| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VII, No. XLIII |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 22 October 2006 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol VII, No. XLIII
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> I have been away,
Teaching my lyrics at Lycea:
A week
A month
A year since I've seen you,
What is so important That you won't visit?
Who is she?
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2006  __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ I am in the middle of a month long class -- death by PowerPoint as they say -- five days a week, seven hours a day, one week down, three to go.
Life goes on in the moments pausing between the slides.
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a feeling for destination while still on the journey
The Direction of the Leaf
I remember everything,
Forgetting only what I need To stop the pain. So many among the missing
That it sometimes seems Only I alone remain. I would go on forever,
Knowing that I won't;
I would not cause more pain.
Knowing that I can't.
Life goes on,
With or without me, I go on,
A leaving floating towards the sea.
An unknown ocean awaits me
Somewhere downstream. Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ a bit of Sappho
Nobility
Your nobility
Would become you
If not for what it covered You cannot hide
Your pain from me
Or the love you deny exists
Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Contemporary speech is as loaded
with reference and allusion as any other, possibly more so; the fact that the allusions are to tabloid headlines or what happened on Buffy last night doesn't change that. -- John M. Ford
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^
The current predicament is the outcome of three missteps:
a major strategic blunder by President Bush
(who refused to negotiate with the North Koreans
when they were practically begging for talks and their course was still easily reversible); an only slightly less gigantic blunder
by Chinese President Hu Jintao (who thought he could bring the North Koreans in line with minimal arm-twisting);
and severe miscalculations, from start to finish,
by Kim Jong-il (who thought Washington would have leapt at negotiations by now and who, apparently, didn't think his nuclear test would cause quite such excitement). So, here we are.
The two major powers in this confrontation are led by blunderers; the provocateur is a chronic miscalculator. It doesn't look good.
-- Fred Kaplan
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ outside the class
Lunch
Enough of a chill
To numb the hands,
Diminishing the fun
Of squirrel watching:
Bushy tailed rat
With good PR Scurrying between trees Gathering acorns.
Leaves still on trees,
No snow in sight;
Poet separate
From the smokers
Collected by the gazebo.
Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ outside but inside
In the Car
Sitting in the car,
Listening to the radio
And watching the rain
Wash down my windshield, Each impact crater
Merging into flow.
I work my way
Through lunch hour,
Ending with the apple,
Reducing it to core.
The rain continues long after
I am back inside for class,
Wishing I were still out
Where the rain would drench me. Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ The Hypocrisy of the Religious Right
Mr. Foley has had illicit sex
with no one that we know of, and the whole thing turned out to be what some people are now saying was a -- sort of a joke by the boy
and some of the other pages. -- James Dobson
Founder of Focus on The Family &
ardent supporter of Republicans __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ science and human nature
Fermi's Question
They're out there,
Concealing themselves perfectly, Taking no risks,
Waiting to attack
Without mercy or warning.
Little green men,
Bug eyed monsters,
Unobstrusive librarians
Lurking quietly along the edges,
Watching, should we ever
Decide to leave this system.
When we do,
They'll be there
To maintain
Their peacful existence And the quarantine fences
They've wrapped around us. Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ continuing the thread
Orphaned in Spacetime
Suppose we have it wrong,
Suppose God is not outside the Universe
But resides within it, Subject to its physical laws,
The nagging processes that disorder us?
Finding himself dying,
He creates us, his children, To carry on, Jesus and Buddha and the rest
His deathbed gasp Showing us the way to godhood.
Knowing his leaving was inevitable,
He left us our birthright, his blessing,
In our primate brains
And the direction of the arrow
So we may continue his work
After he has gone.
Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Garbage in the Gulf,
Ours and theirs,
One ships and explosives, The other raw sewarge,
Both equally effective
At killing the earth.
LJT
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ People are not paying to see Barbra Streisand.
They are paying to feel young again,
like the age they were
when they first dug Barbra.
And that is worth the price of the ticket.
-- Gene Weingarten
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ navel gazing, but not too hard
Ponder This
If I stopped to ponder
All the eyes of the world,
I would be frozen rigid
Into place;
Unable to speak a word,
My muse would die,
And I, this fragile poet,
With her,
Silent for all time.
Eternity will come
Far too soon enough
Without me
Speeding its arrival.
Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ As long as the beating of women is acceptable in Islam,
the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists and others who espouse violence will not go away; to me, they form part of a continuum. -- Asra Q. Nomani
Standing Alone:
An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ full circle
The Chill
The chill blows through
This cotton dress
That clings to my breasts
And hips.
My heart has stopped
Quick frozen
By the words Let past your lips.
Has the moon
Suddenly fallen? Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ What are 140,000 U.S. forces achieving in Iraq
that could not be achieved by 40,000? -- George Will
22 October 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ VOTE
as if the lives
of your daughters and sons depended on it
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Peace
__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Send your letters and postcards to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it © Lisa Jain Thompson 2006
Further distribution of this newsletter in its entirety is authorized. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 22 October 2006 ) | |
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