StarPoet Newsletter Vol. X, No. XXXV

We all knew it was inevitable,
Teddy is gone, our conscience has died,
Taken by cancer instead of a bullet,
The last tarnished knight of Camelot;

The other brother, the nice one,
Without John's sexual charisma
Or Bobby's vicious steel,
The one who seemed destined
To survive the troubles of the sixties

Until the incident at Chappaquiddick
Caught both Senator and chippie
In its dark rushing  waters
And washed Ted free
Of his brothers' destiny.

Teddy was not Bobby,
Ted was not Jack,
The fates did not proclaim him
The one would lead us;

Four decades later,
It is hard to remember
When all the world thought
He might be the one.

Mamma Mia!
True Blood,
High Plains Drifter,
Gimme Gimme Gimme
A man after midnight.

I don't even need one with brains
If he's only willing to stay the night
And all of his parts are working
-- I'll take a talented swordsman anytime.

My cunt is on fire
With Bronson, Moyer and Eastwood;
A smile, a fang, a gun, I don't care,
Just give me a few hours
Of undivided attention
And I'll be happy come morning
To cook him breakfast or whatever.

Dogs and beggars, scraps and offal,
Shifting in the shadows of the alleyways,
A bitter knife whose sharp blade seeps
Life's blood dispassionately on the streets

Where proper ladies seldom notice,
As they go upon their proper ways,
The dissonance between their best intentions
And the broken promises on the sidewalks.

If you're asking me if I'm saved,
I will tell you that's between him and me,
And I only have a clue and he might not exist,
So all of this speculation is tiring to say the least.

If some god wants me for some secret mission,
I can be bought if he takes the time to reach me,
But if some preacher wants to sell hellfire and brimstone,
He can take his pious certainty and shove it up his ass.

So if you're wondering if I am saved,
Chill out, in time enough we'll both know.

His heathen fingers understand beauty,
Tracing the shadows on my breasts
And soft stomach, even as he sketches me;
Taking the profits and losses should he continue.
Truth and beauty, beauty and truth,
How easy for the poet to write
When the muse's loins are not burning
With immorality.

Sitting by the window in my room,
My beauty fragile in the harsh morning light,
I watch his body, dark flesh against the white sheets,
Until his manhood rises like the sun
And the sitting begins again.

I have captured a comet by its tail,
A new star rising across the starways
In my journey through time and heaven;
My words flare up in incandescent glory,
Consuming the night in burnished clarity,
That trails great breaths of fire and light.
I fall towards morning, my soul unfurling,
Petal by petal, ember by ember, along infinity:
Sappho's child still, slightly more disheveled.

I love the sound of the loon in the morning,
His high pitched barking
As Sunday coffee's being made,
It's the sound of breakfast,
The smell of eggs and beacon slowly frying
And enchiladas warming in the oven
As the orange juice is being poured
And the talking heads do their thing
On the Sunday morning television screen.

This is my religion, my songs of songs,
The sharing of bread and fresh coffee
With the one you love,
The gathering of family
Around food and conversation,
A dog lying patiently at your feet,
Waiting for the egg he knows will come
When he too shares our Sunday breakfast.

Princess, prisoner, queen and virgin,
Elizabeth Regina rises above her century
Like some ancient goddess set on restoring
Olympus to its rightful place and majesty.

More powerful than the Pope,
More victorious than Spain,
She endured both Church and Spanish,
Ruler and Mother of empire and poet.

I was born a princess
-- West Coast Sicilian Mafia --
And learned what was expected
By my position and my blood.
I was the best little girl I could be
And, given the chance,
I suspect I would have produced
Several vagina fulls of oohs and ahs,
Generations and grand generations
Of family for Sunday dinner.

But fate would not have me thus,
So these few handful poems must suffice,
Where god and nature do not cooperate,
Man and woman must best decide.

Down by the river, up past Auburn,
I knew a turn in the American
Where the waters slow
And the shoreline is wide enough
For a half dozen couples
To hold lazy summer picnics:
The girls supplied the sandwiches,
The boys, the car and gas,
And both of us worked on dessert
As we lay out on the Sierra foothills..