YESTERDAY TODAY TOMORROW
Last night slumped in an armchair
A barely lucid lump of woman
Juiced up on cough syrup to quell
the oncoming bronchial nasties
This morning, hastily dressing for church
Chipper, ready to play both carols
and hipper tunes for kids as they
pieced together ornaments for the church’s tree
Tomorrow is whatever it will be
Be it fancy free or down in the dumps
Crummy weather or fair smattering of sun, it’s still
the gray matter under my gray hair that gets the final say
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Another Poetic Asides take on “forget what they say,” this one with no holds barred!
CALL ME WHAT YOU WILL
Call me too tolerant for
respecting those of other faiths.
Call me a bad Christian
for saying that God created us all equal, including Jews and Muslims and Taoists and Buddhists and non-believers.
Call me a bleeding heart
for wanting everyone to get health care.
Call me an alarmist
for insisting that hydrofracking is dangerous.
Call me an n***** lover (and they have)
for supporting an African-American president.
Call me anti-civil rights
for wishing to disband self-styled militias.
Call me anti-Constitution
for insisting semi-automatic weapons are not needed to hunt.
Call me a coward
for being a steadfast pacifist.
Call me a moron
because I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth.
Call me a bad mother
for not trying to talk my daughter out of being lesbian.
Call me a bad American
for pointing out that “under God” was added during McCarthy’s reign of terror and anti-Communist hysteria.
Call me a bad liberal
for listening to Rush and Glenn at least once a week.
Call me unbalanced
because I’m a responsible mental health consumer.
Call me a socialist
for wanting the rich to pay more into the kitty.
Call me a snob
for encouraging kids whose only adjective is “fuck” to dig deeper in their brain pan.
Call me a traitor
for believing a former president should face charges for ordering waterboarding and lying about WMDs… and laughing about it publicly.
Call me a bra-burning bitch
for having the temerity to insist on equal pay for equal work.
Call me naive
for wanting undocumented aliens to be granted citizenship (hey, if it was good enough for Reagan, it should be good enough for the Tea Party).
Call me whatever you want.
I stand by my values, no matter the consequence.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Two girls in one… both of them me before I got the right mix of meds and therapy. A not to folks who have the same condition, please know I’m not making fun of those struggling with the manic part. It’s OK for me to laugh at myself, but I’m NOT laughing at you, truly. I’m part of NAMI Stigma Busters. Amy
DEPRESSED
Leaden footsteps dog my pace
Straining, forcing smile on face
Gravity has conquered me
Hard to muster strength to… be
Wheels are grinding ever slower
Ten more steps to my front door
Dropping bags and sloughing coat
Sitting in a sinking boat
———————————————-
MANIC (WITHOUT TREATMENT)
Wow I feel great I’m late for work but it’s
not my fault this jerk on TV was sooooooooo
fascinating I had to watch this invention
and the audience was soooooooo enthusiastic
about it just twelve payments of $19.95 plus
shipping so I called oops that credit card
is maxed, went through three before I hit
the jackpot it’s a juicer that also vacuums
your cat whattaya think about that? Gotta
run run run I’m late for work wait there’s
the Dunkie’s need coffee and a doughnut
first catch you later what’s your name again?
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At We Write Poems, we were asked to write about healing. Before the healing, there is the injury.
THE WALKING WOUNDED
Some wounds are so deep
so personal, so wrenching,
they cannot heal without help,
without sharing.
Memories spread past membranes
and synapses in the brain,
tentacles reaching, spreading painfully,
tightening the jaw,
constricting breath,
ever growing in power,
wasting the strongest soul.
A boy down the block
came home on leave and
looking in his eyes, I recognized
his agony, his disguise.
He sat with his mom in church quietly,
trying not to scream.
Later, we went for coffee and
unmasked our monsters.
Mine took hold in childhood;
his are war-born, wailing in the night.
New, but no less maiming.
Then came the shared silence
of those who know that tears
are about to flow, and we
both let go, heaving sobs,
wracking but quiet, this cry.
Tears… our only balm.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
It’s November Poem A Day (PAD) at Poetic Asides. Today, we were asked to write on the theme of closing a door or turning a page. We’ll be here all month – try the chicken cacciatore! (Ba-dum-DAH!) Amy
TURNING THE PAGE
Close the door on yesterdays
Memories can burn
sure as acid
etching pain into your very bones
Strange Celtic text
something about Dad
something about trust
Close the door on yesterdays
People who hurt you
and in return were abandoned
deprived of your vitality
and also your venom
Hieroglyphics
indecipherable
You don’t plan to study the language
There’s no point now
Turn the page
See a life unburdened by the past
where forgiveness reigns
in beauty
in hope
in trusting the words of one who
forgave so much more than you endured
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore
At Writer’s Island, we were asked to write about masquerades. My main masquerade is in life… or it was, until I sorted out some details.
THIS IS THE MASK I SOMETIMES WEAR
Confident of every move
My stylus firmly in the groove
A smile that says I’ll take the dare
This is the mask I sometimes wear
My wit, a whetstone-sharped knife
I’m lit by fire, devouring life
Yet no one can detect the tear
that rends the mask I sometimes wear
Late to parties, the first to leave
I’m shiny slick with joie de vive
But if you look with special care
You’ll see right through the mask I wear
That’s my candle, both ends burning
Dripping molten, careless yearning
My frozen face, makeup and hair
Mask the wear and tear of le guerre
But once I’m home and all alone
There’s no façade, no great unknown
My crippling doubt I never share
In public, I’ve a mask to wear
They’ll never see the stripped-down me
used by him when I was three
That little girl can only bear
to live behind the mask I wear
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Thanks to progressive radio host (and proud WNYer) Stephanie Miller for the phrase “Stupid O’Clock.” She’s a wonderful antidote to Beck and Rush, along with Ed Schultz and Randi Rhodes… if your city CARRIES progressive radio.
STUPID O’CLOCK STUCK (Writer’s Island past prompt)
Jagged maze
zigzagging from row to row
frenzied search for the Big Cheese
Cheating, skipping lines, flying across the labyrinth
Cornered by repetitions of
jumbled choruses
at stupid o’clock in the
late night of soul’s mourning
My frontal lobe
a lava lamp bursting with I don’t know
Each thought glomming onto the next
Floating in inky blue warmth
Even with the pillow
pulled tight over my head
desperate for sleep, still the sight
Molasses morass glowing
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
VICIOUS CYCLE
First up and around in the house
Brewing coffee for The Beast
who will turn into my mother after her first cup
She stumbles down the hall
First Bel-Air in hand
I make my breakfast and my lunch
Even at seven, I knew this cycle
would never end
Keeping Mom happy enough to live with
In later years, after I had indulged, passively by
breathing others’ smoke in late-night jazz clubs, and
actively by drinking, snorting, and toking
I decided there was another path
and that this merry-go-round of “self-careless”
must have an exit
Today, smoke-free, drug-free, booze-free
I know she was caught on that carousel from Hell
and that choosing otherwise was possible
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we’re writing about the future. This is my dream:
FUTURE HEALTH CARE
Bandaids will heal
Surgeons won’t harm
Counselors will hear
taking to heart
all the hurt
hidden in the heads
of those whose health
depends on wholeness
Wholeness
Harmony
Here
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 