We are moving from the Buffalo area to Wisconsin, as Lex has been called to a new church. Lake Edge UCC offers Lex new challenges, and the Madison area is alive with cultural possibilities. Only sad part, leaving St. Paul’s UCC, Lex’s first church, and Attica friends who have become family to us… Peace, Amy
MOVING
All day I lay paralyzed
Panic-stricken by the massive undertaking
of a major move
The task is like a ton of marble
meant to be chiseled
reshaped into shippable form
The more I chip away
the farther the flotsam flies
Last chance to cherish tsotchke before unpacking again
Now the room is a frenzy of
forgotten details, floating memories
Taunting bytes of mislaid input
Cable movers – nail down days
Valium for the cat, pet-friendly motels
Electric stop here electric start there
Change car rental ALL insurance
Ensuring my mental collapse, or at least
a surging synapse
Graph paper at the ready, grid lines map
our new home – orderly oragami
I’m so anal it’s damned convenient for the movers
Around 4 pm I am clueless in clutter
cup of decaf by my side and
comforting cat on my lap
Then a skitch of that endless marble flicks my face
Embedding itself in my ear, burrowing
into my brain. The cycle begins again
And who the hell moves from snowy cold Buffalo
to blizzard-ridden frigid Wisconsin
And in mid-January, yet?
I’m blaming God, who is laughing Her butt off in Heaven
After all, She issued Lex’s call to ministry, and now She chortles,
“I’ll get you, my pretty… and your little cat, too!”
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Writer’s Island, we were encouraged to write about celebrations of any form. This poem is pretty much true, as are a lot of my pieces. Peace, Amy
GRADUATION DAY
It was graduation and we worked SO frickin hard
to get to that platform, even if it meant the ceremony and
a gown and a hat with the woosy little tassel on it
Our night to howl, we ditched the parents pretty quick
after the cake and punch and Aunt Cora pinching my cheek
Gotta catch up with the guys, I told Mom
Dad put his hand on her shoulder, like, it’s okay
Our kid’s a man today, and soon he’ll be in uniform, so
let him have fun with his friends, that’s how it goes
My sister begged me to take her along and I was like, no way
We got a party hidden away at Hilary’s house cause
her folks are away and she said she’s got a surprise
We get there, it’s all beer and sweat and thumpin music
“ATTENTION GRADUATES!” shrieks Hil over the noise
“We got some Farmville goin on for you tonight”
I’m lookin around for a computer and the Facebook screen
If that’s the big surprise, we’re bookin and findin a real party
She’s got a big bowl and some straws and stuff
“Take your pick.” Oh. PHARMville. You know the deal
Everybody raids their parents’ meds and their kid sister’s Ritalin
and Gram’s Oxy she takes for the arthritis in her knees
It all goes in a bowl and you pick out a few and down it
with a beer, or choose Door Number Two, which I did, and Ben
Pills crushed up to make a high/low heroin rush when you snort em
Last party wasn’t so good, I swallowed some caps and threw up a lot
And this is our big night, so Ben and I grab the straws
It burns, then a second later we’re soooooo mellooooow
All I remember is Ben falling asleep on the couch smilin like a dork
I passed out in this state of I don’t know what you call it, but
it felt damn good, like when they put me under for my tonsils
Just woke up and I’m at a funeral, oh shit, did Ben try to drive?
Everybody’s cryin, and I’m in the church balcony lookin down
I’m in my best suit, in the casket. Shit.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Sunday Scribblings, the call was for the theme “manifesto.” This seems apropos as we approach the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am killer-diller of all manifesto proclamation days… you know what I’m talking about: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!
MANIFESTO DESTINY
No matter what the resolution
I always messed it up
I confess, I’m mistress of the
revolution against New Year’s promises
all broken by Valentine’s Day
That year of the grapefruit diet
I fainted in the street
Lack of protein, said the doctor
Thus began the evolution of my desire
to quash sad manifestos
Friends who “will quit smoking on January first”
Suck ‘em up Dec. 31
Like a junkie determined to
wrench the monkey from his back
but keeps the tourniquet as a memento
Gyms are packed that first week of the year
Then one by one, they peel off
petals of a fading rose
that shrivels for lack of water
or that packet of crap you’re supposed to dissolve in the vase
Let’s face it.
New Year’s resolutions are
useless self-sabotage
Setting yourself up for failure
before the hangover even kicks in
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
SANTA, TAKE CARE
This, the Fat Man’s night of nights
Tuck them in and dim the lights
Lest he catch them still awake
Waiting for a peek to take
No one thinks about how hard
this job is, to stay on guard
Treacherous, this wonder work
Dangers all around him lurk
Will he get stuck twixt the bricks
Holding Billy’s hockey sticks?
Will his leg be rendered null
by the Sanderson’s pit bull?
Will his bag be torn a shred
Getting pulled from rooftop sled?
Will he miss a deadline ‘cause
Mrs. Green’s cat bared her claws?
What if someone’s rancid cocoa
makes his intestines go loco?
Santa, hear my words this eve:
Take good care, ‘cause we believe!
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sometimes you get a prompt from a blog… sometimes from the moon above. Peace to you all, Amy
THE LONGEST NIGHT
Solstice birthed a full moon
A bulging butternut squash
cleaved open to reveal pale orange flesh
No bleak midwinter’s night, this
My world illuminated by moonbeams
peeking through slits of hastily closed drapes
The moon reminds me of life
Life waiting its turn under downy blankets of snow
Life in stars half hidden by a light cloud cover
Life behind facades of houses on Main
as I make my way back from the market
where bored cashiers wish me “Happy Holidays”
Life beyond this Moon and beneath it
To be lived gratefully, audaciously, fully
with a child’s abandon and faith in tomorrow
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Three Word Wednesday asked us to create a poem using Educate, Object, Silence. Mine seemed to go toward the political side of the spectrum. Interesting that “object” takes both the verb and noun forms.
CONTROL
The object of failing to
educate our youth
is to silence dissent
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
QUESTIONING AUTHORITY
In opposition to corporate domination,
three options are clear:
Educate those around you
about the history of abuses;
Object publicly, speaking
truth to power; or,
Keep your silence, avoid roiling waters…
and wait for them to come for YOU.
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This time of year, we always pull out our copy of “Meet John Doe” with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, as well as Barbara Stanwyck’s oft-missed classic, “Christmas in Connecticut.” She is one of my angels on the tree – with just enough “li’l devil” to spice things up!
BALL OF FIRE (Barbara Stanwyck)
She started off in Brooklyn
Ruby Stevens was her name
Petite, brown-eyed, brunette, lithe
She was destined for fame
First it was those small parts
The best friend or the maid
Then they saw beneath the sheen
there lay a bright-edged blade
Some years further down the road
Changed her style, her dress, her spiels
Stood tall to kiss Gary Cooper
Seven books beneath her heels
Throughout the years she played ’em all
from tough-as-nails jive dancer
to executive and old West rancher
to cute and sly romancer
But the role of hers I love the most
was never shown on screens:
Simply being Barbara Stanwyck
playing cards with the boys ‘tween scenes
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Not your typical Christmas offering, and yet I feel called on this, the Solstice, the longest night of the year, to think about different paths. I’ve spent the day reflecting on what Jesus means to me, as I await his birth again in my heart with the calm and preparedness of a midwife. But this season excludes many, and counting agnostics and atheists in my circle of friends, I figured I’d offer up some food for thought!
The Atheist and Me, the Lay Minister
Try to explain to a fellow Christian
why atheism is acceptable
Try to explain to a deaf man
why the radio’s undetectable
One man’s meat is another man’s candy
One woman’s faith does not fit all
Every journey has pitfalls and triumphs
There is not one true, right call
I know my call is to Jesus, to God
My soul is filled to the brim
But if my friend thinks otherwise
That’s his right – up to him.
If he doesn’t believe in the Bible
and God’s not his only light
Yet he does good things in this bleak world
I won’t shove God down his throat tight
I’m called to be the best Christian I can
so I will not presume to oppress
my friend disillusioned, let down by his church
’cause he’s going from pants to a dress
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sunday Scribblings wanted to hear thoughts about December. Long ago and far away, I was a Manhattanite…
CITY SNOW AT EVENING
Central Park in December
At dusk the sun has dipped below
the stark skyline
casting reflections of blue
on the new-fallen snow
It’s as if even the snow knows
it’s part of an urban landscape
the color of steel and
the crunchy crust it so readily forms
As if to say,
“Hey, there’s nothing fluffy to see here
Move along, now”
Making my way across 72nd Street
the heat of the subway has already risen
and melted this fresh blessing
into muddy pools of rusted slush
It’s City snow, all right
It won’t last the night
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 