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poems, mine and McCrae's, Shakespeare's, and Whitman's as the day requires. |
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| remember |
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Arlington Cemetery |
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In Arlington the bodies lie,
Heroes from our many wars;
They served, for someone must,
Some survived but some returned
Flag draped upon their caissons.
All are buried here in Arlington,
The men and women of the Services;
Their tombstones rise on rolling hills
Overlooking the Potomac and Washington
Where their Commander in Chief resides.
One life is not worth more than any other,
One soul is not more glorious than the rest;
We are all equal under our Constitution
And die willingly to defend our freedom:
Private, captain, admiral, and president. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (Memorial Day 2010) |
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Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave.
-- Muhammad |
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our fates |
| The Sword |
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The sword slips deep,
Severing vessels and arteries,
Slowly draining my life;
It's all a matter of time, afterall,
Whether today
Or ten years down the road,
Somewhere, sometime,
A sword will stab my heart
Thus ending me. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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| only onward |
| The Current Year |
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The current year is the current year
No matter how far back you go;
Even if you remember all you did,
Yesterday's a thousand years ago.
Trees grow taller, grass browns and greens,
The flowers die and are replaced,
Rivers flood, wells go dry,
All recalled in a moment's passing. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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St. Crispin's Day
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
-- William Shakespeare, Henry V |
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| doing Blake |
| Spider |
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Spider, spider, spinning bright,
What artist taught you webistry?
What silky master passed her craft
That you might now amaze me?
What future magic will you possess
Building upon evolution's wit?
I would be here, a silent watcher,
But time refuses to keep me. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
-- Thucydides |
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| humbly, starpoet |
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Night Fall |
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I will not be here when the Universe ends,
Nor will the Earth nor even our sun;
No human species will watch our planet die,
Sapiens itself will be distantly extinct
And hopefully Homo Astralicus
Will be evolving somewhere out among the stars
On planets not yet identified.
Worlds and stars may sometime die,
But humankind will sail the galaxies
From the Milky Way to Andromeda
As night slowly falls over eternity. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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| starpoet quietly burns |
| Scorpions |
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Night falls in every direction
As far as time can be;
Star by star throughout eternity,
The universe burns with flesh and eyes
Defiantly withstanding the inevitable.
Planet by planet, world by world,
What breathes will not surrender;
Each galaxy fills with brain and blood
Struggling to succeed: sister by sister,
Brother by brother, we will not go easily.
Time passes, moment by moment,
Atoms collapse, return to starstuff,
The fires cool, the light grows dull,
Sun by sun, spacetime dies,
Taking us all to our oblivion. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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Dirge for Two Veterans
1
The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,
On the pavement here—and there beyond, it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.
2
Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.
3
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles;
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
4
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring;
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
5
For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and father, dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.
6
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive;
And the day-light o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
7
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d;
(’Tis some mother’s large, transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)
8
O strong dead-march, you please me!
O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.
9
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music;
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
-- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass |
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| observed on Mother's Day |
| Mother and Child |
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Mother and child, a modern Madonna,
Sit on the grass watching the water flow by;
Bundled against the shiver breeze,
They stay unshaded in bright sun,
Warm wherever the wind doesn't blow,
Too chill to laugh but not so cold
As not to smile at the well feathered ducks
Floating down the eight mile run. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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| on the commute |
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Boyfriends and Other Disasters |
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Black girl, Asian girl,
All American women,
Well made up and fashionably dressed,
Riding the metro,
Comparing boyfriends, disasters,
Crosstalking across the train aisle
As they review notes from cosmetology class.
Early morning finds them energized,
Full of youth and animation,
A sharp contrasts from middle age commuters
Sleepwalking their way to work,
Listening discretely to the conversation
Rather than reading the daily repetition
Of the overnight news. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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True bravery is shown by performing without witness what one might be capable of doing before all the world.
-- François de la Rochefoucauld |
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| about poets |
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Life Among The Sculpture |
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A sculpter of words and emotion,
The poet creates what already exists
Buried unnoticed in our humanity.
To do other than what is
Would make her no more than an academic,
A server of day thoughts and arcane philosophies.
A comet of infinite magnitude,
The poet falls sunward through endless night
Until, at last, she burns no more. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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in the world |
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The Contention |
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As long as my lungs have drawn earth's air,
I have lived under the threat of nuclear war;
First the Soviets, then China and the Terrorists,
Have played out their mushroom games in the papers,
On T. V. newscasts, and the internet.
Nothing changes. One day a mideast blowheart
Threatens to destroy the great American Satan;
The next, a Korean madman demands we all surrender.
A part of me no longer cares or worries who will survive,
My patience grows thin, my body more tired,
My finger edges closer to the one final reply
That will give us eternal peace.
The rockets are primed, the submarines stand ready,
Our will, long untested, stands firm;
For God, for Country, for Democracy and our Freedom,
We here, at last, draw the line
And the war begins. |
| — Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2010) |
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In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD
Canadian Army
December 8, 1915 |
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| Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1948-2010. Back issues are in the Newsletter Section of the StarPoet website. Visit my contact page and get in touch. |
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