We were asked by Jingle at Jingle Poetry to create around the theme, Seven Deadly Sins. Here’s my take, and you can view other great poets by clicking on her link! Peace, Amy
SEVEN SINS I HAVE COMMITTED (in no particular order)
Wanting more
Staying too long at the party
Clinging to possessions I don’t need
Looking right past nature’s everyday beauty
Chocolate (need I elaborate?)
Giving too much to men who wanted more
Ignoring God (until the Spirit smacked me upside the head)
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Remember when TV had real news reporting, truthful coverage, and fewer ads?
TVoLUTION
In the beginning was creativity
Watch This – brought to you by
Buy This
This pattern morphed over time in sinister ways
as Buy This bought out the creators of
Watch This
Buy This now dictated the watching
Watch This was shuffled about according to Buy This trending
Our only anchor was the anchorman
the Network Evening News
Buy This pulled up that anchor and we were adrift
Then Buy This created
Watch This Happening Now
which became
Watch Only These Bits, then
Watch Only These Bits And Think This About Them
Buy This also went from choosy moms and see the USA in your Chevrolet
to eyes narcotically glued to the tube
Plasma spasm
Minds restless, but legs so lazy they got their own syndrome
and consequently their own drug
well-advertised, saturating the market like Crisco
and every bit as healthy
TVolution
In the beginning it was
“Watch This, then
Buy This.”
This pattern morphed in sinister ways
as the creators of Watch This
were bought out by Buy This.
Buy This dictated what we’d watch
Watch This was shuffled about
according to Buy This trends.
Our only anchor was the anchorman
(to our sorrow, no more Morrow)
Buy This took over the news department
Watch This Happening Now
became
Watch Only This Part We’re Showing You
then whittled down to
Watch Only This Part, and Think This About It
Buy This also went from choosy moms and peanut butter
to couch potatoes with legs so lazy
they got their own lazy syndrome
and consequently, their own drug.
To be fair, Buy This does mention the side effects:
Dry mouth, dry South,
desiring more sex but
unable to harden one’s resolve
and urges to gamble
and drive while asleep at the wheel
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For this Sunday’s prompt, we were asked to write about the harvest season. I gazed at a picture of Riley playing in fall leaves during her first Autumn, and the words fell like the proverbial fall leaves. Please check in at Sunday Scribblings to see other poets! Amy
HARVEST OF SIGHT AND SOUND
She was three
and had never seen falling leaves
never heard the crunch as crumpled tossaways
made munching sounds under her feet
“Mommy, where is the sand?”
Ah, Puerto Rico
The only land she had known thusfar
We had moved back to my hometown
“The beach is far from here, mi nena
Look above at the sunshine
streaming through the colors!”
She said it looked like a rainbow, una arca de iris
My daughter fell in love with Fall
and she a September baby, born on Labor Day!
We left behind the everyday glare of the tropics
for a land of constant change and atmospheric delights
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were given a jumble of words and asked to create a poem.
Purple, Kiss, Drooping, Gourd, Hook, Staircase, Extract, Glossy, Pluck, Muddy, Doll, Bitter
This is what happened for me. Get over to Big Tent Poetry and sample other poets, too! Amy
TEDDY BEAR
Every bedtime
One kiss for me, one for Ted
So much more than a doll
The biggest bear of all time
(or so it seemed)
His fur a muddy brown
Eyes a bittersweet chocolate hue
My girl would pluck Ted from the couch
and drag him drooping up the staircase (thunk, thunk)
Now Ted resides in my writing space
beside an 8×10 glossy of the daughter
who’s brilliant and sometimes out of her gourd and
hooked on art – like her mom
Sometimes, when I miss her much
(she having extracted herself to the West Coast)
Ted and I sit on the big purple blanket
talk it over
and have ourselves a good little cry
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
THE ESSENTIALS
Should the shipwreck come
and I and my truck be washed ashore
Here’s what remain to call my own
sustaining me in my bamboo hut:
Tangerine candles and wooden matchsticks
A jar of honey
A box of African Red Bush Tea
My favorite honeybee mug
A volume of Neruda and one of Hardy
Paper and pencils
Pictures of my family and friends
A few sports bras and tramparound clothes
One little black dress, unusable in these circumstances
Hopefully, my bifocals would survive the swim
But most important of all:
My wit
My faith
My ingenuity, soon to be tested
My name
…even if I am the only one left alive to say it
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
Written for the “Envision” prompt at Writer’s Island, my Saturday hangout. Peace, Amy
HEAVENVISION
Unthinkably vast
Earthly limitations banished
Swirling channels of gold
Soft, dry, enveloping
The comforting experience of a universe
you never recognized, yet never left
The essence of your spirit
breaks through an eggshell membrane
Penetrating a place that is not a place
but a pool, ocean, sea, sky
constellation of love and nothing more
Picture love’s embrace
in a place called Eternity
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were challenged at Three Word Wednesday to use the following three words: Absolve, Hiss, and Ridicule. Here’s my take! Amy
VAUDEVILLE (Absolve, Hiss, Ridicule)
Grandpa gave me great treasures
Stories of his vaudeville days
He played clarinet in the house band
when melodramas were the craze
The villain, in handlebar moustache
His entrance greeted by the audience’s hiss
They knew his only goal was to take
a helpless young maiden’s first kiss
Once the play ended on a high note
with the maiden happily married
Out came a comic; if his shtick was tired
They’d ridicule ‘til he was harried
Out came the hook, on came the dancers
with lots of leg, quite beguiling
And thus distracted from former acts
The manager was absolved; they left smiling
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This was written awhile back for Writer’s Island, and we had a request for a re-post from Jingle Poetry! Dream on, kids… Amy
FREE FLIGHT
Wandering into the enchanted field
petting daisies, grazing the tips of
grasses grown wild and tall
She centers herself
gripping damp ground with her toes
Eyes close and her face turns skyward
Arms rise from her sides and she
wills her body to follow
Heels peel off the earth, then her toes
Opening her eyes, she is just off the ground
hovering, delighted, a featherweight being
Now comes the real work
She launches into a vertical breaststroke
slowly, loving the feel of her fingers moving through
humid air as though along a pond
The field is far below her now; her house is
a Lego-sized block. She levels off her ascent
and pushes farther into the atmosphere
Over hills, touching the tops of Douglas firs
Swooping down over the river, she waves to
kids swimming on the lakeshore
Look, they whisper, Why don’t our parents
believe us? She doesn’t wait for night
She takes flight when we can watch her
But the grownups are too busy, away from the
places in nature where she can be spied
so only children are inspired to try and fly
Someday, she muses, I will have a daughter
and we will take a night flight, hand in hand, close to
the harvest moon, as fireflies light the way
And when we’ve had enough of airborne travel
we’ll come to rest on our own roof
feet dangling over the eaves. Wondering, laughing
How many are blessed with the power of flight?
She doesn’t know, but thinks it must be very few
for she’s never seen another in all her travels
Her mother taught her the secret: Let go of the world
let the air fill you up past your lungs, so deeply
that you are the air. Let go and be free
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we were asked to write from the perspective of another. One was a tea bag steeping in boiling water, but then came this from my pregnancy 23 years ago… Hope you like it! Amy
SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCY
Safe here and comforted
by a rhythm so steady
Nourished effortlessly
All I need, I have
Voices muffled but familiar
Hearing them more clearly
as the days pass
Hoping to meet them soon
Upside down now, I think
Ready to tackle the tunnel
and emerge gasping
into the light
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 