A Poetic Asides post. An ever-so-delicate look at how women’s bodies change over the years… Enjoy, and then click the link to check out poems by the rest of the gang! Amy
CHANGING
It comes to us all
Those gifted with double-X
The passage of time brings
the curse of our sex
First we get periods
Bloat like balloons
Bitchy and bothered
We cry to full moons
Then comes the part where
if you have some luck
you have a big baby
comes out like a truck
Your skinny jeans gone
to the clothing exchange
Your once-lithe young self
is at once rearranged
Your boobs not your own
‘Cause you share them with baby
and hubby gets jealous
But fools with them? (maybe)
Now gravity takes hold
and Cooper’s Droop socks you
More than a pencil
I can hold a whole box, too
Then finally menopause
There’s God’s big laugh
You sweat and you chill
and your mind’s cut in half
Part of it knowing
what you need upstairs
the other half, getting there,
asking, “What the hell am I doing here and why? There was something I needed up here but I don’t know WILL SOMEBODY TURN DOWN THE HEAT? I’M SWEATING MY ASS OFF!!!”
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Remember when TV had real news reporting, truthful coverage, and fewer ads?
TVoLUTION
In the beginning was creativity
Watch This – brought to you by
Buy This
This pattern morphed over time in sinister ways
as Buy This bought out the creators of
Watch This
Buy This now dictated the watching
Watch This was shuffled about according to Buy This trending
Our only anchor was the anchorman
the Network Evening News
Buy This pulled up that anchor and we were adrift
Then Buy This created
Watch This Happening Now
which became
Watch Only These Bits, then
Watch Only These Bits And Think This About Them
Buy This also went from choosy moms and see the USA in your Chevrolet
to eyes narcotically glued to the tube
Plasma spasm
Minds restless, but legs so lazy they got their own syndrome
and consequently their own drug
well-advertised, saturating the market like Crisco
and every bit as healthy
TVolution
In the beginning it was
“Watch This, then
Buy This.”
This pattern morphed in sinister ways
as the creators of Watch This
were bought out by Buy This.
Buy This dictated what we’d watch
Watch This was shuffled about
according to Buy This trends.
Our only anchor was the anchorman
(to our sorrow, no more Morrow)
Buy This took over the news department
Watch This Happening Now
became
Watch Only This Part We’re Showing You
then whittled down to
Watch Only This Part, and Think This About It
Buy This also went from choosy moms and peanut butter
to couch potatoes with legs so lazy
they got their own lazy syndrome
and consequently, their own drug.
To be fair, Buy This does mention the side effects:
Dry mouth, dry South,
desiring more sex but
unable to harden one’s resolve
and urges to gamble
and drive while asleep at the wheel
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we were asked to write from the perspective of another. One was a tea bag steeping in boiling water, but then came this from my pregnancy 23 years ago… Hope you like it! Amy
SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCY
Safe here and comforted
by a rhythm so steady
Nourished effortlessly
All I need, I have
Voices muffled but familiar
Hearing them more clearly
as the days pass
Hoping to meet them soon
Upside down now, I think
Ready to tackle the tunnel
and emerge gasping
into the light
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were asked to put ourselves in someone else’s place and write about the experience. Here is one of three I wrote today. Enjoy!
SINGLE ROOM OCCUPANCY
Safe here and comforted
by a rhythm so steady
Nourished effortlessly
All I need, I have
Voices muffled but familiar
Hearing them more clearly
as the days pass
Hoping to meet them soon
Upside down now, I think
Ready to tackle the tunnel
and emerge gasping
into the light
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
ROUND AND ROUND WE GO (haiku)
Look me in the eye
Tell me again and again
I’ll listen all night
Speak those words of love
words that drew me to your side
and shine in my heart
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thoughts on censorship from a free speech advocate.
COLD AS A SWASTIKA
And when they had gathered all the books
Works of Jewish and other subversive writers
Thoughts of Einstein
Dark musings of playwright Bertoldt Brecht
(every time you hum “Mack the Knife,” remember him)
Lenin, Trotsky, Zola (politics)
From Sigmund Freud to Ernest Hemingway
Ironically, Jack London’s Arctic went into the pyre
And then the flames – everyone pulled out matches to participate in
a funeral worthy of a ship-bound Viking
The death of thousands of words
too dangerous to read
Thoughts polluting the minds of
pure-blooded, ‘real’ Germans
The chill pored over intellectuals
Jews and Christians alike
Frozen in time, these works
Alive elsewhere, but here during the Nazi regime
forbidden fruit
Icewater veins of torch-wielding youth
who, had they read the books
might have understood what was going wrong
Here, in America
that same icy atmosphere prevails
over “Harry Potter”
over “Huck Finn”
over “Catcher in the Rye”
We don’t burn ’em; we ban ’em
And the North wind keeps on blowing
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Between the Tea Party Birther who so ignorantly “accused” the president of HAVING AN ARABIC MIDDLE NAME (like it’s a crime?) and the plethora of poets who aren’t listening to anyone besides The Three Stooges (Moe – Sarah Palin; Curly – Glenn “Mr Potatohead” Beck; Larry – Rush), it’s time for some Fair And Balanced poetry!! Amy
THE CYCLE OF MISINFORMATION
An Austrian and a German walk into a bar
and put their heads together
Repeat the falsehood often enough
and it becomes the truth
especially if the public is so distracted by their
financial misery that they will believe anything
blame anyone
for their problems
A Texan and a Texan walk into an office
and put their heads together
Make one Texan from Wyoming, repeat, rinse
and it becomes a ticket
especially if the public is so confused by ballots that
they will believe anything Diebolt says
agree with anyone
so long as their fortunes are safe
An African American man walks into the White House
and the cockroaches are no longer afraid of the light
Say the president isn’t American, isn’t a Christian
and it becomes the truth
especially if a draft dodger and a college dropout say so
and the public is so willing to believe them
and the Lady in Red says “You betcha!”
And now the debt from the war
that was put on a Chinese credit card by the Texans
(in place of real homeland security, like health care
and educating our kids)
Is blamed on the new president (doesn’t he know his place?)
because they can and they own the media
and most self-aggrandizing Christians don’t have Muslim friends
As someone once said,
It’s so heartening to see one prejudice
replaced by another
(c) 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
CIRCLES (You know, for kids*)
My sister brought it home
we all fought over it
until Dad wisely bought enough
for all three sisters to have their own
Three grade-schoolers shimmied, did the hula
Pint-sized Balinese dancers
practicing the ancient, seductive art
of the hula hoop
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* Special kudos to whomever can name the movie reference first!
Sharp Little Pencil 