Oh, the Horror!
Bane of childhood Easter basket
Gumptious lather
clodded by machine into
alien-colored, noxious turds
Unnatural, they were, and
poisonously sugar-laced
Pillowstuff spongy
Look if you dare into
the Wayback Machine
That’s me
The kid who ate three or four
The girl whose stomach rebelled
Whose barf was projectile and yet
so colorful
Whose cat was not quick enough
to dodge the onslaught of
harsh-dealt
secondhand
marshmallow peeps
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Never too late for an Easter memory, even on Wednesday! No, I didn’t really barf on the cat, but it seemed like Diva (sitting on my lap, natch) wanted a cat mention in this one, and that was the only way to appease her…
For ABC Wednesday, M for Marshmallow: Merciless Mouth, Madcap Misadventures… add your own ideas in the comments. So glad to be back writing! Amy
This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 53; the fifty-third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. In association with Soulmates: Love without ownership by Vinit K Bansal. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.
Chocolate Gives (Blog-a-ton 53)
It gives
Gives way to nibbles
Decreases at increase of tooth; sweet
pressure, the tingle, thy name is chocolat
It gives
Hormonal cravings soothed
Creased brow smoothed
by silky melt on hungry tongue
It gives
Oh, the hips
Bulky, sumptuous
Babushka arms sway leisurely as I wave
It gives
Vain pleasure
Fleeting moments of indulgence
Your fragrance leaves me longing
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
It’s BLOG-A-TON 53! Thanks to Blog-a-thon Marshal Saravana Kumar Murugan for sending the link. They’re taking poems about chocolate all day, so pick up your pencil and dive into the sweetest pool in town… Peace and chocolate bunnies (which Riley and I never had the heart to eat. I mean, where do you start?) I am THRILLED to be joining bloggers in India for this challenge. They accept as many as one can write; just put the link into your message once the “doors” open! Good luck, and happy writing. Amy
The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Participation Count: XX
Gertrude House
Alice and the door. Wood of hallway mouth. Come and go, go there to other.
Greet days of tokens that go, away. Type the write of it. Desk the way to thought of chair and desk, Alice and hand.
Oak. Oak the way to Alice. Fro and for.
Chocolate Stein
Chocolate is. Color brindle barn, silent the waft.
Smile chocolate of kitchen, orange stain the bowl.
The bowl brindle; chocolate fine and feeling, cat nips at cream for dream.
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
In the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, we are conjuring Gertrude Stein. Does it all make a bit of sense now? I sort of hope not! Amy
Artwork by Amy Barlow © 2015
#cross
#cross
#golgotha
#crucifixion
#deathpenalty
#executionbystate
#sacrifice
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
In memory of Mama, who died 23 years ago today during Lent. Also, for ABC Wednesday: Love, Lent, Loss. Peace, Amy
Acrylic on canvas, 9×12 by Amy Barlow (Liberatore)
Determined Swimmer
She’s good in water
A determined swimmer
An athlete going for the gold
With each stroke, determination grows
Hope flows with coursing blood
(a flash of daddy’s face)
Swimming for her life
or because of it
Because water will wash away
traces of THAT
Wash her clean of past, passed
(what happened, over and over again)
Almost there
Air collapsing from her lungs outward
The sea, an effervescent bubble mass
of inside, now outside
(he’s dead yet alive, too alive and too strong)
The picture fades from view
Her eyes shine in a wide-awake stare
A limp doll sleeping
on solid ground
at last
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The painting says it all, if you understand her determination. I have felt like this, too many times. May all who have been abused find peace… peace that does not need this kind of plunge. Amy
Outhouses and Holes We Dig
Back in the day,
Mom and Uncle Tom
went out back in the outhouse
Puncture the earth
Dig a big hole
Set the wood frame over it
When it’s full, throw on dirt
Cover the crap
Dig a new hole
Scott Walker’s Wisconsin
operates using much the same
“Business” model
Puncture the prairie
Extract tar sands
Sell to frackers
Puncture the unions
Extract core values
Sell out labor
Puncture public schools
Extract their funding
Sell out low-income students
Puncture The Wisconsin Idea*
Extract the principles
Cripple our prized universities
Puncture our values
Extract choice and hope
Call it free enterprise
Call it Right to Work (for less)
Dig a big pit
Call it a rabbit hole
Scott the Bunny says,
Follow me down
to a world of fantasy follies
Follow me to Washington
I’ll share my vision
with the whole country
and the world
Yo, Scott, that’s not a rabbit hole
It’s where the outhouse stood
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Wrote this a day before Walker’s incredibly awkward press debacle, now making headlines across the US. Roger Green sent me a link; click HERE to see the funniest response by Wisconsinites regarding the “I handled protesters, I can handle ISIS” yuckfest. Clicking HERE for dverse Open Mic!
*From Wikipedia, a reason we moved to Wisconsin was this:
The Wisconsin Idea is the policy developed in the American state of Wisconsin that fosters public universities’ contributions to the state: “to the government in the forms of serving in office, offering advice about public policy, providing information and exercising technical skill, and to the citizens in the forms of doing research directed at solving problems that are important to the state and conducting outreach activities.” A second facet of the philosophy is the effort “to ensure well-constructed legislation aimed at benefiting the greatest number of people.” During the Progressive Era, proponents of the Wisconsin Idea saw the state as “the laboratory for democracy,” resulting in legislation that served as a model for other states and the federal government. Walker proposed changing the wording (I kid you not). According to the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel:
… the governor made the UW System’s mission to “meet the state’s workforce needs.” He also proposed striking language about public service and improving the human condition, and deleting the phrase: “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.”
Since he never even graduated college (take that, GWB and your “gentleman’s C” MBA!), he seems to care nothing about the University of Wisconsin, a gem of a college system.
MEANER THAN REAGAN.
DUMBER THEN BUSH.
Now you all understand Wisconsin’s pain. Amy
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Turn the clock forward
Look toward tomorrow and tomorrow
First, let the shock set in, the sheer lack of
jetpacks, hoverboards, silver clothing
No Soylent Green, no Big Brother
Rockets long stilled by common sense
Conscience triumphed over nukes
Phallic skyscrapers are no longer the norm
Even in cities densely populated, there is
stargazing; children of the largest towns
know constellations not by book but
by sight, every night
“O Star…”
This is tomorrow
Where land’s expanse is not viewed as
Future Golf Course or Strip Mall
It is now treasured
Allowed to lay fallow for its own sake
Marshes unharshed, not tamed and smothered
by another load of concrete, nor
paved for enslavement to profit seekers
Where liquid groans of dinosaur bones
are songs sung only underground
No longer sucked by pipes and tubes to
lube mechanical mindlessness
Where all walks of conscience from faith to atheism
are neither hammer nor scythe; rather, a
measure of one’s capacity to love
and dwell in peace
Where confessional souls examine their lives
as they turn toward helping and healing
this wounded world
And war is a sorry-ass memory painted hideous
And rightly so
Where is this tomorrow?
In ours dreams, in our hearts
In the minds of children, who say,
“Of course it should be that way”
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Many thanks to dverse Poets Pub and TED Fellow Ben Burke, whose mind-blowing “poem from the future” can be heard on the site. He invited all dverse contributors to join him and take a trip to the future, to give our own interpretations of what that might look like. I, who possess a bitter, dystopian view of that coming day, took an ironic turn and went for the hope… hope which dwells in the marrow of my soul, overtaking my sarcasm and cynical worldview. UPDATE: Thanks to folks at dverse for suggesting I relink to their Open Mic after I missed the Linky!
A bow to Robert Frost with a simple phrase that echoes in every corner of my dreams, “O Star…” I hope the future is Lennonesque, best viewed through circular shades, with lots of hand holding and hugs. And with that, as always, I wish you peace. Amy
Goldie Hawn in Huckabee’s… dreams
Dawgs, Nuns, Tits & Groooovy
Huckabee Hound for President?
We know cuz his book jest came out
Southern Dawg gonna show the
Yew Ess of A
what them values are all about
Specially all you wimmin
‘Nuns’ is the easy one, fer yer teens
Nun o’ this and nun o’ that
Cept is she goes to a frat party
Then it’s her fault fer bein a slut
(And you better keep that baby, girl)
‘Tits’ is even easier – the bigger they are
the more babies they kin feed
Not bad to look at neither
‘Groooovy?’ Mike wishes us girls’d
be like that little cutie Goldie Hawn
Not the Oscar-winning actress
Not the movie producer
The one with grafitti smeared on her
scanty-panty go-go dancin’ bod
Betty Boopin’ on Laugh-In
Swear to God, I saw it on that Kelly girl’s
FOX show, Huckabee said it on the air
Said all us wimmin shouldn’t swear and
his Southern- fried values include hootchie dancers
Mike’s Values = Deep Discounts for females
Seriously, I wonder if he knows he has a
teenage crush on a Jewish Buddhist
who has had several kids out of wedlock
and advocates for freedom of choice
Can’t you hear Goldie screaming,
“What the F***?”
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I’m back and, as usual, I’m irritated at politics of the Far Right Extremists. Megyn Kelly, the Great Blonde Hope of FOX News, slammed Mike Huckabee during an interview promoting his book/presidential bid, God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy (I know, don’t get me started). She cut him off, saying that New York women not only swear but smoke, drink, and use contraceptives for their premarital sex. She had also previously “accidentally” referred to him as Mike F***abee” on the air (pretty obvious way to get the clip into cyberspace and boost her ratings.) That clip was run again, along with a clip of Hawn in the 60’s. Groooooan.
When you’re FOX, that’s edgy. When you are the rest of the world, you realize she’s not talking about casual hookups, smoking pot, lesbian or transgender women… or what the options are when the condom breaks or the Pill fails. And the women in question are undoubtedly white, probably tragically blonde, and definitely straight.
Huckabee is another buffoon, right up there with (my state’s governor) Scott Walker (AKA “Walkandchewgum,” thanks to the Solidarity Singers). Kind of Jerry Falwell without the Jaysus emphasis.
As for Goldie, she fought the Laugh-In stigma for years and has been open about the sexual harassment she endured in her early career. Sock it to him, Goldie. And find this and many other diverse poems at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link!
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Cacophony © 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil (Click to enlarge, lots of detail)
My Wednesday night, up until 4 am, still fritterminded. Shared with ABC Wednesday. Miles to go before I sleep…or even shlep! Amy
Zentangled
Doodlers delight in empty margins
Empty spaces need a bit of this and that
My teachers hounded me for scribbling
Riley suffered the same fate in school
Only difference: She became a bone fide artist
while her mom still doodles oodles of oddities
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
ABC Wednesday is on Z, and I am into Zen tangles just before sleep. Such a calming pursuit, helping me to let go of the day, simply allowing my mind to follow my pencil as it meanders.
I know serious Zen Tanglers work in pen, but you know me… This blog ain’t called Sharp Little Pencil for nothing! Happy New Year and peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 