The Starpoet Newsletter
Volume IX, No. XVIII
Sunlight through the window
Setting blindingly in my eyes
Silhouetting the tree line
Into dark blacks and greens
I am aware of your presence
Sitting on the sofa near to me
Watching your poet write
No pressure but
Slipping into my consciousness
You slip into my poem
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2008 C. E.
Three Week Old White Naped Monkey
MAY. Summer lurks with a storm growing outside.
family matters
Sundays with the Family
Rerun Sopranos, Italian to the end,
Somewhere one of my relatives
Is working in the background:
If life had been different,
If grandpa hadn’t moved west,
I’d most likely be in the kitchen
Cleaning up after Sunday dinner,
Making fresh coffee for the men
Talking business in the living room,
Talking children with the women
‘Round the breakfast table.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
peer review
The Sound of A Squirting Sea
The repertoire of G protein-coupled receptors
In the sea-squirt Ciona intestinalis,
The genome of the protochordate,
A good model system for vertebrate diversification.
An analysis of the repertoire provides insight into origins,
Phylogenetic analyses reveal homologous representatives
Concomitant with other vertebrates, unambiguous orthologs,
Defined for the human, mouse, and puffer fish,
Possess a novel domain organization, hitherto unobserved.
A high level of orthology of a protochordate repertoire
Suggests the ascidians contain basic ancestral complements.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
I have lived and slept in the same bed
With English countesses and Prussian farm women
... No woman has excited passions among women
More than I have.
-- Florence Nightingale
something for everyone
Prayer for The President
Hello Jesus, are You busy?
I would like to ask You for some favors:
Could You stop these incessant migraines
And while You're at it, do something about our president,
I understand he's one of Your favorites.
He tells me he doesn't make a move
Without consulting first with his Lord and Savior,
You can't have told him do what he's done
So perhaps it’s a matter of miscommunication,
The president has trouble with words, you know.
Maybe if You cleaned out the wax in his ears,
Removed all the impediments to understanding,
He could hear You better and do right by You;
But if it isn't to much trouble, if it’s not too hard to do,
Please Lord, a miracle, do something about our president.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
to no one in particular
Ceremony
Why didn’t you kill me
When you had the chance?
You’ve blown it now,
I’m ready for your next advance.
Life goes on
And I don’t plan to spend it
Worrying what you will do, or when;
So c’mon, darlin’,
Show me what you’ve got,
You’re the one who still wants this dance.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
$> Man Woman
$> Segmentation Fault (core dumped)
counting up
Planes and Quakes and Cars and Bridges
I’ve lived my life
Amidst earthquakes and tornadoes,
Airplanes crashing within a quarter mile,
Airplanes crashing within a couple hundred feet,
Bridges collapsing
A few seconds after I have passed beneath them,
A jeep that grew tired of the icy road
And flipped me out through the soft top,
Landing me on the cold highway sixty feet away.
The odds are in my favor
To live a long and profitable life,
Assuming the suitcase in the metro
Isn’t a small nuclear device.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows,
But now the damned things have learned to swim,
And now decency and good behavior wear me!
-- Frida Kahlo
meanwhile back in high school
Alumna
I am the alumna
Of an all boys Catholic high school
That since my graduation
-- Many decades past –
Has luckily gone coed;
They didn’t even blink an eye
When I told them I’d changed,
Perhaps being in
California
Carries more weight than what
The good Pope may have said.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
Iraq and Beyond
... if we withdraw it won't be only al-Queda taking over Iraq. As I see it - and I'm sure my opinion is suppported by history - Iraq will cease to exist.
Iran will come in from the east, taking part of southern Iraq (and the oil wells and ports there). The Saudis, as they have threatened, may come in to defend Sunnis in the so-called Sunni Triangle areas. They may be supported by Syrian forces. The Turks are likely to come into the north, a little, to attack PKK forces there and try to keep the Kurds from expanding into Turkey.
In short, it'll be a mess of historic proportions, and wars will go on for years or decades.
And al-Queda will have safe havens there. Which is a non-trivial problem. It will be as bad as Afghanistan under the Taliban as a base for global terrorism.
--
Jed L. Babbin
I enjoy dating married men
Because they don't want anything kinky,
Like breakfast.
-- Joni Rodgers
memories, legends, realities, and myths
The Glow of Metal
I never was a saint, no matter what the nuns thought,
Never as innocent as my smile might suggest;
You can go a long way on brown eyes and dimples,
If you have a certain sparkle and soft, full lips.
In those days before AIDS raised the ante for playing,
Summer nights in the valley ran warm after
midnight,
While the driveway of a monastery became a safe, quiet haven
For young bodies testing out their hormones and touchpoints.
Come Sunday morning, gathered at the Newman Center,
Playing guitar and singing at our then cutting edge folk Mass
-- So successful both bishop and parish pastors were irritated --
I was usually sinless until, post missa, we left for the beach.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
They laughed at Joan of Arc,
But she went right ahead and built it.
-- Gracie Allen
the truth of it all
The Vanishing Edge
A woman dying,
Bleeding inside,
Holding her newborn to her breast;
The old gods die hard
As the men stand around
Glad they were not born a woman.
Some things will never be equal,
No matter what laws may be passed
Or intricate social engineering imposed:
Males will be men, females, women,
And babies, the gulf between them.
Lisa Jain Thompson
May 2008
To fly,
We have to have resistance.
-- Maya Lin
|
