Pink Champagne
Was that the name of
the chalky rose that graced
my 20-year-old lips
Was it a drag queen or
my girlfriend Rickie who gave me
that stick/mystical tube
Cylinder of cotton candy
and chemical confection
that no doubt helped my pout
Yes, it was Rickie after all who
slipped Georgette Klinger into my purse
and said, “Work it, girl”
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
When Imaginary Garden With Real Toads mentioned the color pink, this little memory emerged from the silver tube of my synapses! I will always be grateful that Rickie Lee Jones is my friend… we are almost the same age, but she was always the big sister, more worldly, a bit wiser. And yes, she still has the BEST makeup, hee hee.
She has her first album of all originals coming out in June, so stay tuned. I will write to one of those pieces.
Amy
NOW! (with Sid the Kid)
Now is the time
to sing our songs
while we’ve breath in our bodies and
souls that speak out loud
those thoughts that were heretofore
only whispered
Now is the time
to sing our songs
Our collective outpouring
of grand illusions
grander delusions
of elusive goals that never
leave our sights
“If not now, when?”
We don’t do ‘then’
We won’t surrender
the immediacy of this impulse
We want it now
We sing it now
We create it now
© 2015 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
About time I introduced you to Sid the Kid, previously known as A Guy (and usually accompanied by His Ancestor, who shall remain hidden for the moment!). Sid has morphed over the years into an androgynous kid, always full of fun and optimism. I’ve been drawing him for years, much to the delight of my dear friend Sidnie, for whom I have named my little buddy… even though Sidnie is about as cis-gender a woman as I have ever met, lol.
For ABC Wednesday, the letter N… where our fearless leader, Mrs. Nesbitt, quotes John Donne and we all bring our best alphabetically minded selves to the table! An homage to the eternal liveliness of spring. May the season stir us all from our winter lairs of mind and spirit… if indeed that is where we are stuck at the moment. I know I was, but this prompt helped me break out. Woot!
Peace, Amy
#art #poetry #spring #now #sketches #coloredpencil #abcwednesday
Dance With Me
Possessed of a prominent nose
Sloe eyes and sensuous smile
Regina, dancing muse
Real-deal belly dancing, repleat
with silver – snaking around
slender arms, on her ankles
shandangling about her svelte,
supple, flexible waist and hips
Her ultimate adornment was
her boa, whose name time has
swallowed, but whose image is
indelible; the trust, the sure
partnership, he lovingly
encircled her neck and arms,
living jewelry and friend
Slow their duet, slithering
in a Roma-tinged tango,
she so proud of her partner
The two cast a potent spell
Regina often allowed me to
help deliver him back to the
safety of his Indian woven
basket, his genie bottle
He graced my arms with
a cuddle. Warm skin, still
damp with her sweat from
his beloved perch, Regina.
Years later, still dancing,
Regina contracted that
slow-eating cancer, yet retained
her smile, her love of life
Now Regina has crossed over
to the side where pain is no more
Snakes in the hereafter are lining up
for the chance of just one dance
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Regina Star was just that – a queen and a celestial being. She worked with us at the fabled Great American Food & Beverage Company. I have combined several instances in her life to create this portrait. Having love snakes all my life, I was humbled by Regina’s trust that I carry Jack’s basket around at the GAFB 30th anniversary. Cancer had ravaged her body, and yet she danced with the same grace and self-assurance, Jack extending his head past her hand to view the audience. A whirling force of nature, our Regina. May she be at peace.
Oh, and one word to the “eeeew, snakes are slimy” crowd: The next time you are near a boa constrictor (preferably one recently fed!), if you aren’t game to have it be on your body, at least caress it. The smooth skin, the warmth, the decidedly non-slimy nature of snakes… trust me, you’ll dig it!
Written for the Poets United prompt for poems in praise of snakes. Peace, Amy
Thunderstruck
Thrill of ozoned air
freshbursting scent
as one slate cloud
butts heads with another
Firmament’s daring exchange
First chains of switchblade
streaks; thunder strikes
from clouds’ loud clash
In love with customary
pelt of hail I walk
To stop me is to defy
another force of nature
© 2014 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image courtesy of Scotto Bear (free media use) at Wikimedia Commons, License detail HERE.
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Michael (AKA Grapeling) gave us a list of words. To see that list, along with links to myriad original contributors, please click HERE.
City or country, I have always been fascinated with the random, dangerous, glorious free fireworks of thunderstorms. I know it’s probably stupid to walk down the street in one, but I figure with my various brain spasms, a little lightning wouldn’t hurt. In fact, it might help! Peace, Amy
To My Cuppa
Here we sit by a fire
The dynamic duo: Coffee and me
Dinosaurs of the old cliché,
“I was sitting in a coffee house
when this poem came to me.:
But that’s how it is.
Hands warmed by
ceramic cup, aromas of
roasted beans, baked goodies,
and the occasional
stinky college student
combine to create aMuse-ment
There is nothing so sweet
as a bite to eat and a sip of
my dearest co-conspirator
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Pictamy also © Amy Barlow Liberatore (click to enlarge)
Food and Writing, Writing and Food. Yeah, that’s the call from Kim Nelson at Poets United. It inspired both the pictamy® and the poem. Food and writing are an inseparable combination… unless you prefer Drinking and Writing, but than try reading what you wrote the next morning, much less tracking down all the cocktail napkins. You know who you are, ha ha.
While the coffee is first with me, always, there’s a nosh… Right, Buddah? Also in the margins at my poetic lilypad, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
Pink, Above and Below
Pink
above and below
She knows this tavern
is a cavern of
half-truths and full-blown lies
Icarus and ice
Yet, this morning
la colorosa* bathes
the barstools and bodies
laid waste by last night
Sunrise brings the glow
of a knowing
that this day
there will be change
Her heart will melt
inthe pink glow of sundown
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image by Oxag at Wikipedian Commons:
Sunrise at Angkor Wat (Worldwide Usage Permission)
* la colorosa means “pink” in Spanish – at least, in Puerto Rico.
Hannah at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads wanted color, a cave (and what better cave than a bar!), a hunger, adventure, and ice. Pull up a barstool and tell me yours. Also on the margins at Poets United. Peace, Amy
The Gossip Girls
Have you seen the way she dresses?
Half slut, half bag lady.
And always with one dangling earring,
one post. Is that a gay thing?
Well, she does march in the parades.
And all that gay rights nonsense and
on and on about the homeless.
Her husband is a saint to put up with her.
If I talked that way and dressed
like a tramp, my husband would
slap some sense into me, and I’d
have it coming.
Mine would, too.
I miss the old days when we knew
what was what and who we were
supposed to be… oh, wait, sssssh…
she’s coming.
“Morning, ladies, how’s everything
with you today?”
“Fiiiiiiine.” Butter wouldn’t melt
in their mouths.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Kim Nelson wanted poems on gossip at Poets United – check out the link and read some other poets as well. Poets U. is a wellspring of talent. Also “in the margins” at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads.
PROCESS NOTES: As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, “If you don’t have anything nice to say about others… come sit next to me.” I abhor gossips, quite possibly because I am the subject of same in some circles. Such is life lived out loud! Amy
PEACE IS POSSIBLE (a Fibonacci)
One
mindset
among many
will cause peace
to flow all around us
like a mighty, majestic river of unfathomable love
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This is my prayer for peace, as prompted by Mary at dverse Poets. Of course, I did not make the deadline, so perhaps I will submit this for dverse Open Mic Night as well as the sidebar at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and Poets United. And, yes, I managed a form to boot, using the word-count version of the Fibonacci Sequence (1-1-2-3-5-8).
The latest carnage in Kenya, at a mall in Nairobi, took many lives at random. And yet here in the States, gun violence continues to claim veterans, spouses, children, and people caught in the wrong place (or school) at the wrong time – also, a gun on hand means access to a fast suicide, rather than trying to reach out. The Second Amendment provided for armed militias, like the National Guard, and was conceived when one-shot muskets were the standard. I’m not against others hunting (as long as it’s for meat, not ivory), but the proliferation of high-powered rifles with huge magazines – and people with violent histories being allowed to own guns? Is Ted Nugent running for president or what? Get a grip, people. Peace, Amy
ORAL FIXATION
Following years of extractions,
protracted dental procedures
that chanced to finance
dentists’ kids’ tuition,
here’s the fruition:
End of line for teeth like mine
Complete comeuppance
(come-out-ance?) of my
upper floor of teeth (the basement
to remain untouched beneath)
Oh, doctor, pray thee
go gentle into that good right
side; succumb that gum with enough
anesthetic to render a rhino redundant
Gas me gutless
The final result, partly insult
My smile replaced;
our savings laid waste
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
You know I will write about anything when you read this one, right? Yes, I will join the “upper denture” group this week, after years of secondhand nightclub smoke plus poor access to dental care rendered my upper rack wretched and wrecked.
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Open Link Monday and dverse’s Open Mic Tuesday. And if I’m absent over the weekend, it will be because my face looks like a cauliflower and feels like the aftermath of a prizefight! Peace, Amy
All That And More
Voice like menthol
Balls of brass
Face like schoolgirl
Killer ass
Charmful armful
Singing sinner
Rings the bell for
raunchy dinner
All the makings
All the style
Shimmy, chanteuse
Make ‘em smile
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
You want a jazz poem, dverse? One from the heart, heels, and head of a vintage babe who sang in clubs for 35 years and never overstayed her welcome. .
Also on the sidebar at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 
