Night Bus, NYC
Pummeled by brutal fluorescent light
of the crosstown night bus
All sections crammed, and damn, that
fella giving her the FishEye
won’t give her his seat instead
She leans on a rail, awaiting her stop
on the West Side, where Cuban Chinese is
on the menu – her roomie sets a nice
take-out table with chilled Dos Equis
“Broadway at 86,” robots the loudspeaker
As she bunches her keys blade-out
(you never know on a sweatsullen
Manhattan evening), she feels a grasp
The hand of FishEye Guy clasping her ass
She steps back, grinds the tip of a 5” heel
into his sandal-clad foot ‘til it bleeds
“Oh!” she chirps, “I’m so clumsy”
Time wounds all heels, but
hot-rod pumps do the job in a pinch
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
First, Three Word Wednesday posted a call for these words: Brutal, Grope, and Transfer. Then (much to my delight), Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Isadora put this challenge up… “Create a list of three words or phrases specific to the worst job you ever had and craft a poem having nothing to do with work. List the words, write the poem, and take back the power! Make sure to include your list of words or phrases in your post…”
My words were from my hellacious years of waitressing at a Greek restaurant that was actually Greek, run by a guy named Dino who was a sweetie (he called me “Amy the Sing-ger,” with a hard “g”), and all the folks were wonderful, and this was back in my hometown of Binghamton, NY. But waitressing was not my calling. This was before my PTSD diagnosis, so every rush hour I’d break into a sweat, forget orders, and neglect to write down prices, resulting in my being docked. (Yeah, like the Hudsucker Proxy… “Ya forget a price, they DOCK YA!”) I was THE worst waitress in the world… and I really didn’t care!
My waitressing words: Take-out, sections, and bus (as in clear tables). Actually, there was a fourth restaurant reference in there – did anyone catch it? Izy, thanks a bunch. You were right about “taking back the power.” Simply transporting myself to The City, when I was actively singing as well as working at a very cool marketing research place (where I met folks who are still friends today), was the start of heaven.
And yes, this is a true story. I had a bad temper in those days… Peace – and Cuban Chinese on your menu soon, Amy
GOTTA GO!
Gotta go now
Wanna sing but day job pays bills
Run to catch the ‘bway
Pressed against other cogs in the car
We’re a movable beast
You can taste the air in here
and that ain’t a good thing
Gotta hurry up
Stop by coffee shop, grab a bialy and
some hot dark that speeds through veins
and makes brains go pop
In my cube 7 x 7
Hamster Heaven but Human Hell
Gotta run to help fix the copier
Maintenance can’t reach the tricky places
My fingers are nimble
I can take apart anything and I
joke with the guys and let them see some leg
as I crawl on the floor doing their job
I make soul-sucking misery look fun
Gotta go home to my wretched box
So square even the wallpaper is plaid
Swear to god it’s plaid
Gig tonight, no pay but exPOSURE
Pose in the mirror, pouty pretty
Gotta get to the gig
Back on the ‘bway downtown
This city is laid out in perfect lines
The A, B, C
The 1, 2, 3
The RR, bastard child of the rest
Follow the tic-tacs to find
a place to be, to become, to behave
but still believe it’s lasted
as long as it has
Here in the Gotham Game
Gotta go again
Shouldn’t’a drunk so much water
Surviving the City is easy
as long as you graph the clean bathrooms
on your mental map
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Joseph Harker’s “Naming Constellations,” an ekphrastic poem (written to an image or inspired by same). I chose the Piet Mondrian piece, “Broadway Boogie,” but to tell the truth, I didn’t notice the name before I wrote this – I picked the image because it made me nervous, and that reminded me about deadlines and there was also a resemblance to subway maps! So there you go. Thanks, Joseph; you’re an inspiration even when you don’t throw us a prompt. (This is also in the “ticker tape” of poems at Poets United.)
Two notes: The ‘bway’ is not Broadway; it’s our old nickname for the subway (or the tube, for my European friends). The City is always and forever New York; no real New Yorker would ever refer to it as The Big Apple, either – unless you’re a surviving vaudevillian, for whom that expression had true meaning, because playing New York City was indeed getting a bite of the “big apple.” Bit of history for you!
The painting is a low-resolution image and is in no way fully representative of the original piece. Mondrian, a superb talent; this is meant in tribute to his work, not a “snatch and grab.” Peace, Amy
Was a Time When…
Was a time when
nothing was shelved for another day
When, lacking A.C., our windows allowed
the cacophony of Manhattan traffic
to ferment with our Streisand on the stereo
into an ethereal, essentially New York brew
When heartaches were daily doings and
lovers’ promises abstract
When Chinatown was
a neon-spangled dragon,
delicious, exhilarating, smelling of
sesame oil and sweet rice wine
When we’d shimmy on the sidewalk
to every lowrider blasting reggae
Now those days in the City
are an exquisite origami swan
swinging from the ceiling on a ribbon,
suspended over my head
over my half-closed eyes
from the drop ceiling
over my hospital bed
as my life reaches the coda of
its jazzy, dizzying blur
Slowly, veil upon veil of blissful,
mystic, magic memories featherfall
upon my last moments…
but not a single regret
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl: Exquisite, abstract, spangling, ethereal, ferment, dragon, shimmy, origami, cacophony, coda, aches, shelved. FYI, it’s The Sunday Whirl’s first anniversary this week, so click on the link and check out what others have done with Brenda’s weekly “dirty dozen” words. The variety of thoughts, of what springs to mind and splashes on the page of each poet or writer, is quite amazing. Brenda Warren, BRAVA and thanks!
Also at my poetic nest, Poets United! Peace, Amy
Two, two, two prompts in one post! Nifty. First is from Six Word Saturday, in which you sum up your life at that moment in… six words. Second, The Sunday Whirl: First, read the poem; then, I’ll give you the words we were given to craft our work. Also posted at the collective, Poets United. Peace, Amy
FOR SIX WORD SATURDAY, A NOD TO MADISON IN WINTER:
Rain, snow, Wisconsin – cold as charity!
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
FOR THE SUNDAY WHIRL:
Making Her Way
Coatless in a sea of ermine and chinchilla.
Unaware of the shadow cast by multimillionaires
who bask in the fullness of their coffers.
She knows that, before this night ends…
- Some facelift will admonish her through plump silicone lips,
“See this meal? The veal is tough. Take it back to the kitchen.” - After Happy Hour, a sloppydroolingdrunk day trader will
spill Merlot on her pristine white apron. - After nine, she will be summoned to a table by the wave of
glistening metal – a prawn fork, most likely.
She herself is a daughter of Big Money,
but she prefers to make her own way in the world.
Waitressing pays for her classes and
postage-stamp-cramped room in Brooklyn.
End of shift, she pulls on jacket and wooly cap
to catch the subway home.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Sunday Whirl Wordle included these words:
White, Returned, Coatless, Shadow, Prefers, Wooly, Daughter, Admonish, Fullness, Metal, Unaware, and Kitchen.
Sharp Little Pencil 