StarPoet Newsletter Vol. X, No. XXIII

How was I to know
That murder could smell like honeysuckle,
That a smile and a soft voice
Would end up coiled around my neck
Sucking blood from a mainline artery?

We are all young once and naïve,
Buying all those fables we are told
About princes and midnight fancy balls,
Fairy godmothers and talking crickets
Who lead us eventually to our destiny.

It took me decades to realize
My own naïvety, to understand
That not every prince is ever perfect
And not everyone who wakes you with a kiss
Does so with with snow white intentions.

If I tried to figure out all the tricks
That were pulled on me, I would never sleep,
Never open my eyes to all these possibilities
Around and inside me; but I awoke, at last,
A warrior poet woman embracing the world
She was born to.

If Sicilian women are more dangerous than shotguns
-- And who am I to disagree with three thousand years
        of masculine philosophy --
That might explain why Sicillian men keep the traditional
        family business to themselves;
Not that I would be particularly good at cops and Italians,
Even the less overt methods still common to this day.
Undoubtedly I would be too curious, not to mention too lippy,
Far too good at piecing bits and pieces into a coherent meal
For them to ever let me wander too far from the family home
-- My liberty would be circumscribed by certain rules, as would my life,
Not quite a civilian and the wrong gender to be a soldier.
I would have to promise to not notice, and what I noticed,
Not remember; a good daughter, a good wife who did not ask
Too many questions of her men or ever wonder
Where we got the money to pay for the house she lived in,
    The schools their children went to,
Or the cars they drove each Sunday back and forth to church.

If god can't speak his words in my language,
How much of a god can he actually be?
That he can't provide his revelation directly in English,
Unable apparently to even identify the best translation,
Forces an impartial reader to conclude that god must be,
At best, somewhat less than totally omniscient and all powerful,
And certainly not living up to his billing in any of his infomercials.

My god wrote down the laws of physics then set a universe
That obeys those rules in motion through space and time
From the Big Bang to whatever lies at the end of all this
When the stars grow dim and darkness shrouds the void
Where a billion bright galaxies once filled the heavens
-- But then my god doesn't have much use for english either,
Preferring the calculus and the higher maths explain his handiwork.

A matched pair low
Beneath clear skies into the sunrise,
An early morning start to a day's long journey
To more norther nesting grounds for their family.

A scatter of birds
Assemblying into formation,
Out en masse to find better feeding
Somewhere among the tidewater.

The stay-at-homes chatter
From the invisibility of the treeline,
Preferring the home they know
Over a chance of something better.

Singing Roy Orbison, hitting the high notes,
Tears melting down my cheeks,
Crying along with another poet,
Leaving our hearts on the page.

I can do Orbison, I can do Sappho,
I can do Morrison and Whitman,
But most of all I can do Starpoet
Better than anyone who has lived.

Sunning myself in the center court yard,
Watching the tour groups go past,
Middle school kids, a high school group,
"You could fit the Capitol building inside."

Every ten minutes from nine to four,
The young military guides strut their stuff,
Young girls agoggle, all hormones and giggle,
"The largest  uncovered, no salute in CONUS."

Military protocol prevents me from wond'ring
What happens to young girls post tour
When they sneak out on their parents
And go over to Fort Meyers
Where dozens of cute soldiers stand waiting.

If I were to pretend I were a true believer,
I would be a bell clanging in the forest,
A clamorous brass filled with candles and incense,
All public spectacle and righteous proclamation.

If I were to meet a god face to face,
Asking me to bow or bend my knee,
I would challenge his authority to create
This half-made universe filled with disease,
Pestilence, and starving children.

This is not a universe I would create,
A randomly violent cosmos where
All things slowly, inevitably die;
I would not ask for worship and adoration
Without first taking responsiblity
For my failure of imagination and presenting
My list of proposed engineering changes.

Everyone knows, chicks dig vampries,
Blood and fangs and lust and sex
Without the need to afterwards confess
That you ravaged body and commandments.

The classic bad boy, unsafe at any speed,
No one you'd dare introduce to father;
But for a weekend incandescence, a handful of years,
Someone you could thouroughly unsettle down with.

There is time enough and more
To choose the good father of your children,
Motherhood will always be available
In some eternal afterlife, fully drained
Of all possible dangers and indiscretions.

Early kd, still a big boned girl,
Hinting at Patsy and something else
That she keeps hid inside her.

A Canadian sensibility by way of Nashville,
Traditional country western common bonded
As seen through the L Word's eyes.

Looking back, it's obvious,
But at the time, she just look awkward
In a dress without her cowboy hat.