TIRADE (More Crap Made in China)
New egg timer, like my mom’s
Worked well two times; third time bombs
(more crap made in China)
Coffee pots are always new
‘cause last year’s just went ker-phloo
(more crap made in China)
Got our broken toilet fixed
One week later, handle sticks
(more crap made in China)
Used to be American-made
Goods that lasted, made the grade
(no more crap from China)
Give our people back their jobs
Screw the greedy corporate slobs
(no more crap from China)
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I mean, really. Is it too much to ask, things that work? Why haven’t we gone to Congress, to the White House lawn, and thrown ALL our crap over the fence in protest? Why aren’t we speaking out about OUR OLD JOBS vs. retraining for “new industry”? This is not the fault of the Chinese PEOPLE – it’s the American multinationals, providing “deep discounts” that people snap up without giving a thought to the enslaved children and underpaid workers who toil for pennies, while the manufacturer makes millions. Think of Bangladesh, too.
We have enough kids graduating to fill the “new industry” jobs… let’s put folks back to work, doing what they already know how to do.
This is my own form, the barlette, which has two or three lines followed by (a comment in parentheses). For ABC Wednesday, which is on the letter “T” for trash… trade… trust???!! Also at my poetic pond, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, and my hangout for all things pencil: Poets United. Peace, Amy
Pride and Pettiness (and the Gospel of Matthew)
There are in this world
people who gossip and
believe not in consequences
Care not of feelings
Worry not of redemption
I feel sorry for them
Living self-contained,
self-serving lives, not
penitent for own faults
Gossip is the stuff of
cowardice; direct talk is
the only right course.
If you love me, tell me
If you hate me, tell me
Don’t go behind my back
And remember, when you
point a finger at me, you
point three back at yourself
Matthew 18:15-16 says to
speak to the person directly
A tribute to righteous living
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Three Word Wednesday gave us Penitent, Tribute, and Believe; ABC Wednesday is up to P. Also at Poets United, where there is never any backbiting or pettiness, just poetry! Too many communities, not just Christian, are prone to gossip, to not speaking directly to the person they are mad at or have problems with. Just a reminder from The Word. Peace, Amy
Mama’s Gone
Still can’t believe
the ‘heart on my sleeve’
gone on heaven’s highway
Mom’s grief now has passed
Since she breathed her last
She’s taken the skyway
Let’s raise glasses now
to the one who knew how
to smile in earthly hell
Tell stories, we will
as bar counts its till
of Charlotte, pre-death knell
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday, which gave us Grief, Bask, and Raise. Sounds like an Irish wake to me! Also for ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “M.” I don’t know whether this poem is a form, but it makes some sort of sense!
My mom could tell stories ‘til the cows not only came home, but went back out to pasture. I think she was a undiagnosed manic depressive like me and like her mom, Blanche, and she had that gift of gab. When she was drinking, she was either hilarious or hideously depressing; either way, I heard every story she could spare and committed it to memory and soon to memoir. Momoir?
Her death should have been scored by Puccini – agonizing, the slowest two weeks the world has ever seen, full of drama and angst. Twenty years later, I can still remember having to shoo close friends away from her bedside (“Don’t let them gawk at me, promise, Amer”) and take her home (“Promise me, no nursing homes”) to die in her own bed, another promise. She had not had a drink in 10 years, and after that last breath, I left sister’s side, clutched Charlotte’s hand, and sent her up with, “Mama, you died sober!”
Amen. Amy
Watercolor by Joseph William Arcier, my uncle
Uncle Joe
Rags-to-riches to rags and sandals…
The millionaire, bouncing carefree
around posh New Canaan in Bermuda
shorts. Wife said, “Joe, that’s not right.”
He succeeded at iconic artwork,
but his real artistry was in the stock market:
A short, stubby man, possessed of a brain
lithe, literal, and shining bright.
Uncle Joe hung with Robert Frost and
the edgy, eclectic artsy set. We’d visit
each summer; Joe and my mom, Charlotte,
sat up drinking, crooning tunes out of spite
for his wife Caroline, virtuous virago, waving
her washed-out Mayflower credentials. The
Barlows looked down at Mom, the sister-in-law
who sang in clubs, hair bleached Harlow white.
Joe and Charlotte both married into this
marred mix of thoroughbred and “We
Lost it all in the Crash.” My dad was
the only anti-snob we girls could cite.
Joe, cigar in the ashtray and a
parchdry martini close by,
taught me to dance, my small bare
feet on his Fred Flintstones each night.
Up late, singing show tunes; Caroline
would appear, her long (natural) blonde hair
pulled into a bun so tight – severe as
Judgment Day. We singers got tight
as beer and vermouthless martinis.
Olives floated easily, like our voices.
Dad couldn’t keep up, nor my sisters.
Just the three of us howling at moonlight.
When Joe died, it was quick as his smile.
The twinkle in his eye dimmed, he coughed
and fell off the chair face down. His
cigar butt burned a hole in the white white
carpet, and Caroline fretted about it
throughout the funeral. I stayed back home
to tend dear old Auntie Ruth. Didn’t
have the courage to see Joe dead, not quite.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter J; also for Three Word Wednesday, who gave us Edgy, Iconic, and Lithe as prompt challenges.
Uncle Joe was indeed a fine watercolorist, as you can see in his work above. He considered himself an artist first and a rich man second. Funniest moment? In the expansive, expensive back yard, which sported a huge glacial rock and a bocce court, he once took a deep breath and exhaled mightily. “You know what that smell is?” he asked his nieces. Dramatic pause, then his reply: “Money.”
His idea of the perfect martini was a lot of gin and then the cap from the vermouth bottle waved somewhere over the top of the shaker. He was a funny, wry, clever man who drank to excess and invested in the post-Depression market to unbelievable success.
He was Aunt Caroline’s polar opposite. He was the rain forest to Caroline’s Arctic; the happy-go-lucky slob to her pearls and tortoise shell hair combs. His habit of bopping around New Canaan, Connecticut (home to IBM scion Thomas J. Watson and many others) in shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals drove my aunt nuts. This only made me love him more. He was an iconoclast: Well-read, poorly bred, bald head, lots of bread. Frost was indeed a friend, but he never bragged about it. Man, I miss that little big man. Peace, Amy
Idiocy Unchecked
Karzai says
the U.S.
is in bed with the Taliban
Bush made him
Bush portrayed him
as the new hope for Afghanistan
Troops dying
Drones flying
Hope dwindles for troops and locals
Speak up now
or this wretched row
will get old enough for bifocals
President
Earn your rent
Time has come to stop it
Tell command crew and
grunts, “It’s true,
come home!” Champagne? We’ll pop it
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Headlines bled before my eyes. “Karzai accuses US of working with Taliban.” What an ungrateful putz, and yet, it’s perfect timing. Let’s blow out of there, right?
NOW will you end the war, Pres. Obama? This war is the longest in American history, and it’s been on your watch for the last full term, so it’s your war now, no matter that Dubya started it. Why don’t you “shock and awe” us by saying that since Bush’s puppet Afghan president no longer respects us, we’re out of there. Every IED is meant for either American troops or the Afghan police who work with them.
Call the White House at 202-456-1111. CALL EVERY DAY. And don’t forget to tell the volunteers it’s not their fault that Pres. Obama is messing up. Thank these kind people for their service, giving up their time to, as one vol put it, “Get one nice comment from you for every 12 people using the “N” word to describe the president.” Peace, Amy
PROMPTS:
The Trifecta 33-333 word challenge was the third definition of TIME (noun)
3a : an appointed, fixed, or customary moment or hour for something to happen, begin, or end
b : an opportune or suitable moment —often used in the phrase about time
Meanwhile, ABC Wednesday is on the letter I. “Idiocy” seemed apropos. Also at my very intelligent home away from home, Poets United, where I am proud to be a member!
Welcome to my 600th post!! Of course, it must be a rant… where would I be without political commentary disguised as poetry?! Thank you, all my wonderful readers, for keeping me honest and challenging me on the more controversial topics, such as today’s… (drum roll, please, Riley)
Frickin’ Frackers
Relentless, those frackers are going for bear
Digging it deep to get what’s under there
Our potable water, environment, be damned!
Exhaust every option all over the land
Washington monument cracked at its top
Virginia’s first earthquake would not make them stop
Marcellus Shale bed on North P.A.’s border
extends to New York; Andy Cuomo’s no hoarder
He says, “Frack away and to hell with the facts*,”
although we all know methane leaks through the cracks
A Vietnam vet lives in Candor, near where
I grew up with sweet well water; clean, pristine air
This vet served his country and what does he get?
Tap water that lights up, burns like a gas jet
They’re siphoning water to sell back in bottles
I wonder which politic neck I should throttle:
The one who claimed fracking is “clean, natch’ral gas,”
Or our President Obama, for letting it pass
You cannot claim conscience and turn tail on truth:
No water, no farming; no milking. Our youth
inheriting worse that our parents gave us
We Facebook, petition; we Twitter and cuss
But no one will listen will Kochs are in charge
‘cuz they’re corporate energy – they’re livin’ large
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, now on letter F; also for Trifecta, using their chosen definition of “exhaust” as a verb.
One of the lines below my email signature is, “Citizen For Potable Water and AGAINST Hydrofracturing.” This proved problematic for a time, when one of my nephews was working for a fracking company out West; it caused friction between me and a family member… but I didn’t really care about that. The big picture is not how much money a twenty-something is making (and it was the big bucks), it’s whether or not we will leave our grandkids and five generations past that ANY drinking water. At this rate, we’re losing ground.
* For more on the dangers of hydrofracturing for natural gas, see THIS LINK from Wilderness.org. Peace, Amy
DAD’S DYNAMIC DEEDS (The Talented Mr. Barlow)
“A really good fart should come from the heart.”
So said my dad, with no shame, accepting blame.
He blew more gas than a Guernsey.
A one-man methane machine; each a Homeric task.
Expansive explosions the stuff of legend.
The Cryptkeeper would beg for a match
if Dad opened his hatch for a quick dispatch.
Our eyes would water from the slaughter,
and we’d laugh ‘til we cried over his
lack of knack to hide what was inside
and his singular absence of embarrassment
about the mass of gas from his ass.
My mother didn’t mince words:
“BUD! Did you chew your cud?”
Take all the grazing grain-fed cattle,
every bean-eating buckaroo from Blazing Saddles,
plus the backfire from a battered Buick,
throw in a whoopee cushion (or twelve),
push ‘til you’re blue, and your result
would be an inadequate insult to
the Sultan of insufferable incense
A mere shadow of the Shaman
A whisper on the wind compared to
my dad, The Singing Sphincter.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
NOTES: Absolutely true, and one of the best memories of my dad. Seeing “Blazing Saddles” with him at the movies was a trip. The two of us got to the campfire scene and laughed ‘til we cried. I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack, gasping for breath. But then with the belly-laughs came the wretched gas. He poured forth and I had to change my seat for a few minutes until the cloud cleared.
To this day, I don’t think I laugh at anything more than passing gas. If you are near me and “let one go,” I apologize in advance for my guffaws. Can’t help it. It’s hard wired. Just ask my sisters or my best friend, John; they remember. Hope you had fun… Now open a window, for God’s sake!! Peace and a vanilla-scented candle, Amy
For ABC Wednesday (D), and Three Word Wednesday (Backfire, Embarrass, Task), and my source of poetic refreshment, Poets United.
CHANTEUSE IN SNEAKERS
From that first jam session, I was
the little girl singing with old dudes
They told me I “brought it”
Caught ‘em by the spiritual heel
Held ‘em with my feeling, healing
No drab days after that debut
Wandering out the back forty
serenading the birds who
sang back like they were answering
Daydreamed through school
Lyrics in mind (not math)
Pondering styles on mental stylus
Teacher would call on me
I’d pulsate from embarrassment
No clue as to question or even subject
Kids laughed and teachers scolded me
about my silly sidetrackedness
But I’d have luxurious revenge
Within two years, the best songs
ingrained in my brain, a tendril of
inspiration connecting song to singer
At the jam, I shocked even my siren mom
when I sang “Embraceable You,”
a pint-sized vixen, meaning every word
Caught glances of awestruck audience
I watched their reserve melt away
Drawn into my world, surreal, transfixed
They left reality behind, escaped the moment
of “I’m guzzling a martini” to float into
a haven of heaven, losing themselves
I was seven years old
when I realized I had the ability
to eat other people’s shadows
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the final stanza is the first line of a poem by Hamilton Cork; we were given several lines from which to create a poem. Thank, Izy, for a great prompt. Read all poems and a bio of Hamilton Cork HERE.
Also for ABC Wednesday (C) and Three Word Wednesday (drab, pulsate, tendril).
UNSUNG HEROES IN MY INKWELL
My ubiquitous inkwell, home of
fluid blue poems-yet-to-be
Out pops an indigo sprite who
scribbles sillies and twizzles about
the ‘California daze’ or who’ll
juke-jive to the jazz
Sometimes a slate drudgeluckless
slithers over the side of the inkwell
seeps to the page
smears thoughts of illness and
acidic, acrid, lucid memories
There’s a crotchety navy man
who marches out, ten-huts at paper’s edge
and vigilantly decries the evils of war
He’s a vet of many battles and says
victory has neither a smell nor a hint of glory
My favorite inkwell denizen is
the periwinkle fairy who dusts the page
with a harvest heart and loving words
Who inspires hope with ageless
meditations on love
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Battle, sumptous, harvest – what a combination of words!), and for ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter U. Hope I post this in time…
And to tell the truth, I do have an inkwell on my desk for inspiration, but I write with my trusty Ticonderoga #2 pencil. Peace, Amy
This is really happening. To me. No pity party, please, just listen and understand. It will get better, I know that. More words after the poem.
TURBULENT DISCONNECT
Now I lay me down to weep
A labyrinth, a maze without cheese
Words fail the bruised heart,
the mind made of chalk
Cry. Weep. Moan. Mourn. Keen. Wail.
These words pale. I am breaking down
into actual, definable pieces of self
Synapses unsnapping, flying free but
trapped within my brain
Kneeling facedown across the bed,
arms spread wide, inside outside
The religious lie prone, oblate before God
So I humble myself, keening aloud abstract pleas:
Why? Where are you?
How will I make it through?
What is happening to me and
what’s to come? When? How?
But these phrases do not come all apiece
They are fragmented by disturbing sounds
Eyes red tired sore, cried to dry and then,
having found the source, tears well up again
as my gut contracts (sounds like a business deal)
My face is chapped by The Waterworks
Forcing fluids to keep up with the gushers
A fracked earthquake of emotion, unnatural
Worrying meds, from table to bowl,
Weaning off shame to another Sheol
Chemical soup has ruled my life for years
Maybe The Dark One, sensing instability,
Delights in trumping God at my disability
There’s little more pitiful
than a 55-year-old woman crying clean through
her yoga routine
falling over and wiping her nose on
her sleeve between heaves
and retches between stretches
Now another bout is brewing
so I’ll put this aside
Take off my bifocals so the salt
won’t be dried on the lenses
Cling to the teddy bear
my daughter used to hold fast
Roll over in the dark to sip water
from a cobalt blue glass
It’s coming again… the creek, the river,
the waterfall, the tsunami, the flood
And FEMA cannot help this disaster
The global disconnect in my head
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I have not been on the computer for days, let alone write. Mary Kling, your Imaginary Garden With Real Toads prompt for poems about “connections” led me to rework an old poem into a more coherent form, written as it was during a dark period. I am in an even darker place now, so please forgive my not responding to comments. But if you have even felt something this deep, please leave a comment and let me know, if only so I’ll have company. If you have never felt this way, I ask that you offer a prayer for all of us who live with depression. Don’t worry about me… I’ve dealt with clinical depression for years, and on my mom’s side, the condition drips down the family tree like bitter molasses. It’s been days since I have written anything at all, so I offer these words in the hope that someone else will recognize it, or perhaps understand more fully what their neighbor, their niece, their spouse may be going through. And please, don’t try to cheer us up with JOKES, cuz it makes us cry! (A little gallows humor for y’all.)
Also for ABC Wednesday, where the letter is T… for Time, Turbulence, Trying, Teddy bear, and Trust. And it’s on the rolling scroll to the right on Poets United, my safe haven in times of turbulence. Peace to all, and love, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 