Broken Record
Once I prayed for a lover who would
treasure me, pleasure me, measure me by
no other standard but my own.
Together on the porch swing,
humming that Simon & Garfunkel tune
(and what a time it was, it was…)
Me, the deer who steered clear
of headlights, and he, my
melancholy golden boy.
Long sweetsweat hours of
erotic coupling, rolling, gripping,
souls afire, blinding, shining oneness.
Picture him as he stays to graze,
then strays to the next aster-speckled
pasture, scent of honey drawing him away.
Betrayal, best rendered in coal black,
ebony spray to cover the mirror and the
rosy glasses though which a love
was seen blooming in pale, fragile hues
of pink and yellow, delicate colors
of columbine swaying in our meadow.
Uproot it all now, fling it into the coals
of after the afterglow. Let lost love
crackle until only powdered ash remains.
Once I prayed for a lover who would
treasure me. Golden was he indeed,
and golden still, shining out of my reach.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Triple prompt: Sunday Scribblings asked for Treasure, while Poetic Bloomings wanted Betrayal. Those two concepts seem like star-crossed lovers at times. Then the Sunday Whirl gave me inspiring words: Swing, Gold, Melancholy, Rosy, Pray, Spray, Powders, Glasses, Erotic, Pale, Fling, Strays, and Cover. Also posted at my poetic meadow, Poets United. Also for dverse Open Mic Night!
Please be sure to read the explanation at the bottom of this post; otherwise, I’ll have every single stay-at-home mom mad at me, and that’s not my intention!! Peace and an Oreo dipped in milk, Amy
Housewife Envy*
I have always envied housewives.
Each morning, pulling crisp aprons
from drawers under counters crowded
with kids’ art awaiting a place on the fridge.
Willing the bacon to crisp, flipping
hotcakes on a Revere-ware skillet.
Had I but known that it only took
one drunken prom night spree in
the back of his souped-up Chevrolet,
just blooming at the shotgun wedding…
I, too, could include myself in the
year-round bliss of Tupperware parties;
Bloody-Mary-and-Bridge afternoons;
summer months spent gazing out the
window watching our neighborhood’s
rowdy, mud-caked munchkins until
Fall. Then, one by one, my own brood
would thrill to new lunchboxes and
come home smelling of crayons and
some other kid’s egg salad sandwich…
I wish I’d realized that to spurn those
high-school advances of Jimmy Parker
was like shredding my ticket to ride;
I would not feel so darned ignorant now.
Housewives get all the real news from
their husbands, entertainment from TV.
They subtract their own little extras from
the shopping list to stick to the budget,
and the only balls they need are made of
cotton, to wipe off Noxzema each night.
But here in this smoke-filled piano bar,
as another twenty drops in my tip jar, I
abandon the sting of this jealousy and
face reality: I’m stuck traveling to cities
like Hamilton, Bermuda, wearing a daring
cut-down-to-there number, making my
way in the world. Always on the move,
waiting for the crowd to feed me their
electricity through our mutual umbilical
cord of jazz, wisecracks, and dry martinis.
If I were a housewife, I would be pampered,
cared for, and I’d only have to spread my legs
once in a while and put up with the sting of
unschooled sex. I might wonder about the
uncertain lives of girls like me, who constantly
have to update their passports, who buy their
own jewelry from this year’s collection, who
hustle their way through airports to catch a
plane to the next destination, the next show…
If only I were a housewife, I’d be lucky.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
*IMPORTANT NOTE: I hold the greatest respect for mothers who are able to stay at home with their children; in fact, I consider it the most noble of pursuits. The “housewives” moniker is insulting to me as a feminist, because I believe staying at home is a viable CHOICE among many choices. But a prompt is a prompt, and since the poem presumes that all stay-at-home moms do is sit on their asses eating bonbons, sucking up booze, and watching soaps, I will accept all criticism. Please know that, after my years as a single working mother, I was indeed envious of moms who could be with their kids after school.
For Trifecta, “tongue in cheek,” and The Sunday Whirl: Housewives, Months, Year, Ignorant, Subtracting, Sting, Rind, Balls, Fall, Drawers, Spurn, Electricity.
FIVE HUNDRED POSTS!
Well, I have to thank everyone who has expressed concern about my health (both physical and emotional) recently. You have buoyed my spirits greatly. I may never be free of mental disorders, but… “I get by with a little help from my friends.” Truly blessed to know such talented, giving spirits. Thank you all. And now, two poems for two different sites. Love and peace, Amy
SERENITY
We can differ without having to defer.
We can hold out and still not halt.
We can accept and still imagine.
We are human. We can adjust.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Three Word Wednesday (Differ, Halt, Imagine), and at Poets United.
___________________________________
Leaders… and bleeders
For all the teachings
of Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed;
For all the wisdom
of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Rachel Carson;
One would expect a more peaceful world.
For all the writings
of Rumi, Buddha, Howard Zinn;
For all the actions
of Mother Teresa, Mother Jones, and Susan B. Anthony;
One would expect a world filled with justice.
Yet for every peaceful action,
there is a virulent, violent reaction.
For every step forward,
there is the rumble of a clattering machine,
rolling over the footprints of those
who act on behalf of good in this world.
For every machine,
there is a master.
For every master,
there is a burning need to bleed the life from others.
And for that burning need, that hubris,
the rest of us are sacrificed
on the altar of Capitalism and The Global Market.
One would expect better from humankind.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads; also at Poets United.
GROUND ZERO: Fukushima
She’s alive,
she still simmers
waiting for someone to
fall asleep at the console, or
not pour enough water over her
spent uranium rods, which steam and thirst,
fuses lit, then drenched, then lit again as if by evil
magic. Stock up on iodine pills just in case she implodes…
Japan has
plans to
evacuate
Tokyo so
sleep tight.
Don’t
for
get
to
pr
ay
oooops
looks like it’ll be a long winter
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday, the letter is Z. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Which is what we’ll be if the US doesn’t step up… did you know they have had THREE meltdowns at Fukushima? That’s two more than Chernobyl. And have we heard about any of this from the American media? No! Why? Not because they are “liberal,” (the left would be all over this) but because the TV stations, papers, and radio stations are owned by power (plant) brokers and their elitist ilk. Makes me want to rent “The China Syndrome” again. This will also be in the side bar at Poets United. Peace, Amy
YES, YOU CAN (vs. “I Got Mine, You’re Just Lazy”)
“We can’t afford health care for all.”
Give thought to this statement, really
feel the false sense for security and heed
the inherent greed of being American…
So you don’t get your MRI today.
If it’s not urgent, you can wait a week.
And speaking of tests, doctors overdo
that aspect, suspecting you might sue.
No one really needs a tummy tuck
as part of their health insurance.
How about a diet instead? Better saggy
than dead. Last longer, feel stronger.
My friend told me, in tears, that she
and her family of three have no doctor,
no clinic. Cynic that I am, I look to
Washington, awash in Cadillac plans
and think, “Let’s put their asses on Medicaid.
Let THEM go to the clinic, checking their
hair for lice, sitting among us Great Unwashed
waiting for their number to be called.”
Of all the reasons this season is prime time
for a sublime health care revolution, it’s the
evolution of the Tea Party, all soggy from
dunking once too often in a trough of crap.
I have had seven different types of insurance
in 55 years, my dears. Medicaid, Cadillac plan,
“from hunger” catastrophic, none at all…
Tell Congress they can’t drop the ball.
If corrupt morons on the Supreme Court
can tort their way through the insurance overhaul,
I think we can see our way clear to badgering
the Idol Rich Senate for Health Care for All.
And if you don’t want to give up what you have,
just remember – when they came to foreclose
on your neighbors over hospital bills and you
did not offer them hospitality, what does that say
about your values, your sense of responsibility?
You really want kids living in cars, the mentally ill
behind bars, because the fashion is to ration?
Search your heart… Commit to compassion.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
ABC Wednesday is up to the letter “Y.” This will also appear in the left column (not the Poetry Pantry) of Poets United, my well-care checkup clinic!
Skinny-Dipping
Sixteen, never been sexed
Sipping pilsner pilfered from the basement fridge
Sssssh, out the back door
Stripping down to go skinny-dipping with… Johhhhhn
Time, place, the most potent of opportunities
We slip into steaming midnight summer water
His member more sumptuous than tight jeans ever hinted
My breasts afloat, begging to be bobbed for like juicy ripe apples
My ache, my throb – will he sense it,
and act on this rhythmically pulsing moonlit mystery
I always craved what was not mine for the taking
Swimming naked
with gay boys
© 2009 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Margo Roby’s Wordgathering: Summer Tryouts and my little swimming pool, Poets United!
Today is the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement in New York City. Gay men had finally had enough of being beaten and sodomized by police; one man picked up a cobblestone in from of the Stonewall Bar and threw it, and calamity and justice began with that one brick. (I know some say that riots were technically in the wee hours of June 28, as the bars closed… but get real. Do you wake up from a hangover on a Sunday and say, “Wow, I really drank too much at 2 this morning?” It was very, very late the night before.)
So why this poem today? Because my very proud and OUT Best Friend Forever, John Bickle, with whom I share many skinny dips and much mischief in our early days, also celebrates his birthday today. He said, when he saw the TV reports of the Stonewall Riots, he thought to himself, “It’s an omen.”
No, Stonewall didn’t make him gay. God did.
But anyway, happy birthday to my BFF, and may you continue to play piano bar and wow Philadelphia for many years to come! (His usual gig is at Knock, so you Philly friends, get you butts over to their Piano Room and hear a phenomenal tenor – and great pianist!) Love, Amer
XXOO?
A girl’s first kiss should be
like baby’s breath,
not taken in the dead of
night by theft.
Her youth was stolen by
an old man’s greed.
She grew up certain that
to live is to bleed.
An angry woman from a
heartsick girl:
Her song is echoed
all over the world.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil (who looked a lot like the little girl on the left in the picture)
For ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter “X.” In this case, the saddest kiss of all was my first. Also at my poetic safe room, Poets United.
PLEASE NOTE: To women, men, boys, girls: If this poem rings true for you, seek help, get counseling. If reading this hurts you in a vague, awful way and makes you want to drink or do drugs or seek other solace that’s unhealthy, try therapy – it’s worth the price to get your life back. Peace, Amy
“You’re…” EEEEEK! uh…
Mammograms are the only day
when it doesn’t suck to be moi
I take ‘em out, I flop ‘em on
the glass, and they squish like foi gras
Then came two voice mails
on the same choice day
from the same office.
And suddenly my world morphed
from “as controlled as possible with meds”
to head-spinning dread, fed by
one freakin’ phone call.
All I must do is careen
back to the scene of the crime,
primed sans deodorant and scent,
rank with my own odor and fear.
It may be one mammo;
it may need more ammo.
a big needle thrust
to left of my bust.
“They’ll take the sample
with ample drama, mama,
and a big-ass needle, so
close your eyes and tell them
you have PTSD,” my beloved
survivor friend says.
“Then set phasers on STUN -it sounds
like a staple gun or Pac-Man as it
chomps in search of tissue.
Make them issue enough painkillers
to knock out a horse.”
“Of course,” I reply,
she laughs, knowing I
am immune to OTCs*
thanks to the 70’s…
…during which I imbibed
enough pharmaceuticals to
peel the cuticles off
a gorilla’s thumbnails.
It’s this Wednesday, folks,
please pray it’s a hoax,
and Old Leftie is “clean,”
if you know what I mean.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
* OTCs are “over the counter” drugs like Advil, Tylenol, and aspirin. I could take a whole bottle for a headache and it would do nothing for the pain… but the Advil would trash my liver!
Sunday Scribblings asked us to come up with a poem about a “Eureka moment.” This is the down side of that concept, and we’re hoping and praying it has a happy ending! Will keep you posted. Also at the one office where nothing ever hurts… Poets United! Peace, Amy
Blue Babe
Funk-flattened by that man,
the one who stole her whole,
heart, soul… grassy knoll.
Blue, blank, busted,
burnt by a formerly formidable passion
that now passes for bitter brittleness.
Lost love takes the shape of
a long tall martini, in her limp hands,
as she holds up her part of the bar,
awaiting her next mistake.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Trifecta, use the word “blue” in a 33-333 poem as an adjective meaning melancholy… Been there, done him…
Also at my poetic watering hole, Poets United. Peace, Amy
We Interrupt Your Regularly Schedule Program
(a full-tilt boogie political rant)
As the prez drones on
Americans are bored.
As the drones fall on
Afghanis, they’re gored, ignored by
the drumbeat of war, the military
rhythm of their streets, their football meets,
their homes, Rumi roams their graveyards.
American values pressed upon them
like Nagasaki tattoos in hues of death
searing their flesh, a mesh of
indelible reminders that cling to
the very marrow of their own beliefs.
Skies, fly-bys, murmurs of surprise,
more stealth attacks by wealthy whackadoodles
with poodles whose pedicures cost more than
the Dewers that fuels their mules, duly noted.
I voted, but it didn’t matter, records
shattered for brazen fundraising.
TV talking heads walking through it,
praising Lindsay Lohan working the program,
no grams up her button nose; I suppose it’s
intensely interesting to the Real Housewives of
Stepford, but it IS. NOT. NEWS.
The view expressed by Fox’s best,
yelling bellicose foghorns with degrees in
anything but journalism, kernels of truth
plus one ton of pure Hereford fertilizer?
THIS. IS. NOT. NEWS.
Our rights taken from us, our voices choicely
squelched by Citizens United, dividing the
green from the lean, the rich bitch from the
working, lurking stiff upper lips standing in line
at the Union Hall, all shirking off unemployment
because there’s always a job for any slob who will
do it. Screw the indignity of the position, it’s their
mission to have purpose percolating in the mass of days,
rife with strife, but it passes for life in America.
Meanwhile, Koch-heads yacht a lot, spend and spit
on us, that’s your trickle down theory, they piss and
don’t miss as we struggle, strain to avoid their toxic rain,
strive, staying alive even if it we lose our house to the bank that
tanked playing rushing roulette with our debt. The rich
don’t create jobs, don’t create anything, moving
money around is their pursuit of happiness.
Happenstance made them rich, not effort.
THIS. IS. NEWS. The kind that should be reported,
not distorted, nor distended, deliver as intended.
Families living in cars, sitting at bars, behind bars,
that’s news. Mental health strategy a traumatic
tragedy, that’s news. Not Happy News that gives you
a toy made by a Chinese boy in a sweatshop, top of his
head covered with Communist slogans, paid in tokens.
It’s not Good News for the FUNDAlack of MENTAL
functionISTS, but it passes like gasses from blowhard
Beltway asses whose glasses were replaced by Lasik on
our dime. I’m sick and low-income? Sorry, chum,
you’re a lazy bum. What becomes of you won’t show up
on The View. Gee, you think? Don’t blink.
The new news is glitzy, blonde tanned ditzy reporters
distorting but clueless that their teleprompters spew
lies on abortions, on choice, our voice no longer heard
because “Corporations are people, my friend,” will that horse’s
end please shut up, four deferments from Nam, never heard
a bomb, cuz he was Mormonizing in France, dancing at
draft rallies all the same. Who’s to blame if he dodged it, the
logic is on his side, but don’t turn hawk if you balked
when it was your turn. Even had de Gaulle to show up at
draft rallies, tallies not in his favor, but winning’s his
favorite flavor. THIS. IS. NEWS. (reported on the BBC, not
through Corporate Corpulent American Broadcasting)
Today the news is: Gays are hated, Liberals are jaded, Latinos
berated, Treyvon wrong-shaded and Dems are Commies. Filthy Zim,
the trimmer of black population, zoned on medication, toting
a habit of hatred, a habit of meds, side effects include an itchy
trigger finger. America is for the armed, the beautiful, and
the moneyed. Honey, it’s the way things are; don’t complain
about CEO gain and golden parachutes or hoot and holler about
the borrowed dollars Bush cushioned on a credit card to wage war
on a third world country, Weaponless but we brought the Mass
Destruction. The fact is, that war never made our taxes, and no
draft left the middle class daft. Elections cost billions, one
candidate worth millions, he laid off thousands, and though he
says his corporation may be a person with a thumper of a
tickertape heartbeat… it has no heart. THIS. IS. NEWS.
Reporting live from the edge of democracy, trying damned hard
not to be pushed off the edge, this is Amy Barlow Liberatore from
WASHthemoneycleanINGTON. Good night and good luck.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Thank you, Aaron Kent, for reminding me to rant away like I used to, spitfire style and purely politically.
For Three Wd. Wednesday: Cling, Murmur, Taken. Also at my poetic tickertape access, Poets United.
Sharp Little Pencil 