| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VII, No. XLIX |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Saturday, 02 December 2006 | |
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The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VII, No. XLIX
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> The sweetest apple
Is not as sweet
As the juice that flows
From your lips on mine
An apple's flesh
Is not as delicious
As the taste
Of your warm body
On my tongue Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2006
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ A farmer from Arkansas and a Princeton economist
are discussing the economics of horticulture. After the farmer makes a complex point about crop yield, the Princeton economist says: "Well, sure it works in practice, but will it work in theory?" __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ December already, the year is going fast. Have you book your appointment with Santa yet or would you rather he just use Amazon and skip the housecall?
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ some starpoet to start
Singing Blind
I want to die with the stars above my head
And the earth a speck in the deep space sky, Where the Milky Way fills my entire heaven
And her lights burn my eyes at night. I want to die with the universe all around me,
Not trapped in some gravity well of gas and dirt, Where space and time encircle my senses And my soul can escape to infinity and beyond. I want to die where the air is clear and free
And golden starships rise each morning Only to return when the warm sun sets, Where rivers flow filled with spawning salmon
And politicians debate how the world began And how all of this we know someday will end. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Gettysburg, the other civil war
After the Storm
Seven Thousand dead men,
More like tens,
Flies, urine, Dead horses steaming in the sun,
Putrid animal flesh mingling With the sweet smell of human decay. Strange, awful odors
Overpowering the air, Growing stronger each hour in the heat;
Dead bodies scattered everywhere, Horse, mules, legs and arms, Fragments of skin and fingers
Torn and charred by explosive fury.
In the fields, in the houses, In the barns and the avenues of white tents,
Twenty-one thousand lie wounded, More dying each day. We must burn the bodies,
Light the fire over them,
Pour kerosene on the bodies,
Let them go up in smoke.
The scent of burning flesh,
The smell of rotting carcasses, The foul stink of battle Floats over the city Like some noisome mist That hugs the twisting river valley.
Some come to help, some come to gawk, Some to plunder but most come Just looking for lost armies In the bloodstained fields, Life canvases full of mangled soldiers And newly dug graves. The earth is plowed to a mire Of tracks and army wheels, Dead and dying, dead and wounded,
Torn to pieces in every way. Their limbs piled high,
Still dripping from the surgeon’s hand. The world is damaged goods And we are lost in dark clouded night; Someone must come explain Why this bloodletting must go on Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__ ^^\/\/\/\/^^ The past cannot be changed, and the victims of the conflict,
from both sides of the border, cannot be returned. Dictates are futile and mutual accusations
are nothing but useless word games. Historic scores cannot be settled and scars cannot be obliterated. All we can do today is prevent further tragedies
and bequeath to the younger generation a bright horizon and hope for a new life. Let us convert animosity and the "honing of our swords" to mutual recognition, respect and direct dialogue. -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Meanwhile in Russia
The head of Russia's union of wine and spirits producers has called on the country's lawmakers to legislate for the introduction of "people's vodka". Osman Paragulgov says the introduction of a cheap, but safe and regulated drink, would help poorer Russians currently unable to buy genuine vodka.
Russians often turn to substitutes - often with fatal results. Several Russian regions have declared states of emergency recently after a spate of fake vodka poisonings.
Mr Paragulgov says the worst-hit areas should be used as a testing ground for "people's vodka", or, as he says it would be better named, "social vodka". He says the move would help to establish whether the death toll - now running into thousands of people a month - could be reduced.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ reading about Edward III
All My Good Wishes
They do not love that do not show their love.
-- W.S. How dost one flaunt one’s homosexuality?
Let me count the ways:
Kissing in public like heterosexuals
Rather than the darkness of the closet; Holding hands on the street like NY straight couple
And not pretending to be other than we are; Acting out like young lovers, wherever they are,
Following our star to our own happy memories; Placing photos of spouses, partners, and family
On our desk like some normal person might; Not going gaga over some boy group sensations Like all the other girls in middle high school, Not joining in the pursuit of hunting and football, Like every true blue macho male must do. How does one flaunt one’s homosexuality? -- By being alive and existing as much as you, And refusing to be shunned back into submission Or giving up our liberty to avoid offending you. It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.
--W.S.
Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ last ever words
The G’d Ol’ Boy Dyzfunkshyal Waltz
The greatest crime
Is wasting lives
And leaving your mess For someone else to fix To spend your life
Letting others clean-up The broken corporations The busted up nations
That followed your drunken Get out of jail free waltz
Through what the rest of us Call the world outside, The one we all must live in After you retreat to the safety Of your west Texas haven. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ On The Male Contraceptive Pill
Women, Would you trust it?
Karena Long, 18
"I wouldn't believe that he had taken it because you hear about girls taking the pill when they haven't - so men might do the same; they might say it just to get a girl into bed." Natasha Kalyati, 30
"The situation wouldn't occur with someone I didn't trust as I don't have one-night stands, but also it wouldn't protect you against disease, which is as much of a worry for me as an unwanted pregnancy." Eileen Canfor, 49
"I wouldn't trust it, not just because I wouldn't trust the man to take it, but also because it wouldn't provide protection from disease." __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ the publicly religious
Yeshua
Once upon a time,
There was a christian god
Who believed in love
Who drank and caroused With lepers, sinners
And even women -- He died –
Nailed to a cross
Struck through the heart By personal cults
And vested bureaucracy Struggling to be the seat
Of a church he did not found
A church that diminishes women
Despises homosexuals
Condemns all others
Who gather in a god’s name As heretics or pagan idolaters A church who gathers habitual pederasts
And avaricious televangelists Under one safe sheltering tent So that above all else The church will survive
No matter who
They may need nail to the cross Lisa Jain Thompson December 2006__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ designed to offend PC puritans
Crystal City
I will not bow down
To your linguistic fatwas: Deny a word, hide it away
Inn some PC weapons locker, Only increases a word's lethality. F, N, MF and the rest
Are there in the world
Independent of me
Spelling them out Or saying them. Censoring my words,
Stopping anyone’s speech
Is only another
Big Mother attempt To take scissors away From children she thinks Are too immature To know what to do with them. Nigger
Queer Cocksucker
Cunt and bitch
Blunt the words
Make them public Make them laughable But don't give them any power By making them attractive In their forbiddeness Faggot
Trannie Diesel Dyke Pansy We don't need no national language czar.
Lisa Jain Thompson
wop dago mick nigger guinea injun spic honky moor muff diving cocksucking chocolate dipping lesbo bi-dyke canuck ame-koh catlick yankee fan kuei feather raghead goyim greaseball mongrel roundeye smokejumping shiksa blanket-ass camel jockey cunt squaw
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ The State Of Education in Europe
At the moment Oxford and Cambridge are the only European universities to feature in all rankings of the global top 10, otherwise dominated by American universities. But even Oxford and Cambridge are only holding on by the skin of their teeth. If things continue as at present, they too will surely fall behind. The soft power of antiquity, beauty, myth and a rich intellectual tradition can only do so much to counterbalance the hard power of superior expenditure, organisation and innovation.
Britain, like France and Germany, spends only 1.1% of its gross domestic product on tertiary education. The US spends 2.6% - 1.4% from private sources and 1.2% from public. In other words, American public expenditure on higher education is more than our public and private expenditure combined. Europe talks the talk of a "knowledge-based economy"; the US walks the walk. And it is being followed aggressively by the upthrusting Asian economies.
European societies may in the end choose to prefer mass, freely available, low-cost higher education as a social good and abandon the aspiration, which European universities have had since Wilhelm von Humboldt invented the model of the modern university 200 years ago, to combine university teaching with world-class research. If we simply carry on as we are at the moment, that is where we will surely end up. So let Europe at least, like Oxford, have a great debate and make a conscious choice.
--Timothy Garton Ash
In The Guardian __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ recently seen
Collateral Damage
Train lights in the fog
Halo’d along the rail, Trees at Van Dorn Station Silhouetted against the night. Rolling into King Street,
Blue line going slow, Over on the Yellow, Somebody’s been run down; Unknown to those of us
Reading our morning Express As we hurry towards the Pentagon, Blood is dripping on the tracks. Worried about our connections,
We don’t even give a glance To the dying Metro worker On the Eisenhower path.
He’s gone, we’re gone,
Off to work today, We’ll return to home tonight And watch the tearful tape. December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ getting back to where
Back Then
When I was young
And my hair flowed long And my body set off the young men, I was too caught up in my inner world To bother with more Than occassional kisses In the back seat of cars at the drive-ins. If I were to relive those moments now,
There would be a lot more fucking and diversity
Than the handful of choices I perceived I had When this mindbody configuration thing Was gifted me out of alignment. Lisa Jain Thompson
December 2006 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Tradition is the democracy of the dead.
--GK Chesterton __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ 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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