Starpoet Newsletter Vol. IX, No. XV

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Geek Proverb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two baseball games in the National's new ballpark this week has put me behind in the count.   This all might feel a little strange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When sex was young,
And my innocence newly found,
My body trembled
In touching anticipation
And my mind carefully weighed
The demarkation between
Venal and more grevious sins.

Love was still unknown,
A  rumor learned from books
And careful admonition
By the sisters and priests,
Leavened by whispered speculations
Of inexperience and eagerness
Offered knowingly by my girlfriends.

 

 

Somehow we survived 
All that nonsense while growing up,
Roman Catholic and Muslim
And even deep Southern Baptist,
We learned what was needed
To be strong independent women,
Confident and well knowing who we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a trifle bite.  I hope you have eaten.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mussels, Focaccia, Octopus salad,
Garlic herbal bread crumbs and Parmigiano-Reggiano,
Chickpeas with olives and potatoes,
Sautéed dandelion greens and chocolate hazelnut cookies;

 

 

Pasta pasta pasta, olive oil on tomato,
Flatbread stuffed with prosciutto and cheese,
Asparagus, peas, and basil,
A bottle of Sangiovese, a moonlit night, and thee,

 

 

And possibly a half dozen other hungry mouths.

 

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) After a number of injections my   jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

 

 

On the other hand, we have Shakespeare, not to mention Starpoet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A touch of reality 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blood rushes through the lane,
Rising waters flooding the landscape,
Staining the day for all of history
And rivaling Thermopylae for the bravery
Of men called to do what must be done
If their homeland would survive.

 

 

The dying seeded the farmland with their lives,
Sanctifying the battle space with their sacrifice,
A single day, too many dead,
What will we remember and make of this?

 

 

There are not enough poppies in the world
To ease the pain of those who survive,
Or those who stay behind and wait
For that last fearful knock on their door.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Joanna Field

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

vaguely pretentious 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dark elves grow eager
With their tales of ancient powers,
A world before civilization cluttered
The natural order of the cosmos.

 

 

Men and women, fathers and mothers,
Primeval earth has been disrupted;
Male and female, the structure of society,
Challenged, disordered, and corrupted.

 

 

The Lord of Light, the Gods of Darkness
Battle for control of nations,
Pushing the women safely to the sidelines
While the men think they determine the outcome.

 

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this has been hanging around a while

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cell phones are primed,
The text is ready,
Wait to cast their votes
For the next American
Most vilified president
Since W 

 

 

Clinton
Carter
Nixon
And Roosevelt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Wendy Lieberman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jeremiahing

 

 

 

 

The Far Side of Jericho

In this war between the forces
Of testosterone encrusted revelation
And the rights of women,
The women will always lose
As long as scripture holds sway
And the men, down deep,
Believe women are inferior
And not enslaved by
Male dominated tradition.

 

 

Little chance of change
Unless God is driven from his heavens
And we certainly know
Where Christianity and the Pope
Stand on that.

 

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
April 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Theda Bara

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silent Sea of Faces, The Unbared Heads

 

 

 

… I give you my sprig of lilac.
          Walt Whitman

 

 

 

I was barely fifteen that morning
When the principal came on the intercom to announce
That President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas,
That he died from his wounds and we should pray
For his soul, for our country, and for us.

 

 

I spent the rest of the week at home,
Watching television like everyone else,
Going over and over the motorcade,
Crying at the photo of blood splattered Jackie,
Grieving over what we had become.

 

 

That Sunday I was at our black and white screen,
Waiting for a glimpse of Oswald moving through the jail,
Being stunned when Jack Ruby gunned him down
In the custody of the cowboy hated Dallas police
Before the eyes of nation searching for answers.

 

 

Later that Sunday, our young president’s
Flag-draped closed casket lay in the Capitol
As we watched the endless line of mourners
Who needed to say farewell, to connect
One final time with their dead, lifeless president:

 

The caisson drawn in slow procession
Carrying his flag-covered mahogany casket
Past 300,000 faces, past parallel rows of soldiers
Bearing the flags of the fifty states, the muffled drums
The clacking of the horse’s hooves down Pennsylvania.

 

 

On Monday the long station from the rotunda
To Saint Patricks, lead by the Black Watch’s pipers,
A million people along the funeral’s route,
Millions more watching on television at home,
A nation united in our sorrow:

 

 

The casket carried down the cathedral steps,
Jackie whispering to her children, John-John’s salute,
The final caisson moving past the Lincoln Memorial,
Slowly working its way to Arlington where The President
Would be put to rest, where his widow lit the flame.

 

I learned to put away the things of my childhood,
To quit remembering the moment when we all realize
That we were no longer children, when we learned that life
Was not necessarily fair and that tomorrow was a promise
That would not withstand a single, well-placed  bullet.

 

 

When almost I was twenty in nineteen sixty-eight,
The world was alive and Viet Nam was at its peak,
I was in my second year, neither counter or straight,
Friends with Black Panthers and drug dealers,
Fraternities, Hippies, and business administration majors.

 

 

The night before the television broke the news from Memphis,
Reverend King was dead, a rifle shot, blood on the deck,
Bobby on the streets of Detroit: What kind of nation are we?
Say a prayer for our country, say a prayer for our understanding,
How can we tame this savageness within us all?

 

 

Early the next morning, in the cafeteria, one of the Panthers
Jumped up on the football team’s  table and demanded
Donations to the party, donations to feed black children,
Then went table to table throughout the cafeteria
Asking for donations for the cause.

 

 

By late morning, we were all marching down J street
To hear Willie Brown speak on the steps of the Capitol;
As we filled the street and stretched for a mile,
We noticed the FBI taking photos from the corners
And the car lots with all the hoods opened wide.

 

 

That night the nation watched our cities go up in flames
As frustration and racial anger raged uncontrolled;
White politicians made carefully crafted pronouncements,
Black ones called for reason and calm when only bullets
Seemed to make any difference or get notice.

 

 

We tried to hold it together, the election promised change,
Kennedy in the White House, Johnson back on his ranch,
We thought we had a chance to make everything so much better
If only we could defeat Humphrey, stop Nixon in November,
There was still a chance to make the world gentle once again.

 

 

I was working for Bobby, beating Humphrey in California,
Watching his victory speech from the Ambassador Hotel,
The last words I heard him speak, On to Chicago!,
A wave, a smile, a hug from Ethel, then down the stage,
Through the tunnel to the assassin lurking in the kitchen.

 

 

Kennedy’s been shot! The Senator’s been shot!
Bobby’s been shot and the nightmare continued ,
I watched for the next few hours, until I knew
I would hear him again, even as I held false hope
That some miracle would raise him from his death bed.

 

 

The night offered no sleep or mediation as I lay awake
Before the flickering light from the television,
Searing into my mind the picture of Bobby spread eagle
Across the bloody floor of the kitchen, rosary in his hand,
As real today as these words I speak.

 

 

The next morning I flunked a semester final,
Unable to see the relevance of Victorian literature;
The next night I went to a girl friend’s birthday,
Getting well numb on shots of Courvoisier
While Bobby breathed his last in Los Angeles.

 

 

We brought Bobby back home across the heartland,
A funeral train extending from west to east,
In the small towns and the cities, we all came out
To line the tracks and be with Bobby once last time
Before he was laid to rest beside his brother.

 

 

I was not yet twenty and everyone I knew was dead,
Richard Nixon was working his way to the presidency,
The war would drag on for another seven endless years:
I was lost and drifting, well within myself and detached,  
Not re-emerging until many more decades had passed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

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