StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. V

It is easy to paint a man,
But rather hard to paint a god
Or an annoyingly competent poet,
Quantum cats are notoriously hard to see,
And, ever more so, understand.

There are things that my body simply cannot do,
I've made my peace with the boundaries
Outside of which my flesh will not operate
And have accepted my frustration with my
Physical limitations.

The universe was not designed with me in mind,
No matter how long I may live within it.
I cannot fly.  I cannot play centerfield.
I cannot live forever but I would like to try
Without this limp and without the pain
Of all these constant migraines.

Then again, I could be dead.

My throat fills with soreness,
My inner ear feels tight and stuffed,
My cough defies both meds and syrup
At doses less than sleeping;
I struggle to maintain wakefulness
As I calibrate the slow tick of spacetime:
I cough, I weeze, therefore I am.

— Lisa Jain Thompson (January 2012)

I'm floating post-Christmas,
Post-New Years, in and out
Of cyclical depression;
The skies are too dark,
The days, too short,
My memories are long dead
And my body doesn't cooperate;
All I can do is ride it out,
All alone in the center
Of the Universe.

Jumpin' Jehosaphat,
It's colder than a witch's tit,
Joan Crawford's coat hanger,
Nancy Pelosi's progressive wit,
You'd think it was January
Instead of December 26th.

Another two weeks, there will be puppies
-- Not here, on the documentary,
From whenever it might be shot --
But it's such a grand sentence,
I wanted to use it -- but this poem
Refuses to cooperate --
The sentence sits as a singularity
Atop a pile of recursive bramble.

The scent of a puppy
Is vanilla and cinnamon,
Warm cookies in the oven,
Christmas morning, Thanksgiving,
Or a baby fresh from birth
-- Our children must smell the same
To them, in doggy terms, of course --
A border collie protects babies,
Both human and otherwise,
As their own.

I had an Irish Setter puppy
Who smelled like puppies do;
At six weeks he looked like
An oddly colored cocker spaniel,
At six months he was all legs,
Head and tail and would run
For hours for the joy of it;
As headstrong as he was,
My children were his, to have
And to hold, and protect against
The threat of animals, cars,
Or passing strangers.

Our border collie, who was
Several years old when I met him
And already a champion herder,
Had a stroke last year and now walks
With a limping stagger he has adapted
To resemble his natural weyr;
He no longer smells like a puppy
But I would trust my life to him:
His instincts are much stronger
Than mine ever are.

There is another history of which I cannot speak,
I have seen its shadows, glimpses of light,
Enough to assemble the unpublic details of what was,
At the very least, a very visible operation.

Many have written, described the events,
Assumed that what was seen was what occurred,
That the words that were recorded were the words
That knew the meaning of people, events, and places.

They look but do hear, they listen but do not see,
The world is not nearly as obvious as we
Might wish it to be; what I know will follow me
And scatter with my ashes back into starstuff.

His Horse is Crazy

Curly light haired and fair skinned,
Crazy Horse, a great Ogallala warrior,
Conqueror of the Seventh Cavalry
At the Battle of Little Big Horn,
A whisper in the shadows
Of the White Man's history,
Blood relative to my distant ancestors.