Rattling the Cage
(Rollie Triptych, Part III)
Perfect timing for
a horrible outcome
On impulse, we drove
to Binghamton for a visit
Stayed with my folks
Call at 5 am, Mom
jostled me awake
“Rollie’s in the E.R!”
He’d sat up in bed
Said, “I can’t breathe”
and all 300 pounds of him
flopped back, dead
Hospital. “He’s gone, Amer.”
But his son turned 1 last week
Older son only 4
I was so pissed at God
Funeral, Baptist Church
His folks’ choice, wife’s
voice unheard, unheeded
Pastor, on a roll, droned on
“Rollie’s above with Jesus”
(when his true loves were his wife,
a beer, a bong, and a beer bong)
“Blah blah blah Jesus blah blah”
Mid-sermon, a THUD
A big one, stopped preacher
mid-pontification
about the Pearly Gates
Sis whispered, “What was that?”
Couldn’t help my reply
“Rollie turning in his casket”
We cracked up, but good
Shoulders shaking and
folks behind us thought
we were sobbing, patted
support on our shoulders
Which made us laugh harder
Yowza, leave it to Rollie
prankster, stoner, merry-maker
To poke us with one last joke
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The final chapter of The Book Of Roland Newton. Rollie died at 36 of an embolism. Pictured above with older son Matt, around age 2, and younger son Casey on his first birthday, surrounded by the teddy bears that always remind me of their dad. Matt and Casey are young men now, both charting their different courses. I wish they knew their dad from more that just stories told – usually funny ones. Everyone should have a Rollie in their lives.
This is for ABC Wednesday… Y is for Yowza and Young. Peace, Amy
“…to get a drink?!”
Rollie was funny as hell but
in those days, ‘queer’ jokes were
all the rage (except around me)
But Rol never made fun of local queens
or butch girls who beat the pavement
in biker boots back in Bingo
Walking Manhattan with Rollie and Jo
and tomorrow morning’s groom
(later, my ex-husband)
All my fave boys were there
We took my family for
a walk on the sparkly side
Drag show, which bar?
We walked in to claim our
Night Before Wedding toast
(most men have bachelor parties;
I’ll give my ex credit for that)
Drag star, Connie Lee Francis
Finished “Where the Boys Are”
Stood at bar, waving glove at
bartender, then a flirty falsetto,
“What does a girl have to do…”
Thirsty girl, she dropped to baritone
“BOURBON ON THE ROCKS!”
We didn’t have a proper laugh
until later – the whole thing
The setting, the show
Her range of voice; she had
no choice. Like I said…
Thirsty girl
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The second of three consecutive poem/stories about my late brother-in-law, Rollie Newton.
Matt and Casey, this one’s for you. Bet you didn’t know your dad rolled this cool. Love you guys. I will link this up with an Open Post this week as well. Peace, Amy
Rollie, Amy, and Bob, July 1984
Pre-Wedding Surprise (Rollie, Part I)
What a night
Jo and Rollie drove down
from our hometown to NYC
We chowed Chinese, then
scrabbled cross Canal
A little Italian style
La Bella Ferrara
Sinatra-stacked juke
“Summer Wind” as we
strolled in for cannoli
Surprise! Down the block
in full swing was
the San Genaro Festival
Smiling street vendors
Splendy Christmas lights
Rides, rides, rides
Rollie, Bob and I fly
spinning on the Twirl N Puke
Bob’s brother Roy
brought his camera and
just for fun, with arms
stretched above his head,
snapped photos – but didn’t
know what would develop
Who would know he’d
hit the jackpot shot
Four years later,
Rollie was gone gone gone
This happenstance photo
is how he lives on
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This is the first of a TRIPTYCH about Rollie. If you want to read more, I just posted #2m and the third will probably go up Tuesday or Wednesday. Check back then if you wish!
dverse Poets asked for poems with repeated words or phrases. This was written yesterday, so I suppose it was meant to be! Also submitting to Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link Monday.
Bob (now Rob) was my first husband, father of Riley. His brother Roy has the most incredible luck – timing – he’s a drummer! Rollie was my sister Jo’s husband; more about him as we go through a three-day reflection on a sweet man who died suddenly – and far too soon. Check out the pic again and see the big man with the big heart. Peace, Amy
Artwork © Amy Barlow Liberatore
Wisconsin Winter Weather
Weather winces
Wisconsinites, whether
winkled or wrinkled
Why would we winter
where winds’re
wild, wooly?
Woven, wistful warmth within
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, as well as ABC Wednesday – this week, of course, the letter W! “Amy Bawwo Wiberatowe”
Halloween for Black Kitty (Six Sentence Stories)
Image Courtesy of WikiCommons
I don’t understand my peoples today. Kids runnin round in scary cloths and bloody faces like movies. Mommy stackin lots and lots of candy by front door that I always try to get out of. Daddy stabbin a bit orange ball and takin out guts those smell worse than the litter box. Mommy say peoples crool to black cats on Hell Or Ween but not Calico Stripums or Siamese Diva. Now I gotta sit alone in back room watchin Animal Planet but they showin lions makin babies so that OK.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Josie Two Shoes has a new Thursday challenge, Six Sentence Stories. Thanks, Josie, for the invite to participate.
This post is dedicated to the memory of our late black cat, Missy. She was a hoot and always told great stories, this being one I had to write from memory… I should have transcribed all her narratives!
Also “in the margins” at my poetic House of Horrors, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace and Happy dia de los muertes, Amy
Don’t Forget The Mesquite
(musings on Hell and Oscar Wilde)
Lots of folks
Some in my family
say I’m gonna burn in hell
‘cause we love
our daughter, gender queer
We ring her praise like a bell
Hell must be
fun, funny, musical
Gershwin, Gertrude, Oscar Wilde
I’d rather
burn in hell with those folks
than live in sanitized Mild
But please don’t
forget to put mesquite
in with me, to smell my best
when I descend
to see Blanche and Charlotte
and our cat Gable at rest
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Yes, it’s true, our cat Gable was gay. The only one who could pick him up was our landlord, and they would plotz over each other like two preening queens. My mom Charlotte and her mom Blanche were not lesbians, but they knew and loved the whole gay community, including “Auntie Frank,” she of the cowboys boots and best friend (a femme who “never found the right man either.”). So, yeah, I’m going in a handbasket, whatever.
I actually don’t believe in Hell (there’s enough on Earth), but they still want me to go there. Whatever.
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Marian asked us for poems about, influenced by, or concerning Oscar Wilde. She posted a BRILL YouTube clip of countertenor David Daniels, whose voice you would swear is alto – he’s a countertenor, higher than a tenor – but he seems pretty chill for an opera singer. Click HERE to witness his magnificent voice, as he prepares to premiere an opera about Oscar Wilde, starring as the man himself.
And oh, you homophobes, I hope you enjoy this piece. It is absolutely true, every single word! Peace and solidarity with my LGBTQ bros and sisses, Amy
Diva (little cat feet)
Cats change the landscape of plans.
When orphaned Diva poked her head
out of hiding, a loving thread
filtered from her heart to ours.
She sniffs shoes, jumps at
her own shadow, eats bread crumbs
off the kitchen floor. She defies
gravity, leaping from carpet
to couch back with ease at 11 years.
She salts us with the reality that
we are parents again.
Her soft breath, her purr,
sends me into blissout mode.
We all sense the sea change
and we love it.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (see Wordle HERE); also in the margins at Poets United and Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. We adopted Diva this week, and she’s a vocal little old girl whose “daddy” died suddenly… she’s grieving, plus she was scared by two of the man’s daughter’s more aggressive cats. Still a bit hand shy, she will climb up on my lap (when she’s ready) and purr… sounds of the heart. Peace, Amy
Changes
Mail call, salvation in the field
Look, another book from my aunt
Shit. More poetry
and I thought I asked her to
send me dirty magazines
like she used to for my uncle
She says that was another time
Another place
Another war
Sandburg, is this guy Jewish?
Whatever, I’ll take a look
Bunch of stuff about Chicago
and I’ve never even been there
Whatever
A phrase catches my eye
“A Million Young Work Men”
First, I thought it would be like
A Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong
but I was wrong and now
I wish I’d never read it
Shit about dead young men from
two sides of a war and all of them
cold underground, slaughtered each other
for no reason at all except to make
their leaders fat and happy and rich
And then this poet, Sandburg
dreams of their bloodgutted ghosts
They all rise up out of graves and scream
Damn the czar and Damn the Kaiser
(I thought that was a roll, whatever)
But that was another time
Another place
Another war
We’re not in this because anyone
is gonna make money or score points
We’re in this because we are patriots
and we’re gonna teach these muzzlims
democracy, even if it kills us
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Fireblossom’s prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads is tricky today: Find a poem you love, then write a poem about that one, first person, third person, fiction or real, anything goes. Hers, about a man reading Byron to a young woman, seducing her with the words of a long-gone poet, really hit home. Read it HERE, it’s terrific. This is also “in the margins” at Poets United.
I love Sandburg in all his incarnations, especially his Chicago poems, because he deals with social justice in layspeak. Never talking above the reader, his words are carefully chosen and deceptively ordinary; yet, the power of his convictions is clear. I wrote this as an aunt trying to connect with a nephew serving in Afghanistan. His through brainwashing makes it clear: The Powers That Be have won… again.
Thanks for reading, and peace, Amy
Watercolor by Joseph William Arcier, my uncle
Uncle Joe
Rags-to-riches to rags and sandals…
The millionaire, bouncing carefree
around posh New Canaan in Bermuda
shorts. Wife said, “Joe, that’s not right.”
He succeeded at iconic artwork,
but his real artistry was in the stock market:
A short, stubby man, possessed of a brain
lithe, literal, and shining bright.
Uncle Joe hung with Robert Frost and
the edgy, eclectic artsy set. We’d visit
each summer; Joe and my mom, Charlotte,
sat up drinking, crooning tunes out of spite
for his wife Caroline, virtuous virago, waving
her washed-out Mayflower credentials. The
Barlows looked down at Mom, the sister-in-law
who sang in clubs, hair bleached Harlow white.
Joe and Charlotte both married into this
marred mix of thoroughbred and “We
Lost it all in the Crash.” My dad was
the only anti-snob we girls could cite.
Joe, cigar in the ashtray and a
parchdry martini close by,
taught me to dance, my small bare
feet on his Fred Flintstones each night.
Up late, singing show tunes; Caroline
would appear, her long (natural) blonde hair
pulled into a bun so tight – severe as
Judgment Day. We singers got tight
as beer and vermouthless martinis.
Olives floated easily, like our voices.
Dad couldn’t keep up, nor my sisters.
Just the three of us howling at moonlight.
When Joe died, it was quick as his smile.
The twinkle in his eye dimmed, he coughed
and fell off the chair face down. His
cigar butt burned a hole in the white white
carpet, and Caroline fretted about it
throughout the funeral. I stayed back home
to tend dear old Auntie Ruth. Didn’t
have the courage to see Joe dead, not quite.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter J; also for Three Word Wednesday, who gave us Edgy, Iconic, and Lithe as prompt challenges.
Uncle Joe was indeed a fine watercolorist, as you can see in his work above. He considered himself an artist first and a rich man second. Funniest moment? In the expansive, expensive back yard, which sported a huge glacial rock and a bocce court, he once took a deep breath and exhaled mightily. “You know what that smell is?” he asked his nieces. Dramatic pause, then his reply: “Money.”
His idea of the perfect martini was a lot of gin and then the cap from the vermouth bottle waved somewhere over the top of the shaker. He was a funny, wry, clever man who drank to excess and invested in the post-Depression market to unbelievable success.
He was Aunt Caroline’s polar opposite. He was the rain forest to Caroline’s Arctic; the happy-go-lucky slob to her pearls and tortoise shell hair combs. His habit of bopping around New Canaan, Connecticut (home to IBM scion Thomas J. Watson and many others) in shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals drove my aunt nuts. This only made me love him more. He was an iconoclast: Well-read, poorly bred, bald head, lots of bread. Frost was indeed a friend, but he never bragged about it. Man, I miss that little big man. Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 