Dark Voyage
Another dark alley
Why aren’t there ever any
light alleys? she quirks to herself
She waits for the next john to be sexed
Pawns her body for a fix
Used to be kicks
First the hash pipe
Upgraded to Opium 5.0
The real deal, the needle
Heroin
Looks like a smear of poop on foil but
once it’s lit, it’s hit and
she isn’t worth shit
Heroin, a nightmare cannibal picnic
sliding down the clever beanstalk
into the tar pits for a long slick sick soak
Heroin. She’s nodding, her mind
smolders with visions conjured from
the greasy plank decks of the U.S.S. Sheol
She forgets the mess under her dress and
presses her mind against a wall of sounds
When she wakes, her stomach will ache
She’ll john once more to score
to black it out
to empty the chasm
already scraped bare
The addict: A mind forever voyaging
through strange seas of thought, alone
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image: Wikipedia Commons
Kerry at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads wanted us to write using a line from a William Wordsworth poem, since today would have been his 243rd birthday. The Wordsworth line I chose was, “A mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.” This is how I see many addicts: isolated, caught in a foreign place (even if it’s his/her home town), and always wondering. The “aloneness” of the line grabbed me by the ear and said, “Listen!” And so I did. And then I picked up my pencil. This is also for the Poetry Pantry at Poets United… proud to be a member! Peace, Amy
Higher Math
Nickels and dimes
And twelve shiny quarters
Clinked, one at a time,
into their secret stash,
a souvenir metal box from
their trip to Hershey Park
Back when Dad was still home
And before Mom’s blues set in
Saving up to buy her
a present, to cheer her up
It’s our job, says sister to little brother
Little boy nods and digs deep into his
back pocket for another precious dime
Soon they’ll have enough for
that perfume she loves… loved
Loose change changes into loss
as Mom finds the cache of coins
Swipes smalldream savings
Asks Next Door Sally to watch
her sleeping ones while she makes a
midnight milk run. Sneaks off to
the casino, where nickels and dimes
become more shiny quarters and then
slot machine fodder. Then on to the ATM…
Three months later, waking the kids
in the back seat, she drives to Mickey D’s
for breakfast (won’t hurt them for a while,
she reckons). Combs their hair, checks
for lice as she softly inflicts blame on
their father for walking out. “Let’s get
moving or you’ll be late for class.”
The present for Mom, long forgotten,
but her betrayal festers within them
School teaches her kids
addition.
Mom teaches them
subtraction.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image from Wikimedia Commons, by photographer William Holtkamp.
This mom may live just down the block. Right now, things are OK, but eventually, boredom and that damned little addictive gene could give way to drinking before lunch. Or a divorce leaves her broke, while the Trophy Wife is pregnant with “Dad’s New Family.” Perhaps she is simply depressed and, on a lark, tries meth at a friend’s house (the first hit’s always free).
There are a thousand ways women are blamed for these situations, and in some cases, it’s true. But no matter who leaves whom, or who takes what, the kids pay the price. And the kids in this poem were ready to give their all for their mom.
“Irony.” The prompt at dverse poets today. Also at my gambling-free hangout, Poets United. Peace, Amy
The Door to Deceitful Delights
The door to deceitful delights
she discovered within as she was
plied with that first fizzy fun punch
Pried open wider by a toke of particularly prime pot
Finally flung open with the abandon possessed by
twenty-something Immortals
This same door had dwelt
in her mother and others long passed
Smothering, smoldering smoke and
various places to place opium
by hookah or
by whodahthunkit
Twenty-something was wise
She grew tired of wasting time
Time to grow up
We can’t all be Peter Pan
or Tinkerbell, even
She shoved her full weight against the door
Forced it shut and with it all the shit, shove-stored
She knows she could open it again
on a whim or over a heartbreak
But she willingly tossed the key
into a pool of other bad memories
where she chooses not to swim
knowing she’d only sink like a stone
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse Open Mike Night (check out the links!) and my poetic hearth and home, Poets United.
TWOFER! Because yesterday’s poem was such an unbelievable bummer (for me, too), I have two nice ones today. First, I’m flexing some haiku muscle for Sensational Haiku Wednesday; second, Three Word Wednesday gave us: Adapt, Glide, and Lie. These are also posted at my poetry haven, Poets United. Peace to all, Amy
FOR SENSATIONAL HAIKU WEDNESDAY
Falling Leaves (Haiku)
Leaves color, then drop
as though staying green so long
has left them weary.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
——————————-
FOR THREE WORD WEDNESDAY (prompt words in bold)
Heaven Sent
Pregnant teen Kit, big-time cocaine-addicted.
She knew that the baby’d be wholly afflicted
She tried to clean up; she didn’t abort;
but habits and lies and recovery fell short.
She put down her pipe just in time for E.R.
A stranger took pity, drove her there in his car.
He cell-phoned his wife, who rushed down for the birth
(To have their own, they’d have moved heaven and earth.)
Kit wouldn’t nurse baby, pleaded, “Don’t wanna see him.”
The couple, still there, never once thought to flee him.
A tough road ahead for a tough little guy:
a whole lot of tears, in purging the high.
A nurse saw the two, screaming babe in her arms;
“Maybe-Mom” glided over, her touch was the charm.
One look and they knew, so completely enrapt,
that they would not only adopt, but adapt.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
BOX ROOM
Awakening
Counting ceiling tiles, blurred
She loses track
Wondering
Was that a scream she heard
falling through a crack
Speaking
Her words not quite right, slurred
The drugs’ve made her whack
Feeling
Straps on her wrists, tethered
Detox. The Rack.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For anyone who has made it through detox. My mother did it cold turkey to avoid the above experience, and she had a lot of help from my father. Issues with Dad aside, this was the best thing he ever did for my mother – help her get through kicking alcohol at the age of 60. She spent her last 10 years in recovery and died sober. Amen. Amy
For dverse – a fascinating group = and at Poets United, forever my home.
For Poetic Asides’ prompt, Normal, I opted to tell it like I see it. As on my haven, Poetic Asides. Amy
Normal Is
Normal is the everyday stuff
Normal is eating McDonald’s for breakfast
and Arby’s for lunch and Pizza Hut for dinner
Normal is going to work at a job you hate
Normal is stopping off for a couple-five drinks
to cool off from the job you hate
Normal is shlepping home and sitting in front of
the TV computer IPad video game
Normal is shopping for crap from China
that used to be made by your neighbor whose job
was outsourced, and he’s about to exhaust his unemployment
Normal is watching silk-suited fresh-water sharks
swimming in the the DC pool on Avenue K
as they rape the economy and hold the future ransom to
a whim, a personal profit, a new McMansion
Normal is ignoring homeless Americans begging
Normal is meth-addict soccer moms, the super-achievers
Normal is Asian kids winning spelling bees and science fairs,
but children of Anglos winning legacy admissions to Ivy League schools
Normal is Black kids, Hispanic kids, all those “little brown ones”
sentenced to the street or “would you like fries with that”
or being coerced into developing a taste for Afghanistan sand
Normal is no longer single moms, but two parents
kissing hello/goodbye in the hall as one goes to sleep
and the other goes to work at WalMart with no health benefits
Normal is skipping worship to work a crossword puzzle or to
see your kids’ soccer games or whatever else the school scheduled
for Sunday morning, thank God Blue Laws were repealed
Normal is one appendectomy in a 14-year-old ends up
with the whole family living in a camper or a car
Normal is abnormal.
The American Dream is no longer the norm.
The American Nightmare has taken charge.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 