Up the stairs, count the steps
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3…
Crap, it didn’t come out even, it’s eleven
But 1-2-3-4-1/ 2 /3-4-1-2-3 will have to do; the middle is two
Plus 11 is prime, so that’s something
At book club, as with any circled gathering, the circle goes clockwise from my left:
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – me
becomes
4-5-6 (me) 1-2-3
Once I’ve calculated the delicate balance, once the gathering is complete, my mind can focus fully on the book we just read – wait, the meeting is over already? What was the book about again?
I knew our last house was perfect, because it was exactly 16 steps up from the basement. (I have been known to climb two steps at a time to make the sequence work out into even groups.) But my therapist’s office was 20, at least an even number.
This new place has 20, too. 5 x 4 will have to do.
© 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For What’s Going On, Mary asked us to write a poem based on numbers. This hit home for me because the main part of my OCD is counting, specifically grouping to the point of anxiety. I know most people don’t number pavement or floor tiles as an extreme sport. Example: If there are alternating colors in striped tiles down the hallway, I not only count them; I make sure the number of steps per group are the same all the way down the hall. Three wide stripes can equal five steps, and a break in that pattern will annoy me, even if only for a moment. Anxiety is at its heart.
This used to cause me all sorts of trouble in school. How could I be expected to pay attention to the teacher when she just put up a new cardboard cutout balloon display and I had to find the center balloon, then group and number balloons by color (to determine which color won), etc. etc. I barely passed high school.
It’s exhausting, time consuming, non-productive. One of the many ways my mind deals with anxiety. Let’s hope I can find enough peace in 2024 that I don’t start, you know, counting the hairs on my arms. Or the beats of my heart. Cuz if that happens, I’ll never make it off the couch.
Amy
This is black. That is white.
This is salty; that is sweet
This is acceptable, that is not – certainly not
On and on, the ubiquitous, despicable binary
What if it’s both?
Black and white certainly merge into facets of grey, each with its own weight, its own texture, its own meaning
Ansel Adams: If he had only captured the lines and borders, now there’s a shame
Leave the salt out of a cake recipe? You’re missing the contrast, the brightness of the sugar
One person’s “acceptable” is another person’s anathema, and we each shout the anthem of offense
And so we all know the unchanging ultimatum:
This is a man! That is a woman!
But what a waste to write off the in between, the third way
Those who see the world as dazzling
Scintillating
Evolving
Can we not embrace the traditional blue of the boys as well as the pink we have assigned the girls?
This is my way
That is yours
Our paths shared, intermingled, and ultimately celebrated
And no one, absolutely no one is wrong
© 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For What’s Going On, Sherry Blue Sky asked us to go to town on contrasts, on comparisons… at least that’s what I got from her prompt. Please visit the blog and click on the poets who have contributed their unique takes!
Those days in Puerto Rico, all those years ago… the mornings of dread
Looking around the corner to see
how crazy is he today, as opposed to yesterday
Last night he was up at 2 am (I was just coming home from work)
The TV was aglow and the sound on low
so as not to wake the baby (whom he probably ignored all evening)
“It’s the 700 Club,” says Husband excitedly, as Pat Robertson droned on like a snake charmer about the Book of Revelation.
“Big things coming in the year 2000, it’s all going to change,”
to which I replied ever so patiently, “Husband, Jews don’t watch the 700 Club.”
He looks at me wild-eyed, so I go on, as one must on these occasions: “We don’t own a Bible, but if we did, you can’t just skip over the whole New Testament, ignore Jesus’s teachings, and dwell on the scary parts at the end. Cuz I remember, there is some twisted stuff in there.”
(I wasn’t a Christian in those days, but even I knew that much.)
After months of pleading for him to get help, it came down to post-midnight conspiracy theories about the Second Coming, even though he didn’t believe in the First One.
Two Weeks Later
He boarded a plane back to New York that week. I sat up and realized it would always be my turn to take care of the baby, which was fine by me. The sun was so bright, the room seemed to shine, my heart was light… and I burst into grateful, happy tears.
I realized that it had been forever since I woke up with a smile. Hence the tears.
Hence the divorce.
© 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For What’s Going On. The prompt from my friend Mary was about morning… I went further afield than I meant to, per usual! If you are new to writing poetry, you can jump right in. The folks at that blog are very supportive. Wishing you all a good night’s sleep – and a lovely tomorrow. Amy
Black suede booties, patooties
Kicky heel, two-inch and tapered down to a tack, ankle-high
Odd things, but soooo comfy
Black velvet Betsey bolero jacket
over a spandex mini
Those shoes spoke to that dress and said yessssss
But the best part wasn’t the shoes
Nope, it was the socks
Yeah, good old cotton rolled socks
Bright red to match her lipstick
It wasn’t the getup that got her the gig
In truth, said the bartender later on
it was the shoes, propped up on the bar
like they needed their own shot of bourbon
He said the socks didn’t hurt, either
(c) 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
The Bushes of Central Park West, a nice little gay catering largely to older men, operated off the lobby of the Park West Hotel on W. 73rd in Manhattan. I lived upstairs – this was the place I lived at the time John Lennon was shot up the block, the place I cited in the past poem. Bill Dance was the bartender, a one-man one-liner joke machine, and one of the sweetest guys I ever met. Sometime, remind me to tell you the story about his stock company on the road doing The Wizard of Oz in the 60s. Bill was the one who got me the gig, and we were friends until his death in the mid-80s. He knew Christopher Kennedy and Jeff French. Such a shame, all 100% sweethearts. RIP Bill Dance. Amy
That neighborhood lives on in stories we tell, songs we hum
Scent memories: yeasty pizza, toasted bagels (H&H at dawn),
We lived above a Cuban Chinese joint – our noses serenaded every night, pork fat and chilis, Jeff stop in for beans and rice after you score a toke toke on the corner
Espresso so strong you could cop a buzz just passing by the cafe
And the babies
Fancy babies in fancy carriages steered by weathered warhorse nannies
Fussy babies in strollers pushed by au pairs in skinny jeans
That one chill baby, always with both parents – they’d stroll at their own pace, lived just up the block from me
Everyone knew them, we nodded or passed the peace sign in greeting
Then one evening I came home and
my neighbor was dead
shot
and suddenly the dad I saw every day walking with his wife and son became a headline
The personal became universal
He left a legacy of beauty, but in that moment
he just a dad no longer pushing a stroller, our neighbor, John Lennon
(c) 2024 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
True story. I lived half a block from the Dakota in those days, in a run-down hotel called The Park Royal., I played weeknights at the gay bar downstairs. My friend Jeffery French would come by, drunk as a daffy skunk. Eventually, he found the love of his life, Christopher Kennedy, who nursed Jeff at home as he died of AIDS. We lost Chris this week – a 35-year AIDS survivor. More about him to come, but this prompt from What’s Going On? brought so much back to me. Gonna go cry after I post this. Peace, y’all, Amer
I am eight years old
bare feet, callouses planted firmly on the linoleum floor in the kitchen
Everybody else is otherwise occupied
A rare moment of solitude in a chaotic household
Hot, it’s a hot night
and humid
I can almost hear the atmosphere
No fan, just an occasional breeze to brush the bangs off my sweaty forehead
The moon is waning, crickets are chirping, frogs are frogging
In the kitchen, a low-hanging lamp glows golden
This stolen moment, no one can take it from me
I hold it close in my memory
in my dreams
(c) 2023 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
At What’s Going On, the prompt is memory. I confess, the first thing I thought of was the song from Cats, and now Streisand is blistering that tune to death. But sometimes, amid the oh-so-hard memories of my childhood, a few moments remain. Unmatched, never forgotten. Those moments gave me hope.
One, the GOP
Screaming about baby killers and abortion
Screaming about how white people should be in charge/white erasure
Screaming about Second Amendment rights and the NRA
Screaming about drag queens at libraries/which books to ban/trans women in sports/trans pp in general
Next door, the Dems
Screaming about baby killers and the NRA
Screaming for diversity and social/racial justice
Screaming about how First Amendment rights should not not cover hate speech
Screaming about banned books in libraries
BOTH have sarcastic, insulting rhetoric (but their side is right, of course)
Both have media outlets devoted to their side
Neither want to hear what THEY think in the other room
Swearing, condemning… never listening to anyone next door
But who would be heard, anyway? Everyone is screaming.
(c) 2023 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil, for my friends at What’s Going On?
We were asked to write about how life is going on in your neck of the woods. Just last week, we moved to the rural city of Platteville, WI (a university town, smaller than Madison), Lex was called as a pastor to a UCC church here. I was invited to a political meeting, and the enthusiasm there reminded me of the equal passion of GOP voters. Now, no one was screaming! It was friendly, at times a little rowdy in the best way… but needless to say, anyone in a MAGA hat would have walked in and walked back out again. I took it a step further when I thought about larger rallies, the rhetoric, and the basic ethos of both sides of the aisle, with a miles-wide ditch dug in between. And a moat. Possibly with dragons. Anyway, you get the idea. GUARD YOUR HEARTS this election season. Last time around, 45 ate my brain – and had a side dish of my very soul. And I put it out on the buffet for him. He didn’t feel my frustration; only I did, and to the detriment of creativity and all things healthy. Fool me once, shame on him. Fool me twice, well, not if I can help it.
The Hill of Hope
Now, here in our cozy valley
Tie up loose ends
Pack the memories, but first
Take a trip down amnesia lane
When they were a baby, a toddler, a child
A teen coming into bright depths of being
He and me
Before we knew how to laugh even harder than before
And took each day not as a given
But as a gift, burnished, barely out of the box
All the trappings of a life thus far well lived
Now in yesterday’s newspaper (donated by friends who still subscribe to an actual paper)
Now paintings swaddled in kitchen towels
Now gimcracks tshotchkes doodads this and that
Tossed into wicker baskets and boxes
And so much great stuff
Given to friends family Goodwill
Soon
Climb to a new place, rise to the challenge
Unpack it all again and never miss
belongings we have shed along with way
And marvel at
what remains
especially the memories
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
A prompt from a new blog, https://newwhatsgoingon.blogspot.com/ Lots of old friends from my Poetic Asides and Imaginary Garden with Real Toads days. I am happy to be back writing again!
We are indeed moving from the church we have served for 13 years to a new church, still in Wisconsin, but a ways away. It’s all good, the present church needs a half-time pastor and we can’t afford to take that hit, so they will hire a new pastor, someone bivocational. The new church has welcomed us with extravagant love. They are looking to live more deeply into their LGBTQ+ covenant. So even though we are cisgender, well, as my Jeffery said, “Yes, you get to play in our sandbox!” and then there’s Luka, so it feels as though the Spirit has led us to one last pastoral challenge!! All is well. But oy, the boxes and tape and all the rest. But after 30+ moves in my lifetime (seriously), I’ve got it down to a science of color coding and making grids of every room on graph paper. What a nerd.
This was written in 2010, and it still holds true. Based on a person from my hometown, name changed for dignity’s sake. No one should ever have to suffer because they live without lying about who they are. Over 20 years have gone by, and I can still feel every word.
FRANCES BY NIGHT
Frances took a lot of shit
back when cross-dressing was even more misunderstood
On Saturday nights, she’d dress to the nines
Scarves, handbag, nails done, bejeweled pumps
The Pink Cadillac was the only bar in town that would serve her
Sometimes she’d get bounced early for
flouncing around the married guys too much
They were undercover, like the CIA
This was back in the day
when you came in the back door and showed ID
Humiliating for closet cases, but worse for Frances
who had to show her license with her real name, Frank
It set her on edge every time, and she had a mouth on her
A few cocktails would set her right
She’d be fine ‘til closing time
If no prime escort took the bait
she’d wait as long as she could
before leaving for good (or for worse)
Fag bashers staked out the back door, on their beat
Ready to beat the crap out of “the little whore”
Yelling, “Frankie! Frankie!”
No cops were ever around that part of town
despite the shouts of the frantic rumble
She put up a good fight, that little queen
for all the mascara and cashmere, she was a scrapper
Her Georgette Klinger lipstick smeared on the knuckles
of some macho boy who really only wanted to touch her
but couldn’t admit it in front of his buddies
“Frankie,” they’d shout, “we’re coming for you”
“Boys,” she’d retort, “do come!
You need it more than I do”
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
It’s been forever since I posted. That’s all I’m gonna say. My friend Jon and I have an agreement that we don’t apologize for how long it’s been. All that matters is that we’re here NOW.
Showing up. That’s the key to being an ally. In my case, an ally to my trans/nonbinary kid and to their friends and loved ones. Anyone who’s ever read this blog, ever met me, knows that I have been an ally since I was five and asked Mom why Uncle John and Uncle Tony never brought their girlfriends to our jazz gatherings. “Well, they love each other, so they don’t need girlfriends.” To which I replied, “Oooh, is that like Aunt Beadie and Aunt Thelma?” Mom said, “Yes, they are called lesbians.” And that was it. Explain things to your kids without a ton of details, just answer factually, and let them either figure it out or come back with more questions.
I kind of figured it out and never looked back. As a straight woman, gay and lesbian friends always let me play in their sandbox. And when I was living in NYC in the 80s, that took on new meaning as our friends were getting sick… too many funerals. I swore that, if I ever smelled a lily or looked at another orchid, I would lose it. Being an ally meant being acquainted with loss, massive loss.
But did you catch that last paragraph? I identified myself as a straight woman. Nothing else. I didn’t know there was more to be. But when Luka came out as trans, it was up to me to learn, to listen, and to evolve. Now, I understand that I am a white, straight, cisgender woman. This matters. White, because the first people to throw rocks at the police during Stonewall were trans women of color. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, trans women of color. And at a rally after Stonewall, Marsha got up to speak during one rally and was shouted down by a crowd of predominantly white gay men. The guys at that rally didn’t consider these trans women of color as part of “their group.” (Sound familiar? Fear of The Other is woven into the fabric of America.) To me, trans people (especially TWOC) have always been the most vulnerable of LGBTQ tribe.
So when I heard Elliot Page was coming to town to promote his new book, the brilliantly named Page Boy, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t go into the Barrymore Theater (COPD, Covid issues, etc. mean I don’t attend live anything anymore). But I could SHOW UP. And if there were protesters, I could calmly witness to love. (DISCLAIMER: Old Amy would have shouted at them and probably come up with some appropriate swears, but I like to think I have evolved in the past years.) So I grabbed a white t-shirt and two bottles of acrylic paint (one pink, one turquoise, natch) and improvised a shirt. Then I headed down to the theater, not sure of what to expect.
No protesters. What was I thinking? My therapist, the brilliant Rita, said, “Amy, this is Madison!” But I have seen neo-Nazis at drag shows… in Columbus, OH, home of my equally brilliant child, so I had to err on the side of caution. All that happened was this: I walked around, offering “Mommy Love” to anyone who needed it. I spoke to all sorts of people – allies and Tribe alike. I saw some people who wore the scars of past abuse. Some were physical scars, and some were emotional, like their auras were blurry. And one person was happy to show me the scars they got from their top surgery, which was impressive, because that takes trust.
Luka came out, and I came into a new understanding. I don’t pretend to have it all down, I am still following peeps on YouTube who are sharing their personal, intimate journeys with top surgery… and I am so grateful for their witness, for their generosity. They make it a little easier for those who are on the journey to self-acceptance.
Luka lives in Columbus, OH, so they is not in this picture. Want to see them and their work? Head to lowbarart.com and see the tattoos and fun and murals. But if you just want to see a pic, here you go!
I am rambling… but let me end with this thought: Years ago, I thought my only child was a (girl) who was pretty spectacular. Then I found out my (daughter) was a lesbian and still spectacular. Then I came to understand the trans/nonbinary of it all. Now I know this: Luka is a prism of light and love, talented and strong and vulnerable and kind. And all I have to do to be a supportive mom, to be an ally, is evolve. Fearlessly, loudly, grounded in love. And by God, to SHOW UP. Amen.
Sharp Little Pencil 