Authentically Fake
How come some have it all, she wonders
The clothes the Corvettes the coats so warm
Houses so big, all for one movie star and her boy toy
Pools they don’t swim in, just get drunk beside
More cars than they could ever drive
like little boys collecting marbles
Women panicked by age, skin stretched and sewn
Poisons injected into foreheads, butt fat into lips,
plastic made for Barbie breasts and big booty
Arnold must sit in a private spa with a head full
of foil to keep that blond, Redford, too
Hair Plugs For Men (I’m not only an action star;
I’m also a client) – only his agent knows for sure
Guys gayer than picnic baskets, hand on the girl’s
knee – but never higher than that.
Rich people dressed like… clowns.
BEIBER! Pull up your damned pants!
HEIDI KLUM! Put those girls in a bra!
KARDASHIANS! Just go away, now!
Jeez, they are all so fake…
My shopping cart, yeah, this is real
And my cup full of change from kind people
This bench, solid and all mine, for now
I may be homeless but I’m not a public joke
Here on Hollywood near Vine,
I’m the most authentic person in town
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Poets United wanted poems on truth, on authenticity. As seen through the eyes of a homeless woman, we begin to question what is real and why some people work so hard at faking it to appear authentically young, perky, and prosperous. Peace, Amy
Poem never made it to my blog until now – yet it was my first proper freestyle rant (on gentrification of L.A.), written while I was hanging with Riley, Marcia and Jesse on a trip to SoCal. Reason I’m putting this up? A friend of mine needs a KICK IN THE BUTT to jump-start writing her own stories of those years. God, I miss it so, the Boardwalk, the cheap breakfast, the neverendingness of it all… Amy
Venice Then and Now (1979, 2012)
We were free spirits, flowing with our Karma
Floating in a pot-scented breeze
But now it’s all money disease
Dis-ease about security sucks marrow from bone
Creativity from full-blown, fine, eclectic minds
The intersection: Hollywood & Vine… correction: What I Owe vs. What Is Mine
In your soul, the blues; on your mind, the dues
Paying for the right to live here, by the whispers of waves
Near palatial pavilions of the potently paid
Praying we could once again live back then, back when all was sensual, all serene
And the Venice Boardwalk a little less Green
Rave all we want, the money’s moved in
It’ll never move out ‘til tsunamis tumble Venice back to the trashy look
of hash-clouded, bearded marginals
Undulating madrigals with open guitar cases
Accepting quarters from faces unlined by gotta do gotta go gotta take this call
It’ll take the fall of L.A. to get it back to stay
No matter how much money they spend, there’s always more expense
for parking meters, Margaritas, Mercedes-Benz
What became of the real-deal drifters, grifting their way through a shroom-filled haze
Jingles and Frank and ragged reggae days
Muscle-bound bods of men well-oiled, well-pumped, unshod
Stores with honey-drenched Haagen Dazs in paper cups with wooden spoons
A pennyweight on a Mylar balloon –
we sent it skipping ghostlike toward the Venice Canals
Now they’re scum green
But the ducks don’t mind, they’re doing fine
Today I said hi and they called back
Money can’t make ‘em go anything but QUACK
If ducks = local charm, then why not beach bums, doing no harm?
Charm, like beauty, in beholders’ eyes
No room for human clutter, sweep ‘em in the gutter
like Rudy’s 42nd St., makes me shudder
The rich have L.A. well in hand
No handouts, no hand-me-downs, just put ‘em out, put ‘em down
Set down roots upon roots much deeper, roots of hippies without beepers, laptops,
Blackberry speakers attached to the ears of societal sleepers
Cops in Oakwood busted humble places – put those grandmas on their faces
Fat cats watch the breaking story – 5:00 talking head in her glory
Unless it’s your grandma’s face on the floor, it’s a sound byte, nothing more
And folks who really give a shit don’t have time to protest it
Scrimping, scraping takes its toll – staying, praying Rent Control isn’t eaten whole
by well-heeled leeches who want their condos near the beaches
Rich vs. Poor, at the boiling point
God, this city needs a joint
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Remember the book I helped edit? IT’S HERE! Read this poem and I dare you to tell me you don’t want to read this guy’s story. Fred Weintraub tells it like it is, like it was. He admits he can be a schmuck, but as for me, he’s a MENSCH – a real human being who knows how to laugh at himself, and when. The most powerful man in Hollywood you never heard of. So if you want to get a great slant on the 50s and 60s and beyond, follow this LINK to get your e- or hard copy of Bruce Lee, Woodstock & Me. (He even mentioned my “sharp little pencil” in the acknowledgments!) Thanks to my old friend David Fields for hooking me up to an incredible project. Peace, Amy
FRED WEINTRAUB will never rest –
in peace or otherwise
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
He’s kickin like Bruce Lee
Full of chutzpah and
ready to tell the tale
Tasted the Bitter End
Made the brick wall a comedy club icon
Helped nunchucks whirl their way
into the American vernacular
as well as Bruce Lee
Woody, Cosby, Pryor
Peter, Paul & Mary
Wandered the world
Saw a Cuban jail and
a lot of women
Played piano in a cathouse
Anything to keep away from
the safety of a picket fence
and an ordinary life
If not for Fred
No footage of feel-good hippies
in Woodstock mud
No historical record of the
defining, deafening cry of the 60s
Vulnerable to sentimentality
Seriously blessed by serendipity
and occasionally a real pain in the ass
Fred’s not dead
Not by a long shot
And he’s telling all…
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Boulevard Noir
I was a crumb, out of a job again,
feeling fallow, hanging out with the other writers at Schwab’s.
An obsolete automobile, titanic and shiny as a new penny,
pulled up; we were slack-jawed, admiring the grandeur.
In front, a bald chauffeur; his passenger, a forgotten icon, Silent era.
She offered me a job, plus room and board.
(Around repo time, one swallows one’s pride and hides
one’s rambunctious side, replacing it with unctuous politeness.)
I approached a mansion at the address she gave me. Rang the bell;
the stately old house echoed, hollow, eerie.
Her butler took my coat and placed my fedora on the hat-rack.
Who could know that, within one month, I’d be
avoiding her embrace in the palatial garden and
waltzing her around the grand ballroom at a party
“Just for the two of us, my darling…”
And who could predict I’d end up face down her in “cement pond,”
blood lacing the water around my bobbing, lifeless body?
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl and at Poets United.
Sharp Little Pencil 