StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. XI

There are too many fashionable Vegans,
Suck your life dry sanctimonious prudes,
Who would drain us of our omnivorous humanity,
Preferring we cow our way through the world
Filling the earth's atmosphere with
Flatuous bursts of nasal fouling methane.

I have cheated death
A half a dozen times,
Not intentionally, of course,
But by luck, will, and chance;
We are a fragile creature,
Easily killed by a more
Efficient predator if they
Should catch us unawares;
A curiously self-aware creature
Who believes what we do believe
Independent of scientific finding
Or the reality of the universe;
We die, or we do not,
And the difference between the two
Is often so slight,
I am unable to say why I am alive
Other than I have chosen to be.

The earth has always seemed to be
Somewhere just beyond my reach,
The steady day to night rhythms
Are as alien to me as Mars or Titan
Or coloring between the lines:
I cannot be normal any more
Than I can not be a poet.

— Lisa Jain Thompson (March 2012)

I burn as hotly as when I was young,
Crying out in the pain of my existence,
The tightrope extends across the midway
As I balance, word by word, in the moonlight;
Even as winter approaches I remain unbowed,
Unwilling to surrender either tongue or pen
Or conform to the current passing standards
Of egalitarian civility and trendy icons.
I came from the streets of the valley during
The brief breath between the World War and Korea
And have found myself in the Washington bureaucracy
more than half my life like some alien intruder
Caught up in the strategy of the political game
And unable to free herself or desire to so.
I am, I will be, an American poet like Whitman,
Like Dickinson and Ishmael chasing Moby Dick.

Grass breaks beneath my feet,
Frozen solid by winter's breath,
Even the dog appears reluctant
To venture outside and tarry,
Willing to hold it until the sun rises
And the earth is somewhat
Less forbidding.

I have been the sexual target of men,
And women -- not to mention
the occasional drag queen --
Since I was eleven,
Straight, gay or lesbian,
They have wanted me,
Some with a direct frontal approach,
Others more graciously,
Moving slower with due deliberation.
Me, I learned to dance,
Nimbly avoid the unwanted vector,
The undesired lustful stare,
And divert my pursuers
To other, less immediate paths
And needs; Had I slept with everyone,
I would have been dead several decades ago.

Turtles are dying in Maryland,
Crabs are growing scarce in the bay,
Species come and species go,
Turtle, Crab, and Sapiens.

Water Heats

Water heats in the tea pot,
A storm slips down from Cleveland,
Cedar sleeping on his blankets,
American Idol in the background;
By Saturday who knows the weather,
Rain, snow, sleet or sunshine,
We plan to take in a movie,
Something with tattoos possibly,
But no vampires or werewolves,
They are so not au curant.