An Inconvenient Seed
In the Senate men’s room
where Left and Right
meet in the middle
to piddle (and diddle)
my “magic beans” await
Every time a member
ignores the attendant
or doesn’t even tip,
my seeds spring into action
attaching to silk socks
Growing between their toes
vines twining up lazy legs
over pompous paunches
anywhere they can find
purchase
Buds bloom into small papers
the size of dollar bills
All his corporate sponsors are listed
for the world to see and to know
that this putz don’t know shit from shinola
After the lines are laced, the other shoe
gives way to a bud, a roll of
Kimberly-Clark toilet paper
(T.P. made by the Kochs)
and every square squawks
WalMart… WalMart… WalMart…
© 2014 poem and sketch by Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Shanyn at dverse Poets askied for our thoughts on seeds. Of course, Congress sprang to mind (on so many levels, ha ha ha).
Even though these are horrible times for our government, we must never forget the biggest villain of all: MONEYPOWERGREED. Peace, Amy
Are We Not Meat Puppets?
They say jump
We don’t ask why; we say, “How high?”
They say pay
We don’t question “Evil Axis”; we ante up the taxes
When did we become a numbskull nation of
Stepford meat puppets? Coughing up money to
support the Machine that pukes out bullets and drones,
that rains down death on the defenseless and our kids,
that defends “democracy” like it’s alive and well
in this incestuous hellhole of a republic that should be
called the Citizens United Shambles of Anglophiles.
Now a 200-year old experiment gone horribly wrong
reveals the abysmal truth: We were set up to fail.
Ben Franklin knew it; we blew it according to his
prediction that the predilection of the predator rich
would supplant rights of the “lesser born.”
American royalty (the Bushes, the Kochs, the WalMartons),
bred and more often inbred into simpering, faded Xeroxes
of hypocrisy, invading Congress (or buying a senator or two,
plus a Supreme, a real bargain these days)
They co-opt the middle class covertly
Privatizing public schools
(Susan B. Anthony reels in her grave)
Privatizing health care
(Big Pharma wanks the banks)
Busting unions and demonizing the rank and file
(Mother Jones rattles her bones)
Abusing immigrants
(State of Liberty or Torch Your Ass, Amigo?)
Espousing the Trickle-Down Theory
(Paul Ryan, please pass the toilet paper,
or your budget – they’re the same thing)
Citing voter fraud and discouraging minority voters
(we NEED ID because four cases were proved)
Continuing worst practices in banks
(FDR was a socialist; rich people deserve bonuses)
With help from some bastard pastors who live
in mansions, drive limos (or are driven in same),
who wouldn’t give Jesus a dime or the time of day
if they passed Him on the street (Private police
will handle homeless, and they won’t have any
Big Government oversight in how they handle it)
With help from us, the pathetic apathetic…
they strain our brains and even our mercy through
media propaganda and corporate corpulence
And we fall for it, fall into it, ground up into
walking, talking, FOX-spewing meat puppets
And as Monsanto and their ilk skip off to another
Koch Brothers cruise to the mutilated, prostituted
Caribbean, we say
Have a nice day and
Why doesn’t somebody do something about them and
Kim Kardashian is really getting fat and
Honey Boo-Boo is on, microwave some popcorn and
Wow, this (genetically engineered, dye-infused,
growth hormone-laden, e coli infected) beef is
too expensive, but fire up the grill and pass me
a cold one or two or twelve
Where is our indignation?
Is it American Idol or American Idle,
cause this sure ain’t American Idyll
NRA, FOX, ALEC: know your acronymns and
dismantle their poisonous, licentious, homophobic,
woman-hating, war-profiteering, racist, divisive
shitmongering, unconstitutional, IMMORAL machinery
By any nonviolent means necessary
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
So Kerry at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads wanted a rant, in remembrance of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Since this angry state of mind is so utterly foreign to me, I did my best to act like a political activist and member of the Christian Left. Hope I succeeded. (wink)
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
We Interrupt Your Regularly Schedule Program
(a full-tilt boogie political rant)
As the prez drones on
Americans are bored.
As the drones fall on
Afghanis, they’re gored, ignored by
the drumbeat of war, the military
rhythm of their streets, their football meets,
their homes, Rumi roams their graveyards.
American values pressed upon them
like Nagasaki tattoos in hues of death
searing their flesh, a mesh of
indelible reminders that cling to
the very marrow of their own beliefs.
Skies, fly-bys, murmurs of surprise,
more stealth attacks by wealthy whackadoodles
with poodles whose pedicures cost more than
the Dewers that fuels their mules, duly noted.
I voted, but it didn’t matter, records
shattered for brazen fundraising.
TV talking heads walking through it,
praising Lindsay Lohan working the program,
no grams up her button nose; I suppose it’s
intensely interesting to the Real Housewives of
Stepford, but it IS. NOT. NEWS.
The view expressed by Fox’s best,
yelling bellicose foghorns with degrees in
anything but journalism, kernels of truth
plus one ton of pure Hereford fertilizer?
THIS. IS. NOT. NEWS.
Our rights taken from us, our voices choicely
squelched by Citizens United, dividing the
green from the lean, the rich bitch from the
working, lurking stiff upper lips standing in line
at the Union Hall, all shirking off unemployment
because there’s always a job for any slob who will
do it. Screw the indignity of the position, it’s their
mission to have purpose percolating in the mass of days,
rife with strife, but it passes for life in America.
Meanwhile, Koch-heads yacht a lot, spend and spit
on us, that’s your trickle down theory, they piss and
don’t miss as we struggle, strain to avoid their toxic rain,
strive, staying alive even if it we lose our house to the bank that
tanked playing rushing roulette with our debt. The rich
don’t create jobs, don’t create anything, moving
money around is their pursuit of happiness.
Happenstance made them rich, not effort.
THIS. IS. NEWS. The kind that should be reported,
not distorted, nor distended, deliver as intended.
Families living in cars, sitting at bars, behind bars,
that’s news. Mental health strategy a traumatic
tragedy, that’s news. Not Happy News that gives you
a toy made by a Chinese boy in a sweatshop, top of his
head covered with Communist slogans, paid in tokens.
It’s not Good News for the FUNDAlack of MENTAL
functionISTS, but it passes like gasses from blowhard
Beltway asses whose glasses were replaced by Lasik on
our dime. I’m sick and low-income? Sorry, chum,
you’re a lazy bum. What becomes of you won’t show up
on The View. Gee, you think? Don’t blink.
The new news is glitzy, blonde tanned ditzy reporters
distorting but clueless that their teleprompters spew
lies on abortions, on choice, our voice no longer heard
because “Corporations are people, my friend,” will that horse’s
end please shut up, four deferments from Nam, never heard
a bomb, cuz he was Mormonizing in France, dancing at
draft rallies all the same. Who’s to blame if he dodged it, the
logic is on his side, but don’t turn hawk if you balked
when it was your turn. Even had de Gaulle to show up at
draft rallies, tallies not in his favor, but winning’s his
favorite flavor. THIS. IS. NEWS. (reported on the BBC, not
through Corporate Corpulent American Broadcasting)
Today the news is: Gays are hated, Liberals are jaded, Latinos
berated, Treyvon wrong-shaded and Dems are Commies. Filthy Zim,
the trimmer of black population, zoned on medication, toting
a habit of hatred, a habit of meds, side effects include an itchy
trigger finger. America is for the armed, the beautiful, and
the moneyed. Honey, it’s the way things are; don’t complain
about CEO gain and golden parachutes or hoot and holler about
the borrowed dollars Bush cushioned on a credit card to wage war
on a third world country, Weaponless but we brought the Mass
Destruction. The fact is, that war never made our taxes, and no
draft left the middle class daft. Elections cost billions, one
candidate worth millions, he laid off thousands, and though he
says his corporation may be a person with a thumper of a
tickertape heartbeat… it has no heart. THIS. IS. NEWS.
Reporting live from the edge of democracy, trying damned hard
not to be pushed off the edge, this is Amy Barlow Liberatore from
WASHthemoneycleanINGTON. Good night and good luck.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thank you, Aaron Kent, for reminding me to rant away like I used to, spitfire style and purely politically.
For Three Wd. Wednesday: Cling, Murmur, Taken. Also at my poetic tickertape access, Poets United.
C’mon. Don’t tell me you didn’t see a rant coming this week! Politically yours, Amy
Naked at the Tea Party
Morning mist lifts over Madison
yet a cloud remains
following the foolish victor who
occupies a solid gold throne
furnished by a Faustian family
from a land far, far away
As he breaths through his mouth
he complains his crown
is bulky, unwieldly (gotcha! He doesn’t know that word)
adored as it is with spangles, sparkles
the spoils of ill-gotten gains
and still – ill repute remains
He resigns himself to another day
of allowing teachers to go home (forever)
Freeing children from pesky doctor visits
Yet his doom looms: HE IS JOHN DOE
Jump one hurdle, slam into a wall
The drumbeat grows: Indict “Koch Lite”
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday: Bulky, Mist, Reign.
Also at my poetic soapbox, the ever-trusty Poets United (not a PAC, incidentally!).
Image courtesy of the magazine named for my patron saint: Mother Jones.
Wild in the Streets
Those crazy Wisconsinites
From Madison to Green Bay
They’re getting ready
The signs are up; protests continue
Bikers now pump their tires full
Those who walk are re-Scholling their shoes
Unions are getting out the vote
Churches are getting out the vote
Raging Grannies are getting out the vote
College students are getting out the vote
The handicapped are all accessible:
Teachers, farmers, union rank and file
Families on public assistance
People whose jobs were cut to give fat cats tax breaks
Women in general
(Hell, he doesn’t discriminate, he hates ALL of us)
Governor Doofus. Dumber than a sack of rocks.
We’re jumping in the pool
We’re jamming the polling places
We’re ready to make our stand
We’re gonna tell the Koch Brothers that
WISCONSIN IS NOT FOR SALE.
And when we’re done, we’ll meet
on State Street for some local brew
Scott Walker, start packing now
Save us the embarrassment of evicting you
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Sunday Scribblings (‘wild’) and for Poetic Bloomings, asking for poems based on a movie title.
“Wild in the Streets” is a cult classic about a pop star who eventually gets into politics. Once he’s president, he mandates things like putting people in nursing homes on LSD. It’s a true stinker, but the title was perfect for how some Tea Party members from other state view us, as we strive to get the incompetent man pictured above out of our everyday lives. Teabaggers still don’t get that they have been co-opted by the Brothers Koch, who pull all the strings and want to privatize schools and end reproductive freedoms. Silver-spoon trust fund babies; never really had to work because Daddy left them everything!
Sharp Little Pencil 