WHERE’S MY PENCIL?
My main ambition
my true volition
is to drain my head
through the lead
of a Ticonderoga #2
with poems, bright or blue
While others try
to paint a sky or butterfly, I
pollock my journals
with words scrawled above urinals
and turn folks off with truth
about dads, late nights, and vermouth
Social injustice feeds my need
I write with deliberate speed
before the thought goes awry
(my steel-sieve mind is known to fly)
And just when they think
I’m on the brink
of a total implosion
or mental erosion
I’ll come back with one
about how clowns aren’t fun
or talk to the president, poet-to-man
because drones still rule Afghanistan
Frackers, have fear
Amy’s still here
Secret Service, kiss my ass
I’ll face you again before I pass
And Blanche, my angel of mystery
Keep on sending vibes to me
I write to prove
I’m in the groove
The straight girl who’s an ally
to every queer woman and guy
I write to say,
“I’m here today”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
for dverse, Brian Miller’s Pretzels & Bullfights wanted a poem about why we write. Me? It’s all about the bitching and the truth-blood-letting and the mental illness and the child abuse… and making it understandable for those who either have experienced it or need to understand.
Well, before I Blue Screen of Death again and haul this thing to the shop, I have to get in two more poems. One for Sunday Scribblings, the other for the Sunday Whirl; both are also at my poetic screen that’s never blue, Poets United. I will log on at coffee shops to see what y’all have written and comment there… “Quick, before it melts (down)!” Amy
SUNDAY SCRIBBLINGS:
Pages of Stone
Fabricated from actual mineral
My favorite journal
Pencil circles, meanders
Glides with ease, with grace
Number Two lead, sharply honed
sings as it moves along the surface
Needle of an old phonograph
Playing Ellington from a shiny vinyl
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sunday Scribblings asked for poems around the word “ease.” This was the first thing that came to mind… I found a journal with pages actually fabricated from STONE! How different, how environmentally intriguing. Then, when I ran my pencil over the surface, it was like writing on a whiteboard… it almost squeaked! Find some and tell me what you think.
SUNDAY WHIRL:
The Ballad of Marie Dressler (1962-1977)
At the dealer, climbed into a Volvo sedan
Paid cash; remained in the driver’s seat for years
My first car, a ’62, back when Swedish mechanics
crowded into one room, hovered in corners
and built them by hand, bolts to bumpers
My singing mother said, in her husky whisky tenor,
“Always bring mascara in your gig bag. If something
happens on the way to make you cry, you won’t show up
looking like a damned raccoon.” Good advice:
That night, my eyes were dampened in this way…
Stopped at a red light, rearview mirror shows a large car
barreling behind me; instinct pulled foot off brake and
left heel jammed in the clutch. Trapped. Impact. Moment.
Bundles flew, slow-motion; shocks shook with sounds of
metal bending. The anger and the floodgates opened together.
Dazed, I pried open the door, stormed back to give
that son-of-a-bitch the old what-for. Window rolls down,
old lady (sure!) says, “I’m Sister Elizabeth. I think I’m all right
but my Mama seems to have cut her lip.” Suddenly, I
got it: God’s dope-slap for sleeping with a priest.
I opened Mama’s door, her face was ash. “S-s-stay here,
ladies… sister… Mama…” Closed the door – on the nun’s
mother’s rosary beads. Clinkclickclink, all over the pavement.
(This, the coup de grace, surely sealing my ticket to Hell.)
Car was totaled, but I insisted squad car take me to my gig
where I played for eight hours straight with one potty break.
Songs I’d never known. “Piano Man” heard once in the dentist’s
waiting room. “Havah Negilah.” I was a shock savant.
Made $200 in tips, turned out that was down-pay for a one-way to LA.
Nun didn’t get a ticket (she was doing 75). Catholic cop.
Always name your cars. “Marie Dressler,” for the 30’s again actress:
Big, old, white, and beat up, but she still had a lot of class.
Her rear end was wide enough to absorb the impact. (Bless all in
Sweden!) Cop said, “You’d be DOA in a Chevrolet.”
Marie Dressler, faithful old gal, rest in pieces. Fondly, Amer
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Sunday Whirl (click to see the Wordle) gave us a dozen words, and this true story is the result. The Church gave me $600 for my car, and that with the tip money was enough for the plane ticket and an efficiency apt. in Venice Beach in 1977 (this is back before Venice looked like Starbucks threw up all over it). Thanks, Greggie, for urging me to go West. You SAVED my life and helped change my destiny.
NOTE: “Amer” was my family nickname, and all my East Coast friends call me that. LA friends call me “Amers.” But the praise band’s director, Ben, calls me “Amypants,” because I’m so opinionated. Now they just call me “Pants.” Go figure! Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 