Isn’t this prehistorically fantastic? A sci-fi movie buff’s dream!
Westward into the Sun
Chuggin our old used one
cross country, west of west
Buffalo to LA; I know
how these solo road trips
settle my nettled head
Riley-bound; she needs
the wheels but so chill
she was willin to wait
for a not-so-late model
sun-bleached redmobile
Utah. At first, a burst
of tumbled weeds and
You can have this, Brigham
Gradually it blooms with
looming, wise granite cliffs
as if the earth began here
I see the turtle’s back, legend
of indigenous peoples and
remember we are but riders
on this weathered, whirling rock
In my sights, a magic range
Undeniably and completely pink
I think, where is passage?
Answer: Men blew a hole
straight through, a stark arch
How rude, I say aloud
Typical of humans to blast
a magnificent thing of beauty
in order to accommodate
RVs, SUVs, and I, who
would have driven many miles
to go around this mound
of natural wonder. Now I
understand why the Mormons
saw this as paradise on earth
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
dverse Poets wanted poems about the road. This was one of the best trips in my life; on my Bucket List, actually, to make a cross-country trip. Stayed with friends, saw my girl. Happy time. Image courtesy of WikiMedia Commons. Peace, Amy
From Whence, and Why
(My Poetic Manifesto… because Gay asked for it!)
I write to give voice
to those without a choice
The homeless, incest survivors
Deep-water depression divers
I’ve been, at one time, all of these
I claim it, no third-person tease
Stated as fact, no truth untold
Some wish that I wouldn’t be quite so bold
Raised to speak raw truth to power
Toe to toe with guys who tower
far over my little Irish ass
(Pardon me, but I can be crass)
Give me paper, a sharp li’l pencil
and life’s underbelly I will stencil
Most people in sight of my spigots:
Racist, homophobic bigots
I’m not important, not myself
My poetry rarely graces a shelf
I drop truth bomb after drone
My words, the only weapon I own
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For dverse Poets Pub, our host Gay Reiser Cannon asked for “Manifestos.” Reasons why we write, our impulses and drives, where it all first came from. I dedicate this piece to my late mother and my grandmother Blanche. The maternal side of my family, shanty Irish, were always mindful of those who had less, whether people of color, LGBT folks, victims of war (especially troops who died and their families)… perhaps because they themselves had been in a position of being homeless and next to starving during the Depression of the 30s.
They also thought Ayn Rand was full of shit. We ARE our brother’s – and sister’s – keepers, and if you deny that, you supply the world with ZILCH. Hence my manifesto. Peace, Amy
All That And More
Voice like menthol
Balls of brass
Face like schoolgirl
Killer ass
Charmful armful
Singing sinner
Rings the bell for
raunchy dinner
All the makings
All the style
Shimmy, chanteuse
Make ‘em smile
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
You want a jazz poem, dverse? One from the heart, heels, and head of a vintage babe who sang in clubs for 35 years and never overstayed her welcome. .
Also on the sidebar at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
GET TO THE GIG, GIRL!
Take the A train? Hell, no
I’ve faster ways to go
Head south on Amsterdam
Keep low and lively, ma’am
I filter through the fog
and gusting city smog
The traffic’s fierce, you see
I keep it high and free
Some pieces of the News
Fly by in folded twos
Through bitter cold and then
I spring balloon to end
And climb on up and out
the fountain’s water spout
The cries of “Viva! Viva!”
when I arrive, La Diva
Enough to warm my heart
And now my gig I start
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The “B” on the balloon is for Barlow, my former stage name. At dverse Poets Pub, we were challenged to an ekphrastic prompt – writing to an image; I used words from The Sunday Whirl. The brill artist is Judith Clay, and you can see more of her fantastic fantasies and read other poets HERE, as well as check out what other poets did with the Whirl Wordle HERE.
Fun prompt. Was ready for one. It was a long week, but things are looking up! Peace, Amy
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Trudger
Heavy burdens of life lived loudly
She would like to carry proudly
Truth is stamped soul-deep, and down
Under lines of chalky frown
Purse is German, dress is French
Shoes Italian, teeth are clenched
Shamed by family, maimed by men
Trudging toward new men again
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Bored Panda, shared by permission with Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
Thanks to Hannah at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, we learned about salt flats today. They are called “the world’s largest mirrors,” and you can read more about them, as well as see more examples of the Salt Flats, HERE. This woman, dressed up and traversing the salt flat, struck me as lonely and careworn.
The couplets came naturally, and when I read about the iambs and other rhythms at dverse poets, I realized that I had, indeed, come up with a poem that displayed the rhythm (I think) of the trochee, which is the mirror sister of the iamb. TA da TA da… anyway, I’m posting it and am very happy that I was able to fulfill a form prompt.
Peace, Amy Barlow Liberatore (a name that, when pronounced correctly, also employs trochee!)
CINQUAINS FOR dverse FORM FOR ALL
STORMY WEATHER
Cloudy
Chance of teardrops
Possibility of thunder
Hurricanes in season these days
Mood swings
MAGIC MAN
Vision
No magician
Healed the sick; fed the poor
If we follow in his footsteps
Peace reigns
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Tony at dverse presented the weekly “form for all.” I had written some a long while back for Real Toads, but Tony’s explanation of the guidelines – to write with intention; to place meaningful words at the end of a line, rather than a transitional word or hyphenation that makes the 2-4-6-8-2 syllable scheme add up mathematically… these helped me develop a new appreciation of the Cinquain. I hope my poems reflect his guidance!
These will also pop up in the scrolling poetry jam at Poets United, where I always try to be in my best “form.”
Also, today (March 14) would have been the 90th birthday of my mother, Charlotte. I miss her so.
Peace, Amy
Welcome to my 600th post!! Of course, it must be a rant… where would I be without political commentary disguised as poetry?! Thank you, all my wonderful readers, for keeping me honest and challenging me on the more controversial topics, such as today’s… (drum roll, please, Riley)
Frickin’ Frackers
Relentless, those frackers are going for bear
Digging it deep to get what’s under there
Our potable water, environment, be damned!
Exhaust every option all over the land
Washington monument cracked at its top
Virginia’s first earthquake would not make them stop
Marcellus Shale bed on North P.A.’s border
extends to New York; Andy Cuomo’s no hoarder
He says, “Frack away and to hell with the facts*,”
although we all know methane leaks through the cracks
A Vietnam vet lives in Candor, near where
I grew up with sweet well water; clean, pristine air
This vet served his country and what does he get?
Tap water that lights up, burns like a gas jet
They’re siphoning water to sell back in bottles
I wonder which politic neck I should throttle:
The one who claimed fracking is “clean, natch’ral gas,”
Or our President Obama, for letting it pass
You cannot claim conscience and turn tail on truth:
No water, no farming; no milking. Our youth
inheriting worse that our parents gave us
We Facebook, petition; we Twitter and cuss
But no one will listen will Kochs are in charge
‘cuz they’re corporate energy – they’re livin’ large
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, now on letter F; also for Trifecta, using their chosen definition of “exhaust” as a verb.
One of the lines below my email signature is, “Citizen For Potable Water and AGAINST Hydrofracturing.” This proved problematic for a time, when one of my nephews was working for a fracking company out West; it caused friction between me and a family member… but I didn’t really care about that. The big picture is not how much money a twenty-something is making (and it was the big bucks), it’s whether or not we will leave our grandkids and five generations past that ANY drinking water. At this rate, we’re losing ground.
* For more on the dangers of hydrofracturing for natural gas, see THIS LINK from Wilderness.org. Peace, Amy
ALL AT ONCE
She drank to forget
But when she drank
she remembered
as though reading from
a volume of Dickens,
reciting a poem
by Gwendolyn Brooks,
exhaling a road song
by Woodie Guthrie
Slowly, no rampage,
these ramblings; recalled
in a trance of romance and
morbid, mothballed memory
all at once
Cloistered as she and I were
in our clapboard ranch house
To me, she was home
To her, this house,
this home meant a range,
a fridge, a freezer,
a coffee pot, a yard
a car, and especially
a bathroom that locked
all at once
“Back then,” as it always
started, these old stories,
“back then” was a
cumbersome load
carried by a little girl
whose mother would
disappear mysteriously
in the middle of the night
and come back weeks later
haggard but much calmer
after being committed
all at once
She told me of
late-night runs from
the landlord and the
perils of being the
only girl with an
absent mother and
a drunken father
and a brother who was
sent off to Auntie Ruth’s
All this turmoil
milling through her mind
In a gaze hazy with
absolute truth
all at once
She confessed it all
I was her eight-year-old
confidante, her committed,
codependent kid and I
maintained that role
until she died. It’s hard
being all things
to one person
all at once
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Photo of Charlotte at age 9 (with “Little Iodine” bow, all the rage back then), all rights reserved by Amy Barlow Liberatore © 2013
When I read Three Word Wednesday’s prompt words (Rampage, Morbid, Cumbersome), they took me back to The Kitchen Table Days, afternoons with my mom. She had gin and I had chocolate milk… later, coffee. I’d listen for hours; sometimes, she’d fall asleep in her folded arms and I’d wake her and lead her to bed. The three writers cited (Dickens, Brooks, and Guthrie, “all at once”) were embedded in this one woman forever. The poverty and sharp observation of the British author; the African-American jazz flavor of the poet; and her Midwestern upbringing in Iowa, along with her support for social justice (just read the unpublished final verse of “This Land Is Your Land”) by the songwriter.
There is much alliteration in this piece, among other “tricks of the trade,” so dverse’s Poet’s Toolbox will also receive a link. Check these sites out, folks. There are literally HUNDREDS of great poets contributing to these blogs. Also check out Poets United, my poetic family.
My mother: Singer, writer, storyteller, alcoholic, mental health history unknown. But if YOUR mom was institutionalized repeatedly and came back looking like Blanche did (haggard, calm after massive electroshock) in those days, you’d have thought twice about seeing anyone except your clergyman. I do not blame her, nor do I attempt to demonize her. Charlotte was a helluva lot of fun, and she and Blanche are a huge part of the reason I’m the sharp little pencil I am today. Peace, Amy
So obviously I’m lousy at taking breaks; although, truth be told, I’m making much progress on the damned taxes, so I’m back for Sunday Night Funnerific-a-go-go, AKA “Four Prompts in One Poem.” Whew!
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
In the past, a vast empire of
mighty newspapers broadened minds.
The scale of subscribers was enormous;
most papers did not more than inform us.
Eventually “news” skirted the real story
under orders from rich men who tend to
eat the truth raw and spit it out, tattered and
slimy, pro-corporate, inaccurate drool.
The print version has since been scattered
all over cyberspace – in case you haven’t
notices, HuffPost will soon make The Daily News
a ghost (it’s on the edge, like most).
As for TV, I mist over remembering
Cronkite and Murrow, mirrors of our national
conscience (back when there was such a thing).
Now it’s “Happy News,” reported by interns and
delivered by softly curved Barbies with white smiles and
a light-skinned Black meteorologist. They report on
straw polls; they pitch their network’s upcoming
programs. Even the crawl crawls, clueless.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
(Inhale.) Sunday Scribblings wanted a poem on the word “Subscribe”; Brain Miller at dverse Poets wanted writings on media; Brenda Warren, at The Sunday Whirl, gave us a dozen words, and Poets United (all the poetry that’s fit to print!) has Poetry Pantry. So that’s FOUR prompts in one poem, and it’s still properly snarky, as befits my sharp little pencil.
I do miss real journalism… Moyers is all I have left, except for BBC.com! Peace (and a plea for something more than birdcage liner), Amy
One of my favorite prompting sites, dverse poets, put Brian Miller in charge (look out! Backs to the wall… wink). He asked us to write a history poem, and it reminded me of that question we always ask one another: “Where were you when…?” Excellent prompt, and I’m looking forward to reading everyone else’s work at dverse. This is also posted at my favorite time machine, Poets United. Peace, Amy
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LESSON
I knew a lot by the second grade
The alphabet, counting to one hundred and beyond
How to write my name in cursive, and quite perfectly
What not to flush down the toilet
(all my broccoli smuggled in via dinner napkin)
How kittens are born, because I watched
Even how to make a dry martini
(kids learn a lot from alcoholic parents)
How to spit water between my front teeth and
how to get real distance spitting watermelon seeds
One thing I didn’t know
and never expected to
was something the whole class
learned at the same time
The grownups were outside our classroom
mumbling something about
President Kennedy
A grownup was sobbing in the hall
and Mrs. Darrow almost fainted
Until second grade
I didn’t know teachers were allowed to cry
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of http://www.scootutopia.com
Sharp Little Pencil 