Newsflash:
Saturday, 20 January 2007 20:00
Last Updated on Sunday, 21 January 2007 07:39
The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. IV
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The veiled ones say
A great storm comes
Full of snow and fury
And falling temperatures
A great storm comes
Full of snow and fury
And falling temperatures
The sun
So good these last few weeks
Will remember
It is winter
And vanish from our days
Will remember
It is winter
And vanish from our days
I do not believe them
For no artic frosted wind
Can chill the many days or nights
You warm me
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C.E.
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Poems and other trials. Enjoy.
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in and out
Guidelines
If I were to write a love poem,
The kind that borders on soft pornography,
Everyone would ask if you were the one
Whose breasts I kissed,
Whose lips I parted with my sweet silvered tongue
Before slipping inside to caress your wetness.
Everyone would ask if you were the one
Whose breasts I kissed,
Whose lips I parted with my sweet silvered tongue
Before slipping inside to caress your wetness.
If the answer is yes,
You do not need to answer;
If the answer is no,
Why would I tell?
Why would I tell?
A poem needs mystery,
More so than a poet,
But dark ladies,
As always,
More so than a poet,
But dark ladies,
As always,
Need so much more.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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a different rhythm
The Poet as Seen Through a Gravity Lens
My eyes ...
Burn
Struggle to remain
Focused
My thoughts
S c a t t e r
Drift
My brain
Fights
2 hold 2
R
E
A
L
I
T
Y
I am losing
Help
Your
Self
The lens blurs
And I am blind
And I am blind
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability,
but comes through continuous struggle.
And so we must straighten our backs
and work for our freedom.
A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
but comes through continuous struggle.
And so we must straighten our backs
and work for our freedom.
A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
-- Martin Luther King
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relativity
Three Variations on Navarone
I
Trojan Wars
In any war,
Epic or border skirmish,
Men are required to be heroic
In a decidely
Unheroic endeavor.
Unheroic endeavor.
If we did not make them heroes,
Wave the flag
And their children before them,
Wave the flag
And their children before them,
Who would offer their bodies
To meet the needs
Of famous generals?
Nations have requirements,
Plans,and manifest destinies
Plans,and manifest destinies
More important than the lives
Of some mere bloody mortals.
Of some mere bloody mortals.
When hell breaks loose,
As surely it will,
Women die, men die,
As surely it will,
Women die, men die,
And the generals and the poets
Write the histories.
II
A Private Place
The job is to kill enemy soldiers
With or without my own life ending;
With or without my own life ending;
The job is to avoid killing civilians
And finish the mission victory in hand.
And finish the mission victory in hand.
My private peace is not necessary
For the mission to be successful;
For the mission to be successful;
Inner turmoil is not a consideration
When planning the best course of action
When planning the best course of action
For Flag, for Democracy,
For family and country;
My soul is of concern
My soul is of concern
To only the gods and me.
Do not confuse my cold dispassion
With the single minded certainty
Of our enemies.
With the single minded certainty
Of our enemies.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
January 2007
III
Responsibility
Buildings explode,
Children die,
Legs and heads lie scattered
Across the public square;
Legs and heads lie scattered
Across the public square;
The smell of death
Pervades the city streets,
The sound of automatic weapons
Echoes from beds and kitchens.
The sound of automatic weapons
Echoes from beds and kitchens.
This is what we call victory
And passes for peace
And passes for peace
In Bush's and Rumsfeld's neo-con armies.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
January 2007
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In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
but the silence of our friends.
but the silence of our friends.
-- Martin Luther King
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The Night Shoot
By Lisa Jain Thompson
©2007
©2007
It was a night shoot in the rain, all the romance was in the movies. I was wet, cold, and wanting to go home.
And I still didn’t know if I would pull trigger.
The money was good, most of the targets fit and proper, knowing they were in play and accepting the consequences. We were all players and players seldom live to see their grandchildren.
But not this target. She wasn’t one of us. I always research my contracts as a professional courtesy. She wasn’t a player, at least not in the traditional sense, even if I was.
And now I would kill her, will kill her, or no longer be a player, at least a live one. The money was good and I was under contract …
… Or dead.
My choices were two: kill her or kill me. As much as I searched for a third alternative, I found no time machine to let me go back and unsign the contract or take her off the list. We do what we must.
This Schrödinger fit of uncertainty, these post-modern loomings that deconstruct my soul and loosen the surety of my finger on the trigger guard are unbecoming. Unprofessional and I am, if anything, a professional.
Whether she is dead or undead is a matter for philosophy or theoretical physics. She will be quite dead when I pull the trigger.
If I pull the trigger.
When I place her in my night scope, breathe deeply, slowly pull back and she falls silently in the distance.
Talking to her at the bar was mistake. She is not a person, she is a contract someone in the government has decided to eliminate even if she is fond of cosmopolitans and blue Curaçao.
She wasn’t supposed to be in a lesbian bar in the first place. I should have killed her when we were in bed but that would have been personal and I am a professional, both in and out of bed.
This is personal. I still have her scent strong in my memory, lingering on my fingers.
She is more than family, less than a girl friend, but still a contract, still my contract.
And I must kill her.
The front door opens.
My finger moves and I vanish back into the night.
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Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well
that the living, the dead, and the unborn
could do it no better.
A man should do his job so well
that the living, the dead, and the unborn
could do it no better.
-- Martin Luther King
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demanding bitch
More
I have some experience
In a multitude of various disciplines,
Some strategically mobile knowledge
In engagements between the sexes,
In a multitude of various disciplines,
Some strategically mobile knowledge
In engagements between the sexes,
Some poetical repititions
That I have honed close to perfection.
That I have honed close to perfection.
Still I want more.
I accept that giving birth,
Raising three kids,
And ensuring future generations
Of my species
Of my species
May be all there is.
Still I want more.
Seventy years is not enough,
Not even a century:
The world is too large,
The universe too distant,
I want more
Than a few extra decades.
I want more
Than a few extra decades.
I want it all
-- Everything --
Family, the universe,
Love and creation,
Immortality like Sappho
Not Neil Armstrong,
Not Neil Armstrong,
My grandchildren living
On the Sands of Mars.
On the Sands of Mars.
And still, given all that,
I will cry when it's over
For being done too soon.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music,
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well t
hat all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music,
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well t
hat all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
-- Martin Luther King
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Christmas Cheer
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - When Carol Lopez let her Labrador retriever out for the morning the dog had an unusual number of tree trunks to attend to. Surrounding her aboveground backyard pool Lopez found 37 used Christmas trees.
"I had just woke up and boom, they're there and that's it," Lopez said Thursday.
Whoever put the trees there apparently took their time, neatly organizing and standing the trees upright.
Lopez said she didn't know how someone climbed a tall wooden fence surrounding the yard, or got all the trees over it.
"People just don't have anything better to do," Lopez said. "That's someone who had time on their hands."
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another snapshot
Time Step
The last time I saw my grandfather,
We looked into each other's eyes,
We looked into each other's eyes,
Knowing the unavoidable
But not wishing to speak the words
In front of my children.
So we hugged, slowly released,
And walked out each other's lives
That one final time forever.
Decades later,
I still cannot write
He's dead
And I was not there
When the time came
When the time came
For him to leave.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables.
-- Sappho
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how i spent the last week
Cough
Cough
Poet Cough
Cough
ing
Disturbing the rhythm
Cough
Gag
Of the words
Cough and Cough
Of the Coughing
Hack
Cough
Lines
Spit blow and Cough
Gag
Perhaps the poet
Sneeze
Would be better
Sneeze
Would be better
Blough Coughspamhack
Dead
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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American Idol
It's junior high or high school all over again.
Only this time the millions freaks,
geeks and trenchcoat types at home
get to hang out with the "3 cool kids..."
Only this time the millions freaks,
geeks and trenchcoat types at home
get to hang out with the "3 cool kids..."
--Lisa de Moraes
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PEACE
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Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1995-2007. Further distribution of this newsletter in its entirety is authorized. Email your letters and postcards or visit her contact page at the Starpoet website.
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Starpoetby Lisa Jain Thompson.
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