Starpoet Newsletter Vol. IX, No. XXIX

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2008 C. E.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Yip Gorney, Jay Harburg
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
1932

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

payback is hell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My final wish, if they find me,
Is take them out;
If hell and all of heaven
Should stand in your way,
Take them out.

 

They will have no claim to mercy,
No lawyers rationalization or pretense,
If and when they come for me;
The rules need no longer apply,
The battle is ours to win or lose.

 

Once dead,
I want them all to join me,
Slowly, publicly,
One by bloody one,
Torn and shattered,

 

Until they vanish from the book of days
And the fabric of the universe,
Now and evermore,
And then, and only then,
I set you free from our vows.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just another summer weekend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At twenty miles an hour,
The storm is still hours away,
Drifting east and south,
Pushing thunderstorms towards D. C.

 

Gusts of forty, threats of violence,
The evening’s passing will be int’resting,
The barbeque will get started early
So we’ll watch the fireworks well fed.

 

If the power don’t go,
And the trees don’t break,
Tomorrow we’ll be workin’
To pay for Sunday’s steaks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Yip Gorney, Jay Harburg
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
1932

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a memory, a fable, fact or fiction?
The names have not been changed
To protect the innocent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can see him in my eye
Coming down on me.

 

Sometimes he is a young Eastwood,
Sometimes a wandering Masai;
He’s hardly ever Abraham Lincoln
And never, ever, George W. Bush.

 

Looking back, I wish Skip had taken me
Back in school in Sacramento.
I still remember the feel
Of his deep chocolate skin
And the scent of his flesh close to mine.

 

He should have been my first
And, I’m certain, if I had asked
– If he had known –
We would have worked something out
That would have pleased us both
Without endangering our friendship.

 

As it is, time passed
Without a proper chance
To ever share our young bodies
And see how much we could love
Or how long.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

John and I,
Having met in Grade One,
Were barely legal and very drunk
When we left his brother’s open bar wedding.
John drove and I sat beside him,
Riding shotgun,  watching for cops
And any security fences that might suddenly
Jump in the way of his careful driving.
I found myself fighting my desire
To slide across the car seat close to him,
To close my eyes, my head on his shoulder
As if my body were somehow transformed
Thirty years before the sea change
Without need of a surgeon’s skills or explanation.
I think I told him where wish was driving me,
My drunk led need to become myself,
But I may have whispered,
He may have pretended not to hear
(Our Catholic bonds still held us firm).
-- Anyway, what would Skip have said
If he had learned that John was first?

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Yip Gorney, Jay Harburg
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
1932 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve read Shakespeare’s sonnets and found
Some of them quite brilliant, of course,
But most are only quite workmanlike,
Done for money and favor, set and rote.

 

Will didn’t have the luxury of an academic pension
To carefully consider how best to curry favor;
He wrote to put food on his table and clothes on his back
And, if he were lucky, still have some for family and old age.

 

As not everything a poet writes is worth the ink and paper,
I am certain Will would have been even more proliferate
If he only had had access to word processing and the internet,
All of which would now be digitally authenticated.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Yip Gorney, Jay Harburg
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
1932

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

time bent in upon itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

My older brother is dead,
Gone before he had a chance to know me.

 

How might I have been different
If I had not been treated as first born,
Or, at the very least, Version 1.1?

 

Who might I have been
With an older brother to protect me?

 

How may I be born
Without my parents wanting a son?

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-- Yip Gorney, Jay Harburg
Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
1932

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My neighbor drove a bread truck,
My neighbor sold insurance,
My neighbor was a milkman
When I was five, or six, or seven.

 

My neighbor was a teacher,
My neighbor worked at home,
My neighbor raised a family
In the nineteen forty fifties.

 

My neighbor marched off to war again,
My neighbor came marching home,
My neighbor wore shiny bright lipstick
Beneath an endless skyway.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woody

 

 

by Woody Guthrie

 

 

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

 

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

 

I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

 

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

 

As I was walkin'  -  I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side  .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

 

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

 

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fading out gently

 

 

 

 

 

I use words as well as Barack Obama,
But I do not run for President;
My ethnic heritage is equally stirred,
But I do not run for President.

 

My patriotic credentials are still impeccable,
But I do not run for President;
And my age is growing equally rushmoric,
But I do not run for President.

 

I owe nothing at all to my constituents,
I have made no promises to break;
I’m not left, nor right, nor even the middle,
I’m only a common citizen

 

Who dislikes the taste of modern politics
And would not run for President.

 

 

Lisa Jain Thompson
July 2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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