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| StarPoet Newsletter Vol. IX, No. XXXII |
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| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 10 August 2008 | |
 The StarPoet Newsletter
Vol. IX, No. XXXII The days between dying
Are quite pleasant I could put up With sixty years more If you are still beside me Please stay
Stay with me
We have 30,000 sunrises left
And I have little desire To watch them alone. Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2008 C. E.
  this was written helter skelter during and after the storm
looking ahead
Nothing Much At All
Oh I'm believing, believing
Believing, that even when I'm gone Maybe some lonesome picker will Find some healing in this song -- John Stewart On my hundredth birthday,
With only a handful of decades left, Shall I read my youthful poetry Through an eye grown less curious, A lens clouded with experience? At the end of a dozen decades,
How well will these faces be remembered That give breath to every line; Will they bring tears to an ancient memory That has not spoken of them in years? While I write, they still live,
Remembered as they were, in flesh and blood, All those passing moments of time and space That once known, that I have seen, quickly escape To a billion forgotten graves of our recent past. How shall I give them life
When I too grow old to remember, When arthritis seizes pen from hand And vision blurs beyond all reason And words themselves have fled? Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 There ain't no cure for the summertime blues
All In My Eyes
’Scuse me while I breathe this haze
That clings to the early morning, Obscuring the rising furnace That soon will sear both lung and mind. This afternoon’s anticipation
Hangs across our breakfast table, A song played constantly in memory Long after the radio’s grown silent. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 GOLD!
A Colfax,
Jacob Hopkins, 14, said he noticed the shiny rock, which held 6 ounces of gold, after his older brother walked right past the object. "I went out there and grabbed it, and I was like 'oh my gosh that can't be gold -- it is,' and then I ran up to my dad and I showed him."
Locals said the recent discovery has set off a mini gold rush at the lake.
"There has got to be more."
Go West, Young Un's.
theological implications
The Points Along The Line
If the universe did not need
Both death and disorder to exist, Time would be as easy as any distance To travel between the points and take us Now to then and back again. If the gods did not require
Both worshippers and sacrifice -- with disobedience a grievous crime -- The design of the world around us Would be a far, far different place. Were I the one beyond all others,
I would make sure even the gods must die, For such an evil should not be confined To flesh and blood: the gods themselves Need perspective in their lives. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 taking responsibility
Lonesome Planet
Our purpose is to bring purpose to the universe,
To go where no god has dared before, To be a light that shines in the distant darkness To give meaning to what once was meaningless. Life has no need to justify itself
To galaxy and empty heavens, Existence eclipses all questions of how, why, and if: What is is what is, nothing more, nothing less. Our breath can change the course of spacetime
Or die here, knee bent to the stars above us. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 The One
Semester final essay question: Compare and contrast the following statements, identifying which statements were spoken by Barack Obama and which were spoken by Neo in the Matrix films.
1. This is the moment. . . that the world is waiting for.
2. I know that you're afraid. . . . You're afraid of change.
3. I'm asking you to believe.
4. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.
5. Not just in my ability . . . I'm asking you to believe in yours.
6. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible.
7. I have become a symbol of the possibility of returning to our best traditions.
professional stuff
Dancing To The Fire
These scraps of food appear as offerings
From some untidy, dying muse Who receives her only remaining pleasure Watching me attempt to assemble the fragments Into some semblance of a full course feast. Many times only a hint of a meager appetizer
-- These scraps -- survives on which to build A festive holiday celebration full of merriment -- Such are the expectations of the ancient dancers Who tolerate no excuse or exception As they allow their flames to play across my eyes. I devour each bit and parcel, identifying each flavor,
Knowing their individual scents, hoping to construct A simple meal to serve my fellow travelers And any lingering hunger from the road. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 further discussion of the profession
Crawling Out the Canyon
Consumed by time and legacy
And the possibility the words Will be trapped in unsparked flesh, The verse rushes to the surface, Hoping to cross some doubtful deadline. A lifetime’s work, eight poems at a time,
The nervous hand driven by self imposed suspense -- Faster, faster, faster, poet girl, write, write, write! – Raising both level, goal and target, for you My groundlings, whose faces I can never see. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 Her Majesty Would Not Be Amused.
LONDON (AP) A pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers, with a 50-inch waist, were snapped up for $9,000 by a Canadian buyer at a central England auction Wednesday. Auctioneer Charles Hanson said Queen Victoria's underpants belonged to "a very big lady of quite small stature with a very wide girth." She was said to be 5 feet tall.
The handmade knickers -- which date back to the 1890s -- bear the monogram -- VR -- for Victoria Regina. They are open-crotch style, with separate legs joined by a drawstring at the waist, a popular style in the late Victorian era. The royal drawers belonged to a family in western England whose ancestor was a lady-in-waiting for the queen.
"These pants, considering their provenance and pedigree, are very exciting," Hanson said. "They are monogrammed and crested and we know that they are hers." Also up for auction was Queen Victoria's chemise, with a 66-inch bust, sold for $8,000. Her nightgown sold for $11,000.
The royal measurements were, apparently, 66, 50, and dare we guess, 66? if you ingest enough opiate for the pain ...
The Dreamland Circus Sideshow
There’s no gas anymore in the radio,
No water cascading through the rapids to the sea; The desert sand has risen, covering both sun and moon, Saint Peter’s lies in ruins like some earthbound asteroid. A thought in motion tends to stay in motion,
A thought at rest is a dead full stop; the wind shakes The birds gathered from the storm while lightning churns, Thunder bubbles sway bent through the trees. The august mid-Atlantic summer cracks the temple veil,
A Rose of Sharon suckles an emerald hummingbird; Bejeweled by a haze shrouded star, she pauses, Dials the stargate, jumps warp seven out of frame. A jester shills postcards on a late night street corner,
Fully photoshop’d images worthy of desktop or hanging; Suicide machines pander down The Smithsonian serves naked turkey with tofu dressing. Three horses race and gallop across a star-filled sky,
Dragons curl beneath their hooves in ancient rocky peaks;
Meanwhile on the radio, back inside the earth,
Some mid-twenties jazz as bats circle over the corpse. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008  a bit of the past
Do You Know The Way to
I had trouble learning the white man’s world,
Football and farting, girls and baseball; I would soon have been found out as a bad actor If the guys had had any lines for me to speak. Mostly it was just standing there looking hale and hearty
And avoiding the manly fights without seeming to, Try not to seem smarter than even the girls, Don’t ever admit to like anything girly. Hidden from the boys and most every teacher,
The poet, recording her memoirs for future reference, Made her observations from across the binary And prayed to the gods of science to make a miracle. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008 discussion of methodology
Note for the Muse
Between the headaches,
The words explode; Around the acid reflux, Whole verses find life, Catch up on time’s drift, Defying the coils of sleep. To read is not to write,
To speak leaves little record, Even to assemble StarPoet Takes time from my jealous muse. I breathe I write
I am I am Devouring the world For my poems. Lisa Jain Thompson
August 2008
 Obama is the odd one.
 © 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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