StarPoet Newsletter Vol. X, No. XVI

Bright orange crescent in a blue gray sky,
Barely ahead of the yellow sunrise
Just fingering the fleeing darkness.

Pegasus and Andromeda
Clearly visibly in the morning,
M31 just beyond my naked eye.

A winter crispness on a late March day
As I wait, half asleep, for my star to rise.

One rider is reading Kings,
Another, Nora Roberts,
One is doing her iPOD thing,
One, the stock market.

Outside a thousand demonstrators,
Or a hundred, give or take,
March and chant around the building,
Down with war and hate.

There ain't no heroes left here inside,
No right, no left, no starry-eyed wonders;
There's only us who keep our word
And finish what we've promised.

I no longer seem to have panic attacks,
Only quiet nervousness in crowds
And the ever present reluctance to impose
My will on others except when I find myself
Having little other choice.

I am all too happy, however,
To read my books, write my poetry
And watch new and old movies on HD cable
(Not to mention House, Damages, and Galactica)
Rather than go out to a Karaoke bar.

When I am writing, the world is mine,
The universe trembles beneath my pen;
My notebooks would fill several shelves.
The digital record, a terrabyte or two;
Gone, I will not be forgotten,
Even if they can't remember my face.

Line of buses, red stoplights and flashing,
Passengers disgorging, queing for entry.
Guards with squad automatic weapons,
Terrorists with newspapers and brown bag lunches,
All of us well badged and busy
As commuters cross connections at the Pentagon,

Each one of us wondering
Who will be next in line
For their fifteen minutes of pain.

Fog, heavy gray saturate,
Paints the trees and backdrop
With childhood memories of
Bald Mountain and Sleepy Hollow,
Calling forth ancient nightmares
From when we made our homes
In smoky caves and still older treetops
And could only watch what the gods
Might do to us.

A simpler time, a purer time
Before knowledge replaced ignorance
And our own hand, the will
Of the once all powerful gods.

Errol Flynn,
Slim, slightly swishy,
A gorgeously sexy gunslinger
Product of the studio system,
A cattle baron shootist
Walking the streets of San Antone
Searching for the rustlers
Who snatched his long horns
And capturing both heroine and poet
With his smile.

The rustlers are no match
For Flynn's fists and forty-four,
Women, even less so
When alone with him at night;
He could dance, he could fight,
He could fill his bed with a glance,
A single well-armed look
That he didn't learn at the studio
But opened any door or breathing woman.

I know I must have travelled with Odysseus,
Given him comfort when the days were long;
Held Caesar in my arms the night before the Ides,
Stood by Antony while the funeral pyre
Burned Caesar's sins away, leaving only the god
That history judges while I still linger
With the memory of his flesh inside me.

I am drawn to greatness,
A poet captured by her muse,
Warriors and lead guitarists,
Generals and centerfielders
And inevitably fall after them,
Filling their empty nights
With my body and sweet words.

Now I am engaged in still another long relationship,
Married to a woman who rivals all I have ever known;
Her presence sparks my poetry to greater heights,
Reminds me of all those I have loved and lost,
Each day finds me by her side, wife and partner,
And, each night, her lover until we both depart.

Frank Capra, Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert,
Everything you ever need to know
About men and women and that thing we call love,
As opposed to the lust and sex
Which we all too readily learn for ourselves
By the time we finish growing.

All women, at sometime in our lives,
Are spoiled heiresses; I, myself, am a Mafia Princess
(Not to be confused with a Jewish American one).
All the men are struggling reporters,
On the make, however polite, as they look
For their next big story, their next big score.

All the world's a stage, our roles partially scripted
By genes and DNA, hormones and sexual configurations
That find us participating in an ancient dance
Designed to reproduce what passes for our human species,
A jitterbug performed by a sometimes foolhardy beast with
Two backs and numerous other appendages, tongues, and fingers.

A cute smile, a good body, a witty conversation
And the right pheromones often bed us before we are ready
To commit to something more substantial
That our parents and our gods might approve of;
The journey, however, is oft times more fun and interesting
Than our ultimate government sanctioned destination.

I spent my whole life chasing rainbows,
Catching up with one only to find another
Just out of reach, taunting me to continue.

I run, then I run faster,
Unwilling to surrender to the inevitable
While my heart still beats and there are questions
That need answers and people to meet.

As long as the music still sways me
When spring training beckons, I will come
And see if I can still hit the good fastball.

Wind howling in the darkness,
Shadows dancing off the walls,
Trees swaying in middle night
Backlit by a security light.

North of our bedroom, a thunderstorm rages,
Branches crack, power lines fall;
Safely inside the Old Dominion,
We snuggle closer, discussing Botswana.