StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XII, No. XXI

Saturday, 21 May 2011 22:00 Last Updated on Saturday, 21 May 2011 21:42

The StarPoet Newsletter
Vol. XII, No. XXI (May 22, 2011 C.E.)

Three weeks into May, we have rain. Even numbered days, odd numbered days, we have rain. Thunderstorms early evening until 1 a.m. The word for world is wet. Also damp and swampy.

Come Evening
Come Thunderstorms
Come to my bed
Make me come

Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2011 C.E.


I do poems by the dozens, the daughter Whitman never wanted, our lives filled with war.

Happy Birthday Bobby
The School Bus Disgorges
The school bus disgorges a preschooled pack Of small gun-carrying carbon-based life forms Shouting that people born in Hawaii Aren't citizens of the United States And all men are created equal to all women But never the reverse while the media debates Whether Hitler actual loved his dog And the current status of Snooki's weight The world is alive with the sound of opportunity, Filled up the kazoo with werewolves and vampires And other self-conscious bumps that devour the soul; The circus train no longer pulls out of town, Clowns and fools run wild, half naked aerialists Leap from one red carpet to the next Expecting the center ring focus on them exclusively While TCM plays hunch backs and Bette Davis As Cinderella performs on IMAX 3-D And desolation row sniffs drainpipes in China. Shakespeare's in some alley making videos He wants to put up tomorrow on You Tube, GaGa's in her dressing room preparing, Working on her make-up and her shoes As proper folk singers still sing earnestly Inside their smokeless coffee houses Sipping their cocoa cappuccinos And skinny cinnamon dolce lattes While they discuss the need for Social re-engineering and who might have Set the fire out there on main street. Meanwhile back in Old Town, The bricks lay out just fine, The bar where Washington slept and drank Is now a piece of noveau cuisine To seduce the tourists and their money, Kilted bagpipes proceed down King Street, Flags and children waving from the sidewalk As American fighter jets from Bolling Roar overhead and a president gives another Great performance while standing on his head To the delight of the jugglers playing Electric violin on the street corner.
— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. -- Albert Einstein

a bit of starpoet
The Focus of Creation
But not dolphins or chimpanzees Or little green men? I have nothing in common With so narrow a savior; I could not worship Such a parsimonius creator When a hundred billion planets And counting are available For life to begin its long slow trek Back to the stars that made us.
Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

morning weather
Drowsy As I Am
Drowsy am I, asleep on my feet, Along with most everyone Drifting away in their seats. Heavy humid air envelops our morning While tornado warninsg go on all around us; Tomorrow might well be all spring and sunshine, But today is most definitely funnel clouds.
— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

The name “theory of relativity” is connected with the fact that motion from the point of view of possible experience always appears as the relative motion of one object with respect to another ... Motion is never observable as “motion with respect to space” or, as it has been expressed, “absolute motion”. -- Albert Einstein

weather morning
Thunderstorm Done
There's a creek in the crick this morning, Thunderstorm's done its job. The run is running four fathoms deep, The earth is quite wet and swampy. The mist is curling out of the valley, The sun rises brightly at the edge, Morning brings a warm spring day, Afternoon, the threat of duckpins.
Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.	-- Albert Einstein

weather weather
Winglights
Winglights north from Dulles, Skirting the coming thunderheads, Others hard banking from National Immediately after take-off. Air gathering humidity, The sky heavy with disaster, Rain, cloudbursts in the offing, Something for everyone tonight!
Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

the problem with spacetime
Linearing the Timeline
I don't remember being dead at all, So I assume I haven't been, And I don't remember not being born, So the past might well be fiction. As for the future I can see no proof Tomorrow might really exist, Each time I attempt to reach hereafter, Space remains hunkered in the now.
-- Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line. -- Oscar Levant

generations
Dwelling Place and Destination
We were young, We were blooded, The moon would be ours With the decade; It was a golden age, A time of great adventure, We though we knew the world And Mars would soon be next; A comet burned no brighter Than the sum of our possibilities, The earth was our well appointed playground, The stars would be our destination, Then spacetime shrugged, And life moved on, Opportunity was replaced by children, Starships by off road vehicles; One war ended, the next began, Presidents came and presidents went, Our sons and daughters Passed through their colleges, Found jobs where they could, And started families of their own. The moon was gone, Mars, a distant reality We may not live to see, And still I burn, Caught in the bright moment That consumes me.
Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

two for one
A Bit of the Previous Present
1. February 2002 This all grows quit erratic, Words and events twist around me, Consuming me, sapping my energy, Making the act of design a weight upon me. I change, I grow, I remain the same, Life goes on and I wander through it, Pushing aside the fog, drying myself In the spaces between the rain drops. I am more myself than ever. I am Sappho and Will and Lucy on the plains. I am the first breath taken on Mars, The first footstep tentatively set On the fourth planet of a distant star. I scattered myself Within the cosmic radiation Glowing in the background. I am well. I am Alive. I love and am loved. So it goes. Consumed by the moment until the end, Holding the Universe inside me, Screaming to be let out. 2. January 2002 My life is in a swirl, Caught up in great winds and mists That carry me forward From this moment to the next. Some nights I am here, Some I am not: I float on stars and comets, Casting my net for laser brightness To form my words. Sometimes the muse is silent, The net empty. Sometimes the winds blow Away from shore. I sail on. I am an eater of words, A transluminal warrior woman Who drifts across the heavens Seeking life and love In equal measure. I know nothing. I know everything. If you turn me towards the sky You can feel the rhythm of the oceans That pulsate between the stars. It has always been so: We stood upright in Africa, Raised our heads at the full ripe moon As it lifted above the forest canopy, Howling "why"? Answered By a whisper. My name is Lisa Jain, A poet by my trade, The earth is my birthplace, The stars my destination.
— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

Schizophrenia beats dining alone. -- Oscar Levant

so it goes
Ouzo or Chianti
Perhaps I should drink ouzo In starlit discos overlooking the Aegean, Or serve pasta and chianti to my boyfriend Every Sunday at my father's villa; I would not sleep alone by choice Or have the child of some passing lover, I am not the Virgin or a $10 whore: LIfe is not nearly long enough To be all things to all men.
— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)

for Mr. Zimmerman
When The Tornado Comes In In an hour a tornado comes in, The house will shake, The trees will bend, The sky will be broken and torn, The hail will fall And the wind will roar, The hour the tornado comes in. The hour that the tornado comes in, The birds will hide, The dogs will bark, The windows will shudder and rattle, The lightning will flow And the earth will tremble, The hour the tornado comes in. The hour that the tornado comes in, Buildings will collapse And oak trees shatter, Sirens will wail out their warning, Fires will burn wild, And homes will be broken, The hour the tornado comes in.
— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2011)
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt too. -- Oscar Levant


Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1948-2011. Back issues are in the Newsletter Section of the StarPoet website. Visit my contact page and get in touch.