StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XII, No. XXVIII

The interstate is lined with suicidal office workers
Inchworming their way home in the fading sunlight;
Some cars are filled with upwardly mobile congressmen
Twittering their power fantasies to the masses;
Others by working mothers struggling to reach
Their after school children by dinner time.
We are an ornery, if not combative, driving mix,
Anxious to get off the highway and into our houses,
Tired, depressingly repetitive daily commuters
Stuck in a sixty hour blackberry filled treadmill
That shows every sign of becoming much, much longer:
If we were armed someone would pay.

Is her awareness of everything
  On the battlefield,
The twisted, tortured backstory
That colors our existence,
The excitement of new love,
The comfort and satisfaction
  Of the pair bond,
The pain and loss when death breaks
The bond's casual immediacy,
The beauty of night descending
Across the Sacramento Valley,
The quiet majesty of the Milky Way
High above the Rockies.

A poet must feel the breath
Of the universe upon her face,
Lay gently back in love's embrace,
Acknowledge fiercely her own mortality,
Weep freely that we know we must die;

A poet must write for ages not her own,
For generations to come,
For poets who have come before;
For all the planets we have not yet named,
And first and lastly for herself
As her father has more sweetly said
On many a more prominent global stage
Than those ever addressed
By our everliving starry poet.

Hot and Sour Soup,
Mud in your eye,
A combination pizza
And a good red wine.

Egg rolls and canoli,
Dumplings and ravioli,
Shell fish and eggplant,
Mushrooms and calimari.

Sauces and fillings,
Peppers and garlic,
You'd think the Chinese
Had dark olive skin.

When the bell rings,
When the day ends,
We all sit at the table
With our families and friends.

Girls learn early, guys lie,
Love, sex, it's all the same,
Eager words, sweetly given,
Then quickly into our panties,
One good fuck at a time.

Somewhere between
The angry anxious motorists
And the gatling toting guards,
The crazy jihad terrorists
And my own lingering ennui,
The improbable demands of work
And the artificial constraints,

Life goes on, family exists,
I find breath and magic
In the universe around me,
The promise of humanity
Despite our human tendencies,
The promise of a sunrise
and a chance to live another day.