StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XI, No. XLVIII

Candy waits to fill the large bowl
Children's faces still hours away,
But I can remember my first trick or treat,
I'm three or four and my father took me out
While my younger brother watched with my mother
From inside the front door of a post-war rambler.

I think I was a skeleton back when
Halloween was still meant to be spooky,
When the world was still safe enough
For red candied apples, popcorn balls,
And warm from the oven homemade cookies.

I would have preferred to be a princess,
Snow White or Cinderella,  a ballerina
Like my neighbor or even Annie Oakley
(Especially Annie Oakley) but then we were
Barely making middle class (not that I knew)
And my mother watched the pennies
That my father worked hard to earn.

Moon, Orion, Sirius, cold,
A frost post-pumpkin,
A chill to the bone.
November, December,
Damp and drizzly,
Spring will come when
Solstice has gone.

Amelia has been dead
Seven decades and more
And exists only as a creature
Of myth and fading film clips:
The woman who would fly
Is barely known at all,
The carefully cultivated aviatrix,
The perfect feminist avatar,
Has o'erwelmed the actual flesh
Of the girl from the Kansas flatland
Who would chart her great
And arduous adventures
Around the bloody demands
Of a healthy female body.

Those of us born with names ending in vowels
-- Faraci, Egbuna, Mercouri and Padilla --
Know we will never be truly accepted,
As long as we live in this dusky flesh,
Except when it suits the people of uncolour
And they allow us to momentarily pass among them.

The mafia made it unfashionable to refer to my olive skin,
The Cubans loudly rebel against white bread bigotry
That would join them with Mexico and South America,
Only misguided arrogance would think the peoples
Of India and the Arabia less white than you and I;
Liberal people of uncolor would best find better things to do
Than spend their dwindling days deciding for the rest of us
What color our skin might best be named.

In the snow of the February Sierras,
I wander meters above the covered earth
Where the Big Trees anchor their shallow roots;
The Sequoia bends up and over me
As I gingerly touch the dark thick bark,
Noting any signs of ancient fire,
That one a century or more ago,
The next, before Christ was born;
I am alone among my thoughts and the grove,
The snowpack having done its job,
To contemplate the mystery of my Big Trees
And the time before my people found them.

I seem to have been out of pocket
The day that the whole earth ended;
I missed the Second Coming,
The fires and the earthquakes
That must have occured when I
Was focused elsewhere.

Now it seems I'm stuck in the station,
The train has moved out and left me
To deal with what's left of spacetime
And all that other stuff that stays behind.

Ain't nobody going to take souvenirs
When I'm through with this aging carcass,
They can have a glass of Jameson or Maker's Mark
And sing sixties' rock and roll at my wake
(In four part harmony if you please)
While my husk returns to ashes in the fire pit.

A pain have I, behind the right eye,
That drains from my aching flesh
Everything except my sinuses:
Vision, energy, any sharpness of focus
I would possess now driven out
By coiling lethargy. Would I have it otherwise
But that must wait until I wake from this
Sinking morass I now find myself.

Kanye playing in my ear phones,
The turkey downstairs in the fridge,
Kids are on their way, Border Collie waiting,
Here we go moving once more to Solstice,
Thirty days off, heralding the coming winter.

God bless ye all merry gentlemen,
But the women are working in the kitchen,
Cooking Thanksgiving, Solstice, and Christmas,
Preparing all your bowl game snacks,
Bringing you another beer when you ask.

All the family is back in the kitchen,
Slicing pie, whipping cream, drinking coffee,
Talking about the children and the grands,
Exchanging folk remedies that might cure cramps,
Planning who will host the next holiday.

It ain't no use to duck and cover, darling,
It won't help you anyhow,
There's no where for you to run to, babe,
The earth won't hide you anymore.
When the bombs begin to fall

And the heavens rock and roll,
You'd better learn the half life
Of cesium one three seven
And ways to protect yourself
From the strontium nine oh.

Koreas, Iran, Pakistan, and India,
Israel, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom,
China, the United States, and perhaps
The Taliban and Al Qaeda.

woooooooooooohaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ka-Boom Ka-Boom Ka-Boom