FUNDAY
Today she will wear pjs to the market
part her hair on the other side
run a teabag through the coffee grinder
and put orange juice on her cereal
Today is a turquiose-eye-shadow kind of day
A braless Wednesday
as The Girls dangle near her belt
A day for Dollar Store shopping
She’ll buy a Liberace DVD
and two cans of Beefaroni, even though she’s vegan
Barefoot on the sidewalk
Deliberately stepping in dog poop just to feel the squish
and leaving human pawprints behind as she
heads for the library to read Ayn Rand
backwards
Today is a day for yodeling
on Main Street
And writing lesbian love letters to Sara Palin
Wednesdays are made for fun
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
One Single Impression asked us to write a poem around the theme, “Dawn.” I was going to write about Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island, Dawn Wells, but darned if I didn’t go a little deeper!
IT DAWNED ON ME
It dawned on me during a down
that depression is a gift
A room all to oneself
dim, yet habitable
with the sure knowledge
that gloom will fade; the haze will lift
Shifting moods
sifting sand between my toes
Depression’s night is so dark
one doesn’t look up
seeking stars
nor speak of the moon
The lifting is like dawn
a clean new day
made for venturing
beyond the front door
Flowers’ scent sweeter
sun illuminating
individual blades of grass
as they cast minute shadows
And then there’s
the thanking God part…
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
If you are manic-depressive, you’ll understand. If you’re not, try to understand… and ‘walk a mile in my Keds’! Amy
ON A DIME, IN A FLASH
Flopped on the couch like a road toad
flat as flannel
Brain accepts invisible code
BING! A channel
goes live – I’m up and about
Pop! Goes the manic
Look! The sun’s shining after all
Outside in a panic
Walking so fast my mind can’t keep up
Store. Buy. Food.
On the way walk home, starting to slip
home… not so… good…
Now that was one fast-cycling episode
Food barely to the kitchen
I’m back on the couch, potato load
Bipolar bitchin’
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thoughts about the Obama presidency and the dearth – not the death – of activism. Time to wake up!
CHANGE 2009
He stood to take the oath of office
Both the white guy and the biracial guy blew the oath
but an Asian cellist became a rock star that day
Miles of humanity surrounded the Capitol
Standing as one and chanting,
“Yes we can! Yes we can!”
Now, a year later, half are disillusioned and
too damned lazy to call their legislators or take action
They should have been shouting, “Yes HE can!”
He can’t do it alone
The road to change is long, deeply furrowed and
littered with sharp stones (lest you cut your foot)
Change doesn’t come from a place of comfort
especially your own smug armchair in front of a plasma TV
Change comes hard. Raise your voices. Get off your asses.
YES. WE. CAN.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Insomnia never felt so good.
MOONSTUCK (Stuck, Poetic Asides prompt)
Slip of a moon, sideways smile
beguiles me from my perch
Searching for words and
lingering long past bedtime
To find the perfect phrase
Elusive, diffused thoughts race
out my ears, past my face and
Oops! Out the window back to the moon…
monthly changing yet
ever my constant companion
as I’m stuck in my room alone
awaiting the whisper of words
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Didn’t need a website to prompt me for this one – just Lex! Dedicated to a wonderful partner, husband, and friend.
MATCHES
Shadows play on the walls
bathing us now in
a simmering glow
Candles everywhere
in this room
ready to light the fuse
or simply illuminate
hours upon languid hours
of our tender embrace
Candlelight romance
That sexy sound
of a match being struck
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
While I don’t view abortion protesters per se, I am pro-choice for the simple reason that rich women will have and have always had access to safe, doctor-performed abortions. Why should the Karadashian sisters be able to have an abortion when they have an OOPS!, while a girl who was hit on by daddy, or a woman worn down by dealing with the eight kids she already has, and bound by her religion to not insist her husband wear a condom, have less? Opponents of abortion should also put themselves in the shoes of those poor sisters. Amy
ABORTION PROTESTER (WWP, walk in the shoes of enemies)
Man and women together in mutual embrace
create life within the woman’s womb
At first it looks like tissue, merely a cyst
but so quickly it assumes human form
How can a woman who created in love
vacuum away this baby like so much flotsam?
How can a man stand by with no opinion
as this precious fruit is torn ruthlessly from the vine?
A doctor who swears to “first, do no harm”
is murdering an innocent child
and, offering no counseling to the mother,
calmly points her toward the desk so she can pay
Small wonder I’m out here with my sign
and a fake fetus in a jar, here in the hot sun
I’ll scream til this profitable industry is ended
I don’t believe in the death penalty, but then again…
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Well, I had two people on my mind this week. I pray for them both, as Jesus told us to pray for our enemies. My prayer life is very busy – for the first, I pray that the true spirit of Islam enter his soul; for the second, I pray that he find his way past the pretense that he’s a model Christian. When wars are fought, God – Allah, Jehovah, Adonai, Mother and Father – can only weep.
TWO MEN, SO DIFFERENT, SO ALIKE (WWP Prompt)
I was called by God
to seek revenge for what they did to us
Gathering my forces
Forging alliances as I was able
(usually with cash aplenty)
Together we blew up symbols of
their greed, their avarice, their hubris
And now they whittle away what resources they have left
trying to make sure we don’t hit them the same way again.
In this way, I have led our people to triumph.
I am Osama bin Laden
I was called by God
to seek revenge for what they did to us
Gathering my forces
Forging alliances with one major country and a few smaller ones
(and borrowing the funds from the Chinese)
Through no-bid contracts and undercover torture, we fought
their conspiracy, their evil, their hubris
And now they are running, hiding, cunning
We will never catch them on their home turf.
By handing the quagmire over to the next president, I retired, smug.
I am George W. Bush
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Last week at Poetic Asides, we were asked to write a poem about three things we could see from our workspace. My computer is set up on an old desk my dad made years ago; the walls are plastered with mementos and pictures, posters and plaques. It was simply a matter of picking the ones that fit together. This is the first of three “threes” I composed! Thanks, Robert Lee Brewer, for the prompt.
THREE IMAGES OF WOMEN GRACE MY WALL
A dog-eared poster hovers near my desk, rebellious wallpaper
Detailed manifesto of the Women’s Liberation Movement
“Because woman’s work is never done and is underpaid…”
Words from a bubbling wellspring of hope and burned lycra
Demand for an equal stake in this country, still unmet
A postcard: Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein
keep me honest in all pursuits, artful and activist
as they stare me down in a loving way, like sisters
heart of depression beside the mother of us all
reminding me that women are worthy of everything
Klimt portrait, foil-embroidered woman
She stands alone, in no man’s embrace
yet framed by flowers, wearing a come-hither robe
Full black hat, ebony halo, distant gaze
Essence of loveliness, an equal part of my soul
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This poem, a ghazal, was chosen by Poets For Living Waters, a project calling for submissions in response to the Gulf Coast travesty, as an Open Mic poem. I hope these words will spur YOU on to call your members of Congress and demand they re-institute tighter regulations on Big Oil, which were loosened drastically when Dick Cheney round-tabled with CEOs – not environmentalists – in forming our country’s energy policy. Another inheritance of eight years of unbridled greed, this one implicating Cheney’s pet, Halliburton, as well. Off the soapbox, onto the poem:
Ghazal for the Gulf Coast Tragedy
by Amy Barlow Liberatore
We watch the deadly ebony flow
Fossil fuels in free-form flow
At first, the movement seemed so slow
Relentless, hostile man-made flow
As more is learned, we’re shocked to know
that one part could have stopped the flow
One switch, and costing not much dough
Compared with damage from the flow
Big Oil lobbyists, strictly pro
Primed Congress’ campaign flow
Regulations were tailored so
that BP had their profit flow
Now shadows blot out coral’s glow
And wildlife chokes from crude oil flow
For every time the Gulf winds blow
Disaster follows with the flow
This sharp little pencil writes, although
I’d give my soul to staunch the flow
Amy Barlow Liberatore is a poet and jazz and gospel singer/songwriter. Her work has been published online in melisma and The Pink Chameleon; three of her works recently appeared in The Awakenings Review. Her blog can be found at https://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com.
Amy and her husband, Rev. Lex Liberatore, are longtime activists for racial and social justice, the environment, LGBT equality, and health care for all. They live in the Village of Attica, NY.
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