| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII. No. XL |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 30 September 2007 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. XL
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ The first full moon
After the autumn equinox Finds my hunger grown ripe For your body beside me. Harvest me quickly
When you return from the city My surrender grows Ever more imminent Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C. E.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ burying friends, writing memorials, refusing to write my own for decades yet to come, attending benefits for this and that where tears are shed, memories replayed, and guitars and cruises are auctioned off for fun and charity, and still life goes on.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ the question we must answer
Why Should I
Why should I believe
In someone else's Jesus,
Some one who does not bear
The cross I carry,
Some one who offers me vinegar
And calls it comfort?
There are no simple answers
In tumultuous times,
No sacred pathway
Leading to golden nirvanas,
No vengeful angels
Carrying sharp enough swords To still the waters of our existence. We are, God may be,
The Universe endures
With us residing in it Until time no longer matters.
Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ morning in fall
Venus on the Side
Venus on one side,
Harvest moon on the other,
The sun still hidden
Beneath the earth's rotation.
Night-eyed commuters
Stagger back towards work, Counting the hours Until the weekend.
Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Everybody is writing science fiction now. F
ormerly deep-dyed realists are producing novels so full of the tropes and fixtures and plotlines of science fiction that only the snarling tricephalic dogs who guard the Canon of Literature can tell the difference. -- Ursula K. Le Guin
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ I wish this were science fiction
Dharma Burns
 May all beings have happiness and its causes,
May they never have suffering nor its causes;
May they constantly dwell in joy transcending sorrow;
May they dwell in equal love for both near and far.
— Buddhist Prayer
Saffron orange, the monk's shave heads
Are stained with blood outside Shwedagon, West of Kandawqyi Lake on Singutara Hill;
Towering above the city, the Pagoda guards,
Enshrines the relics: the staff of Kakusandha, The water filter of Konagamana, A piece of the robe of Kassapa,
And most sacred of sacred, Eight hairs of Prince Siddartha Gautama,
Sakyamuni, the first Buddha.
Ten thousand, one hundred thousand,
Burmese Buddhist monks march in the streets, Monks in the middle, ordinary citizens on either side Shielding the monks, forming a human chain, Heading for Sule Pagoda in the city center Without a sound but their footsteps,
And the loud thunder cracks from the dark grey clouds That obscure the sky and burning sun over their heads. Calm and determine, the monks will do this,
Asking the people not to join them, Not to do anything violent, the monks will resist,
Alone, silently, unafraid, they will resist All things are impermanent, even this, While the people walk beside them. Army and police forces are in the park near the Pagoda,
Riot police and soldiers beating monks at the east gate,
The junta's security forces block the route of the demonstrations,
Enforcing two decades of misery on Burma and Rangoon, With tear gas canisters, swinging truncheons, bullets and arrests,
Wielding batons and backs of rifles, beating on the heads Of the monks who do not fight, endure the pain, and die; While students and foreigners -- Muslim, Chinese, some Indian -- Stream out to join the marchers, the outcome still unclear, The military or the monk-hood. Anyone who disobeys the junta's orders, the loud speakers on the streets,
Will be arrested, will be shot, will just go away, Do not look, do not follow, do not encourage or participate, Stay home, off the streets, do not support or join in: Police squads baton-charged the monks and the protestors, Some bloodied, some injured, detained then taken away In Army vehicles with identification numbers carefully obscured, Soldiers line the streets with barb-wired barriers; The emergency room is filled, more people than doctors As the police continue to target the praying monks Who do not strike back, who recite meditations rather than do violence. Automatic weapons echo over the panicked shouts of demonstrators
Defying the junta's orders to disassemble, A Japanese photojournalist takes a hit and bleeds out on the street: Go home or be shot is official government policy. The soldiers fire into a crowd by the bridge, Arresting and beating any survivors, while the police Bang their rattan riot shields with batons; At the point of the troop line, the people sit down on the roadways, Sing songs, chant prayers and slogans as they taunt the government forces. When darkness falls, the crowds disperse, ahead of the dusk to dawn curfew,
The streets are deserted except for the bloody stains. Later, in the cover of night, the junta police raid the monasteries,
Arresting hundreds of monks -- gun shots are heard,. Next morning the monks are absent: they are afraid for themselves, Afraid for their relatives, afraid what might happen to their country As the riot police use tear gas at a primary school and General Maung complains About internal destructionists and sinister global powers who practice hegemonism. Tomorrow, when the sun rises on Shwedagon Pagoda, The monks will gather once again, the crowds will form, And the people of Myanmar will marchto the city center and demand democracy.
We are not afraid,
We have not committed a crime, We just say prayers And take part in the protests. We have not accepted money from onlookers and supporters, although they offered us a lot: all we accept is water While the people clap, smile and cheer us on. -- Buddhist Monk, Rangoon, Burma
 May all beings always be well and happy,
May they be free from danger and enmity, May there be peace on earth and peace in the heavens, May the universe be happy and at peace. --Loving Meditation, Starpoet
Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 Metta Sutta
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
-- The Lord Buddha
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Weingarten I
Mr. Finkelstein goes to court and asks (in a thick Yiddish accent) the judge to change his name to O'Hara. The judge approves the name change. A couple of months later, the petitioner returns, asking to change his name to Buckley. The judge asks why he wants to change his name again. The petitioner responds, "Because, people keep asking me what my name was before I had it changed, and I want to tell them 'O'Hara.'"
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ more starpoet
Formed the Eagle's Shroud
When I left earth,
Dressed in my best Academy blues,
I thought I would be exploring strange new worlds
(Boldly gone and bravely met), Perhaps finding death
In some dark cantina of dubious distinction.
Looking back from beneath the dome
As the new moons rise across the field, I wonder what that girl would think
If greeted by the woman I have become:
Almost a grandmother four times over
With children on three worlds Raising families of their own. If she had only known the path love would take,
How bravely would she have boarded That first golden starship?
Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ it's those little things
Prairie Home Companion Moment
Two of us staggering down the hallway,
Heading in opposite directions; Left, Right,
Left, Right,
Left, Right, Unable to de-mirror ourselves
And prevent collision
Without coming full halt, Ten feet apart,
With that self-conscious primate smile
Across our faces. Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Weingarten II
So this penguin is driving cross country during a hot summer, when his car breaks down. Fortunately, he rolls to a stop right next to a gas station. The attendant says he'll check it out, and suggests that the penguin waddle across the street to a convenience store, where it's cool.
So he does. Inside he gets a bowl of vanilla ice cream, eating it rather clumsily, seeing as how he doesn't have hands. When he is done, he waddles over to the service station. The mechanic looks up from his car and says, "It looks like you've blown a seal."
The penguin says, "Nah, it's just vanilla ice cream."
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ paleontology
Small Fowls Flew Screaming
From the ocean we’ve come,
To the ocean we'll return,
Carrying our seas around inside us.
The great coastal cities
Will crumble beneath the waves,
Joining Cleopatra beneath the waters.
The sacred books of ages yet
Will recount the legends Of San Francisco and New York; We'll speak in awed tones
Of when the gods commanded
Global Warming destroy civilization. Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
All a muddy mess below
The shroud of the sea. Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Did you hear about the transgendered ingenue?
She went to Hollywood, and to get ahead, she slept with the writers. __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ the muse's starpoet
Above Old Earth
The ocean,
We are visitors,
Once called home.
The land,
We are prisoners
'Til we leave. The moon,
Our bright companion
For ceremony and calendar. The heavens,
Our final destination,
Stars, planets, and galaxies.
Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ So, a seal walks into a club.... __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ life is a constant commute
Interplay
I'm sitting here in my britney spears',
Short slitted jean skirt and Margaret Cho tee,
Watching the men pretend not to glimpse
And the lesbians openly attentive. Commuting every day you take what you get,
No one feels sexy in the morning at six,
A middle-aged woman (naming no names) Deserves better than the admiration of her mirrors,
Desires more than appreciation from her peers
-- Not to mention a grown woman's lusty need
For a really good fuck in her bed Or the penthouse of the Ritz-Carlton for that matter, Or that meadow high up in the Sierras Just before you start your descent into Lake Tahoe. I'm not necessarily, never been that choosy
If the time and person are felicitous. Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Two construction workers were sitting on the top ledge of the Empire State Buildings eating lunch, one dropped his sandwich and said to the other one "I'm glad it wasn't in me."
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^^\/\/\/\/^^  __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
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