StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XII, No. VI

I can be your girlfriend tonight
And demonstrate I possess
The whole bag of sweaty tricks;
These lips, these fingers,
This tongue that speaks so sweetly.

Buy me a drink, lets go have dinner,
And afterwards you can show me
The quality of your etchings,
I promise I will be quite
Enthusiastically impressed.

I lost her in the fog
To someone who could take her
To Candlestick and the Beatles
Last ever performance;
I was barely nineteen,
The ticket in the mid-twenties,
So much for true love,
First, always, and ever,
I couldn't compete with
John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Sharon is out,
I'm at the stove
Making sauce for pasta;
Cedar's waiting at the door,
While keeping track of me.
Dinner is several hours off
After the tomatoes simmer,
I'm busy alchemisting
The taste from ancient memory:
Not my mother's,
Not my grandmother's,
But definitely Sicilian
That Grandpa would approve.

Mid-morning in the passageway
From the parking lot to the street,
The smokey scent of barbeque drifts,
Catching the curiousity of well leashed dogs
And humans who didn't know they were
Quite this hungy.

Across the street, I am having my nails done,
Some state of the art bright OPI sparkle
And, afterwards, having a sensible salad
Back at Luna's for lunch. But I will dream
Of the smokey ribs I did not eat.

Where oh where did the snow storm go,
Where oh where is the ice?
When I went to bed,
I was worried 'bout the storm,
Now I got to get to work on time.

The schools are closed, the weathermen are on,
There's nothing sticking to the ground;
I'm half awake, sipping instant coffee,
I wanna go back to bed again.

Where oh where is The Century Storm?
Way up north in old New York,
New England's bad and Chicago's worse,
The Great Lakes suck but I'm down south.

Where oh where did the snow storm go,
Where oh where is all the ice?
When we went to sleep,
We were worried 'bout the storm,
Now we got to get up to work on time.

A good looking guy with a sexy body
Might sweep me off my feet,
And if he had money I might consider
A much longer term arrangement
Than just a drink.

But if he had no money and expected me
To go halvies on drinks and dinner,
I would just as soon go home alone
And spend the night with my vibrator.

Poor Billy the Kid is still guilty
Of trusting the governor of New Mexico:
Fool him once, shame on the governor,
Fool him twice, shame on poor Billy;

But at least we won't have to dig up
All those bodies in all those old graveyards
To see if the remains are really filled
With the lead from Billy's guns.

Hellfire, Damnation,
At least it will melt the snow,
If Jesus is coming a second time,
He's gonna need gloves and a warm coat;

And he should forget about those strappy sandals,
His toes will freeze and he'll sink to his knees
In this god damned icy snow that most probably
Won't be out of here until sometime next spring.

When did he say he had the Rapture planned?.

The pyramids are crumbling,
There are people in the streets,
Everywhere you look,
People marching to be free.

Let's pray for the Egyptians
And their moment of liberty,
May Lord Aten will
They be free at last.

As they came into the square,
Mubarak's mufti storm troopers,
We formed a human line,
Blocking them peacefully,
Pushing them back:
Then they ran at us,
Threw rocks, stones,
Picking up pieces of wood
That they swung at our heads.
They threw more rocks
And our people retreated,
As we came forward again,
They hid beside the Army's tanks
And threw more stones.

Atop a tank, a voice:
People, stop, stop, stop,
We can't behave like this
-- He is swarmed by men
Carrying signs supporting
Mubarak --

A cavalry of camels and horses
Ridden by men with whips
Enters stage left of the tanks.
We pulled some of them
Off the camels and it all
Returned to vague normality.
 
At Tahrir Square
A family crossing the street
Is met by a car full of women
Who get out and start
Throwing stones at the family
And harassing other people.
Peace was not maintained
Until we formed a human chain
Around the square
-- 300 people have died there.

As we leave the square,
Walking back to our home,
The thugs arrive on horses and camels,
Ride past loudly us cursing us;
They carry whips and weapons
Of all kinds: a 7 year old boy
Is wounded by stones which continue
To be thrown as Mubarak's men chant
That it is all the protesters' fault.

Thugs armed with machetes,
Straight razors, clubs and stones,
All with the same chants,
The same pro-Mubarak slogans,
The same hostility to reporters;
They continue to crack heads,
Chase out journalists, intimidate
Pro-democracy demonstrations,
Create a pretext for an
Even harsher crackdown.

It's well after dark,
Too dangerous to go out alone,
Mayhem and chaos
And the smell of civil war
-- More riders on horses and camels
Thunder through the central square;
In Talaat Harb, Mubarak's private guard
Wield rebar, knives, pliers and police batons,
Long sticks and even a meat cleaver.

A battle ranges on Champollion Street,
Young men haul a case of empty Pepsi bottles,
Tear rags, make Molotov cocktails;
Some of the thugs arrive by bus,
Some head to battle with their sticks or knives
Stuffed into their pants - a doctor wearing spectacles
Holds a club wrapped in electrical tape
And armored with tacks. 

Troops with bayonets fixed to their AK-47s
Fan out near the Egyptian museum where
Tut's treasures are kept; tanks maneuver
Into position between the two clashing crowds
As the soldiers attempt to calm them.
Can we walk safely down the street?
When can we go back to work? 
When will we be able to open our stores?
When can we walk our children to school?

The President of the United States,
Professing the comfort of his religion,
Sits safely within the walls of the White House,
Watches it all, receives daily upbriefings,
Chooses inaction once again rather than
Risk making a choice that might make him
Appear to be less than presidentially perfect.
If he were a Catholic he would understand
That in the eyes of God a sin of omission
Is just as grievous as any a president might commit.

The world explodes live on camera,
The heavens rain rock and stone,
Bottles and bones shatter as
Liquid fire flashes across the square;
The rumble of tank engine and track mixes
With the pop-pop-pop of rooftop snipers
And the quick sharp screams of targets
Staining the earth with their blood.

None of these bodies will be present
When the final decisions are made
And the politicians decide who will lead;
Democratic revolutions too often resolve
Into a Lenin or a Stalin who has no intention
Of sharing power with the bloody survivors
Who overthrew the previous government,
Those brave few who lend their bodies to the war
Seldom exhibit a talent for governance
Or the ability to provide food, water, and electricity
To those who only watched on their televisions.