StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XI, No. XXXII

Yellow-gold clouds along the horizon,
A gray humid haze carpeting the air,
Morning drips with warm discomfort
As a storm moves east from Shenandoah.

A young blonde woman wearing a red car
Slips by the bus stop, shouting hello
Through her rolled down window:  Am I
Her mother, her sister, a coworker perhaps?
I haven't a clue who she might be.

The bus ride proves uneventful, the passengers,
Semi-willing with a veneer of anticipation,
And some would say, close to semi-consciousness;
We race unimpeded down through the HOV lanes,
Passing single drivers semi-stalled in the traffic.

I would swallow you, lip and lip,
Bear your babies, sons and daughters,
Hold you in the darkness when memory rages,
Bury you when you decide to go.

I would be wife and lover,
Mother to our children,
Your poet, friend, and confidant,
Until the sun forgets to rise.

So love me and marry us,
The Commonwealth's no need to know,
And we'll be gone long before
They come to arrest our hearts.

I don't want no stupid demonstrations,
No loud obnoxious, no garish face paint,
No signs, no obscenities, no chanting
Slogans or catch phrase epithets.
Give me a congressmen
Who when bought, stays bought,
And I will move the world.

 I weep for the Baby Jeus
 Who grew up to be the Nazarene;
 He never claimed to be The Christ,
 Only a man who opposed the Empire
 And paid the price free speakers pay
 When they wander in from the Wilderness
 Demanding that everything and every one
 Genuflect before their wisdom.
 Mama never said change was easy.

A tooth root going bad
Has an interesting way
Of focusing your attention,
Slowing each second
Until time becomes
A single sharp pain
Throbbing in your head;
Your only friends are aspirin,
Warm compresses and codeine,
But most of all, sleep
Until the dentist arrives.

Did you ever find yourself yelling
"Do me again, Papa Smurf,"
Eager for his bright blue manhood
To ravish you yet again?
If not, why not; Is it his blueness
That's the problem?  Why should that
Stop you from climaxing in pleasure?
Is there some other color that rings your
Personal bell; or do you find it distracting
To make love to someone that short and that old?

A part of me would be young again,
Starting my family, having my babies;
A part of me would not surrender
Who I am now, all that I know.
If I could start again, start over
Without undoing everyone and everything,
I still have no wish to redo the long days
When life was unsure and I was caught up
In the slow growing drift that ends up with me,
Fully aware and conscious of my childhood,
My adolescence and young adulthood
And each and every ache and scar,
When it occurred, what I learned,
My body now carries.

Sometimes the gods bless us,
And sometimes, like nature,
They grow angry and violent,
Destroying our bodies stone by stone,
Shattering flesh in slow, gnashing rips,
Heart, lungs, synapse and bone,
Until the world grows tired
And spits us out.  I would object
But the universe little cares
And the gods are ancient promises
On pages of agéd text grown fragile
With our passage through time.

Four killed in clash over a tree at border,
Nine shot, ten dead in Connecticut.
Six teens drown in Louisiana river
The Plague kills 1, infects 31 in Peru

Gaga talks fans and sex and coke with Vanity Fair,
Chelsea serves guests gluten-free wedding cake,
HarperCollins reveals cover for a new Palin book
The Washington Post sells Newsweek to Harman Media

Plagiarism Lines Blur for Digital Students,
Tokyo's oldest person goes missing,
Bad Russian harvest boosts U. S. farmers,
Tropical Storm Colin forms in the Atlantic.

But spray-on deodorant gives frostbite to a teen
Lohan will need new habits after rehab,
The Yankees fall into a tie with the Rays.
Free bumper mars iPhone's lust-worthy design.

When Maude came to America,
Sharon was still quite young,
Gonne to Gaughan, rebel to rebel,
The death coach drawing close to one,
Decades distant for the other.

Maude,  the civilized, old world woman,
Wore dawn russet pink and light sky blue,
Sharon, whatever was proper for small children;
Neither was armed as the saber passed,
One free state revolutionary to the next.

Perhaps Maude saw the poet in Sharon's future,
Perhaps she remembered the one in her past,
But at that moment the four of us linked
And our worlds would never be the same.