Never before have I witness such an outpouring of love as for Marques Bovre, a local Madison musician who has played every venue from coffeehouses to large clubs to churches. He is the Artist-in-Residence at our church, Lake Edge UCC here in Madison. Marques has been battling an illness and the event tonight, chock-full of bands, was a fundraiser to cover his medical bills. (Universal health care, anyone?) Marques himself garnered strength to play with his two previous bands, So Dang Yang and Marques and the Evil Twins (yeah, there are four folks in that one!). We’re praying for his recovery, and man, he really BRANG it tonight, if you can dig that!
Impromptu (for Marques)
Tribute to a great and good Madison musician;
a rare, beautiful brother, fighting a rare, ugly disease.
Songwriter of extraordinary range and style,
Marques can bring the Holy Spirit into a rock club.
This night, it’s all his songs played by many bands.
The stage is spacious and filled with love –
rowdy crowd vibes spill up over the edge, flooding the stage.
Band throbbing, pulsations vibrating in our collective gut.
My glass of local brew is refilled by Craig
and I know the time is coming when the lure of
raw elements grip me and I will ascend the steps.
Musicians are an enigma: We have to do it.
The final tune is a jam; the beat renders me weightless,
abandon rapidly released. Spasms of hesitancy are overcome
and come tumbling out as overwhelming enthusiasm
for the task at hand… it’s about affirming Marques.
We are all vessels, vital elements of the shout-out.
the crowd pleaser, the old classic everyone knows,
and we release full-tilt at the top of our lungs:
“You ain’t seen nothin’ like the Mighty Quinn.”
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl: Elements, tumbling, spasm, released, weightless, enigmas, grip, rapid, glass, pulsations, rare, spacious. Thanks, Brenda, for mining the work of Billy Collins to give us this Wordle! The words literally called out to me and I wrote this shortly after arriving home from Marques’ gig. Peace, and please add Marques and this family to your prayers. Peace in the key of D, Amy
Poetic Bloomings asked for a poem about traditions; the Sunday Whirl tossed this motley group of words at us: amorous, subtle, genuflect, precipice, inkling, vanilla, mission, December, laden, bark, crusted, trivet. A retelling of the kind of family dust-up that eventually goes from legend to a smile, this is dedicated to the memory of my former mother-in-law, Hanna Weinberger; and in honor of her husband, Len, and Rob and his fantastic second wife, Donna. Peace and twinkly lights, Amy (P.S. Lex and I also light a menorah to this day, in Riley’s honor.)
Christmas Tree With a Schmear
“Will I have to genuflect to it?” she grimaced.
An inking of the controversy to come, December of ’86.
My mission, to host my husband’s folks and to
decorate our Christmas tree. No big deal, right?
Intermarriage: He, a Jew; I, a pseudo-Christian.
(His faith only observed when his mom set
the Passover table, lit by silver candlesticks,
laden with luscious food on fancy trivets.)
But every year, my vanilla faith called for a tree.
My Episcopalian upbringing had brought me to this:
On Christmas Eve I’d sneak into church;
in the spring we watched “Easter Parade” on TV.
Interfaith civil wedding: A generic Man of God
found in the yellow pages; a hoopah in our living room
(no rabbi or minister without promises of Hebrew or
Sunday school… not ready to even have kids!).
We lugged home the best (cheapest) tree in Queens;
its bark shredded during trunk-shoving, leaking
pestilent, resinous sap. My allergic splotches
crusted over just in time for The Big Party.
Mom was less than amorous about the whole affair.
She felt her shiksa daughter-in-law had exposed a subtle agenda:
Trying to make her son revere a tree that (apparently)
was a symbol of Jesus on the cross. With tinsel and lights.
They entered with trepidation; this was a precipice in our
relationship. I had gone to every Seder, Hanukkah… and
my husband loved having a tree (the pagan aspect, too).
Within ten minutes, we had gravitated to places of safety:
Mom, smoking a cigarette, looking at the wall, peeking
out of the corner of her eye in downright disgust. Wife
telling stories of each ornament; husband happy, stringing lights.
Dad, singing along with a Crosby record, “White Christmas.”
Ain’t compromise a wonderful thing?
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Balancing Act of Life
Hovering before a feeder full of suet,
the hummingbird’s wings beat so fast,,
she appears motionless. Magic.
Nearby, a birdhouse swivels on its chain
in the autumn breeze, abandoned for
the rapidly approaching winter.
The bees are past “Last Call,” so drunk
they’ll sting anything. They dawdle near
the last bloom of a faded coral rose in
a pointless quest for long-gone nectar.
Geese overheard, perfectly aligned,
their kazoo music a comic horn section.
Yet, behold their strength in numbers,
their impeccable, strategic teamwork.
They know travail; they seek only survival.
The eloquent, full-throated conversation of
lark and sparrow, cuckoo and crow
owl and cricket, long since stifled by
the reality of the season. One misses
their conversation over morning coffee
or evening cabernet. Now we watch the mist
mask and reveal, mask and reveal the Moon,
pee-a-boo in the night sky.
We’ll take in the birdfeeders soon, our fingers
deftly cleaning all crevices before storage for Spring.
We will look for the few creatures of the deep freeze:
Deer, gratefully nibbling apples we left on the
low-hanging branches, rabbits scavenging
what they can, squirrels twirling in the trees.
This balancing act of life serves as show and
as life lesson: Hard work and beauty are equals
in Nature. Symmetry. The dance. The point.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl, with thanks to Brenda for the Wordle: Bees, balance, cleaning, coral, point, strength, finger, motionless, eloquent, rapidly, swivel, safety. Also at my poetic home away from home, Poets United.
Artistic
(For Riley)
She was a quiet, hidden way about her.
She may seem strident to some
but her shell protects her from
the piercing lens of the world.
Girl. Canvas. In the perfect light of a
beachside studio, her energy
is reignited. Perhaps warm, salty
air emits creative power.
She pitches in: Cerulean and Sand,
Viridian, a hint of Ivory, a
swish of vivid Magenta, a few
Ebony-dappled accents. No one can
imagine the sublime delirium,
this torrid tango of perfect partners.
Part duel, part puzzling rendezvous.
Her brow furrowing into a pleat
as she is lost in the swirl of brushstrokes.
She’s found a new way to express
what she feels, her profound nature.
Longing becomes art.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For the Sunday Whirl and my poetic touchstone, Poets United.
The Wordle included: Reignite, emit, delirium, air, piercing, swish, dappled, pleat, seem, strident, pitch, shell.
Lost Soul
He shuffled by, jeans grazing the sidewalk
I caught a whiff of
part bottle of cheap wine,
part bloody confrontation from
last night, carved on his cheek
As his garbage-bag suitcase thumped behind,
he spat in the gutter.
DTs setting in, he twitched
in a crooked gait, a gurgle
singing from deep in his gut.
Before I could stop him to offer a breakfast,
he vanished through a paint-shredded doorway.
My mom would’ve said,
“His porch light’s flickering.”
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (with thanks to Brenda Warren for assembling the Wordle and Mike Patrick for the words): Gutter, flickering, twitched, vanished, crooked, bottle, bloody, gurgle, sidewalk, thump, carved, caught. Also at my poetic touchstone, Poets United.
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.
Walk, Talk, Persevere
Our hands in our pockets, we walked.
‘Twas of Lila’s cancer we talked.
“Oh, sure, it was one fucking jolt!
One week, all is well, then this bolt
from Doctor X come a-roaring
in our ears, but then my adoring
Meg said, ‘Give us some options, Doc.’”
“In the past, it was urgent – tick-tock,
to cut off the woman’s whole breast.
But now it’s the simple way’s best.”
The importance of one single fact:
Lila’s dignity would be intact.
There’d be scraping and chemo, but then,
their future to build was the plan,
“Rebuild Lila’s health” was the rule.
They married; bold women: They’re cool.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore
From Brenda Warren’s Sunday Whirl, and just in time! Wordle words are in bold. This is dedicated to all women and men who have survived breast cancer… and in memory of those who did not. Peace, Amy
Our Navy SEALS and other Special Ops units pay a terrible price for their extreme talent. They are exposed to sights and sounds the normal American citizen never considers. After hearing about a large number of SEALS being killed this week, and knowing a couple of former Special Ops folks myself, these are my thoughts about what they go through, and at what cost to their own mental health as they become vital cogs within the war machine. Peace, Amy
FORWARD MARCH, SPECIAL OPS
He pledges to hold sacred even the most seditious plans of the military.
His head is shaved ‘til every blond tuft falls to the floor.
He will tread the nether worlds to hinder whichever enemy is targeted.
His missions sporadic, vital;
he is enmeshed in that zone of adrenalin and HOO-AH!
Tonight, he’ll get plastered with his buddies to ward off the sting.
Years later, waking in tremor, he is haunted by
horrors executed at the bidding of men
who felt no stigma about
stirring the global pot to suit their needs
and those of their investors.
(c) 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For The Sunday Whirl (Wordle words in bold), Sunday Scribblings (Forward), and, as always, the poetic collective, Poets United.
I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy
I note, fascinated, that
TV prophets cheerfully tender
the day’s torments,
as though yesterday left no scars,
no rusty bloodstains on the streets
of Kabul.
The sun has been swept under
a cement cloud.
Why chance a morning walk
when crawling will do?
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sunday Whirl words are in BOLD. Try Brenda’s Wordles – they are fascinating!
Also on Poets United, my poetic collective home.
Sharp Little Pencil 