| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII, No. XX |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 13 May 2007 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. XX
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> South of us
The storm moves north Up the coastline
Not yet at landfall
Morning greeted us
Full of clouds
And heavy mist
Our dinner will be delayed
As the thunderheads
Shake our world
And roll us into
Each other's arms
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C. E.
 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ spring hath stolen upon us and seeded the summer humidity with her rain
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ the queen and i do leaves of grass
Liberty
Throw the queen out,
Don't you dare bow your head
To someone who claims royalty
Like she was some Paris Hilton. We fought a war,
Our ancestors died
So their children would be free From the tyranny of kings. So off with her!
Begone thou colorless drab!
Your flourishes are no longer required
By a freed and democratic land.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a geek like me
Superluminals
The audience surrounding us is not easily amused.
I've heard about your neurons,
That your synapses are stranger than mine,
In the shadowy underground of cerebral gunslingers,
That your grey matter's faster than I am. We both know IQ points are meaningless,
If they are backed by a commonplace brain, It's the incongruous oddities of a singularity
That grades our neurobiology.
I know, you know, we all know each other,
Meeting with a smile of recognition
As travellers in an undiscovered land,
Happy that we found another like ourselves. Acquainted as we are with the road not taken,
The filtered light that both obscures and frees us,
We reveal ourselves at best reluctantly
Less we fly too close to the sun's bright fire And, becoming visible to the world outside, Plummet to our inevitable destruction. Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ What About Us Grils?
M is for the mother that most of us have had
O is for the one who'd take all the sh.t we give
T is for all the trouble we caused her as kids
H is for the hell we raise during our teenage years
E is for everything she sacrificed to raise us to adults
R is for the regret we feel for not thanking her before she died
oh my
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ meanwhile in the heavens
Jet Lag
Jet trails skewing beneath the sun,
Above the planet, below the heavens, High cirrus ripples across the blue
While wind caresses, releases her hair, Until the stars swallow her at last.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Questions of Concern to Republicans
-- Who flipped and who flopped on abortion?
-- Who believes in evolution?
-- Who has more marriages, and who has the youngest wife?
-- Does playing a racist character raise questions about your own character?
-- Where are the gates of hell, exactly?
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a bit of memory
Looking Backward
Fade in
The poet playing baseball,
Limping in the outfield
As she forces her body to obey
Jump to
The Senior Prom
And dancing in the dark To Strangers In The Night Dissolve into
A line-up outside a church,
White gown and grandparents,
Proud father by poet's side
Jump immediately to
The delivery room,
Screams from down the hallway,
One shot
One baby to another
One, two, three
Before fading
To the surgeon's knife
With poet nodding,
Yes I'm Sure
Darkness then light
And the poet's smile
Fade out
But not too soon
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Pattern Recognition
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Gene Weingarten
I think the impulse to have children is complicated. It is part Darwinian and hard-wired, and not our fault, like the impulse to have sex. It is part pure narcissism. It is part fear: I, for example, was quite aware when having children that I didn't want to die alone and unloved. But there is something you can hang onto: If you think you would be really good parents, well -- a child with really good parents is a child who has a pretty good chance of being happy and fulfilled. You can make that happen.
There is another reason, more religious and spiritual and philosophical than strictly logical. The alternative to life is no life. If you live you have a chance to achieve, be happy, be remembered. Why not give someone that gift? That's the thought: Life is a gift. It fails a little, maybe, when we look around us. But Earth has never been a particularly hospitable place, you know?
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ rambling
Outside The Klein
I have not done well at behaving,
Staying inside the lines,
Knowing when I'm meant to be silent.
It's a failing, I guess, if I'm expected
To be a proper and decorous girl, Calmly fixed in her place and station.
I've always been a warrior woman,
Scarred but unbowed and unbound, Hurling my words at anyone
Who would tread over me.
I've just never found a box
I was comfortable in For any longer than it took me To tear down the walls. Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Weingarten's Reader
I take 911 calls for a living.
I speak to more mentally ill people than you can ever imagine. We shove them to the side of our world and never talk to them or about them. I have spoken to adults who have guns in their hands or pills in their stomach. I try to get them to come out of their homes, and let us help them. I don't always succeed. I have answered the call from small children who have come home from school to find Mom bleeding to death from self-inflicted wounds.
The woman who called because she found her niece in the bathtub with a radio in the bathwater. I know of calls from co-workers who have talked to parents who came home and found their teenage daughter has hung herself in the closet. From people who come to a lake and find clothes piled neatly on the bank.
A woman who comes to work and finds a note from a co-worker that reads, "by the time you read this, I will be dead." People call 911 and then commit suicide while on the phone because they want someone to come and find their body. You can not possibly imagine the private, secretive and hidden pain people of all ages feel. We hide it well.
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ the memory is the second thing to go
-- the mammary is the first __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ extending a thought
Alien Crimes
How will we know
Who the humans are With so many monsters among us? How do we separate
True humanity From the cunning mimicry of the others?
If we build cages,
We are no better than they, If we would kill them,
We would be far worst (Though they would murder us Without second thought) They are doomed,
But would deny it;
We will win,
But if only we live.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ At core, men are afraid that women will laugh at them,
and at core, women are afraid men will kill them. -- Gavin De Becker __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ |
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