StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XI, No. XXV

Crow on the rooftop,
 Shouting at the morning,
Poet on her feet,
 Moving towards the bus stop.

Two turtle doves perched high above,
 Their quiet cooing echoing loudly,
Summer sun slowly climbing,
 Still below the sunrise.

Last night's thunderstorms,
 Linger across the earth,
The air, clean and heavy,
 The grass, soft and soaked.

Young sunflowers, back from sunset,
 Turn to face the coming day,
Hungry birds fill the empty sky,
 Still damp from the evening rain.

Diet, fashion,
Food and boyfriends,
Houses, husbands,
Children, supper.

Periods, babies,
Breasts and The Pill,
Fathers, diapers,
Family, career.

Hair, weight,
Skin and stretch marks,
Soccer, softball,
School and birthdays.

Biology, physiology,
Anthropology and philosophy,
Folklore, customs,
Religion and mythology.

Yes I can.
Yes I will.
Yes I am.

I am just who I am,
Whoever you see in front of you,
The golden olive, sweet tongued poet,
A rich mix of Mediterranean and British Isles
Seasoned with the blood of the Five Nations.

I embrace who I am, an immigrant born
Of multiple generations of immigrants,
Indentured, enslaved, long oppressed by those
Who would conquer and defeat us,
An entity for which there is no name.

No one claims ownership over me,
No national border, no political party,
No ethnic or philosophical affiliaton
Commands my blood or biology
Or divides me from what I must be.

The world that exists, planet, sun,
Skin, eyes, lips, nose and flesh,
Constructs the ultimate reality from which
Even our bright galaxy cannot escape:
I am StarPoet until my dancing day.

My muse and I like to go out and play,
Filling our long afternoons
With wooden see-saws and Jungle Gyms
Until the moment slips upon us,
Our voices harmonize, drift apart,
And then recrystalize
Into some bit of antic verse
That only this morning was seemingly
Beyond our talent.
Evening finds us, arms and legs,
Tumbling ecstatically towards the dawn.

Soccer, soccer,
Bo-bokker,
Kickball, football,
World Cup soccer,
Of thee I sing.

The team is all,
The nation, everything,
Winning is the goal,
Individuals need not apply.

My country 'tis of thee,
Where is my liberty,
For thee we play.

How many people read Whitman
When he was still alive?
A hundred, a couple ten thousand?
Even less heard Sappho
When she performed in Mytilene.

I live in a world where everyone
Can read me, or no one at all,
And it all feels the same as if
I lived on that Greek island
Two millennia ago.

OMG  WTF
How can I have a cold
On top of all this bronchial crap?
Should I cough more,
Every second instead of minutes,
Or would the gods prefer my sinuses
Be somewhere else but my head?

Perhaps they would be happier
If the next time I sneeze,
I would surrender and quickly die;
This is the way the world ends:
A cough, a sniffle, and one last spasm
As you choke on your own bodily fluids
And slip, at last, into compliant unconsciousness.

Where have all the phonebooths gone,
So many ages ago?    They've become
Just another childhood memory
Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy,
A time travelling fantasy
Like The Doctor and George Carlin;
But for one brief moment of history,
They were the cusp of modern civilization,
Outposts of the information age
Manned 24-7 by reporters and Superman:
Gone gone gone like tumbleweeds
On the streets of Laredo.

Although in many ways
I am just another girl from the holler,
I have always been a fast learner,
An avid reader, an eager researcher;
Even if I have a tendency to give
Everyone the benefit of doubt,
I am not fooled for long
And the truth normally wins out.

A strong verile man, an overacting crossdresser,
Or even a  cute lesbian dominator,
eventually I will understand and deal with them,
To each according to his needs,
From each, according to mine.

I offer no promises, no off hand guarantees
Or fuzzy feel good alturisms,
I am who I am in every atom of my flesh,
Every synapse breathes my name:
I would be true to the holler
Long before I must needs be true to you.

I make myself up to feel good
-- You don't look at me
in my mirror each morning --
That men find me attractive,
How can I pretend that male attention
Is anything but a nice bonus
And flirtation, a species trait
I quite enjoy.

Oppression is not something
I have ever associated
With a growing warm feeling
Inside my body or the excitement
Of the proper pheromones
Circulating through my brain.

Everything else being equal,
And the hunger burning inside of me,
I would take a man to bed
As easily as I would a woman,
And afterwards, when we were spent,
Sleep in his strong arms in contentment
But wake but a few moments before him
To make sure of my breath and make-up.