Dedicated to all women who have lost their hair fighting cancer and other illness. It’s a hard thing to endure, as we tend to look at ourselves in the mirror with a certain defining viewpoint…
LOOKING FOR SCISSORS
Panic set in when radiation exacted its toll
Nauseous moments, endless drives to the hospital
All this she could endure; her faith was strong
But she called me in the dead of night
pleading, “Come downstairs, I can’t find my scissors!”
Was she going to hurt herself? End it after all?
Padding down back steps in PJs and slippers
I found her weeping on a kitchen chair
surrounded by long strands of hair, a nest of fallen beauty
“Quick! Braid what’s left and cut it off!”
Tea-rstained plea of a women for whom
her waist-length tresses were a source of pride
Gently weaving, endeavoring to leave undisturbed
the bounty still holding fast to roots,
carefully rubber banding both ends.
“Are you sure you want me to cut it?”
She grabbed my scissors, handed them off
like a scalpel: handle first
“They’ve poisoned and burned me.
If all I have left is this, it’s enough.”
Snip.
Twenty years of lovingly tended hair
lay in her hands in a braid. She cried, mourning,
“And he never even noticed, I kept it long for him…”
Looking for _____, says the prompt at Poetic Asides. As usual, my Irish is up!
LOOKING FOR PEACE
Swords into ploughshares? Not anytime soon.
We’ve been at war for thousands of years.
Men have fought over women, over money,
marking territory like dogs, changing borders,
shouting orders that (_____) is to blame and
(_______) MUST be annihilated.
Special ops, men made of steel and guts –
many who live to tell the tale, broken and unsure.
Troopers exacted the only death toll at Attica.
Nixon said it was an acceptable loss.
Collateral damage: Arms, legs, burqas,
babies. Baskets full from market, now
bullet-hewn produce strewn on a rocky terrain.
“Meanwhile, back at the ranch,”
Skinheads field-dress a man whose only sin
was a wink at the wrong guy; he is strapped
to the bumper of a cracker truck with the
Confederate flag flapping in the breeze of
the ultimate joy ride – ice-cold beer and
today’s catch dead and mangled, trailing them,
bouncing in the tread marks.
A woman says the wrong thing (again)
and gets what she had coming; he talks to police
and she hides her face, mumbling “mistake” and “sorry.”
A shelter’s bell rings at 2 am:
A mom and two kids barefoot in Buffalo snow,
wrapped only in bedsheets. As they are clothed and
warmed by cocoa and reassurance, they tell of
the boyfriend confiscating clothes and shoes nightly
so they might not leave. Now they fear he is near.
In D.C., no matter who started it, the drones find
their next predator… surrounded by family members.
In return, a boy straps on the gear and becomes
one cell phone call away from the CNN crawl.
Everybody has nukes as long as the US says it’s OK.
Israel walls off Palestinians, we pay for the materials.
If we complain, we are called “anti-Semitic,”
even if we’re Jewish!
Mexican cartels are doing well and causing hell,
while the CIA protects Afghan poppy fields.
But we are made to worry only about people who hope
to clean toilets in America – the least of our worries.
God, Jehovah, Adonai, Allah, Creator
Give us peace, we pray in our churches and temples
We didn’t listen to Moses.
We didn’t listen to Jesus.
We ignore the Five Pillars of Islam.
We didn’t heed the Buddha or Gandhi.
We didn’t follow Dr. King past his death.
We only listen to TV…
Why don’t we listen to God?
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we’re still writing a Poem A Day. Today’s theme? Metamorphosis. I promised Robert, no cockroaches!
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Someone once said, “Before you’re 30, you look like what God made you. After 30, you look like what YOU made you.”
THE DEEPEST FURROW
Can’t outrun the clock
It chimes, it chisels
upon our rocks of ages
our faces, once smooth
Now grooved with memories
of roaring laughter
and mysterious fears,
tears settle in grooves
then follow the trail
downward toward the heart
Crow’s feet from laughing
from smoking
from squinting
from shouting about
how life isn’t what you’d planned
Face placid, etched like acid,
smile lines betray
black Irish humor
that finds even the horrific
a bit funny, given time
The deep Rushmorian crack
by the right eyebrow
was the first divorce
And the brand-new dimple
next to the smile line that’s
next to the other smile line?
It seemed to appear after
talking about politics
with my dear chum today
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
…and sometimes the Page turns you
Betty Page was all the rage
Never had to hit a stage
Simply posed for photographs
Steamy, sexy, some for laughs
Never in apron or bonnet
Often with some leather on it
Betty Page was quite a oner –
Sharp as nails and quite the stunner!
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Previously published at Poetic Asides
When asked at Sunday Scribblings to write on the word “intense,” I knew exactly where I would go… to Riley.
FOR AS MUCH
For as much as her first movement within me
(like a flickering tub toy gone off in my stomach)
made me realize I was actually pregnant;
For as often as I ran to the bathroom
to relieve the heaves of morning sickness;
For as few times as her father bothered
to help me ride the subway to La Maze classes;
For as big as I got, flouting my expanding tummy
and allowing total strangers to lay hands on me,
connecting with her movements;
For as hard as it was getting stuck in a backwoods outhouse
only to be rescued by two Boy Scouts,
who undoubtedly had the best story around that night’s campfire;
For as bad as the lemon-lime Gatorade looked,
both going in and splashing out into the waiting bucket
until I agreed to the shot of Valium…
For all these things,
nothing could compare me for the intensity
of my love for my newborn child.
Even today, taller than I, she appears in my mind’s eye
a bundle of brown-eyed sweetness
wrapped in a blanket of promise and wonder.
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
READY AS WE’LL EVER BE
Americans hold dear our freedom to vote.
And rightly so.
We take for granted the ease with which
we breeze into polling places to cast ballots.
No death threats or intimidation
(except for people of color
when the majority of Anglos don’t step up
and ensure their rights, too).
And it’s been almost one hundred years
that I, a lowly woman, got the vote!
Free and fair…
until a presidential hopeful
and his golfing buddy discussed voting machines.
“I have a new-fangled computerized one.
It’ll put the mechanized ones in the museum!”
New York State had foolproof levered machines
(tallied after unsealing by all parties for certification
and carted off to the county hub intact).
No chads, no room for error.
You’d have to dump the machine in the river
to get rid of the votes!
Dieboldt: Planned obsolescence for
that which was never obsolete,
replaced by computerized gizmos,
many without paper trails,
most so vulnerable they are hackable, even by teens.
The golf partner promised the presidential hopeful,
“I’ll deliver Ohio for you.”
And that he did.
Now my beloved state has mothballed
perfectly functional, foolproof levers
in favor of “Never Say Nevers.”
We have only our lack of information and action to blame
for the shameful fact that,
although we can vote,
it is no longer guaranteed
that our vote will be counted, reflecting our choice,
or changed overnight
by interests more powerful than those of freedom.
We’re looking forward! We’re making progress!
We’re hurtling headlong into
a new golden age of fraud and abuse.
President Palin and Vice President Palidino?
That would serve us right, I suppose.
I’m going to vote today,
and pray that tomorrow –
whatever the outcome (sincerely) –
the votes were counted fairly.
But in the back of my mind,
Bush and Dieboldt practice their putting…
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
previously published at Poetic Asides and my blog
This week at Writer’s Island, we were asked to think about masquerades. First one was heavy, so I decided it was time for a little more fun. Easy, my Tea Party friends, it’s just a poem! Amy
SCARY COSTUME
This year, Halloween’s too easy
Red suit, sharp and stiff, not sleazy
Hair up in a shiny bun
Posture of a warring Hun
Sensible dark-rimmed wire glasses
Worn especially for the masses
“Shopped around, I’m really smart
Picked them up at our WalMart”
Smile until my lips vibrate
Platitudes at rapid rate
Kids, I’ll drag along behind
tied up to my butt with twine
Red high heels from Macy’s, dear
(“WalMart”? Not with my career!)
Vacant stare and “Yeah, you betcha”
Look out! Sarah’s gonna getcha!
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
At Writer’s Island, we were asked to write about masquerades. My main masquerade is in life… or it was, until I sorted out some details.
THIS IS THE MASK I SOMETIMES WEAR
Confident of every move
My stylus firmly in the groove
A smile that says I’ll take the dare
This is the mask I sometimes wear
My wit, a whetstone-sharped knife
I’m lit by fire, devouring life
Yet no one can detect the tear
that rends the mask I sometimes wear
Late to parties, the first to leave
I’m shiny slick with joie de vive
But if you look with special care
You’ll see right through the mask I wear
That’s my candle, both ends burning
Dripping molten, careless yearning
My frozen face, makeup and hair
Mask the wear and tear of le guerre
But once I’m home and all alone
There’s no façade, no great unknown
My crippling doubt I never share
In public, I’ve a mask to wear
They’ll never see the stripped-down me
used by him when I was three
That little girl can only bear
to live behind the mask I wear
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Jingle Poetry asked for a love and romance poem. Here’s the best I have to give you – a take on love found, lost, found, lost… yet permanent. Amy
INTERTWINED
You recall that fall
the two of us, soul to soul
Wholly ourselves
if only for that moment
Now you’re safe
in your comfort zone
She thinks she is the only one
And that you yourself hung the moon
While I hang around here awaiting what where how when, pondering then
I whisper in your heart, stroking your memory
tenderly drawing you back to me
Our love happened
because nothing else could
Flesh upon flesh
the heart of the matter
smattering of promises we knew were loving lies
And now here’s your life: organized, precise, clockwork
Mine the jumble of a funny, frantic existence
Yet there remains the magnetic, eclectic tug
pulling you back to me
across miles of untouchable roadblocks
Our lives forever tangled, intertwined
Even apart, forever you’re mine
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
A Poetic Asides post. An ever-so-delicate look at how women’s bodies change over the years… Enjoy, and then click the link to check out poems by the rest of the gang! Amy
CHANGING
It comes to us all
Those gifted with double-X
The passage of time brings
the curse of our sex
First we get periods
Bloat like balloons
Bitchy and bothered
We cry to full moons
Then comes the part where
if you have some luck
you have a big baby
comes out like a truck
Your skinny jeans gone
to the clothing exchange
Your once-lithe young self
is at once rearranged
Your boobs not your own
‘Cause you share them with baby
and hubby gets jealous
But fools with them? (maybe)
Now gravity takes hold
and Cooper’s Droop socks you
More than a pencil
I can hold a whole box, too
Then finally menopause
There’s God’s big laugh
You sweat and you chill
and your mind’s cut in half
Part of it knowing
what you need upstairs
the other half, getting there,
asking, “What the hell am I doing here and why? There was something I needed up here but I don’t know WILL SOMEBODY TURN DOWN THE HEAT? I’M SWEATING MY ASS OFF!!!”
(c) 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 