NOW! (with Sid the Kid)
Now is the time
to sing our songs
while we’ve breath in our bodies and
souls that speak out loud
those thoughts that were heretofore
only whispered
Now is the time
to sing our songs
Our collective outpouring
of grand illusions
grander delusions
of elusive goals that never
leave our sights
“If not now, when?”
We don’t do ‘then’
We won’t surrender
the immediacy of this impulse
We want it now
We sing it now
We create it now
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
About time I introduced you to Sid the Kid, previously known as A Guy (and usually accompanied by His Ancestor, who shall remain hidden for the moment!). Sid has morphed over the years into an androgynous kid, always full of fun and optimism. I’ve been drawing him for years, much to the delight of my dear friend Sidnie, for whom I have named my little buddy… even though Sidnie is about as cis-gender a woman as I have ever met, lol.
For ABC Wednesday, the letter N… where our fearless leader, Mrs. Nesbitt, quotes John Donne and we all bring our best alphabetically minded selves to the table! An homage to the eternal liveliness of spring. May the season stir us all from our winter lairs of mind and spirit… if indeed that is where we are stuck at the moment. I know I was, but this prompt helped me break out. Woot!
Peace, Amy
#art #poetry #spring #now #sketches #coloredpencil #abcwednesday
Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Turn the clock forward
Look toward tomorrow and tomorrow
First, let the shock set in, the sheer lack of
jetpacks, hoverboards, silver clothing
No Soylent Green, no Big Brother
Rockets long stilled by common sense
Conscience triumphed over nukes
Phallic skyscrapers are no longer the norm
Even in cities densely populated, there is
stargazing; children of the largest towns
know constellations not by book but
by sight, every night
“O Star…”
This is tomorrow
Where land’s expanse is not viewed as
Future Golf Course or Strip Mall
It is now treasured
Allowed to lay fallow for its own sake
Marshes unharshed, not tamed and smothered
by another load of concrete, nor
paved for enslavement to profit seekers
Where liquid groans of dinosaur bones
are songs sung only underground
No longer sucked by pipes and tubes to
lube mechanical mindlessness
Where all walks of conscience from faith to atheism
are neither hammer nor scythe; rather, a
measure of one’s capacity to love
and dwell in peace
Where confessional souls examine their lives
as they turn toward helping and healing
this wounded world
And war is a sorry-ass memory painted hideous
And rightly so
Where is this tomorrow?
In ours dreams, in our hearts
In the minds of children, who say,
“Of course it should be that way”
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Many thanks to dverse Poets Pub and TED Fellow Ben Burke, whose mind-blowing “poem from the future” can be heard on the site. He invited all dverse contributors to join him and take a trip to the future, to give our own interpretations of what that might look like. I, who possess a bitter, dystopian view of that coming day, took an ironic turn and went for the hope… hope which dwells in the marrow of my soul, overtaking my sarcasm and cynical worldview. UPDATE: Thanks to folks at dverse for suggesting I relink to their Open Mic after I missed the Linky!
A bow to Robert Frost with a simple phrase that echoes in every corner of my dreams, “O Star…” I hope the future is Lennonesque, best viewed through circular shades, with lots of hand holding and hugs. And with that, as always, I wish you peace. Amy
I wrote this straight to art paper before I went to sleep the other night. Iraq, US-backed Israel vs. “we already bombed the hell out of the Arab world already” Palestine. Children deserve better. All of us deserve better.
(800) 456-1111, toll-free number for the White House.
Linked to Poets United, Poetry Pantry, free write and who knows what hijinks any one of us will be up to at any given moment? Give it a try! Also, although I missed the dverse deadline by TWO DAYS (!), I still want to give you the link for this dverse “small world” PROMPT. There are great things happening at many prompt sites around the WWW (Wonderful World of Words); this is one of my favorite places. That it is called a “poets’ pub” can only enhance! Peace, Amy
Slowly, Slowly (an ekphrastic poem: inspired by an image)
image: Blondine and the Tortoise, Virginia Frances Sterrett: Old French Fairy Tale
Slowly, Slowly
Dim, the forest
Hushed is the breeze
Stars sing o’er us
Quiet, the leaves
Travel slowly
on her smooth back
through the midnight
rambling, the track
Dodge all fauna,
trees of the ages
Carry me home
in dreamlike stages
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Kerry O’Connor granted me welcome release from events of the past week by gaving us several works by the same artist, Virginia Frances Sterrett, an American artist who died of tuberculosis at 30. The illustrations, so intricate and dreamy, were the antidote, for a while, anyway, to Boston and its nightmarish week. Who can imagine what this wildly talented woman could have produced, had she been granted a fuller lifetime?
I saw this image of the woman riding the tortoise and was thrown into a dream all my own. Who could see her work and not be entranced? To view more of her sumptuous illustrations, click here. Peace and prayers for the same, Amy
And So, He Goes
(for our traveling friend, George)
Can there be
any better place
than just around the bend?
Goodbye once again
His car crammed with stuff,
fairly brimming with
all the absolute necessities
plus a few luxuries- an old quilt
to nestle in, dreamgazing
Sojourning toward Someday
Will it end, this road,
this exquisite journey?
Or will he fall
Touch down softly
where peace and love are waiting?
Where he feels
alive, vital at last
At present, tense – but future…
Don’t give up on
these outrageous dreams
of belonging somewhere as unique as you are
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Fall, Absolute, Nestle), and posted at The Poetry Pantry, Poets United.
Our friend George (buddy since high school) has been traveling for so long, it’s almost a game, like Where’s Waldo? Where in the World is George Sandiego? He’s on the type of quest we all dream of making, once we’re of an age and a mindset to understand the meaning of the Taj Mahal while standing in front of it. He’s taking his time, keeping in touch, and Lex and I pray for him always, as he figures out this grand scheme, this labyrinth of possibility we blithely refer to as Life.
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
At Sunday Scribblings, the call was for the theme “manifesto.” This seems apropos as we approach the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am killer-diller of all manifesto proclamation days… you know what I’m talking about: NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!
MANIFESTO DESTINY
No matter what the resolution
I always messed it up
I confess, I’m mistress of the
revolution against New Year’s promises
all broken by Valentine’s Day
That year of the grapefruit diet
I fainted in the street
Lack of protein, said the doctor
Thus began the evolution of my desire
to quash sad manifestos
Friends who “will quit smoking on January first”
Suck ‘em up Dec. 31
Like a junkie determined to
wrench the monkey from his back
but keeps the tourniquet as a memento
Gyms are packed that first week of the year
Then one by one, they peel off
petals of a fading rose
that shrivels for lack of water
or that packet of crap you’re supposed to dissolve in the vase
Let’s face it.
New Year’s resolutions are
useless self-sabotage
Setting yourself up for failure
before the hangover even kicks in
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
My old friend George is about to embark on a journey most of us would envy… the kind where, when we’re old and sitting in a nursing home with a bib catching our drool, we rasp, “I should’ve done that, taken that trip, dropped it all and gone off to discover why I’m here and what life could have been.”
He stopped off for a last visit with Lex and me before liftoff. I scribbled these lines in hopes that he has a safe voyage and finds what he’s looking for… or it finds him! Godspeed, my courageous brother.
AND SO, HE GOES
Can there be
a better place
than what’s around the bend?
Goodbye once again,
and cramming into
his car, fairly brimming with
all the necessities.
A few luxuries:
DVDs to play once there
Sojourning toward Someday,
Will it end,
this road, this exquisite journey?
Or will he
touch down lightly
where peace and love collide?
Where he feels
alive at last.
At present, tense – but future…
Don’t give up
on these dreams
of belonging in the world.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I finally got around to creating a chapbook, self-published and quite the attractive little pamphlet, if I do say so myself.
Dance Groove Funhouse is a group of 23, count ’em 23 poems in an environmentally friendly format of 8 pages plus cover (I know, the purists say “one poem per page,” but I am not psychologically equipped to kill that many trees in the name of self-expression).
For just SIX BUCKS (including postage), you can thrill to poems about:
Dance Groove Funhouse (where anything goes)
Memories of washing clothes “the old-fashioned way” with Mom
A lark that morphs from songbird to a complete pain in the ass in two stanzas
Stargazing in upstate New York
A love poem to my husband (Nothing graphic. I said “love poem,” not “sex poem”!)
Amy Island (more of anything goes, but there’s beer on tap in this one)
The fork I found in the middle of a road… an actual fork. On an actual road.
My mother’s progressive comments on black musicians going in ‘the back way,’ circa 1940s
A locket with two views of my daughter, both entertaining
…and (as they say) much, much more!
I don’t have PayPal or any of that high-tech stuff, so let’s do some snail mailing, shall we?
Send a check for $6 (also covers postage) per copy and received your PERSONALIZED, AUTOGRAPHED COPIES soon. Order for friends! They also make great bathroom reading – ask my husband and neighbors!
Make the check out to Amy Barlow Liberatore and mail your request to:
Amy Barlow Liberatore
48 Main Street
Attica, NY 14011
…and don’t forget to include any dedications you’d like in the autograph. You know, “To Polly, for the bottom of your birdcage, Love, Amy” and stuff like that. Seriously, thanks for supporting this Sharp Little Pencil! Amy
Written for the “Envision” prompt at Writer’s Island, my Saturday hangout. Peace, Amy
HEAVENVISION
Unthinkably vast
Earthly limitations banished
Swirling channels of gold
Soft, dry, enveloping
The comforting experience of a universe
you never recognized, yet never left
The essence of your spirit
breaks through an eggshell membrane
Penetrating a place that is not a place
but a pool, ocean, sea, sky
constellation of love and nothing more
Picture love’s embrace
in a place called Eternity
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 