Before we begin, you must pardon certain bits of “flavor” in today’s poem, for it was written to the theme of “incorporate the punchline of your favorite joke into a poem” for Poetic Bloomings (and you must remember I had a long career in theater and cabarets, so the humor was rather salty), but I also used some rather unsavory words from The Sunday Whirl, including “Spit,” “Pulsing,” and… well, you’ll see! Also at my favorite poetic salon, Poets United (going on three years of membership!).
If you are faint of heart or faint over mild vulgarity, best you skip this one. (wink) Amy
To the Manor Born
They number in the thousands,
with up-front titles such as
The Duke of Whodidwhatshire and
Lady Fluffingsham, that sound like
they pee chicken soup, their spit is
a blessing, and their hearty red
corpuscles could run pulsing into
a petri dish and create a ruby.
Dressing takes hours beyond count;
their every text message is met by
thunderous headlines in the
Brrrrrritish tabloids. Oi!
Said Lord Worthlessthan as he dined
on braised pheasant and oysters during
a recent champagne luncheon at Beltchington,
“We call ourselves The Aristocrats…
but really, we’re plain, humble folk.”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Military Schooling
Son of aristocracy, 1922
Flinty Mayflower stock
Brittle china lay at table
Burnished tea set
He was cocooned and at age 12
sent away to military school
The train’s scenery, a blur
from his first-class berth
The boys, also Sons of Sons,
were bigger, rougher than he,
raised as he was with two austere sisters
and a chalky-pale nanny
His first evening, knees scraping
the bathroom floor, drenched in sweat,
tongue rancid with the barnacles
that clung to the older boys’ yachts
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl: Blur, Cocoon, Tongue, Scrape, Burnished, Brittle, Austere, Flinty, Drenched, Rough, Barnacles, Chalk. These words formed themselves into the best account I can figure of the “schooling” of delicate boys in the old days of private, all-male schools. Always a “new fish,” just like prison.
Also at Poets United’s Poetry Pantry, which welcomes poems of all types.
Sharp Little Pencil 