StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. XXVIII

The last time I saw the Beach Boys,
I was fifteen, as was Carl,
They were big in Sacramento
And ruled the Top Forty on the
Number one station in the valley
In those years before the Beatles.
Then Brian skips Monterey
And the Beach Boys become uncool,
But fifty years ago, November '63,
Before the gun shot and general madness,
We were either lithesome surfer girls
Or rat-haired young gang molls,
With few of us seemingly in-between.

Sitting on a bench, watching the lunch crowd,
Panera, Noodles, Johnny Rockets and Firehouse,
A handful at Thai and Indian, and only a scattering
At the liquor store this early in the day;
Delivery trucks still arriving, traffic on the mall road,
Dodging pedestrians, crosswalks and speed bumps,
Muddled clouds overhead, a gray expanse with patches
Of blue and thin cloud sunbright, but nor rain, not yet,
Perhaps by suppertime with raucous thunderstorms;
Two small trees, birch maybe, shade my faux wood bench,
Trees and a black light pole at each corner of the patio,
Kingstowne Mall is young with a multiple 3-D cineplex,
Two large modern supermarkets, cameras on the roofs,
The normal spread of national tract outlets
Pretending to be local boutiques, including a large
Shoe store or two specializing in women's footwear
-- A perfect place to pop into before returning to work.
(Come Saturday, the children will increase a hundredfold,
Streaming into the G-Rated children films as well as
All the inappropriate ones their parents might take them.)
Passing patrol cars, both rent a mall and county painted,
We have a peaceful mall here, troublemakers are unwanted
But teenagers with money are always welcome;
Sitting in the warm sun on the petro-wood bench,
The cooling May breeze passing through my hair,
I do not want to return to this afternoon's important meeting;
Instead I put on some lipstick, take out a steno pad and pen
And continue to watch, earning only an occasional curious glance
At the rapidly scribbling poet on her bench.

Peter Higgs,
A grandfatherly Edinborough professor,
Fifty years ago predicted
The boson that bears his name,
Most recently announced at CERN,
An intellectual feat that certainly matches
The greatest physicists of the Twentieth;
He's an old man now who has waited decades
For his life's work to be confirmed:Outwaiting the Reaper for half a century,
He waits patiently now for his Nobel

— Lisa Jain Thompson (July 2012)

I dreamed of taking headache medicine,
Apparently not enough: woke up, got out of bed,
Took four aspirin and decongestant
And waited for the coffee to brew,
Columbian, dark roasted,
Hoping the caffeine would help.

It's ninety-five outside and it's rising,
The humidity's seventy-five to eighty,
The power's off in half the world still,
Even the seven-elevens are closed;
But work is open and at five a.m.
I'm  on my way to the office
To defend the American Way,
Truth, Justice, and Obamacare
With the occasional third world bombing.

When you a Florida hispanic who shot a black man
And you make a claim of self-defense,
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton fly out of the woodwork
To publically try, convict, and sentence you;
But when you are a Phoenix black man
Who kills an Hispanic and also claims self-defense,
There is nary a word from our black and liberal leaders
Who see no personal political gain in public particpation
(The President has not spoken, he chooses his side with silence)
Blacks, it would seem, are immaculately conceived and,
By definition, free of all sin, no matter what
The circumstances might be: the color of the skin
Should not influence the morality of the actions
Of either shooter, our black civil rights leaders,
Or the President of the United States.

We've said we put Cedar down,
But that's not entirely true,
Cedar was already 80% thru,
He knew it, we knew it,
No one was fooling anyone;
That morning's second stroke,
Coming 18 months after the first,
Had taken the guesswork
Out of Cedar's life.

He had a day left, maybe a week,
All of which he would have spent
Unable to stand or control his body;
Cedar was looking for a way
Out with dignity and together,
Cedar, me, and Sharon, chose a path
That would set him free from his pain.

The day before the Fourth,
The office is halfway empty,
The phones are silent
    and ring reluctantly,
The email churns sluggishly
Only to return empty-handed
    from the server,
Everyone who is everyone
    seems to be gone
Except for me
    and the scattered handful
Whose relatives are too distant
For a mid-week holiday.

Derecho: Ring of Fire

The temperature rises well over one hundred
Only to be met by violent, Jupiter-like thunderstorms,
Eighty mile an hour winds, Chicago to the Atlantic,
The sky lit bright by lightning,
The crash of tree, the squash of auto,
The swiftly rising flight of trampoline;

A flash of powerline, an explosion of transformer,
The quick quiet death of computer,
An emptiness of internet, a silence of cell tower,
The thermometer's deadly digit without
Electricity and air conditioner.

Do not breath, do not move,
Pray for the Powerman to rescue you;
There is no god but Dominion Power,
Conqueror of all things Washington summer's.
Provider of everything that's cool in creation:
Praise to those who stand against Invictus
And fight him to a draw.