Catching the last breath of Sunday Scribblings, laid low with flu that comes and goes. If I hear, “it’s going around” one more time, I’ll… cough unproductively!
Sunday Scribblings asked for a sensation (in this case, I borrowed that of another), and Three Word Wednesday used Backward, Ease, and Omission. Seemed to go together… Peace to all, Amy
Tightwire With Glass Shards and No Net
Her uncomplicated memories of growing up
The ease with which she blocks out
who dad was and what he did…
Insisting he hung the moon and stars
Not a sin, but a shame, this omission.
She remains his prisoner, unbalanced,
dreams filled with violence,
legs kicking away at something,
she can’t quite see its face…
Look backward, angel.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Also at my poetic collective home, Poets United.
The Dark Side of the Moon
Nuclear plants faced big fines
They’d filled all cave and mines
In Vegas, locals now know
You can gamble AND can glow
Like the bright, full harvest moon
Edict came down from on high
Nuke garbage would now fly
And be stored, safe and secure
In a place with no allure
On the dark side of the moon
Computer parts also flown
With spent missiles to the Zone
That waited in deep space
Old Man Moon’s Janus face
On the dark side of the moon
Flotsam and jetsam were sent up
Poisons, deep-water sludge went up
And rich people paid good money
Ashes placed, “Him” and “Honey”
On the dark side of the moon
As long as folks could view
The same pizza-pie milieu
They wouldn’t burst the bubble
Nor cause a whit of trouble
‘Bout the dark side of the moon
Scientists perturbed
Moon’s balance was disturbed
The orbit now decayed,
There soon was no more shade
On the dark side of the moon
Imagine each frightened soul
When La Luna spun out of control
And the first place it hit
Was Alamos with nuke shit
From the dark side of the moon
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Poetic Asides, the blog that got me started in poetry (thanks, Robert Lee Brewer and all the Street gang!) had an intriguing prompt: Out of this world. I’d been thinking about this concept for a long while. Peace, and keep the moon crap-free! Amy
BOX ROOM
Awakening
Counting ceiling tiles, blurred
She loses track
Wondering
Was that a scream she heard
falling through a crack
Speaking
Her words not quite right, slurred
The drugs’ve made her whack
Feeling
Straps on her wrists, tethered
Detox. The Rack.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For anyone who has made it through detox. My mother did it cold turkey to avoid the above experience, and she had a lot of help from my father. Issues with Dad aside, this was the best thing he ever did for my mother – help her get through kicking alcohol at the age of 60. She spent her last 10 years in recovery and died sober. Amen. Amy
For dverse – a fascinating group = and at Poets United, forever my home.
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.
The Sunday Whirl gave us words that appear in bold. All I could think of was parents scouring the Norwegian countryside in search of their children.
Also posted at Poets United, my home away from home. Peace, Amy
Twisted Youth
(In Memory of Victims and Honor of Survivors of the Massacre in Norway)
How does a young man’s mind twist this
marvel of humankind
into reprehensible ideologies?
Not in the blink of an IPod spewing neo-Nazi music.
More likely, scattered, parentally unsupervised viewings
of YouTube videos, which cast people into castes:
Good and Evil.
It clouds his judgment…
and soon the blast of a bomb and
whirr of bullets rain down on Norway.
Desperate residents search for the living,
but first, they must scan the dead.
Americans pull their curtains closed
and say it can’t happen here.
But it already has:
Racial violence, rendered legal by racist politicians.
Hatred of immigrants, shots flying at the southern border.
Brutalized or murdered gays, lesbians, transgender people,
some hanging from trees, some trailing from bumpers of trucks.
Timothy McVeigh, the coward who chose death over apology.
Columbine.
Young minds raised in racist, ignorant homes.
It’s here, not just in Norway or the Middle East.
Can’t gild this fetid ditch lily:
Face the shame of homegrown terror.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 