StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XII, No. XLIV

Wave to the ghoulies,
Shout out to the horseman,
The fiery gates of hell
Are open wide tonight.

Hold on to your soul,
Close your eyes if you dare,
Within the fog and cold shadows
Restless spirits rise.

The bus arrives before the sunrise,
Much to our half-asleep surprise,
We expect a glimpse of sunlight
Before slipping into our Metro tunnels
Or badging ourselves into the Pentagon,
Not that any of us would be any brighter
Before our morning coffees.

The lightning drifts north around us,
Rattling our windows and bodies,
A passing storm, a rain-filled light show,
Life beneath the clouds on Planet Earth
Thirteen billion years after starshine began,
Fifteen or twenty billion before the fires go out
And darkness falls once more across the void.

I tumbled across Elvis Presley
Trading licks on a corner in Memphis,
Chuck Berry was laying down Johnny B. Goode,
Carl and Jerry were singing back-up,
Brian Wilson was watching from the drive-in,
Bobby Dylan was taking notes,
I was listening all eyes and new hormones,
Rock and roll was in my veins.

Growing up in the Fifties under the thumb of the Church,
The restrictions of societal expectations governed
Our music, our thoughts and our associations,
We knew where the boundaries were when we broke them,
And knew if we told our parents all hell
Would shower down upon us in the form of policemen
Who preferred Glen Miller and Tommy Dorsey
To the backbeat and vocal stylings of Little Richard.

Europe doesn't like England,
England doesn't like Europe
And Ireland doesn't like
Either very much;
Europe is a fable
Constructed by the Romans
And supported by the Americans
For a half-century post war.

Now, the barbarians
Are breaking back into their tribes,
Different languages, different customs,
Racism, Nationalism, and adolescent egotism
Replacing the Roman walls with hatred and distrust.

No one survives to stop Europe's slow slide
Back into the dark ages and worse:
The Church is gone,
The Soviets are gone,
And the Chinese and the Americans
No longer care.

Move him into the sun
So I can see his face more clearly,
That I may kiss his lips one last time
So that the whole world must now admit
That the child inside me is his;
We did not live a lie when he was alive,
We will not live one now that he is dead,
No matter what Peter might say or think.

He was a man, I am a woman,
What could be more natural than the pair bond
Between two of us who loved one another?  
God has blessed me to carry on his bloodline:
In six months time, I shall give birth to a child,
The son or daughter of my dead husband,
And carry on as women must when their men
Have slipped the bonds of family and earth.

The Good, The Bad, and the Moist


I won't burn your fingers
When you try to touch the goods,
And if you wait for the dust to settle,
I'll be long gone down the road.

I'm not your lovely wife,
I'm not your trophy girlfriend,
But here we are alone tonight
And both of us are lonesome.

Let's get on with it, shall we,
Or are you one who needs the light off?
Come on, big boy, show me what you've got
And for god's sake, turn off your cell phone.