Home planet
About StarPoet
- The Poet, Herself
- FAQs
Poetry Road
- Poem Cycles
Fiction Stories & Such
Prose Opinion & Reviews
Starpoet Newsletter
Outside Universe
- Poetry RSS
Index Find It
- Site Map
- Power Search
Contact

Newsflash:

Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII, No. XLIV

Saturday, 27 October 2007 20:00 Last Updated on Saturday, 27 October 2007 23:28

The

Starpoet

Newsletter

Vol. VIII, No. XLIV

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

The third night of rain

Grows old

The sunrise gray

With dampened promise

We should stay

Close by the fire

Where love can nakedly

Make known desire

Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C. E.

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

This coughing continues, the only hope being that this is this year's flu and I will be immune to any future incursions. Poems and whatever this week.

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

weather

When The Drought Breaks

What is this dampness that befowls my shoulders,

This cool solidair that drops ungaseously?

I have not seen this recently
Since last the roses bloomed in my barren yard.

What blurs my vision
And drives war hounds to bellow large,

That darkens this morning's coming?

What ancient leviathan stirs before the deluge?

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

meanwhile back on the planet

In The Drift

Time drifts from toddler to old age

In quantum leaps inperceptible to the human mind.

I was young, now I am dying,

Who is responsible for this train wreack?

Yesterday I had my first kiss,

Trembling in fear and anticipation,

Tomorrow may be my last,

If anyone dare these sweetly fetid lips.

I remember back to when I had no past
And my parents towered twice above me,

The doctors lean to hear my hoarse whisper:

How long is not nearly long enough.

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

If Stephen Colbert were elected president,
Would he be required to stay in character for the entire eight years?

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

Walkin' After Midnight

Everyone wants to be your friend
When you are dead,

They'll come by the dozens
When your breath no longer rattles

To count the column images,

The placement of your picture,

And whether your were first or last

on the news that night.

Greatness will be thrust upon you:

Now that you are silent
And cannot shout back at your critics,

They'll identify your masterpiece,
The one they didn't pay you for,

And proclaim the incitefulness

Of their genius.

Would be better if they just sent money
When I was still around to enjoy it;

My tombstone does need the honors
Anymore that I do/did

(Please cross out the live verb

When appropriate).

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

nostalgia ain't what it used to be

In Front of Old Abe

In front of Abe Lincoln,

Standing in his shadow

Where tourists congregate

And the cameras flash and click,

A sea of voices a million strong,

Marching for love, crying out for peace,

Praying for a world

We thought we could change,

Middle class men and women,

Day laborers and factory workers,

Joined hand and hand

In the heart of our nation:

We were oh so much younger then.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

youth gangs have always been a problem

Maurauding Monkeys Kills Delhi Leader

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by.

One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques.

The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests.

But the problem has persisted.

Culling is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who revere the monkeys as a manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman, and often feed them bananas and peanuts.

Urban development around the city has also been blamed for destroying the monkeys' natural habitat.

This all sounds so vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

The first new xenerotica in years

The Last Warriors

Her hand,
Still calloused from the years spent
Fighting with her sword
And the long days atop her horse
Riding the plains of ancient Asia and Greece,
Hesitates,
Pauses before her lover's eagerness,
The distant memory of the trail,
Of gods, warlords, and the many kings,
A fading awareness of the many battles
Where their bonds first were bloodily forged,
Washes over her, recedes, overcome by the moment
and the desperate moans of the woman in her bed.
Time changes everything, comes unstuck once more,
As she slips inside her Gabrielle,
Filled with their hard won knowledge
That each new dawn will be better than the last.

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2007

I still have one last story to finish:

Xena is gray, Ares dead,
And the writer struggles to end what must be ended.

I need to force myself to continue towards the inevitable.

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes.
Life has no other discipline to impose,
if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from,
everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength,
if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

-- Henry Miller

(1891 - 1980)

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

from a cartoon

Beneath Starry Skies

We try to forget
We were shoved headfirst

Out through someone's bloody vagina,

Preferring to believe

That we all are far better angels

Than flesh and teeth allow.
God's image comes born
With hands and feet and eager mind

To reconstruct the garden
In ways unknown to heaven
Or any unbodied deity not driven

By the demands of death and lust.

We exist, therefore we are,
Unlocked from any blood bonds

With some distant, first moment creation;

These bones, this beating heart demand
We consider what the spirit may deny;

These ancient genes,
These careless chromosomes require
We give birth to life in painful exhilaration
Within the bounds of a cantankerous planet
That does not concede our existence
No matter how nicely we may ask.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

The Political Compass

The Political Compass suggests that, if you take their short test,

They can identify where you fall in the political spectrum

Have fun.

Go to Political Compass

For the record, I fell just about where I expected.

Your mileage may vary

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

Bad moon rising

Springs and Motives

This cold bone rain that stiffens knees and encourages hacking cough

To crumble this still too weary flesh

Lies across the weekend like some lame duck incompetent

Babbling he is still so very relevant.

This agonizing drizzle is not nearly enough

To overcome the years of drought and neglect,

This sudden interest in vague unstructured promises
Does nothing to end the raging fires or fill the reservoirs

Grown shallow with disinterest.

The damp, dripping, grin about the mouth November that promises
To coffin the dreary soul and draw our battered compass knee deep
In some grandly contested reefs, torments us
With an endless precession of perfect storm and forbidden seas
That threatens to open the flood waters.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2007

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

Come on
Lord you better run

Be a long dark night

Before this thing is done

-- John Fogarty
Long Dark Night

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

PEACE

__/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^

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.

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Comments (0) Add Comment