Prelude to a Nightmare (a nocturne)
I remember bedtime prayers to Him
Resting in peace until
lifted on devil’s wings
by another Him and hidden
No cry in darkness,
only strangled fear
stifled invasion of trust
Today, I still pray
He rests in peace now
No longer do I fear
his dry hands, betrayal
Lifted on angel’s wings
Cry of forgiveness
in the blessed peace
of moonlit prayer
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Image through Wikimedia Commons: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
PTSD isn’t just for veterans, people who survived 9/11, or Katrina and Oklahoma victims. Night terrors and phobias often plague adults who were sexually abused as children. Years of therapy led me to the path of forgiveness. Dad no longer controls me, and my prayers at night always include him, for all the good things he taught me, including a love of words and poetry.
The rest is out there in a bubble, outside my body and my psyche, yet available for inspection, now that I’m stronger.
This was written for Kim’s prompt at Poets United (I remember…) and also for Kerry’s “Nocturne” prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
Night-Scented Stock, by Kate Bush; purchased online
Listen while you read the poem
Free Peace Silence
Eyes close
in cozy bed
Mantra repeated
releases
heightened view
Swirls of
green and blue
Connection
with the One
Freedom from
confines of body
I am by myself
but
I am not alone
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poets United, Kim Nelson wanted poems about freedom. Then she asked us to pare them down to the essentials. A wonderful exercise in excising the extras, Kim, so thanks! Also at my poetic lily pad, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Peace, Amy
TIRADE (More Crap Made in China)
New egg timer, like my mom’s
Worked well two times; third time bombs
(more crap made in China)
Coffee pots are always new
‘cause last year’s just went ker-phloo
(more crap made in China)
Got our broken toilet fixed
One week later, handle sticks
(more crap made in China)
Used to be American-made
Goods that lasted, made the grade
(no more crap from China)
Give our people back their jobs
Screw the greedy corporate slobs
(no more crap from China)
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I mean, really. Is it too much to ask, things that work? Why haven’t we gone to Congress, to the White House lawn, and thrown ALL our crap over the fence in protest? Why aren’t we speaking out about OUR OLD JOBS vs. retraining for “new industry”? This is not the fault of the Chinese PEOPLE – it’s the American multinationals, providing “deep discounts” that people snap up without giving a thought to the enslaved children and underpaid workers who toil for pennies, while the manufacturer makes millions. Think of Bangladesh, too.
We have enough kids graduating to fill the “new industry” jobs… let’s put folks back to work, doing what they already know how to do.
This is my own form, the barlette, which has two or three lines followed by (a comment in parentheses). For ABC Wednesday, which is on the letter “T” for trash… trade… trust???!! Also at my poetic pond, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, and my hangout for all things pencil: Poets United. Peace, Amy
Image by L. Diane Wolfe, used by permission of the artist
Edgy
In the left corner
Invisible
I
maneuver this heady circumference
Rough and jagged as
I
and just as blue
Stepping lightly, lest
I
fall into the bowl
scratching again with nails
bloody from the task
See the marks from
years past
No one else here so
I
continue my inchworming
Whoops! that damned crag
I
hit it last time around
Slipdip and down
I
go, clawing my way to the top
like a silicone starlet
There is no end to this
circumspect circumnavigation
I
am doomed, Sisyphus in ceramic
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Ella interview L. Diane Wolfe, a photographer whose work has been evolving for over 23 years; Ella found her on deviantart.com. Diane graciously offered the Toads some of her pieces to use as inspiration for poetry.
Also “in the margin” at Poets United, my other outlet! Peace, Amy
Authentically Fake
How come some have it all, she wonders
The clothes the Corvettes the coats so warm
Houses so big, all for one movie star and her boy toy
Pools they don’t swim in, just get drunk beside
More cars than they could ever drive
like little boys collecting marbles
Women panicked by age, skin stretched and sewn
Poisons injected into foreheads, butt fat into lips,
plastic made for Barbie breasts and big booty
Arnold must sit in a private spa with a head full
of foil to keep that blond, Redford, too
Hair Plugs For Men (I’m not only an action star;
I’m also a client) – only his agent knows for sure
Guys gayer than picnic baskets, hand on the girl’s
knee – but never higher than that.
Rich people dressed like… clowns.
BEIBER! Pull up your damned pants!
HEIDI KLUM! Put those girls in a bra!
KARDASHIANS! Just go away, now!
Jeez, they are all so fake…
My shopping cart, yeah, this is real
And my cup full of change from kind people
This bench, solid and all mine, for now
I may be homeless but I’m not a public joke
Here on Hollywood near Vine,
I’m the most authentic person in town
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Poets United wanted poems on truth, on authenticity. As seen through the eyes of a homeless woman, we begin to question what is real and why some people work so hard at faking it to appear authentically young, perky, and prosperous. Peace, Amy
First off, I had the pleasure of chatting with Isadora Gruye (AKA Izy) for a featured interview at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, where I am now an Official, Honest-To-Goodness Real Toad! Izy, our resident correspondent, asked some candid questions, and I did not hold back. Hope you like the interview – CLICK HERE TO READ.
Meanwhile, at my other poetic home, Kim Nelson at Poets United wanted offerings about the universe. Here is mine. Peace, Amy
The Universe Within
Deep inside our outer skin
Underneath that layer, within
Past the muscle, stretching leather
and our arteries’ coursing tether
Deep within our very bones
a universe that cries and groans
Waters of our bodies’ form
Chemicals upset the norm
Feel the balance quiver, shake
Know that inner, dark earthquake
Hormones, drugs in all our meat
Stay within us, to compete
Weak, our natural defenses
Only diet recompenses
Choosing the organic way
Balance will once more hold sway
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The effect of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, also known as Factory Farms), where animals are captive and packed tightly together, means not only growth hormones but antibiotics in grocery store meats are partly stored and partly excreted into sewage. Meanwhile, Monsanto continues its stranglehold on the produce farms, expanding to a point where their air-sprayed delivery of (sometimes human waste) fertilizer is threatening to migrate onto organic farms. Your best bet? Buy local, organically grown produce – and support small, family-run farms.
Peace and health to all, Amy
The Underbelly of Spring
In Vermont, they have two seasons:
Winter, plus a week of bad sledding.
In Puerto Rico, you wouldn’t know spring
if it rose up and bit you in your tanned ass.
In Wisconsin, it’s freeze, then thaw, then
freeze again… then roast in your bedding.
In Upstate NY, you go to school to get
ready for finals and sweat through class.
Spring is an unpredictable, mercurial,
unsentimental storm of hot and cold.
April may shower, but May does not
guarantee flowers or blue skies.
May is here, yet Spring has snowstorms
hidden in the seasonal envelope’s fold.
It’s muddy. It’s messy and inconvenient.
Spring hides behind a sunny-side disguise.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Izy wanted the truth about Spring… all the bad parts. I’ve been through the season in every place mentioned, and I guarantee that I never put away the snow shovel until after Mother’s Day. We once had a surprise storm on (no joke) May Day, and it dumped three feet of wet snow, made me pull little Riley back to the house from the ditched car on a plastic sled, and still the Jeeps and SUVs were out on the road doing donuts. That’s the storm that made possible the picture of Riley above! Whodathunkit?
Also at my poetic all-season resort, Poets United. Peace, Amy
Image: From Amy’s personal collection, not to be copied without permission.
Amy next to the family stereo, circa 1965 (she’s workin’ that leopard print!)
Glued to Sis’ Transistor Radio
We had a stereo at home
One of those looks-like-furniture
big honking wooden pieces
It was fine, if you bought the records
But who bought every record,
and who knew what to buy until we
heard it on the radio, on my sister’s
tiny transistor, huddled round it
Bound to hear the latest
Beatles, Dusty, Petula Clark…
Radio was alive with sounds and
smooth voices on the intros
First time we heard a new tune, we’d
break into mad dancing, flipping the dial
until we found the song again, screaming
when the new cut was (ah!) Beatles-born
Today, I still listen, as videos turn me off
I like to create my own videos in my mind
With videos, it’s a full-out performance and
the musicians must lip-synch at concerts
trying to recreate the video moves, wearing
unearthly metallic outfits, arriving in plastic
eggs or flying over the arena like Peter Pan
on acid. There’s a word for that action:
Borrrrr-ring!
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, we were “treated” to a Rob Zombie song about “Dead City Radio.” The song was on a video, which made me think of the connections between the two. Many otherwise throwaway songs became classics because of the video performance via MTV. But Jo’s transistor radio was our savior, listening out back by the pool. Those tinny classics became some of our favorites. Then we’d go buy… the 45! This is also at my other poetic station, Poets United. Peace, Amy
Prelude to a Kiss
First time I saw him,
I had that feeling.
We would either be
friends forever…
or we would be, forever.
Eyes so warm and
chocolate brown,
that stubble after a day
of fighting The Man
for social justice.
His voice so warm,
slightly scratchy from
day-long phone calls
to legislators over
rights for others.
He showed up on my
doorstep, after leaving
a red heart-shaped vinyl
single of Bobby Caldwell
and a little anonymous card.
Admitting he was the
“secret admirer,” he
carefully waited until Riley
disappeared into her room,
leaned in with a smile, and…
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
That was what sealed the deal. We both knew it was fate, from the UCC New Members’ Class to his thoughtful, appropriate dealings with my daughter to launching a praise band to flirting while we helped at the kids’ fundraising car wash. The teen girls who had crushes on him asked repeatedly if we were sister and brother. I asked why, and they said it just seemed like we had known each other forever. From the mouths of budding “babes”!
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the prompt was “prelude.” Couldn’t think of a sweeter introduction to fifteen years and counting. Also at my poetic place for conjuring, Poets United.
Peace, Amy
Before the poem, an announcement: IT’S OFFICIAL! I AM A TOAD! The site where I spent most of April, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, invited me to be one of their circle of 20 poets. I am extremely flattered and thrilled to be included in the Garden with so many wonderful poets. Like Poets United, one must be invited to join, so that’s my BIG ANNOUNCEMENT for, like, the year! Now, on we go…
Queer.
She’s queer and
wants me to
refer to her as
gender queer,
androgynous.
I could do no less
than confess:
My generation has
problems with Queer,
hearing it said in
locker rooms and
school, in sports
and retorts spat at
the skinny boys.
‘Queer’ meant
wrong, bent.
Now it means
the whole LGBT
community.
‘Queer’ has found
immunity.
She told me that
I must embrace change,
dangerous as it seems.
She dreams of
a day when ‘Queer’
simply means
‘Not Straight.’
Apples
to
apples.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For ABC Wednesday and also to be found on my non-homophobic hangouts, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and Poets United. It’s a generational thing. I remember gay pride movements in the 70s and 80s, and the cry, “We’re Here! We’re Queer! Get Over It!” Then, the word was still used as a pejorative by straights and closeted LGBTQs. The new generation, those who remember coming home from school on 9/11 like we remember coming home from school the day Pres. Kennedy was shot, have taken that word back, flipped it like a coin, say it with pride.
And I say, “Good on them!” Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 