| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VII, No LI |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Saturday, 16 December 2006 | |
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The Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VII, No. LI
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> Half moon, not a sliver,
Pushing it's way through the clouds,
Jupiter hidden along the horizon,
Mercury and Mars lurking nearby,
None of them as close
As you are to me.
Lisa Jain Thompson, c. 2006 C.E.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ A week or so from the Christmas, less until the Solstice, the Chanuka has arrived already. the year winds towards its constructed end. Shalom and welcome to the newsletter, one and all. Pax Nobis and all that for men and women everywhere.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ one winter's journey
Journey
Down this desolate path,
Past three yellow warnings That snow may block the roadway; The sign to the coast points left, The car drove right, One lane, no guardrails, no markings, No signs announcing the winding road, Nothing except the snow and ice; Across the broken pavement, Across the gravel, then the dirt, Nothing but an old logging road Used only in summer, A road usually locked But the gate is broken: Twenty miles down, Where bush and branch Scraped the car James Kim started back Through the snow and the wilderness, -- Doing what he knew a man has to do -- Leaving his wife and two daughters Waiting huddled in his car, To find help for his family And an honorable death In the unforgiving hold Of the mountain's winter. Lisa Jain Thompson December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ morning is breaking
Railway
Railway Express,
Red-Blue Silver blur,
Plays doppler
Passing my metro stop;
We're both running late,
No way to catch up,
But one one of us
Is collecting money
For our time.
Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Mildred Warwick-McAuley
1922-2006  A good extra-base hitter for Rockford in 1943 and 1944, Millie had a sure glove at the hot corner, gobbling up 914 fielding chances that came her way. Once on base, this speedster really showed her stuff, swiping 103 bases in her two-year career. Member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Cooperstown __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ riptide
Till I Do Get Buckled
(I'll hold the audience breathless)
This Board regards with horror and alarm
the several atrocious murders recently perpetrated within the district of Whitechapel and its vicinity.
-- Whitechapel District Board of Directors, October 1888 One hooker,
Two hookers,
Three hookers,
Four,
Five hookers,
Six hookers,
Seven hookers,
More.
Some one is killing the girls of Ipswich,
Some man hates women once again:
A body in the brook, a body in the woods,
Detectives finding bodies every which where,
A serial killer, much neater than the Ripper,
Dispensing his victims without a knife:
You don't suppose, from deep in Whitechapel,
His ghost walks the shadows anew,
Still down on whores, still playing games,
Still daring us to catch him if we can.
Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Race is still a powerful force in this country,
and there are certain stereotypes
I will have to deal with.
But I find that when people get to know you
they will judge you on your merits.
-- Barack Obama __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ evology
My Inner Bonobo
Born, as I am, of woman,
My genes are human, not divine; My make-up is from Sephora Rather than some creator's unfinished design. A recent starry visitor
From Centauri or further out Would think me a hairless bonobo Who compensates by wearing clothes. I have no god given illusions
About the fate of this mortal flesh, An evolutionary pitstop On nature's way to something else. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ a critic's proposal
Rediscovering Homer
So Homer is a woman,
Well woop de do,
What has that got to do
With the price of eggs?
Are the Odyssey and the Illiad
Now some ancient chick flicks?
Will the au currant critics
Declare Ulysses a drag king?
Nothing good can come out of this
But a couple dozen obscure doctorates.
Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ On The War
SF Gate Columnist
You sort of sensed from the beginning that we couldn't possibly win a bogus war launched by a nasty slew of corrupt pseudo-cowboys against both a bitterly contorted Islamic nation and a vague and ill-defined concept that has no center and no boundaries and that feeds on the very thing that tries to destroy it. It was sort of obvious, even if half the nation was just terrifically blinded by Bush administration lies and false shrieks of impending terror.
We still have the coolest, fastest planes. We still have the meanest billion-dollar technology. We still have the most imposing tanks and the most incredible weaponry and the badass night-vision goggles with the laser sights and the thermal heat-seeking readouts and the ability to track targets from two miles away in a dust storm. It doesn't matter.
What we don't have is, well, any idea what the hell we're doing, not anymore, not on the global stage. We lost this "war" and we lost it before we even began because we went in for all the wrong reasons and with all the wrong planning and with all the wrong leadership who had all the wrong motives based on all the wrong greedy self-serving insular faux-cowboy BS that your kids and your grandkids will be paying for until about the year 2056.
Any lingering hint of anything resembling a truly valid and lucid and deeply patriotic reason for wasting a trillion dollars and thousands of lives and roughly an entire generation's worth of international respect? Gone.
At this point, it seems nearly impossible for America to accept defeat with anything resembling perspective and dignity and the understanding that maybe, just maybe, we ain't all that saintly and ain't all that perfect and maybe God really isn't necessarily on our side after all, because if God took sides she wouldn't actually be, you know, God.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ history redux
The King
If Arthur were alive today,
His round table would be replaced By a U shaped series of industrial tables And a silver-white screen To show his PowerPoint slides. Knights searching for the grail
Would phone in on a conference call, As would Merlin on his Blackberry From whatever timeflow he was residing. Each sword would be serially numbered, As would each suit of shining armor, And equiped with R.F.I.D. To keep accurate inventory For the bean counters.
Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ evology 2
A Woman's Life
This female thing,
This sexual dimorphic reality of primates
That makes the male stronger, Physically threatening, Does not mean we are defenseless,
Mr. Colt saw to that, Nor that we should flinch Whenever a man might scowl Or run when he moves towards us. We just need to get their attention, Focus them outside Their stubborn, fragile egos And resist intimidation By whatever means may work, Although I've been told A baseball bat does quite well On mules. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Gone
Lillian Gertrude Asplund was 5 when her father smiled and said, "Go ahead, we will get into one of the other boats." He did not. Lillian never married, and retired early to take care of her mother, who never recovered from losing her husband. Lillian, the last American survivor of the Titanic, was 99.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ What's hard, what demands courage, what's truly audacious, is to hope.
-- Barack Obama __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ slipping in time
Reaching Back
We come, we go,
The ice cream man Goes round and round Playing his insane song. The sun goes up,
The sun goes down, Night and day, Day and night, It hurts to be in love this way. Inside, outside,
Straight line, curve, Liberty's a bitch The world around. There just aint no use in dying For anything less than the whole pizza. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ further along the slipstream
Up Down
The walk seemed shorter than the day before;
The trees looked different, greener, perhaps taller; The scent was off, too sweet for evening,
Too bitter like a daffodil: The world was not perfect.
With that, the poet jumped up the rabbit hole. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ I have this theory that anything that happens to you
that leaves you alive and intact can be used somewhere in your writing. -- Octavia Butler __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1995-2007. Further distribution of this newsletter in its entirety is authorized. Email your letters and postcards or visit her contact page at the Starpoet website.
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 17 December 2006 ) | |
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