FUNNY BUSINESS
Your hair has such flair
A bounce in your step and
a plop in your pratfalls
When you’re happy, we
all know it, it’s all over
your face
same as when you’re sad
Your car is so cool and
seats thirteen if some of them
hang out the windows
And your makeup?
To die for. Drag queens everywhere
could take some tips from
your brow technique
High brow, low brow
Take a bow, o clever clown
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Mary wanted a Valentine to someone or something we cannot stand. I don’t mind telling you, it’s not just a vague dislike… clowns scare the crap out of me, always have. I once wrote a horror poem about them. Grown men in grotesque makeup, falling on their butts and getting WAY too close to little kids for my comfort… The balloon animals that always managed to explode near me… Bozo? Yikes! Amy
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads gave us a form to work on, the Cinquain, sort of like haiku, but with a different syllabic structure (five lines; 2 – 4 – 6 – 8 – 2). Its inventor was the American poet Adelaide Crapsey. I wrote three: one funny, one environmental, and one about our praise service at church. Enjoy. If I didn’t make the deadline (often the case!), it will be shared on Real Toads’ Open Link Monday! Process notes below.
CINQUAINS FOR “REAL TOADS”
What’s In A Name?
Only
myself tonight
wondering how someone
who made this lovely form was named
Crapsey
Skeeter Davis Said It First*
Human
obsolescence
has been hastened by our
wanton disrespect for this gift,
our Earth.
Sing Hallelujah!
My church
Prayers are souldeep
Singing is loudrowdy
When the band starts in to jam, we
“pray twice”**
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
NOTES: Cinquains ideally have a nature theme, similar to haiku; however, Americans generally disregard this, as is our nature. There are other suggested rules, and I didn’t bother with those either. See, I’m more of a “free-verse” kind of woman, and after years of songwriting, being constrained to any form makes me all twitchy. But for Real Toads, I did my best! Also on the right scrolling column of my poetic haven, Poets United.
* Skeeter Davis’ biggest hit was, “(Don’t They Know) It’s the End of the World?”
** Old saying: When you sing in church, you pray twice. Once with words and again with the joyful noise of rhythm and voices!
CHANTEUSE IN SNEAKERS
From that first jam session, I was
the little girl singing with old dudes
They told me I “brought it”
Caught ‘em by the spiritual heel
Held ‘em with my feeling, healing
No drab days after that debut
Wandering out the back forty
serenading the birds who
sang back like they were answering
Daydreamed through school
Lyrics in mind (not math)
Pondering styles on mental stylus
Teacher would call on me
I’d pulsate from embarrassment
No clue as to question or even subject
Kids laughed and teachers scolded me
about my silly sidetrackedness
But I’d have luxurious revenge
Within two years, the best songs
ingrained in my brain, a tendril of
inspiration connecting song to singer
At the jam, I shocked even my siren mom
when I sang “Embraceable You,”
a pint-sized vixen, meaning every word
Caught glances of awestruck audience
I watched their reserve melt away
Drawn into my world, surreal, transfixed
They left reality behind, escaped the moment
of “I’m guzzling a martini” to float into
a haven of heaven, losing themselves
I was seven years old
when I realized I had the ability
to eat other people’s shadows
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, the final stanza is the first line of a poem by Hamilton Cork; we were given several lines from which to create a poem. Thank, Izy, for a great prompt. Read all poems and a bio of Hamilton Cork HERE.
Also for ABC Wednesday (C) and Three Word Wednesday (drab, pulsate, tendril).
TWOFER
Two in one
Joined at the skin
within
Yin/Yang twins with
opposing forces:
One, golden innocence
the endless blossoming
of girl to young lady to
woman to mom to
crone
The other, haunted by
events time will not erase,
rusted razors
The miracle is
they both survive
the chaos
One diary; two lives
The perfectionist clips
fraying edges of her life;
her trademark, a lack
of deceit.
The dangerous silverfish
dives endlessly into
threadbare carpet on
the walls, only to emerge
unspooling, unruly,
unnervingly unorthodox
One seeks applause
The other, a pause,
if only to seek a blank sheet,
a mulligan, a cosmic do-over
(and over, and over)
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, “Get listed.” Huge list of words, and I managed to use quite a few. Thanks, Fireblossom! Also at my poetic hangout, Poets United. I was too late for dverse Open Mic Night. Drat! Finally, for Trifecta, “survive.”
RE: Life… Finally back among the functional, for the most part. The two in one of this piece are, of course, Amy Before She Knew and Amy After Diagnosis and Realization that her youth was stolen. Both are good people with frenetic days, bad tempers, and other challenges. Many thanks to all who have been sending good wishes during my hiatus. Happy New Year and Peace, Amy
SPEAKING MY MIND
Never one to hold back,
even at the ever-so-proper
Council of Churches.
An abnormal annual worship
of all churches and temples
joined in the fight against hunger.
See, it was “ecumenical,”
which in the interim director’s mind
meant “Don’t offend Jews and Muslims
by even mentioning Jesus.” So we
gather in a lavish Catholic church,
and there’s a big old Corpus at the altar.
Jesus, dangling from a ginormous cross,
bloody side and all, eyes downturned,
but the director deleted his name.
Two days later, at a staff meeting,
everyone was grumbling about how
Jesus wasn’t invited to the party,
when 22 churches, a synagogue, and
a Muslim temple sent reps. “Politically
correct” was the term of the day…
…until the Director entered the room.
Then a hush. Then she asked, “Does anyone
have any thoughts about the worship?”
I looked around the table. Twenty people
shifted in their chairs. I raised my hand.
“Barbara, it was lavish but awful. You didn’t mention
the name of the real director of the Council of
Churches once.” She blanched. Crickets chirped
and people looked at me but didn’t say jack.
As though educating me, she crowed, “This was
an ecumenical service. I don’t think you understand
what that means.” And OF COURSE I had to say:
“I’m not a moron. Ecumenism is embrace of ALL faiths,
meeting on common ground. So you should have
included Jesus, Moses, AND the Prophet Mohammed.
“There was a big bloody Jesus nailed on the cross.”
(The others waited, breath bated. I was going to quit anyway.)
“The service was crap, but nobody seems to want to tell you that.”
You’a thought the roof would fall in or
lightening would strike me as I left, box of personals in hand.
But no, it WAS the First Horse of the Apocalypse,
the Horse that, incidentally, took a large dump on
the Director as it raced by, headed for the White House
so George W. Bush could get the next load.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
This is a true story, written for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads (roof caves in) and using words from Three Word Wednesday. Of course I was not medicated for my bipolar, so I probably would have used more proper language had it been today… but I still would have railed against her condescension and called her out on offending hundreds of Christian volunteers, as well as raising eyebrows with both the rabbi and the Imam! Speaking truth to power is never easy, but it can be a helluva lot of fun!! Peace, Amy
There was a prompt on dverse called “Missing You” that, of course, I missed linking to. To which I missed linking. Linking missed did I. Whatever! Fortunately, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads is hosting Open Link Monday, so thanks, Kerry!
During Advent, I remember large and small kindnesses, and I think about those I’ve lost over the years. “And of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares to you.” With a nod to John Lennon, here a a poem about the person I miss so much.
NOTE: All poems regarding my relationship with my father are about me and me alone. I make no claims, nor do I speak for my sisters.
MISSING CHARLOTTE
The coffee shared at the cigbutt-scarred
kitchen table (my workspace now).
The stories, especially when you were
drunk as a skunk, rambling on about
our noteworthy obscure Irish lineage.
Our family totem: Gordon’s and an ashtray.
Grandma Blanche exacting revenge
on Bill, who cheated with her best friend.
Wish you had taken a picture of his face
when he walked in, realizing he was busted.
The nights you went off to sing, scent of
Tigress cologne, the black sequins and
paste jewelry from Blanche, I called them
“dime mints,” the teardrop earrings you wore.
The teardrops signified more: Breakfast
wearing sunglasses, Dad hit you the night before
after doing me in a fit of jealousy – Dad sure
you were fooling around at your gig, you dig?
Next morning, to church, choir director… first,
vodka bracer, no lie detector, I’d never tell
Your secrets were safe with me and my
secrets I didn’t know until after you both died.
Mama, you told me we were both descended
from sirens. I didn’t think you meant
ambulances, yet backward glances tell me
(in the hindsight that trumps your own truth),
you were a mess, and so loveable, and so
weak, and so in need, and so on. I know.
I’m the dark mirth of the Irish, the mother of
a savant, the keeper of memories, of the love.
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
My mother was an enigmatic, persuasive lioness who occasionally retreated to helpless-kitten states through alcohol. She drank because she didn’t want to be “crazy” like her mother, Blanche, who was bipolar like me, but because of the times, was institutionalized and Frankenshocked through the 30s and 40s. Charlotte drank because she didn’t want to “notice” Dad sneaking up the hall after his little girls had gone to bed. And she drank to warm up her razor-sharp memory for “the telling of the stories,” our family history. Some people tell the same stories over and over… which start out like funny mice but, over the years, morph into elephants. Not Mama. I was her witness, and I know she would be glad I write about all the mess, the booze, the music, the tears, and the bellyaching laughter… and yes, even the abuse.
Hug your parents tight, if they are with you. My depression comes and goes, but hers was long, tortured, and I thank God that now, she is at peace. Miss you, Mama. Love, Amer
Photo taken by my Grandpa Bill in August 1959, during a visit to Mom’s home town, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Copyright is with me.
This is really happening. To me. No pity party, please, just listen and understand. It will get better, I know that. More words after the poem.
TURBULENT DISCONNECT
Now I lay me down to weep
A labyrinth, a maze without cheese
Words fail the bruised heart,
the mind made of chalk
Cry. Weep. Moan. Mourn. Keen. Wail.
These words pale. I am breaking down
into actual, definable pieces of self
Synapses unsnapping, flying free but
trapped within my brain
Kneeling facedown across the bed,
arms spread wide, inside outside
The religious lie prone, oblate before God
So I humble myself, keening aloud abstract pleas:
Why? Where are you?
How will I make it through?
What is happening to me and
what’s to come? When? How?
But these phrases do not come all apiece
They are fragmented by disturbing sounds
Eyes red tired sore, cried to dry and then,
having found the source, tears well up again
as my gut contracts (sounds like a business deal)
My face is chapped by The Waterworks
Forcing fluids to keep up with the gushers
A fracked earthquake of emotion, unnatural
Worrying meds, from table to bowl,
Weaning off shame to another Sheol
Chemical soup has ruled my life for years
Maybe The Dark One, sensing instability,
Delights in trumping God at my disability
There’s little more pitiful
than a 55-year-old woman crying clean through
her yoga routine
falling over and wiping her nose on
her sleeve between heaves
and retches between stretches
Now another bout is brewing
so I’ll put this aside
Take off my bifocals so the salt
won’t be dried on the lenses
Cling to the teddy bear
my daughter used to hold fast
Roll over in the dark to sip water
from a cobalt blue glass
It’s coming again… the creek, the river,
the waterfall, the tsunami, the flood
And FEMA cannot help this disaster
The global disconnect in my head
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
I have not been on the computer for days, let alone write. Mary Kling, your Imaginary Garden With Real Toads prompt for poems about “connections” led me to rework an old poem into a more coherent form, written as it was during a dark period. I am in an even darker place now, so please forgive my not responding to comments. But if you have even felt something this deep, please leave a comment and let me know, if only so I’ll have company. If you have never felt this way, I ask that you offer a prayer for all of us who live with depression. Don’t worry about me… I’ve dealt with clinical depression for years, and on my mom’s side, the condition drips down the family tree like bitter molasses. It’s been days since I have written anything at all, so I offer these words in the hope that someone else will recognize it, or perhaps understand more fully what their neighbor, their niece, their spouse may be going through. And please, don’t try to cheer us up with JOKES, cuz it makes us cry! (A little gallows humor for y’all.)
Also for ABC Wednesday, where the letter is T… for Time, Turbulence, Trying, Teddy bear, and Trust. And it’s on the rolling scroll to the right on Poets United, my safe haven in times of turbulence. Peace to all, and love, Amy
The Sweetest Presence
A gift from her sister, I was
oooohed and aaaahed over
Now I hang on a rusty hook
near the back screen door
Listening to kids running
in, out, in, out, slam, slam
Her husband complains that
I’m in his way, bang
(He is too tall, but
I won’t be the one to say)
I was once a variety
of leftover spoons and forks
Then, refiner’s fire made me
flatware that’s really flat
Now comes a quiet breeze
breathing through me
and the gently moving silverware
makes music to soothe the soul
I may not chime the hour
but I have my own charms
She hears my call and
joins me for a cup of tea
Always remembers her sister
when she listens to me
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
My dear friend Sherry Blue Sky turned me on to this prompt. Hannah Gosslein (known to many of us as “Sweet Hannah” offered a prompt at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, to inhabit the spirit of a forest plant or creature. I made a detour and chose something that is affected by nature, the humble wind chime. A friend had some that were indeed forged and flattened forks and spoons, leftovers from an old family set, and it left a definitely impression on me. Thanks, Hannah! Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 