| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. IX, No. XV |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Friday, 11 April 2008 | |
 The Starpoet Newsletter
Volume IX, No. XV Sunlight
Riding the wind above the trees Twisting between branches
Light and shadow Pushing warmly against the window Where inside I sit
Waiting for your return Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2008 C. E.
 Every time you to try to make something idiot-proof,
Someone goes and builds a better idiot.
-- Geek Proverb
 Two baseball games in the National's new ballpark this week has put me behind in the count. This all might feel a little strange.
bits and pieces of memory rebuilt into coherency
Exploring Biology
When sex was young,
And my innocence newly found, My body trembled In touching anticipation And my mind carefully weighed The demarkation between Venal and more grevious sins. Love was still unknown, A rumor learned from books And careful admonition By the sisters and priests, Leavened by whispered speculations Of inexperience and eagerness Offered knowingly by my girlfriends. Somehow we survived
All that nonsense while growing up, Roman Catholic and Muslim And even deep Southern Baptist, We learned what was needed To be strong independent women, Confident and well knowing who we are. Lisa Jain Thompson a trifle bite. I hope you have eaten.
Under the Rusty Tuscan
Mussels, Focaccia, Octopus salad,
Garlic herbal bread crumbs and Parmigiano-Reggiano, Chickpeas with olives and potatoes, Sautéed dandelion greens and chocolate hazelnut cookies; Pasta pasta pasta, olive oil on tomato,
Flatbread stuffed with prosciutto and cheese, Asparagus, peas, and basil, A bottle of Sangiovese, a moonlit night, and thee, And possibly a half dozen other hungry mouths.
Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008 Our English Language
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce. 3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse 4) We must polish the Polish furniture. 5) He could lead if he would get the lead out. 6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present. 8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum. 9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes. 10) I did not object to the object. 11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row. 13) They were too close to the door to close it. 14) The buck does funny things when the does are present. 15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow. 17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail. 18) After a number of injections my jaw got number. 19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear. 20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests. On the other hand, we have Shakespeare, not to mention Starpoet.
A touch of reality
Poppyfield
The blood rushes through the lane,
Rising waters flooding the landscape, Staining the day for all of history And rivaling Thermopylae for the bravery Of men called to do what must be done If their homeland would survive. The dying seeded the farmland with their lives,
Sanctifying the battle space with their sacrifice, A single day, too many dead, What will we remember and make of this? There are not enough poppies in the world
To ease the pain of those who survive, Or those who stay behind and wait For that last fearful knock on their door. Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008  I used to worry about what life was for --
now being alive seems sufficient reason.
-- Joanna Field
vaguely pretentious
A Small Beaker of Reality
The dark elves grow eager
With their tales of ancient powers, A world before civilization cluttered The natural order of the cosmos. Men and women, fathers and mothers,
Primeval earth has been disrupted; Male and female, the structure of society, Challenged, disordered, and corrupted. The Lord of Light, the Gods of Darkness
Pushing the women safely to the sidelines While the men think they determine the outcome. Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008 Nothing will work unless you do.
-- Maya Angelou
this has been hanging around a while
Randy, Paula, and the Dark One
Idoling Americans The cell phones are primed, The text is ready, Wait to cast their votes For the next American Most vilified president Since W Carter Nixon And Roosevelt. Lisa Jain Thompson I went to the thirtieth reunion of my preschool.
I didn't want to go
Because I've put on like a hundred pounds. -- Wendy Lieberman
jeremiahing
The Far Side of
In this war between the forces
Of testosterone encrusted revelation And the rights of women, The women will always lose As long as scripture holds sway And the men, down deep, Believe women are inferior And not enslaved by Male dominated tradition. Little chance of change
Unless God is driven from his heavens And we certainly know Where Christianity and the Pope Stand on that. Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008 I have the face of a vampire,
But the heart of a feminist. -- Theda Bara
  The Silent
… I give you my sprig of lilac.
Walt Whitman I was barely fifteen that morning
When the principal came on the intercom to announce That President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, That he died from his wounds and we should pray For his soul, for our country, and for us. I spent the rest of the week at home,
Watching television like everyone else, Going over and over the motorcade, Crying at the photo of blood splattered Jackie, Grieving over what we had become. That Sunday I was at our black and white screen,
Waiting for a glimpse of Oswald moving through the jail, Being stunned when Jack Ruby gunned him down In the custody of the cowboy hated Before the eyes of nation searching for answers. Later that Sunday, our young president’s
Flag-draped closed casket lay in the Capitol As we watched the endless line of mourners Who needed to say farewell, to connect One final time with their dead, lifeless president: The caisson drawn in slow procession
Carrying his flag-covered mahogany casket Past 300,000 faces, past parallel rows of soldiers Bearing the flags of the fifty states, the muffled drums The clacking of the horse’s hooves down Pennsylvania. On Monday the long station from the rotunda
To Saint Patricks, lead by the Black Watch’s pipers, A million people along the funeral’s route, Millions more watching on television at home, A nation united in our sorrow: The casket carried down the cathedral steps,
Jackie whispering to her children, John-John’s salute, The final caisson moving past the Lincoln Memorial, Slowly working its way to Would be put to rest, where his widow lit the flame. I learned to put away the things of my childhood,
To quit remembering the moment when we all realize That we were no longer children, when we learned that life Was not necessarily fair and that tomorrow was a promise That would not withstand a single, well-placed bullet. When almost I was twenty in nineteen sixty-eight,
The world was alive and Viet Nam was at its peak, I was in my second year, neither counter or straight, Friends with Black Panthers and drug dealers, Fraternities, Hippies, and business administration majors. The night before the television broke the news from
Reverend King was dead, a rifle shot, blood on the deck, Bobby on the streets of Say a prayer for our country, say a prayer for our understanding, How can we tame this savageness within us all? Early the next morning, in the cafeteria, one of the Panthers
Jumped up on the football team’s table and demanded Donations to the party, donations to feed black children, Then went table to table throughout the cafeteria Asking for donations for the cause. By late morning, we were all marching down
To hear Willie Brown speak on the steps of the Capitol; As we filled the street and stretched for a mile, We noticed the FBI taking photos from the corners And the car lots with all the hoods opened wide. That night the nation watched our cities go up in flames
As frustration and racial anger raged uncontrolled; White politicians made carefully crafted pronouncements, Black ones called for reason and calm when only bullets Seemed to make any difference or get notice. We tried to hold it together, the election promised change,
Kennedy in the White House, Johnson back on his ranch, We thought we had a chance to make everything so much better If only we could defeat Humphrey, stop Nixon in November, There was still a chance to make the world gentle once again. I was working for Bobby, beating Humphrey in
Watching his victory speech from the Ambassador Hotel, The last words I heard him speak, On to Chicago!, A wave, a smile, a hug from Ethel, then down the stage, Through the tunnel to the assassin lurking in the kitchen. Kennedy’s been shot! The Senator’s been shot!
Bobby’s been shot and the nightmare continued , I watched for the next few hours, until I knew I would hear him again, even as I held false hope That some miracle would raise him from his death bed. The night offered no sleep or mediation as I lay awake
Before the flickering light from the television, Searing into my mind the picture of Bobby spread eagle Across the bloody floor of the kitchen, rosary in his hand, As real today as these words I speak. The next morning I flunked a semester final,
Unable to see the relevance of Victorian literature; The next night I went to a girl friend’s birthday, Getting well numb on shots of Courvoisier While Bobby breathed his last in We brought Bobby back home across the heartland,
A funeral train extending from west to east, In the small towns and the cities, we all came out To line the tracks and be with Bobby once last time Before he was laid to rest beside his brother. I was not yet twenty and everyone I knew was dead,
Richard Nixon was working his way to the presidency, The war would drag on for another seven endless years: I was lost and drifting, well within myself and detached, Not re-emerging until many more decades had passed. O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008  Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1995-2008. 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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