| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII, No. XXVIII |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 08 July 2007 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. XXVIII
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> Fireworks burst above us
One ninety along the horizon
Cherry bombs and M-80s
Echo behind the tree line As pyrotechnics fill the sky With smoke, bright peonies,
And artillery titanium
We watch it all
Hand in hand
On Independence Day
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C. E.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ born on the Fourth while listening to Civil War songs, Sousa, and Ella Fitzgerald
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! -- Thomas Jefferson __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ johnny has gone for a soldier
The Fourth of Oh Seven
 Sing your songs of flags and battles,
Play your marches while fireworks explode,
Eat your hot dogs and drink your kegs of beer,
Bury your dead on a low green hill
Beneath history's forgotten white crosses. We're Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Born on the Fourth of July,
The real live descendents of revolutionary blood,
Free because of the sacrifices of mom and dad
Now hidden by our waving flags.
Look homeward, good Americans,
We've been on the road two centuries plus, Find the fire, forge the chain,
Gather the lillies of the field
For our democratic bouquet. The stars and stripes will not last forever,
Rome has fallen, the Nazis and Communists defeated,
Liberty requires we guard her zealously, Joining in one voice to sing our praises,
Committing our mutual lives so that she will live,
The last, brilliant hope of humankind.
 Lisa Jain Thompson
July 4, 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed;
it must be achieved.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ looking towards 2008
Searching for High Noon
I’m tired of tin-star presidents
Wrapping their lips Around patriotic melodies While demanding Someone else’s family
Be sent to fight
Their ill-defined wars.
We do not need any more
Righteous, god-fearing men
Who think they are the chosen one; No more untested boys with promise,
Educated in the finest eastern schools; No more rich kids on ego
Who have a divine link to the truth. The world is too complex
For old school loyalties,
Extended boys’ clubs
With ties to the right families,
Or neo constructionists with their
Comforting, self-deluding words: We do not need more Short term, quick return solutions
From university MBAs however well papered.
Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ meditation on a friend's sudden illness
The Road Ahead
Will I collapse from heart failure,
Or die slowly from a painfull illness?
Will someone kill me, By gun or random accident,
Or will I close my eyes
And be suddenly no more?
Or will I vanish, cell and synapse,
While my body goes on without me?
Given the choice,
I would prefer none of the above.
Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Hy Zaret
WESTPORT, Conn. (AP) -- Lyricist Hy Zaret, who wrote the words to Unchained Melody, one of the most frequently recorded songs of the 20th century, has died at age 99. Zaret died at his home Monday, about a month shy of his 100th birthday.
He penned words to many songs and advertising jingles but his biggest hit was ''Unchained Melody,'' written in 1955 for a film called Unchained. It brought Zaret and Alex North, the composer, an Academy Award nomination for best song.
An instrumental version was a No. 1 hit in 1955 for Les Baxter, while a vocal version by Al Hibbler reached No. 3 the same year.
The Righteous Brothers' version, produced by Phil Spector, reached No. 4 on the Billboard chart in 1965, and was a hit again 25 years later when it was used on the soundtrack of the film Ghost.
In all, Unchained Melody has been recorded over 300 times and slaughtered thousands of times each weekend at karaoke bars across the world.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ for your pleasure
Chocolate
Soft sweet lips inside
Smooth chocolate brown skin,
Warm pink flesh beneath
Desire eager as mine.
Clothes strip and drop
Where we stand, door closed,
Covers tear back, anticipation spent,
Fingers and tongues explore Undiscovered country, hunger unnamed,
Taste of sugar, scent of must,
Seeping onto the sheets
Beneath our twisting muscles. Exhausted, we lie here,
Low moans echoing in duet, Bodies still shuddering
In the afterglow.
Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Life is digital, high definition, full color;
Politics, a black and white cathode ray
Framed in heavy mahogany atop a wobbly marble base. LJT
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
NEW ORLEANS - Lunch trucks serving Latin American fare are appearing around New Orleans, catering to the immigrant laborers who streamed into the city in search of work after Katrina turned much of the place into a construction zone. The trucks are a common sight in barrios from Los Angeles to New York, but controversial in a city still adapting to a threefold increase in Hispanics since Katrina.
Officials in suburban Jefferson Parish recently banned the trucks as eyesores and health hazards. "This is just one more thing we're trying to get under control to make sure we bring our parish back to normalcy."
The mobile luncheonettes are operated mostly by Mexican and Central American families. New Orleans has seen its Hispanic population rise from 15,000 before the storm to an estimated 50,000 now, according to the city. Meanwhile, the city's population has dropped from about 450,000 before the storm to about 250,000 now.
I wonder where all the white, black, and mulatto Lousiannan workers have gone?
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ a report from the field sure to win friends
Reel Time
The streets are alive
With bodies and tourists,
Well hung tranny hookers
Charging double for their services,
Cheap ass muggers
Picking low level fruits,
Aged grandmothers, crippled beggars,
Collecting change
For Thunderbird and cigarettes,
Pattern rapists trolling their familiars,
Selecting the next fetish object
For their blow-off.
Tonight, tomorrow night,
Fucking every night
In metropolitan D. C.
Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
-- Benjamin Franklin __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ just down the corner this time
Ritual
 Flowers, teddy bears,
A handful of half-filled balloons, A driver so young, alcohol,
Speeding out of control,
 Bodies on the blacktop,
Broken Hydrant,
Broken stop sign,
Broken lives,
 Teenagers gathering to worship,
Tears and hugs, so sad, so sad,
Until the next weekend
When they will be out again.
 Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day
than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so. -- Mark Twain __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ starpoet
In This Moment
In the scheme of things,
There is little difference
Between plants and mankind:
We are all sisters under the skin.
We are all carbon atoms and oxygen,
Recombinations of the basic pattern,
That one existence is superior to the other Is a matter of taste, not science.
We are one with the universe that bore us,
Living and dying by the same laws
That gave birth to the stars that fill the heavens
And formed the green hills on which we build our cities.
We breathe the remnants of our sun's fiery birth,
Drink from the rivers planetary evolution provided,
Bury ourselves in the rich bottom land
That the earth has washed from rock and body.
We are here, at this moment of space and time,
Marvelling at the wonder of everything and all,
The infinity of possibilities just beyond our grasp, And so we go on, a living part of the starry heavens.
Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^  __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4,
not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism. -- Erma Brombeck __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 07 July 2007 ) | |
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