WHEN WE WERE YOUNG THINGS
When we were angels
swimming in the stars,
we were but boy toys
hanging in the bars
When we were divas
dressed in les Diors,
we were with shlumps who
didn’t open doors
(Bridge)
Looking glass, tell me
When did the view change
Why not forever young
Rather than cue change
When we were sirens
singing from the cliffs
we were a jumble of
“whens” and “whys” and “ifs”
(Bridge)
Looking glass, tell me
When did the view change
Why not forever young
Rather than cue change
When we were young things
slinking down the street
we’d ne’er imagine
that ourselves we’d meet
Now we were older
greyer each season
Now we are bolder
We’ve found our reason
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
We were asked, at Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, to write a song… a chanson, a lieder, anything that might be set to music. This is a slow waltz with a pause after the bridge (at “cue change”). Songwriting has long been my business, so I guess I’d better pen the tune now! Also “in the margins” at my poetic concert hall, Poets United. Peace, Amy
At the Great American Food & Beverage Co., Wilshire at Sixth (1979)
Joe’s behind the keys
Doug, Lisa and I singing backup until
others join the fray, Carolyn on cabasa
This restaurant is like nothing ever
Ever
EVER
Smells mingle and linger
Rib sauce, beer, whipped cream
Sweat and hot chocolate
Sounds bounce and dervish
Music: Tambourines, guitars,
ivories, voices of every color and timbre
It’s late, so Jamie takes to the piano
“Heartbreak City” in the key of frenetic
Climbing on tables, raising hell, crazed
Chuck on “Takin’ It To The Streets”
We gather around him, the army of
musicial pacifists, guitars the only weapons
No mics, just naked acoustics, so I have to
wait for a lull and take the piano with great
intention to render “Skylark” as it should be
People wait for hours outside
Munching veggie trays, waiting for
two hours just to get in
The floorboards harbor stories
of naked piano players, cooks banging
fudge pots, making fun of musicians
Of after-hours massage lines, practical
jokes magic serving starving
The life of a singing waiter or host
Poppy stops in, baby River bops in his arms
He laughs when he smells the Divine Weed
wafting from the kitchen
Enrique the dishwasher knows three words
in English: “E-spread ‘em, babeeee!”
Kitchen staff schooling him
Late nights playing pinball for free
Greggie found the key and we laugh and
drink and sing the old songs, it’s quiet now
Lights out, don’t have to go home
but ya can’t stay here…
Farewell, my youth, my touchstone
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Fireblossom wanted poems about a specific place. How about a specific place and time, with specific people? For those of you who never experienced the Great American Food & Beverage Co. in Santa Monica in the 70s, this is only a taste of the wild, wickedly fun, wantonness that was the G.A. A place that holds me fixed in time and space, a place where I went from girl to woman – and from beer to beyond. Peace, Amy
Hamlet and Juliet in A Midsummer Twelfth Night’s Sonnet on Shakespeare’s Birthday
(with apologies to Will)
In my salad days, when I was green in judgment,
not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty,
I was a dish fit for the gods.
Now I’m in my prime, set up with a posh little Upper East Side co-op and a hefty trust fund from Daddy… plus a live-in honey who’s fast losing his sweetness. Nothing in his life becomes him, and nothing will come of nothing.
He awoke, rounded with a little sleep. “Ay, me…”
“I have not slept one wink,” I bitched, rubbing my sore bottom. “What a piece of work is man! Do you think I am easier played on than a pipe?”
He leapt from the bed. “That is should come to this! Why, only last night you cried, A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
“True it is,” I countered, “that we have seen better days. Yet brevity is the soul of conscience, and the” (wince) “parting was such sweet sorrow.”
He was pi-i-i-issed. “Tempt not a desperate man, for delays make dangerous ends.”
(Now I’m thinking, “MY end got all the ‘danger’ last night… He hath eaten me out of house and home, and he thinks too much, with a lean and hungry look. There’s daggers in men’s smiles, and… is this a dagger I see before me?”)
I pointed to the door. “Out, damned Snot! Out, I say! Men of few words are the best men, and your tale is told by an idiot.”
“The course of love never did run smooth,” he stammered. “Shall we meet again?”
(Trying to live down the riddle… Q: ‘What do you call a bass player without a girlfriend?’ A: ‘Homeless.’)
He continued, “Don’t forget, dearest, we have a palimony agreement. You’ll pay a great deal too dear,” he grinned, “for what’s been given freely.”
“The game is up.” I stamped my little bare foot and caught a splinter. “This is the worst!”
He tried to rustle up tears as he packed. “There words are razors to my wounded heart. I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for Daws to pick at.”
(I knew that has-been “Mork and Mindy” chick Pamela Daws was after him, ever since the gig at the China Club.)
“In my mind’s eye,” I said, thinking of the money I’d have to pay this jerk, “shall I compare thee to the dogs of war? A borrower with a dull edge? The world is grown so bad, the fool doth think he is wise.”
I escorted him to the door. He shambled out, his bass hanging on his back like a monkey. Then, turning back to me, he whimpered, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s-” SLAM!
Peace at last. “I like this place, and willingly would waste my time in it.” Then, cutting the first of many checks I’d have to pay my new ex, I grumbled, “But first… let’s kill all the lawyers.”
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
It’s the Bard’s birthday! He’d be three days older than water today. This is also (and this is so tragically Shakespearean) the anniversary of his death, so he deserves something special. Imaginary Garden With Real Toads asked us to have our way with him (well, with his writing, anyway), but I gathered so many snippets from so many plays and sonnets, if I tried to do citations, they would run longer than the piece itself. I leave it to you, my oh-so-savvy readers, to separate the Will from the chaff. This will also be posted to dverse Open Mic Night.
NaPoWriMo #23 and still ticking! This form, which employs lines from other writer(s) re-ordered to create a new poem, is called something or other, but dang, I can’t remember. Paging Viv!! Peace, Amy
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).
The Big Change
How to explain the changes ahead of me.
First, Mom needed gin, just a snort
to abort the mortification of
the dreaded subject at hand: Sex.
On a page in her steno notebook,
she drew crude diagrams:
Ovaries, tubes, uterus – utilitarian scrawls,
later to be thrown away in disgust.
“The egg starts in here,” pen on ovary,
“travels down through here,”
tracing Fallopian Lane,
“and ends up here. Once a month.”
Another jigger of gin for courage.
“If the egg gets fertilized, it stays here
and becomes a baby. If not,”
siiiiiiigh, “you bleed and need some equipment.”
She pulled out the mysterious
blue box, used heretofore only by
Mom and my big sisters. Removing
napkin and belt, she trussed me up.
That was the extent of Sex Ed with Mom:
There were eggs (aren’t eggs big?).
There were tubes and a place
you might make a baby (is fertilization about peat moss?)
Later I found out the good stuff…
recalling Mae West’s immortal wisdom:
“No man ever loved me
the way I love myself!”
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Poetic Bloomings, a new site – check it out! Theirbeing Change. Also at Poets United, the poetry collective.
For Poetic Asides’ prompt, Normal, I opted to tell it like I see it. As on my haven, Poetic Asides. Amy
Normal Is
Normal is the everyday stuff
Normal is eating McDonald’s for breakfast
and Arby’s for lunch and Pizza Hut for dinner
Normal is going to work at a job you hate
Normal is stopping off for a couple-five drinks
to cool off from the job you hate
Normal is shlepping home and sitting in front of
the TV computer IPad video game
Normal is shopping for crap from China
that used to be made by your neighbor whose job
was outsourced, and he’s about to exhaust his unemployment
Normal is watching silk-suited fresh-water sharks
swimming in the the DC pool on Avenue K
as they rape the economy and hold the future ransom to
a whim, a personal profit, a new McMansion
Normal is ignoring homeless Americans begging
Normal is meth-addict soccer moms, the super-achievers
Normal is Asian kids winning spelling bees and science fairs,
but children of Anglos winning legacy admissions to Ivy League schools
Normal is Black kids, Hispanic kids, all those “little brown ones”
sentenced to the street or “would you like fries with that”
or being coerced into developing a taste for Afghanistan sand
Normal is no longer single moms, but two parents
kissing hello/goodbye in the hall as one goes to sleep
and the other goes to work at WalMart with no health benefits
Normal is skipping worship to work a crossword puzzle or to
see your kids’ soccer games or whatever else the school scheduled
for Sunday morning, thank God Blue Laws were repealed
Normal is one appendectomy in a 14-year-old ends up
with the whole family living in a camper or a car
Normal is abnormal.
The American Dream is no longer the norm.
The American Nightmare has taken charge.
© 2011 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
A new friend, Lafemmeroar, who inducted me into The Crazy Chicks Club, needed to see this poem, written back in 2010 but never published on my blog. It’s a serious problem in our society, and, as you all know, I take these issues head on. Also at my haven, Poets United. Amy
The Practice
There’s an old warehouse downtown
where they meet in secret
Sneaking down alleyways alone or in pairs
through the backdoor of an old meat-packing plant
It’s quiet; it’s remote; no one will discover them there
as they open drawers full of potions
creams and lotions and pallored paint
They pull robes and silky clothes from rusty hangers
Readying themselves for the ritual
Preening with great care as giant hooks swing over their heads
remnants of the enterprise this building once housed
Hideously masked, garishly garbed, in hats with small bells
They frolic as they practice their ancient art
Every movement coordinated, they caper and careen
The thought of their doings makes my blood run cold, even now
Grown men in clown suits, rehearsing a new routine
© Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At Poetic Asides, we’re filling in the blanks: “The Meaning Of _______”
THE MEANINGS OF SUMMERTIME
At three, summertime meant
my sisters stayed home all day
We’d play together, the whole neighborhood
Every mom our mom, watching over us
At five, summertime meant
No more Kindergarten
No more snacks or naptime giggles
I missed my new friends and wondered about first grade
At eight, summertime meant
a nice, long vacation
Swimming in the backyard
Sneaking sips of beer at Mom’s jazz parties
At twelve, summertime meant
the awakening of my body, my first cramps
Denied the pool because I couldn’t navigate tampons
and Mom didn’t want to talk about it
At sixteen, summertime meant
School friends would drive out to see me, the country mouse
I didn’t have to miss them all summer
Backgammon with my best friend John til dawn
At twenty-five, summertime meant
lots of gigs – weddings, bar mitzvahs
Sweating out Village piano bars for extra cash
Saving money because August is dead in the City
At thirty-four, summertime meant
Puerto Rican beaches with my baby girl
Her first swims were off the shore, in my arms
We were always salty, sweating, smiling
At forty-nine, summertime meant
hard times for my girl as she
battled disturbing trends of mindset
She, solitary; me, worried; doctors, experimenting
Now it’s my fifties and summertime means
Hot flashes accentuate the humidity
My days are my own and so is my illness
Tricking myself into getting outside for sunshine
No matter the person, summertime means
different pleasures at different ages
different pressures at different ages
Seasons are like mood swings, summertime having the advantage of sun
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore, Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 