At Poetic Asides, we’re still writing a Poem A Day. Today’s theme? Metamorphosis. I promised Robert, no cockroaches!
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Someone once said, “Before you’re 30, you look like what God made you. After 30, you look like what YOU made you.”
THE DEEPEST FURROW
Can’t outrun the clock
It chimes, it chisels
upon our rocks of ages
our faces, once smooth
Now grooved with memories
of roaring laughter
and mysterious fears,
tears settle in grooves
then follow the trail
downward toward the heart
Crow’s feet from laughing
from smoking
from squinting
from shouting about
how life isn’t what you’d planned
Face placid, etched like acid,
smile lines betray
black Irish humor
that finds even the horrific
a bit funny, given time
The deep Rushmorian crack
by the right eyebrow
was the first divorce
And the brand-new dimple
next to the smile line that’s
next to the other smile line?
It seemed to appear after
talking about politics
with my dear chum today
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For this Sunday’s prompt, we were asked to write about the harvest season. I gazed at a picture of Riley playing in fall leaves during her first Autumn, and the words fell like the proverbial fall leaves. Please check in at Sunday Scribblings to see other poets! Amy
HARVEST OF SIGHT AND SOUND
She was three
and had never seen falling leaves
never heard the crunch as crumpled tossaways
made munching sounds under her feet
“Mommy, where is the sand?”
Ah, Puerto Rico
The only land she had known thusfar
We had moved back to my hometown
“The beach is far from here, mi nena
Look above at the sunshine
streaming through the colors!”
She said it looked like a rainbow, una arca de iris
My daughter fell in love with Fall
and she a September baby, born on Labor Day!
We left behind the everyday glare of the tropics
for a land of constant change and atmospheric delights
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
HEALTHY FOOD, HEALTHY LIFE (for We Write Poems)
The prompt was about cooking, but I got stuck on ingredients! Amy
HEALTHY FOOD, HEALTHY LIFE
Don’t eat Red Dye Number Two
Skip the yellow, green and blue
Sure, your kid wants blue-tongue bliss
But there’s poison in its kiss
Wheat flour that has been enriched
Grips your colon like a stitch
Keep hands off the soda, too
Even diet’s bad, it’s true
No plastic in the microwave
Lest you crave an early grave
Phthalates leach into your food
That cannot be any good
Lest you think I’m paranoid
Thinking all food births typhoid
Rest assured, I’m very healthy
Even though we’re hardly wealthy
Whole foods do taste great, you know
Sure, they cost some extra dough
But the outcome’s worth the cost
Fat Cats bought control – we lost
Skip the fructose, shun the dyes
Don’t believe the corporate lies
Lots of crap is on those shelves
Read the labels. Protect yourselves.
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
BAD INHABITANTS! BAD! (For Jingle’s Blog)
After years of neglect
the elemental truth is this:
We have failed
as stewards of our planet
as guardians of
the seventh generation to come
Our rain is acid and
wells polluted as we drill for
The Next Big Thing to power our
Next Big Honkin’ Truck We Don’t Need
Industry, single drivers, and cow farts
Too many vehicles, not enough trees
Too much red meat, not enough veggies
have rendered the air toxic
Farming was once a family business
Now CAFOS and Con-Aggravation
slosh our ground with liquid shit
Poverty rapes the rain forests
Driving up SoCal’s Highway 1
some whack job flicks a butt out the window
That spark becomes a flames becomes a wildfire
becomes death and destruction
Water, Air, Earth, Fire
Elements of the earth
Elements of our dearth of desire
to let the seventh generation be born and have their say
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
SHE IS ELEMENTARY
She is air.
Refreshing caress of a soft breeze messing with
your carefully coiffed hairdo
She reminds you to let go
to bend with the wind
She is water.
Drip drip dropping from the faucet lightly
Listen: She’s intent on stealing your attention
She could boil
but chooses to stay cool
She is fire.
Dancing on a waxy wick
A flickering flame in your darkest moment
All she needs is your spare wood and
a match to warm you woolen soft
She is earth.
Freshly tilled soil, embracing new seeds
Covering, comforting each burgeoning life
Creation begins with her, even as
you are the soil from which she herself was sprung
She is your daughter
All the elements of a true force of nature
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
AUTUMN LEAVES
Spring brings budding trees
sprouting fresh leaves, lushly
Green shade and shelter
With fall comes color
Magnificent, authentic
Trees turn their true shade
Crimson, golden, peach
Each are their natural hue
Green’s for chlorophyll
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
FIRMLY ROOTED
Firmly rooted
Standing tall, with dignity
even as others fall prey
to greedy humans
Somehow I am spared
Perhaps those knotty bits
that grew on my sides over the years
were a blessing after all
I saw men with loud instruments
coming to get me and all my friends
I used my “get the hell away” stance
That and the blotches seemed to help
They must have thought
there was something wrong with me
Disease or some other imperfection
But really, I’m just stubborn
Someday they may literally take me as I am
but my prayer is that lightning lay me down
And when I fall… if no one is there to hear it
Will I make a sound? You’re damn right I will!
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The prompt at We Write Poems was Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Bleak but possible. Amy
AND SO IT ENDS
Yesterday
the flash filled the evening sky
blinding us at first
A fireball, unearthly and
something told me to hold my breath as long as I could
Then came strong hot winds from the North
and with it, ash, falling slower than snow
suspended in deathly calm air
the stillness, the dreamlike atmosphere
Today we’re still waiting for Mom and Dad to
come home from work
The generator is working but we’ll need fuel
Tommy said Let’s see what’s up in town
People were stealing stuff from the store
No one was at the checkout so we came away with
cans of fruit and Spaghettios, juice, milk
some eggs that weren’t smashed in the carton
The ice cream melted overnight
We drank it out of the carton
and chugged warm soda trudging back home
through sifting ash in the middle of the street
Tomorrow I pray I wake up
and it will all be a bad dream
But Tommy and Sandy are counting on me
til our folks get home
Sandy cried tonight because SpongeBob wasn’t on TV
(nothing was on TV, I checked)
Tommy hauls out board games we haven’t played
since we got the X-Box
We roll the dice
and wait
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were prompted to write about a fork in the road; a change in direction; a crossroads, and the path taken – or not taken.
As usual, I took a different path… on the prompt! Enjoy a bit of whimsy. Amy
SILVER WHERE (Writer’s Island, Imagine)
Humid sultry unbearable walking-through-hot-water August midday
Trying to catch even the echo of a slight breeze
Wandering in the shade trees of Topanga Canyon
A glint
A glimmer of shiny something
half-hidden under leaves blown to the side of the road
during yesterday’s languidly moving air
A fork
Did someone toss it out the window with their takeout Chinese
forgetting that it came from a drawer in their home
(the ants feast on leftover Boiled Tripe and Things in a nearby discard0
Was there a fight and it was flung in a rage? From a moving car?
Or was it Julia Butterfly Hill, who takes environmentalism so seriously
she packs knife, fork, spoon, napkin, cup, and plate in her handbag
lest she be served on styrofoam with plastic utensils
Did her legendary self wander this road? Did the fork get tired of wandering?
Did it share tearful, tarnish-inducing goodbyes
with her fellow knife and spoon
before skinnying out a hole in the bottom of Julia’s bag?
The fork is with me today; I shine it often and smile at happenstance
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
This poem, a ghazal, was chosen by Poets For Living Waters, a project calling for submissions in response to the Gulf Coast travesty, as an Open Mic poem. I hope these words will spur YOU on to call your members of Congress and demand they re-institute tighter regulations on Big Oil, which were loosened drastically when Dick Cheney round-tabled with CEOs – not environmentalists – in forming our country’s energy policy. Another inheritance of eight years of unbridled greed, this one implicating Cheney’s pet, Halliburton, as well. Off the soapbox, onto the poem:
Ghazal for the Gulf Coast Tragedy
by Amy Barlow Liberatore
We watch the deadly ebony flow
Fossil fuels in free-form flow
At first, the movement seemed so slow
Relentless, hostile man-made flow
As more is learned, we’re shocked to know
that one part could have stopped the flow
One switch, and costing not much dough
Compared with damage from the flow
Big Oil lobbyists, strictly pro
Primed Congress’ campaign flow
Regulations were tailored so
that BP had their profit flow
Now shadows blot out coral’s glow
And wildlife chokes from crude oil flow
For every time the Gulf winds blow
Disaster follows with the flow
This sharp little pencil writes, although
I’d give my soul to staunch the flow
Amy Barlow Liberatore is a poet and jazz and gospel singer/songwriter. Her work has been published online in melisma and The Pink Chameleon; three of her works recently appeared in The Awakenings Review. Her blog can be found at https://sharplittlepencil.wordpress.com.
Amy and her husband, Rev. Lex Liberatore, are longtime activists for racial and social justice, the environment, LGBT equality, and health care for all. They live in the Village of Attica, NY.
poetsgulfcoast.wordpress.com
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