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
At dverse, Hobgoblin asked us to attempt a poem in a foreign language. While I did spend years in Puerto Rico, my Spanish is a mite rusty; that’s why I buy bilingual volumes of Neruda, to strengthen that connection. Let’s see what you think (the English translation follows).
San Juan por la noche
Noches en la playa
de mi Borrinquen querido
Con mi amor, sin abarcas en la arena
y la aroma del mar
Besos dulces, cervezas frias
Manos entrelazarse
Estrellas bialando
por la cadencia de nos corazones
Muchos anos pasados,
yo recuerdo este amor… suave y eterno
TRANSLATION
San Juan at Night
Nights on the beach
of my beloved Puerto Rico
With my love, barefoot in the sand
and the scent of the sea
Sweet kisses, cold beer
Hands intertwined
The stars dancing
to the rhythm of our hearts
After so many years,
I remember that love… tender and eternal
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Also at “la casa de poecia,” Poets United!
Wedding Night Waxes
He carried her over the threshold
of their bridal suite:
Room 5 at the local Super 7
(couldn’t afford the Super 8)
She said she had prepared
a “goodie bag” for their wedding night
“What kind of goodies?” he asked, and
she just winked and smiled.
The Marriage Bed, they called it,
laughing (the baby was due in May)
They sat on the edge, making small talk
by the light of TCM classics on TV
She grabbed the mystery bag
Vanished into the bathroom and
squeezed into the silken nightie
she found on Clearance at Victoria’s Secret
(a bit swollen, but still sexy)
At that moment
the TV flickered off and
lights outened themselves with a snick
“Babe,” he called, “power’s out…
You OK in there?”
Her answer, opening the bathroom door
She held a basket with wine, crackers and cheese
In her long red lingerie, she stood
bathed in candleglow
“When I said I put all we needed
in the goodie bag, I wasn’t kidding”
His answer, a low, appreciative whistle
A single candle, stuck in a precious bottle:
The very first Chardonnay they ever shared
It was in the cab of his truck
They’d traced constellations and snuggled
and the baby was probably conceived
under Venus’ approving gaze
Now wax stribbled down the green bottleneck,
obscured the label, pooled on the night stand
as wick flickered…
a newborn light
© 2012 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Poets United’s Wonder Wednesday asked for poems about wax, candlelight, and such. Candles are the cheapest accessory for romance, so I thought about a young couple who didn’t have much but each other and took off from there. Peace, Amy
Boulevard Noir
I was a crumb, out of a job again,
feeling fallow, hanging out with the other writers at Schwab’s.
An obsolete automobile, titanic and shiny as a new penny,
pulled up; we were slack-jawed, admiring the grandeur.
In front, a bald chauffeur; his passenger, a forgotten icon, Silent era.
She offered me a job, plus room and board.
(Around repo time, one swallows one’s pride and hides
one’s rambunctious side, replacing it with unctuous politeness.)
I approached a mansion at the address she gave me. Rang the bell;
the stately old house echoed, hollow, eerie.
Her butler took my coat and placed my fedora on the hat-rack.
Who could know that, within one month, I’d be
avoiding her embrace in the palatial garden and
waltzing her around the grand ballroom at a party
“Just for the two of us, my darling…”
And who could predict I’d end up face down her in “cement pond,”
blood lacing the water around my bobbing, lifeless body?
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl and at Poets United.
Sharp Little Pencil 