Tripping with the Muse
Please Vicodin, my friend,
Ease the pain inside my head,
Let my eyes focus once again,
Make my migraine come to an end.
For I have poems to write before I forget,
Stories and columns I need to set
Before all the words escape from me
And I have no more to give.
Vicodin, no pain, no brain,
Rolling my sweet muse’s arms.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
winter weather
The High Sierra Snow
Amtrack caught in
Donner Pass
--It’s somehow comforting to know
Some things don’t change –
A day of food left on the train, the passengers,
Knowing history, vote to leave
On a Greyhound providing a transit alternative
Unavailable to the westering Donners,
With snack packs provided by the company
Rather than choosing from among the selections
Pre-existing in the snow bound wagons.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
When we throw the switches, how long before the ship blows?
-- Sigourney Weaver
Alien
the contention
Taking Sides
This side of the divide,
Sex is more comforting,
Less sharply focused,
More mind disrupting,
Slower to build,
Longer lingering
After the initial explosion.
Better, if I had to chose,
And I guess I did.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
There is a theory which states that if ever for any reason anyone discovers
what exactly the Universe is for and why it is here
it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another that states that this has already happened.
-- Douglas Adams
last weekend
White Chapel Blues
Psychokiller posing as a western shootist
Traveling town to town hoping for a fight,
Messianic politician presenting god’s words,
Looking for away to trigger Armageddon.
Both cloak themselves in moral propriety,
Waiting for the moment to properly act,
Delusional villains, coiled, silent and hidden,
Until the intended targets can be bushwhacked.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
music
First and Always
The rumble of guitar ripples through the background,
Base runs beneath treble strum,
Breaking the comfortable silence of the night
Thoughts drift back to decades past,
A body young in lust.
The fire of pheromones rushing through veins,
The electric first touch, the explosion of a kiss,
The exploration of hands and fingers,
The electricity of moist tongue and soft lips
Stuck deep in aging memory evermore.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
All the evidence shows that God was actually quite a gambler,
and the universe is a great casino, where dice are thrown,
and roulette wheels spin on every occasion.
-- Stephen Hawking
wind leaking in
Candlewind
A wind slips through the house,
Flickering the candle
As it slides between the seams
To chill hands and feet,
Even if the thermostat
Claims seventy-two degrees.
Despite the fans
In the
Wisconsin stands,
The game is better on TV,
Warmer, even with the wind.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
the war goes on
For War
Some people died
We got laid
The story of war
Everywhere
Medals and speeches
Bodies and blood
Names without faces
Only families
Children forgotten
Cities rubbled
Glorious leaders
Declaring victory
Mem’ry fades slowly
Pain lingers
Emptiness unfilled
By national necessity
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys
on a minor planet of a very average star.
But we can understand the Universe.
That makes us something very special.
--Stephen Hawking
and on
Fire Base
Nineteen years old and they’re gone,
Mothers, fathers, bodies intact,
Souls ripped and torn within them,
Minds caught fast by the battle,
Only their shadows remain.
Of all these friends and lovers,
Some are dead, some only missing,
Those who walk among us,
Caught up in a war they never left,
Are just as honorable as those buried heroes.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
alas reality
The View from the Teenage Male
Jessica Jessica
Jessica Jessica
Jessica Jessica Jessica
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba
Jessica
Want to make something of it?
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
poet stuff
Heart and Lungs
My lungs are filled with starstuff,
My eyes, blinded by swirling galaxies,
Sunset finds me between distant planets,
Trailing bright tracks through the cosmos.
Ashes to ashes, word to word,
Poet, writer, musician, parent,
Wife to wife, lover to lover,
Ragged peaks and flashing glory.
I burn and still I burn.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
-- Carl Sagan
grasping it
Invention
If I were a Leonardo,
I would design fine machines
To span the empty spaces
Between the earth and the stars that shine
Just out of reach in the heavens.
But I am not an engineer
Or a quantum astrophysicist
And must make do with the tools at hand
To capture the worlds beyond our grasp,
A poet’s humble imagination.
My words and rhythms must suffice
To describe the planets we’ve yet to walk,
The peoples who will travel there,
Man and human, children of the universe,
White, black, green and otherwise.
All men are created equal,
Even those born on distant worlds;
Life, friendship, love and death
Will be our common denominator,
Unifying us in our shared humanity.
I would that poet be
Who sings of dark, long haired women
Walking craggy peaks beneath aging red suns,
Waiting for lovers who will never return,
Long dead in some future past.
To this end I build great ships,
Gold and silver and sleek,
To cross both galaxy and time’s firm hold,
Riding on this oh so fragile verse,
A poet’s lasting attempt.
Lisa Jain Thompson
February 2008
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