StarPoet Newsletter Vol. IX, No. XLVI

 

 

 

 

The reality is it was the men:
Soldiers killed and mocked him,
Robbers maligned him, Pilate condemned him,
The priests found him guilty of blasphemy;
His own man betrayed him, another denied him,
All them abandoned him and ran away,
Not understanding either his message or life,
His mission in Jerusalem to suffer and die.
A woman stood by him at the foot of the cross,
A woman anointed his body, prepared it for burial,
Only a woman stayed until the end and did not forsake him,
Only a woman first witnessed the empty tomb
And brought the word to the world and the male disciples
Who hid away from both cross and tomb in their safe room
-- Only a woman unfit to be either priest, apostle, or judge:
I give thanks to the infinite universe that has given me life
And not made me a rock, created me human and not a beast,
Free and not slave, and a woman not a frail makeshift man.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

back inside

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve checked and double checked
What passes for my memory,
Searched my body, bone to brain,
I’ve not found a feeling of almost dying,
Discovered no latent premonition
Or taste of death.

 

I don’t doubt I was there,
Balanced along the edge,
Drifting down the borderline
At the mercy of the wind;
Too many doctors told me
I was lucky to survive
--Though I suspect their skill
Had something to do with that.

 

But I can no more remember
My failure to die
Than I can being born
And my mother’s breast.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actual headline as it appeared in Random Acts

 

 

Election Day Eats Come Courtesy Of an Alexandria Good Samaritan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

counting down

 

 

 

 

 

Polio, jeep flip, airplane, and infection,
Not counting the black ice,
The tornado, or the gall bladder
And forgetting about the red Corvette
That came apart in front of me at eighty,
Miles per hour that is:

 

Some of this is luck,
Some of this is genes,
But most of this is determination
Not to die before I get old, really  old,
One hundred twenty five years old,
But mobile dagnabit!

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what must is

 

 

 

 

 

Forgetting to die,
I live,
Living, I breathe,
I love, I think,
Thinking I wonder
How death may be different
Than the quick unconsciousness
That untimed me
As I lay in the hospital
And find no reasonable answer
Other than finally
I will not wake,
First, last, and always.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Samantha Bee of the Daily Show

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more heat, please

 

 

 

 

 

My knees are cold,
Stiff,
Aching slowly
Whether moving or not.

 

The pain of the ages,
Low grade and constant,
A winter marker
Heralding the Solstice.

 

Searching for a door,
I count the days
Into summer.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

couching myself

 

 

 

 

 

Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,
Why did you leave so soon?
You could’av stuck around
To see what’s become of me.

 

My children never knew
Who grandpa really was,
We never talked about
What we needed to discuss.

 

We need to compare notes
How we were growing up,
What’s hidden in our past
That we both tried to avoid.

 

Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,
Why did you leave so soon?
There are so many things
Your daughter should have told you.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Wanda Sykes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the coming holiday

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey, our heritage,
Benjamin Franklin’s National Bird,
Cooked and stuffed
-- Cornbread, chestnuts and apples –
String beans, fresh cut and green,
Mashed below ground root vegetables,
Homemade gravy with innards and mushrooms,
Cardoon, breaded and fried, warm rolls, good wine,
Followed by coffee, pumpkin not pumpkin
And lemon meringue, hand made,
Cannoli with sweet ricotta,
And a thousand memories of family
Now distant in time.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the cusp of change, I tried to warn the world, knowing I would hurt people, destroy friendships, lose lovers, when I announced my sea change.  Revised from original publication, this is version 1.1.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ocean rises over me as I stand in waters already to my waist.
Each wave top seems to block out the sunlight as it rolls in over my head,
Cutting off my breath and pushing me back towards the shoreline
As it crashes around me. I stand firm, my body battered,
My lungs reaching for air, clinging to the hope that once it passes
I shall still be here as the ocean found me, poet and woman,
Sappho's child, slightly disheveled, the words still rushing through my veins
As I try to make sense of what the universe has given me.

 

I have loved, I love, and have been loved.
I have caused pain and undoubtedly will cause more.
I have been many things and I have been nothing
As I have pieced myself together. I have loved
And let people draw close.

 

There have been tears like a rain burst blurring out the windshield
In the midst of a sudden thunderstorm that rattles you to the bone
And sends cats scurrying to the safety of the underbed.
I have cried, I cry, and caused others to tears
As I have wandered my desert inconsistency.

 

Yet the ocean that crests above me will pass,
Tumbling me towards the sandy beach or pulling me under out to sea
To some brave new world filled with reality and not childish dreams.
I go where my current goes, whether it be
To some ragged cliff beneath the seabirds or
Some darkness only I will see.

 

A sea change comes over me, quickly now,
Changing everything and nothing, for the poet's still here
As lost as she’s ever been, a voice in the wilderness wandering
Between love and despair. I am who I have always been,
No closer now than I was when the journey began
But surer of my direction and who I am.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
September 2000
Revision of November 2008