. Peace, and whatever food porn floats YOUR boat, Amy
Quick note: I’ve been quite vocal (well, I AM an activist, right?) about the “auto-check” option that WordPress foisted on us without notice, flooding our (and our followers’) email boxes because “Keep me posted on follow-up comments via email” was now automatically checked. Complaints flew this way and that; I posted a series, including a “fix” for the “glitch.”
Apparently, many WordPress followers made their voices heard, and together (go, WPbloggers) we AFFECTED CHANGE. This was a wonderful, peaceful activist movement. Y’ALL DID IT AND Y’ALL ROCK! Next time you feel a call to action, take it. You’ll be amazed at what happens. As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Amen, ma’am.
AND NOW, ON WITH THE SHOW!
Song of Psychiatry
Paperwork presentation
plus insurance information
Explanation of condition
(that part really saps ambition)
Process of elimination,
might need “bin” incarceration
Finally, the prescription(s)
matching your description(s)
(If you didn’t tell it well,
your mental health goes straight to hell
Then you end up in “The Bin,”
feeling like you’re lost again)
Follow-up examination
Tweaking meds, anticipation
that he’s found the incantations
to relieve these odd sensations
(Ennui and extreme malaise,
lasts for weeks or only days;
MANIC, I could climb a tower
but that wears off in an hour)
Diagnostic confirmation:
Bi-Po PTSD-ation,
winter bluesy affectation…
Happy Light, a true salvation
(All these meds for downs and panics!
I may Kafka into Xanax…
Lex will look for me until
he finds me, morphed into a pill)
Don’t skip therapy’s vital function
Psych meds only, mental unction
Counseling’s for exploration,
finding roots of situation)
Now shrink gives me medication
Spirit gives me meditation
Thus my balance has been struck
(Thanks to doctors, God, and luck)
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “S.” Also at dverse Open Mic and my poetic haven, Poets United.
NOTES: I have a generally productive, sometimes difficult life, a fantastic husband and daughter who understand all the facets of my chemical imbalance, great friends and a supportive faith community, and I’m not on public assistance – because I have solid mental health coverage. WE NEED UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. It would half-empty our prisons and save many homeless people from the isolation of despair. I’m an advocate for Health Care For All. How about you?
First, a plug for my friend Dani’s site, My Heart’s Love Songs. I am honored to be the featured poet at her blog this week, and she speaks about the global community we are creating by interlinking our blogs. Thanks, Dani!
Always and Forever, Ironweed (dammit)
Our first spring here, a bit of garden space.
Colors came to every garden, save ours.
Only one flower – no crocuses, nor lilies,
nor tulips – but a massive bush of columbine.
Its flowers, sweet pink and yellow
Surveying the remainder: Weeds.
Carefully planted, cultivated weeds,
but who the hell cultivates weeds anyway?
Milkweed and the invasive monster
known as Ironweed, plus some grasses.
Friends took snippets, but what remained
was grief, plus my secret desire to torch it all.
I’m not hip to gardening, nor drawn to
communing with worms… so, with pretty new
red spade in hand (hey, at least I’m
fashionable), I delved into the muck.
Dug around, dug into, but never got under
the pernicious Ironweed. The stillness of
the evening shattered by my clatter, the
prying, the watering of clay dirt to loosen soil,
fingers fumbling, a botched surgery in an
intestinal mess that was the bowel of the weed,
until, YES! One last backbreaking tug – the
plant uprooted and I was on my ass, triumphant.
Attached to the weed’s butt, yam-like, marrowed
spurs of root, tangled as Kardashians in a mosh pit,
evil as Triffids – or those pods in the horror
movie that hatch your zombie replacement.
(Perhaps this is how the Tea Party started?)
Next day, peering out our kitchen window. Monica’s
birthday snapdragons, potted and hanging from
a shepherd’s hook; the lovely, swaying columbine;
fresh-planted herbs; two new begonias and…
an offshoot sprig of Ironweed, fully two feet
from the devil’s own plant I’d just dug up.
I s’pose my pod replicant can deal with this,
once it’s done growing the New Me in our basement.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings, “Always,”and for The Sunday Whirl: Secret, Colors, Window, Grief, Massive, Hips, Clatter, Marrow, Perhaps, Hand, Flower, Stillness, Crocuses.
Also at my poetic garden (which has no Ironweed), Poets United and at dverse Open Mic Night!
Shot Glasses and Shop Classes
Hammerin down bourbon like it’s
five minutes before Prohibition.
He only looks up when a
been-there blonde rasps,
“Don’t mean to chisel, but
can you screwdriver me?”
He knows she’s talkin OJ and a shot
but his gaze is stapled on her form.
Still staring, he scrapes up a sawbuck
and plunks it down on the bar.
They carve conversation
out of thin air til closing time.
They file out, arm in arm… maybe he
nailed her, but she ain’t tellin.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse, asking us to pick a profession and use the “tools of the trade” (in this case, woodworking) and make the nouns into verbs. Wordworking?
Also at my poetic workshop (sawdust and all), Poets United! Peace, Amy
RICH AND RICHER
Here is the heart of the matter:
One percent get fatter
while children starve.
Their parents are
stark-stricken with guilt.
We 99ers built this country,
White indentured servants;
Black slaves who gave all and
all they got was, “Y’all are lazy,
yer not even worth
one whole person.”
They nursed hope anyway.
The Rich are the sons
and grandsons of men with
ideas but the DNA diluted.
Ever see a xerox of a xerox of
a xerox? Sometimes that’s called
Mister President.
The Rich of today
have never worked
or earned their money.
They play Monopoly
using real people as
little game pieces.
They play the game of Life
using worthless mortgages
as cash for their bank.
They don’t play chess.
That game takes work.
Effort is not their style.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “R.” Also posted at Poets United, my poetic sanctuary.
Babes in Toyland
We weren’t spoiled kids
my sisters and I
Modest presents
under the tree
One year I got
my first and only Barbie
That summer, we got
all our Barbies together
and made them into
Nazi hunters, bringing
bad Germans to justice
(no wonder I married a Jewish guy)
Best of all, my sis
made me a dollhouse
Really, a trollhouse
back in the days when
you could score a troll doll
for a buck, back when
inside the house was
my favorite playground
She worked with balsa
and with crates
designed bedrooms
with ornate curtains
and cool furniture
She also made them clothes
She toiled in secret and
when she unveiled it,
I gotta tell ya,
it was the biggest present
I had ever received…
and the best.
After all these years,
I have this to say:
Thanks, Jo, for
giving me the gifts
of your time and
your loving heart
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Thursday Think Tank at Poets United: Playground
An Unquiet Mind
Virginia Woolf
catching life by the throat
time and again
An unquiet mind:
Dark star, wings of madness
Tender at the bone
The words, the testament.
Far from the madding crowd
the shallows,
weeping waters
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
All titles of books from my shelves – everything from “the” book on manic depression (An Unquiet Mind) to volumes on religion, collections of poetry, and my favorite book: Time and Again by Jack Finney. For the Books On Your Shelf prompt at Rhymes With Tao. Also at my poetic place for peace of mind, for creativy, Poets United. Peace, Amy
Memories of Neisse (for Hanna)
Traditional Seder plate
Looking back, it began slowly.
Happy memories of sacred Friday rituals
Mama lighting the Shabbat candle
Everyone singing songs in Hebrew
Relatives visiting on significant holidays
Passover in Neisse, their little town
Up and down streets, the strings of
small shops owned by proud families
Wandering Jews who’d settled so long
they felt like indigenous Germans
Then, change in the air, a foul stench
as demons plotted in biergartens
with one who had a Master Plan
First is was spittle on Father’s shoes
as they walked to temple
Elaboration: Book burning
Brecht, Freud, Dos Passos, Proust
Einstein, Kafka, Joyce, Helen Keller
Genius flashes turned to ashes
Artwork was destroyed, replaced by
white marble gods and goddesses:
The. Ideal. German. Is. Not. A. Jew.
Young Hanna was told to leave school
and never come back. She glanced
over her shoulder fighting back
bitter, Jewish, no-longer-real-German tears
as a swastika flag was affixed above
the entrance to her (no-longer-her) school
Their summit was yet to be reached
The nadir of Hanna’s life as they
boarded the train for…
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl: Goddess, String, Elaborated, Flags, Sacred, Visit, Demons, Summit, Rituals, Significant, Intentions, Indigenous. Also for dverse Open Link Night.
Dedicated to Riley’s Oma (“grandma” in German), Hanna Weinberger, who escaped Auschwitz two weeks before the Liberation, emigrated to America, married, and had two sons. Also dedicated to the man she married, Leonard Weinberger, and their sons, Rob and Roy.
Sharp Little Pencil 