Sun Goes Down Bitter
Sunset is the saddest light there is
when it signals another night
for a blighted, blindfold family
Threats shouted, curses thrown
‘cross the supper table
flung like mashed off a ladle
Someone always slams palms down
Leaves in a huff, mumbling stuff
This time it’s Dad – which is really bad
Cause he’s mad at Mom, anxious
When he’s anxious he wants some
and he’ll take it from someone
who’s smaller than he is
Can’t talk back, can’t fight back
Can’t swallow her vitamin in the morning
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Susie at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, “Play it Again, Toads.” I chose a line (“Sunset is the saddest light there is…”) from Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, a book I read years ago and now must read again.
The thought of summer sunsets, very sad. Alcohol for Mom all afternoon… two martinis for Dad – after he had stopped for a drink with the guys. He was quick to anger, yet completely arbitrary… kept his buttons hidden from us, but if Mom knew he was “in the mood,” she’s spark a fight and later go to her room and lock the door.
So much for the safely of the suburbs and the oft-Tea-Partied “stability of two-parent families.” I’d have given anything to get them a divorce! Peace, Amy
PS I am not posting much, but I am in a cycle of artwork: acrylics, India Ink, pastels, courtesy of Cornucopia Arts Center of Madison, WI, a free center for neurodivergent people. I’ll try to sneak in some art next time. A
Frrp, Frrp, Frrp…
Frrp, frrp, frrp, frrp…
His slippers drag in the hall
Pulls the blanket over her head
It’s Daddy’s nighttime call
She has a lot of sore throats
and trouble swallowing pills
Doctor never questions
rashes that sting like quills
And Daddy took her to the hill
to watch the stars at night
And Daddy brought her home so late
She can’t remember things right
Frrp, frrp, frrp, frrp…
The sound will haunt her dreams
Even though he’s dead and gone
He still looms large, it seems
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
If you’re new here, I hope you will take this recollection of being sexually molested for what it is: Dark truth, frank as blood from a tapped vein. I was a victim; eventually, with work, I became a survivor. This is for anyone who gets a flutter reading this poem. Think about starting therapy. There could be something worth harvesting… and throwing away.
For ABC Wednesday, the letter “F.” Check out the link and find some amazing poets! Amy
Prelude to a Nightmare (a nocturne)
I remember bedtime prayers to Him
Resting in peace until
lifted on devil’s wings
by another Him and hidden
No cry in darkness,
only strangled fear
stifled invasion of trust
Today, I still pray
He rests in peace now
No longer do I fear
his dry hands, betrayal
Lifted on angel’s wings
Cry of forgiveness
in the blessed peace
of moonlit prayer
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image through Wikimedia Commons: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
PTSD isn’t just for veterans, people who survived 9/11, or Katrina and Oklahoma victims. Night terrors and phobias often plague adults who were sexually abused as children. Years of therapy led me to the path of forgiveness. Dad no longer controls me, and my prayers at night always include him, for all the good things he taught me, including a love of words and poetry.
The rest is out there in a bubble, outside my body and my psyche, yet available for inspection, now that I’m stronger.
This was written for Kim’s prompt at Poets United (I remember…) and also for Kerry’s “Nocturne” prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
April Fool (The Poet)
She can do it
She’s done it before
April calls for
a poem a day
She locks out
distractions, lets
herself get lost
in memories and moments
It could be a
song – she has
staff paper on hand,
after all, plenty
It won’t be
floral themes
Funeral scented as
petals fall to the carpet
No “moon June spoon”
songs; something
bluesy with peaks
of soulful wails
She has written
about stoners and
wastrels, powders
up nostrils, bad sex
Politics and pencils
Incense and incest
LGBTQs and rednecks
Allies and enemies
Today, she will
simply vow to
make it worthy,
come what may
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl (see Wordle HERE), and on the sidebar at Poets United, my oasis in the desert; AND for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link Monday. n celebration of the first day of NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month (or Naturally Panicky Writhing Motions, depending on my level of desperation).
The game is afoot, Watson. Watson, the foot is a game. A game, Watson, the foot is. Yeah, I’m ready! Peace, Amy
Lucky Girl Child
Our second sister,
birthed still as stone
Never to serve as
our father’s very own
little plaything – then relive,
after years of self-doubt,
what evils her Daddy
had carried about
I think it lucky
she heard God’s sweet call
Was she not graced
by good fate after all?
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
As always, I speak on behalf of myself, not for anyone in my family. This is my truth, and I tell it willingly to help others.
As frequent readers here at Sharp Li’l know, I was sexually molested by my father. Long before I was born, my mother suffered a stillbirth during her second pregnancy. Fortunately for Charlotte, subsequent pregnancies went well; however, there were consequences regarding my father – which she finally acknowledged knowing about, during the last year of her life.
Sexual molestation is more frequent in families that most would acknowledge. Fathers, uncles, teachers, and friends of the family, of whom over 90% identify as straight men, are the most frequent perpetrators of pedophilia. If you know a little girl or boy who is easily startled, wets the bed past the usual age, seems unusually shy (or gravitates toward adult figures with inappropriate affection), or even tries to tell you about “bad touches,” please take notice. It may be nothing… or it may be everything for that child to be noticed and taken seriously.
For more information on the signs of child sexual abuse, click HERE.
This was written in response to the weekly Trifecta prompt, Lucky, with 33-333 words, including the third definition below.
LUCKY (adjective)
1: having good luck
2: happening by chance : fortuitous
3: producing or resulting in good by chance: favorable>
May the children near you, and all children worldwide, be freed of this tragic circumstance. Until then, I bid you peace. Amy
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.
Sharp Little Pencil 