StarPoet Newsletter Vol. X, No. LII

I would get real if I knew where reality was, but every which way I turn seems to be still another trip through the looking glass, complete with Munchkins, splendidly doctorated, and performance artists doing Rockette kicks as the girl singer checks his mascara in the monitor.

Meanwhile, back out on the highway, the taxi driver, who looks suspiciously like a movie star I thought was dead, wants a couple hundred dollar bills before he will show me the way to get myself back to Kansas.

I shake my head and continue walking north by northwest until I stumble over George Washington's nose and fall heel over head into the rear seat of a space shuttle dusting crops on its way back from near earth orbit.

Life, as it calendars by,
Must be grabbed and shaken loose
From the endless tedium of rise and set;
If we are to be more than genes and molecules,
We must step across the precipice edge
And dare the world to make us fall.
I cast myself upon the universe
To leave my footprints along a star-filled sea.

Down, down, the white stuff came,
Inch by inch covering the waiting world;
The interstates and airports are shut and closed,
The shopping malls empty of desperate shoppers.

The Christmas season is on hiatus
The last hurried weekend before the holiday,
The shepherds huddled with their sheep and herd dogs,
The manger's piled high with snow.

A three foot drift fast seals our back door,
Embargoing both yard and patio,
In front, our feet sink six inches deep,
Puzzling the curious border collie.

Outside a Christmas card slowly assembles
As evergreens grow heavy with the season;
Inside we huddle, hot chocolate in our hand,
Our cold hearts full of childlike wonder.

A threadbare Santa
Stands in the corner of the subway,
Playing old bluesy carols on his trumpet;
Almost all the harried crowd,
Rushing home on Christmas Eve,
Ignores the slender man in red and white.

All thoughts are on their families,
The friends and relatives coming over,
Wondering if the ice storm
Will arrive in time for Midnight Mass
Or early Christmas morning
When everyone's safe and warm.

No one one will rest until the
Last gaudy papered box is unwrapped
And the last ribbon carefully set aside
To be used on next year's Christmas gifts,
No adult will relax until much later that night
After all the children are finally back in bed.

Cry me the story of Nelson Mandela,
Twenty-seven years in a South African prison,
Who forgave his jailers when he won his freedom,
And tore down the barbed walls of Afrikaner apartheid
As President of the country, leader of his nation,
A man, like Washington, who refuses to rule in perpetuity,
A man like any other with a fondness for World Cup Rugby,
A rebel who learned that character wins more hearts than arms.

Cocktail waitress, pancake-house,
A lingerie model and a couple porn stars,
A talking head, a long legged blond,
Any young woman in the storm
After the golf course is done and won.

A married man, a billion dollars,
Available women at his beck and command,
A wife, two childred safe at home
While Tiger prowls his fans
For goodlooking cooperation.

Loneliness, insecurity, perpetual narcissism,
A man for all seasons running through women
With his wealth, with his fame,
With his big wide camera ready grin,
Defending his public persona as a matter of course.

A hungry Tiger, unrestrained and unconcerned
Until the spotlight shifted to his afterhours pursuits
And all the king's men and all the king's reporters
Started re-evaluating his once formidable spokesmanship
And the vast vaults of money they were giving him..

Here come the new year lickety split,
A point on earth's orbit in our slide around the sun,
A moment in time between the beginning and the end,
A turn of the calendar, a change of number,
A chance to start over come the dawn of a new morning.

Guy Lombardo always bored me,
Dick Clark, bless his soul, gave me hope;
When Johnny was live, New Year's was best,
But now its just an excuse to drink the bubbly,
Kiss some men, perhaps some women,
Then get back quickly to the safety of home
Before all the drunks start hitting the road.

When you're alone and by yourself
On New Year's Eve, on New Year's Eve,
All the music and all the champagne
Can't fill the emptiness inside of you
As midnight finds you passing another year
Watching the ball descend on the couples
Partying en masse in Time's Square.

Let us pretend a new year exists,
That calendars have meaning,
That years really end,

Page after page, month after month,
World after world
The whole wide universe around:

A Happy New Year! 'Til time intrudes
And life goes on and dinner must be found
Once again and always evermore.