OK, I know I’ll get heat for this one… another “stacking” poem for Poetic Asides.
BRICKS AND MORTAR FIRE IN BABEL
What is holy about the Holy Land?
The Dome dominated by one faith
as Americans do little except contribute
to Israel’s continued building of a wall
choking off Palestinians under slabs of
mentality and political polemic.
“It’s in Israel’s defense and protects American interests.”
It prevents Arabs from getting to the doctor.
How Christian, how Jewish, how holy is that?
And Americans, who cannot feed and clothe
and care for their tired, poor, hungry,
are footing the bill for the contractors.
People who defend Palestinian rights
are called “anti-Semites,” even the Jews who
choose to show mercy on Islamic people.
As though the heads of the State of Israel
speak for all Jewish people around the world.
Tell that to Jews who think Zionism is just another power grab.
Apocalyptics take joy in much of this,
feeling we’re stealing ever closer to the Rapture,
sure they know the year, if not the day and hour,
surer still that they and they alone
will ascend with Jesus, patted on the head,
and to Hell with everyone else!
Until true Godliness prevails, when
Jews, Christians, and Muslims remember
they all worship the same God,
Jerusalem will remain divided at its heart.
So many languages, so many translators,
but no one is listening in Babel.
Spare me your prophesies and Revelation.
If you really love Jesus, you have to love us all.
If you really follow the Torah, you have to love us all.
If you really follow the Prophet Mohammad, you have to love us all.
Israel is not real estate; Israel is a people.
Mr. Netanyahu, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF GREGORY?
It started off like usual, boy and girl meet,
make the trip to City Hall, marry.
Start a family with a beautiful boy.
Then Mom relapses, synapses lost to
crack addiction come back to haunt her
like Jacob Marley, chains and all.
Dad bails, few details known of his whereabouts,
so Mom goes to work and leaves Gregory in the house.
When the State workers came, they found him,
three years old, still in a crib, pillows packing him in
“to keep him safe,” mutters Mom, as she is
taken into custody (so is her son).
A year passes; Gregory waits for foster parents,
but he is no poster child for adoption. First,
they see his bright blue eyes and big smile…
then ask, “Why doesn’t he walk around?”
Workers explain that he just learned to crawl;
crucial development of muscles was delayed by the crib.
All potential parents pass him up like a misfit toy
until one day, the right couple comes along.
They see him as a creation of God, worthy, worth the fight
to take him to therapy, get him walking upright.
Take him to worship – he’s the church’s bright, shiny penny.
Pastor says, “You can’t spell ‘congregation’ without ‘Greg’!”
Finally, the big day, the whole church goes to court
to support the new family, to make it legal. Gregory looks
regal in his little suit and tie, smiling, smiling…
The joy on his face, applause when the papers are signed.
Gregory was put on this earth by a sick mom and a deadbeat dad,
but he knows he can always count on his two moms.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Looking for _____, says the prompt at Poetic Asides. As usual, my Irish is up!
LOOKING FOR PEACE
Swords into ploughshares? Not anytime soon.
We’ve been at war for thousands of years.
Men have fought over women, over money,
marking territory like dogs, changing borders,
shouting orders that (_____) is to blame and
(_______) MUST be annihilated.
Special ops, men made of steel and guts –
many who live to tell the tale, broken and unsure.
Troopers exacted the only death toll at Attica.
Nixon said it was an acceptable loss.
Collateral damage: Arms, legs, burqas,
babies. Baskets full from market, now
bullet-hewn produce strewn on a rocky terrain.
“Meanwhile, back at the ranch,”
Skinheads field-dress a man whose only sin
was a wink at the wrong guy; he is strapped
to the bumper of a cracker truck with the
Confederate flag flapping in the breeze of
the ultimate joy ride – ice-cold beer and
today’s catch dead and mangled, trailing them,
bouncing in the tread marks.
A woman says the wrong thing (again)
and gets what she had coming; he talks to police
and she hides her face, mumbling “mistake” and “sorry.”
A shelter’s bell rings at 2 am:
A mom and two kids barefoot in Buffalo snow,
wrapped only in bedsheets. As they are clothed and
warmed by cocoa and reassurance, they tell of
the boyfriend confiscating clothes and shoes nightly
so they might not leave. Now they fear he is near.
In D.C., no matter who started it, the drones find
their next predator… surrounded by family members.
In return, a boy straps on the gear and becomes
one cell phone call away from the CNN crawl.
Everybody has nukes as long as the US says it’s OK.
Israel walls off Palestinians, we pay for the materials.
If we complain, we are called “anti-Semitic,”
even if we’re Jewish!
Mexican cartels are doing well and causing hell,
while the CIA protects Afghan poppy fields.
But we are made to worry only about people who hope
to clean toilets in America – the least of our worries.
God, Jehovah, Adonai, Allah, Creator
Give us peace, we pray in our churches and temples
We didn’t listen to Moses.
We didn’t listen to Jesus.
We ignore the Five Pillars of Islam.
We didn’t heed the Buddha or Gandhi.
We didn’t follow Dr. King past his death.
We only listen to TV…
Why don’t we listen to God?
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Big Tent Poetry, we were asked to think long and hard about our dwellings… then write about a favorite place. I knew right away where my heart lay.
OUR KITCHEN (for Lex)
In times long passed,
the kitchen hearth was
the heart of every home.
Scent of drying herbs
a potpourri of potted and garden delights.
Fresh-baked bread beckoning.
Perhaps a rocking chair for Gram
as she sat and choreographed
the preparation of the evening meal.
And always, a pot of coffee.
Our own kitchen is quite small,
but the walls, tomato red, stir appetites.
We collaborate on meals:
Here’s the wooden board, I’ll chop veggies
while you brown the chicken.
You, the king of piecrust, rule the rolling pin
while I slice apples and stir in spices.
Occasionally, we bump butts, laughing.
Small space, but a romantic place.
Our kitchen is the heart of our home.
Rented, but ours, still
because we’ve made it so.
The cat watches longingly from his perch
awaiting his shre.
We cook, bake, talk, share
and pray over the meal we prepare,
for patience, for love to loom large
over the rest of the world. As for me and mine,
we are at peace.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were asked by Jingle at Jingle Poetry to create around the theme, Seven Deadly Sins. Here’s my take, and you can view other great poets by clicking on her link! Peace, Amy
SEVEN SINS I HAVE COMMITTED (in no particular order)
Wanting more
Staying too long at the party
Clinging to possessions I don’t need
Looking right past nature’s everyday beauty
Chocolate (need I elaborate?)
Giving too much to men who wanted more
Ignoring God (until the Spirit smacked me upside the head)
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
THE ESSENTIALS
Should the shipwreck come
and I and my truck be washed ashore
Here’s what remain to call my own
sustaining me in my bamboo hut:
Tangerine candles and wooden matchsticks
A jar of honey
A box of African Red Bush Tea
My favorite honeybee mug
A volume of Neruda and one of Hardy
Paper and pencils
Pictures of my family and friends
A few sports bras and tramparound clothes
One little black dress, unusable in these circumstances
Hopefully, my bifocals would survive the swim
But most important of all:
My wit
My faith
My ingenuity, soon to be tested
My name
…even if I am the only one left alive to say it
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
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
WHATEVER COMES (for Poets United)
Whatever you think about me
I am human
I have feelings
Feelings that have been stomped on
or caressed
depending on the person and circumstance
I am an American from Europe
whose white skin
and heterosexuality
and youth in the suburbs
gave me advantages
over those who weren’t dealt the same cards
or even given cards from the same deck
I am a woman who still doesn’t have
the same Constitutional rights as males
but who can vote and speak her mind
who doesn’t have to wear a burqa
who doesn’t risk being stoned to death
because she dared leave the house without her husband
I am not threatened by TV personalities
who admit they don’t believe half their hate speech
(they are just doing what their sponsors tell them)
who have no degrees in journalism
(one a college dropout, the other a deejay)
They don’t speak from their hearts
but from their wallets
and they freely admit it
Sure, it’s mercenary and incites violence
But it’s a living
Powers of such as these are limited
only by the willingness of their listeners
to be sheep, to blame the least in our society
for their current woes
(this time it’s Mexicans and gays; last time it was Jews;
before that, Armenians, before that…)
When Jesus was surrounded by “unclean” street urchins
he told the disciples not to chase them away
but to let them come closer
He didn’t want them deported to another town
He didn’t call them unclean or unworthy
He didn’t charge co-pays when healing the poor
He acted out of love
He also raised a ruckus
that resonates to this very day
for to love one’s enemies is an almost impossible task
and to love one’s neighbor,
harder still when he brags he ran them over,
but they were “just Mexicans”
Jesus was hung because of words
and all his words were loving
If our poetic world was only Whitman, Dickinson, Dickens
bereft of Ginsburg, Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks
how poor this world would be
Provocation is healthy
What makes one’s blood course faster
makes one’s mind more nimble
Sure, I get provoked
But I stand by my right as an artist
to call out powerful hate-mongers
Plato banned poets because
he claimed they drew their inspiration
from imaginary worlds
Those of us who draw from the real world
do so in the name of justice
of compassion for the Other
regardless of religion or color
regardless of the consequences
in spite of whatever comes
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
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