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!
WHERE’S MY PENCIL?
My main ambition
my true volition
is to drain my head
through the lead
of a Ticonderoga #2
with poems, bright or blue
While others try
to paint a sky or butterfly, I
pollock my journals
with words scrawled above urinals
and turn folks off with truth
about dads, late nights, and vermouth
Social injustice feeds my need
I write with deliberate speed
before the thought goes awry
(my steel-sieve mind is known to fly)
And just when they think
I’m on the brink
of a total implosion
or mental erosion
I’ll come back with one
about how clowns aren’t fun
or talk to the president, poet-to-man
because drones still rule Afghanistan
Frackers, have fear
Amy’s still here
Secret Service, kiss my ass
I’ll face you again before I pass
And Blanche, my angel of mystery
Keep on sending vibes to me
I write to prove
I’m in the groove
The straight girl who’s an ally
to every queer woman and guy
I write to say,
“I’m here today”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
for dverse, Brian Miller’s Pretzels & Bullfights wanted a poem about why we write. Me? It’s all about the bitching and the truth-blood-letting and the mental illness and the child abuse… and making it understandable for those who either have experienced it or need to understand.
Peace and War and Pieces of Human Beings on the Ground
Hiroshima met Fat Man
or rather, Fat Man
sat on Hiroshima,
then swallowed it whole,
including civilians.
Japanese neighborhoods
did not understand the
death knell of “the flash.”
they only saw seared bodies
bobbing on river’s surface.
Ancient remedies could not
damage the damage done to
frail Japanese bodies,
some tattooed with the
pattern of a dress or shirt.
Scientists in America had
mixed opinions; some were
happy with their new-found status
as innovators, adventurers
in the heretofore unknown.
Most others signed a petition,
pleading with the government
to not inflict their dragonbaby
on innocents. They wished
they hadn’t been so clever.
Japan was losing the war;
America claimed the bombing
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
saved the lives of 100,000 troops –
men who knew the score.
Every life is precious, has
potential to create. There is
no such thing as a just war,
and no war ever creates peace.
It simply withdraws armaments.
Until the next time.
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse, where host Mary asked for poems about peace. This may be the odd approach, but I stand by it as a pacifist.
Saw the movie “Black Rain.” Very tough and so moving, it makes a case for the end of nuclear weapons, which America still stockpiles. The movie is must for students of WWII… or for anyone who believes that the US had to drop hydrogen bombs at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The indelible effects of our awful weapons destroyed entire cities and put countless civilians through hell.
We wept when the Towers went down. But imagine all of NYC leveled, from the Battery to the Bronx. Or even your own town. Leveled by foreigners who had a new toy and wanted to show their supremacy.
I, too, wept when the Towers collapsed – because I knew that war was imminent, despite Bush’s assurances of diplomacy first. And the cost of the current war to Iraqi and Afghani civilians is higher than our own troops. War is an evil act. Why not try peace? Let the war machine bitch all they want. They could be building housing for the homeless instead. Peace, Amy
Mama Zen at Real Toads asked for a 20-word synopsis of the election results; ABC Wednesday asked for poems about the letter Q. Short and sweet today… very sweet, in fact! Also at my poetic polling place, Poets United.
Quick Recap of Quirky Election
Some clues
to amuse:
No horses, only gardens.
Women keep reproductive freedom.
Neither of the First Couple dye their hair
But there’s still war.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
These poems are dedicated to the women of Afghanistan, and I thank Kenia at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads for introducing us to the landai, the form of which is explained below in notes, along with other information. This is also on the sidebar at Poets United and at ABC Wednesday, where we are on the letter “J.” This is my favorite J word. Peace, Amy
JUSTICE for women in oppressive regimes
How can ‘women’s spirits hold up half the sky’*
when their earthbound selves swelter under the burqa
Women nurture their baby boys at swollen breasts
only to watch them grow up and oppress their mothers
I am ten paces behind my husband, I make out his shape through net
I am ten generations behind my husband – this burqa, my ceiling
She wanted only to read, write, work figures, create
Acid was tossed in my little girl’s face for this grave sin
Mullah in the madrassa, my brother’s fate in his hands
Mother in the market, her fate already decided
How can I find peace with Americans on my street
when uniforms and guns serve as their faces?
The Prophet (PBUH)** elevated women to rights and inheritance
Ayatollahs strip us of those rights and instead force upon us burqas
On a day I will never live to see, my daughter will shed her burqa,
renounce the veil, leave this town, go to university, be free
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Kenia encouraged cooperation and playing off one another’s landai. This line, an old Chinese proverb, was used in a landai by Sherry Blue Sky – view her collection HERE.
** “Peace Be Upon Him,” traditionally said after invoking the name of either “The Prophet” or “The Prophet Mohammed.”
NOTES: According to Kenia at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads:
“The word landai means “short, poisonous snake” in Pashto. The poems are (two lines and) collective — no single person writes a landai; a woman repeats one, shares one. It is hers and not hers. Although men do recite them, almost all are cast in the voices of women.”
I had only to think of a movie I saw yesterday, Kandahar (2001). A woman who had escaped Afghanistan years before seeks to return, as her sister has written she plans to take her own life. Based on the story of Nelofer Pazira, who stars in the movie, I was struck by how the burqas had festive colors, since the burqa itself stands as a disgrace upon the leaders of conservative nations. It is a socioeconomic stance, country by country, as to what women are allowed to wear, whether they may attend school… whether they can stay alive when they fall down and accidentally show an ankle. Another movie about the lives of women in brutal regimes, also based on a true story – tough to watch but important to witness: The Stoning of Soraya M.
I’m finally back from vacation. We are well but tired… I watched most of the Republican Convention and am in the midst of reviewing the Democratic Convention. I wish more people would watch BOTH sides of the damned “aisle”!
Couldn’t stop thinking about the troops as I watched those foolish delegates in their funny hats, all having fun during what should be a defining moment in politics. So here is my tribute to one selfless servant. Peace, Amy
Nurse in the Field (Afghanistan)
Nine hours into her shift
she steals a moment to smooth
errant hairs, captured and secured by
mock tortoise side combs.
The last wave was
a mind-numbing parade of
the barely living
and the too-soon dead.
Checking the morphine drip on
an amputee, she wonders why
nurses dress in pastel scrubs.
Cruel joke, the blood spatter,
carrying iodine-splattered lost limbs
across to the bins.
She used to count the number
of fingers and toes per shift; something
to divert her mind from the horror.
Now she breathes in madness, exhales exhaustion.
In WWI, they were gassed and blinded.
In the Second, shot or blown to pieces by grenades.
In Nam (where her mom served), they bathed our boys
in the finest toxins Dow and co. could manufacture.
Agent Orange could kick 007’s ass easily, if slowly.
Now men and women are hit by drones, as
stateside geeks “do battle” like a game of Pac-Man.
They cannot be sure of their target other than from
“actionable (questionable) intelligence.” Tonight
it might be a grandmother and her family, or the
piece de resistance of warspeak: “Friendly fire.”
The nurse strips fatigues from a screaming airman.
His legs lie still but arms are flailing like a meth-head.
Restraints: cruel but necessary as she injects morphine.
Evidence of spinal damage, extensive brain trauma…
She croons, “Slooooow down, we’ve gotcha.” Her
honeyed voice seems to sooth him, “You’re gonna
be all ri-” Then the flat line no greased paddles will stir.
She’ll hear five final, strangled exhalations before
her break comes up. A few hours of sleep, and
she’ll emerge looking refreshed, gearing up for
the second-roughest game in Kabul:
Patching up the pawns, gurneyed pieces
from the chess board of battle.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (Wordle is shown below), dverse Open Mic Night, and Sunday Scribblings (the prompt was Soothe). Also at the site where I am always soothed: Poets United.
We Interrupt Your Regularly Schedule Program
(a full-tilt boogie political rant)
As the prez drones on
Americans are bored.
As the drones fall on
Afghanis, they’re gored, ignored by
the drumbeat of war, the military
rhythm of their streets, their football meets,
their homes, Rumi roams their graveyards.
American values pressed upon them
like Nagasaki tattoos in hues of death
searing their flesh, a mesh of
indelible reminders that cling to
the very marrow of their own beliefs.
Skies, fly-bys, murmurs of surprise,
more stealth attacks by wealthy whackadoodles
with poodles whose pedicures cost more than
the Dewers that fuels their mules, duly noted.
I voted, but it didn’t matter, records
shattered for brazen fundraising.
TV talking heads walking through it,
praising Lindsay Lohan working the program,
no grams up her button nose; I suppose it’s
intensely interesting to the Real Housewives of
Stepford, but it IS. NOT. NEWS.
The view expressed by Fox’s best,
yelling bellicose foghorns with degrees in
anything but journalism, kernels of truth
plus one ton of pure Hereford fertilizer?
THIS. IS. NOT. NEWS.
Our rights taken from us, our voices choicely
squelched by Citizens United, dividing the
green from the lean, the rich bitch from the
working, lurking stiff upper lips standing in line
at the Union Hall, all shirking off unemployment
because there’s always a job for any slob who will
do it. Screw the indignity of the position, it’s their
mission to have purpose percolating in the mass of days,
rife with strife, but it passes for life in America.
Meanwhile, Koch-heads yacht a lot, spend and spit
on us, that’s your trickle down theory, they piss and
don’t miss as we struggle, strain to avoid their toxic rain,
strive, staying alive even if it we lose our house to the bank that
tanked playing rushing roulette with our debt. The rich
don’t create jobs, don’t create anything, moving
money around is their pursuit of happiness.
Happenstance made them rich, not effort.
THIS. IS. NEWS. The kind that should be reported,
not distorted, nor distended, deliver as intended.
Families living in cars, sitting at bars, behind bars,
that’s news. Mental health strategy a traumatic
tragedy, that’s news. Not Happy News that gives you
a toy made by a Chinese boy in a sweatshop, top of his
head covered with Communist slogans, paid in tokens.
It’s not Good News for the FUNDAlack of MENTAL
functionISTS, but it passes like gasses from blowhard
Beltway asses whose glasses were replaced by Lasik on
our dime. I’m sick and low-income? Sorry, chum,
you’re a lazy bum. What becomes of you won’t show up
on The View. Gee, you think? Don’t blink.
The new news is glitzy, blonde tanned ditzy reporters
distorting but clueless that their teleprompters spew
lies on abortions, on choice, our voice no longer heard
because “Corporations are people, my friend,” will that horse’s
end please shut up, four deferments from Nam, never heard
a bomb, cuz he was Mormonizing in France, dancing at
draft rallies all the same. Who’s to blame if he dodged it, the
logic is on his side, but don’t turn hawk if you balked
when it was your turn. Even had de Gaulle to show up at
draft rallies, tallies not in his favor, but winning’s his
favorite flavor. THIS. IS. NEWS. (reported on the BBC, not
through Corporate Corpulent American Broadcasting)
Today the news is: Gays are hated, Liberals are jaded, Latinos
berated, Treyvon wrong-shaded and Dems are Commies. Filthy Zim,
the trimmer of black population, zoned on medication, toting
a habit of hatred, a habit of meds, side effects include an itchy
trigger finger. America is for the armed, the beautiful, and
the moneyed. Honey, it’s the way things are; don’t complain
about CEO gain and golden parachutes or hoot and holler about
the borrowed dollars Bush cushioned on a credit card to wage war
on a third world country, Weaponless but we brought the Mass
Destruction. The fact is, that war never made our taxes, and no
draft left the middle class daft. Elections cost billions, one
candidate worth millions, he laid off thousands, and though he
says his corporation may be a person with a thumper of a
tickertape heartbeat… it has no heart. THIS. IS. NEWS.
Reporting live from the edge of democracy, trying damned hard
not to be pushed off the edge, this is Amy Barlow Liberatore from
WASHthemoneycleanINGTON. Good night and good luck.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thank you, Aaron Kent, for reminding me to rant away like I used to, spitfire style and purely politically.
For Three Wd. Wednesday: Cling, Murmur, Taken. Also at my poetic tickertape access, Poets United.
Sharp Little Pencil 