| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII, No. XLVIII |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 25 November 2007 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. XLVIII
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Turkey bones are scattered
In soup and container Thanksgiving dead and gone
Along with vague memories
Of Friday in Dallas
And the quiet feast that followed
With parents and grandparents All gone now
Save my brother in Sacramento
And those sharp fragments that remain
Still caught inside
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 B.C.E.
 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Four weeks and counting until Solstice
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ starting off
Thus She Did Too Speak
Do not read this poem,
Turn the page quickly
Or hit the down arrow,
Roll your mouse wheel
Until you are below the copyright.
This is an evil poem,
A disturbing poem,
One that may upset you If you read too far
Or realize the poem is true.
There are no such thing as poets,
These words are all in your head,
The poet merely says them
Before you can while you're thinking About something else.
Sappho was a bitchy woman
Who conned the Greek philosophers, Starpoet is an agile lyricist
Who makes you invent her meter, Shakespear was an out of work writer
Who seduced nobility for their money:
We are all little more than charltons With a hunger for words and good living.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a little history
The Flight of the Phoenix
If a Vulcan landed in Bozeman, Montana,
Ready to greet Zefram Cochrane,
The President would send them both to Guantanamo
And keep them locked up forever. No trial.
No Federation.
No Warp Drive.
All Gone
As fast as Liberty.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ It is easier to breed new underpeople
Than it is to cure the sick ones.
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ thanksgiving
A Taste of Delight, Forever Longing
In the kitchen, over my right shoulder,
She cooks,
Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter,
She cooks.
I watch,
Astonished, curious, awestruck,
I do Mediterranean, Sicilian, American,
Not gourmet.
She cooks,
Insists she is not an iron chef
But only
An interested amateur. Still she cooks,
Singly,
Herself alone in our kitchen: Put that in your white chef's hat.
Jesus, she does cook.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ there is always the possibility
Small She Was and Ritual
Someday they might probably
Name some high school after me,
And, if it means anything, The should likely play lousy football
So as not break with history:
One of those fond memories
From high school,
Just like that date that
Never bothered to show up
And that cheer I could never
Get quite right.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Women who do not suck cock quickly upon command
are called cold bitches;
Woman who are cocksuckers are called sluts. Guess which sex has taken it upon themselves
to make the determination.
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ where science meets religion
Down Endless Ramps of Dreams
The gods could have made me
Into an accepteable woman
But chose, for their own amusement,
My brain in someone else's misgotten body.
They could have correct my body construct
While I, in embryo, was still developing,
But, for whatever their godlike reasons,
Stood firm in their fumbling creation.
So, of necessity, I've become one with the gods,
Along with a good surgeon and some hormones,
Worked our joint magic on the body at hand
And made right what the gods themselves could not.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a guide to travel
The Handprint of Angels
If I were to travel as far as Odysseus,
To distant places and unknown adventures,
I would hope that when I am finally ninety,
They erect a statue of my naked body in Sacramento.
No matter how far we think we have come,
Despite all our glorious ribbons and acheivements,
In the end, we are no more than human,
Earth to earth, starstuff first and always.
A poet is no different than a president or philosophic genius,
No braver than a battle hero or any blackened firefighter,
No more courageous tha a woman bearing children
In a chaotic, irrational world.
We need more statues that honor our humanity
And few that cower to our blood thirsty gods. Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Many Europeans, as well as leftists in America, have rejected the traditional Christian God and replaced it with a post-Christian goddess of Mother Nature and a modified Christian eschatology. It isn’t a coherent belief system. It might or might not incorporate New Age thinking. But deep down, there’s a view that humans shouldn’t be tampering with the natural world.
Lee M. Silver __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ brief political informational advert
Starting with
I have seen the Israeli's blow Russian tanks,
Fly by wire from miles away, Night scoped enemy soldiers one by one, As their body heat betrays them, I know what a body looks like When their blood splatters my face; And I have cried as they were wheeled past me In a fallen hero's parade, and watched the faces of spouse and family, Knowing nothing will be the same. I've heard the angry picket demonstrators Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Carnivores, omnivores, herbivores ... and now locavores. "Locavore" has been chosen by the New Oxford American Dictionary as its word of the year for 2007.
In case you're wondering, locavores are people who maintain a small carbon footprint by eating locally-produced food.
Other contenders for the dictionary's 2007 title included "upcycling" — the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable — and the verb "to tase" (stun with a Taser). __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ the way it was, so to to speak
Once More Falling Sweetly
I was like that myself
When I was a girl,
Cute, eager to please,
With soft full lips
That promised everything.
Older now, I am better at pleasing,
But less likely to do so
Unless I am asked sweetly
And the, only after
We've come to an understanding
About what we may expect
Both before and after.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ one last kiss before I go
Space, So Clean, So Tidy
Green aloe, safely inside,
As November plays with freezing,
Outside the leaves already are down
Or surely quickly dying,
The trees grow half naked,
The varmints more excited,
The dog has a clear view of his targets,
Chasing them down the common grounds. The meter stutters erotically,
Erratically, and stumbling, Words discconect, struggle to realign
Meaning falls like autmn. Poet looks back outside,
Shrugs,
Ends the
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2007
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Now the trumpet summons us again — not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need — not as a call to battle, though embattled we are — but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation" — a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.
-- JFK __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ 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 ( Saturday, 24 November 2007 ) | |
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