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Newsflash:

Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VII, No. XLIII

Sunday, 22 October 2006 06:49 Last Updated on Sunday, 22 October 2006 08:26

The

Starpoet

Newsletter

Vol VII, No. XLIII

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I have been away,

Teaching my lyrics at Lycea:

A week

A month

A year since I've seen you,
What is so important

That you won't visit?

Who is she?

Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2006

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I am in the middle of a month long class -- death by PowerPoint as they say -- five days a week, seven hours a day, one week down, three to go.

Life goes on in the moments pausing between the slides.

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a feeling for destination while still on the journey

The Direction of the Leaf

I remember everything,
Forgetting only what I need
To stop the pain.

So many among the missing
That it sometimes seems
Only I alone remain.

I would go on forever,

Knowing that I won't;

I would not cause more pain.

Knowing that I can't.

Life goes on,
With or without me,

I go on,

A leaving floating towards the sea.

An unknown ocean awaits me
Somewhere downstream.

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006

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a bit of Sappho

Nobility

Your nobility

Would become you
If not for what it covered

You cannot hide

Your pain from me

Or the love you deny exists

Lisa Jain Thompson
October 2006

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Contemporary speech is as loaded
with reference and allusion as any other,
possibly more so;
the fact that the allusions are to tabloid headlines
or what happened on Buffy last night
doesn't change that.

-- John M. Ford

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The current predicament is the outcome of three missteps:

a major strategic blunder by President Bush

(who refused to negotiate with the North Koreans
when they were practically begging for talks
and their course was still easily reversible);

an only slightly less gigantic blunder
by Chinese President Hu Jintao
(who thought he could bring the North Koreans

in line with minimal arm-twisting);

and severe miscalculations, from start to finish,
by Kim Jong-il
(who thought Washington
would have leapt at negotiations by now
and who, apparently,
didn't think his nuclear test
would cause quite such excitement).

So, here we are.
The two major powers in this confrontation
are led by blunderers;
the provocateur is a chronic miscalculator.

It doesn't look good.

-- Fred Kaplan

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outside the class

Lunch

Enough of a chill

To numb the hands,

Diminishing the fun

Of squirrel watching:

Bushy tailed rat
With good PR
Scurrying between trees

Gathering acorns.

Leaves still on trees,

No snow in sight;

Poet separate

From the smokers

Collected by the gazebo.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2006

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outside but inside

In the Car

Sitting in the car,

Listening to the radio

And watching the rain
Wash down my windshield,

Each impact crater

Merging into flow.

I work my way

Through lunch hour,

Ending with the apple,

Reducing it to core.

The rain continues long after

I am back inside for class,

Wishing I were still out
Where the rain would drench me.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2006

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The Hypocrisy of the Religious Right

Mr. Foley has had illicit sex
with no one that we know of,
and the whole thing turned out
to be what some people
are now saying was a

-- sort of a joke by the boy

and some of the other pages.

-- James Dobson
Founder of Focus on The Family

&
ardent supporter of Republicans

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science and human nature

Fermi's Question

They're out there,
Concealing themselves perfectly,

Taking no risks,

Waiting to attack

Without mercy or warning.

Little green men,

Bug eyed monsters,

Unobstrusive librarians

Lurking quietly along the edges,

Watching, should we ever

Decide to leave this system.

When we do,

They'll be there

To maintain
Their peacful existence

And the quarantine fences

They've wrapped around us.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2006

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continuing the thread

Orphaned in Spacetime

Suppose we have it wrong,

Suppose God is not outside the Universe
But resides within it,

Subject to its physical laws,

The nagging processes that disorder us?

Finding himself dying,
He creates us, his children,
To carry on,

Jesus and Buddha and the rest
His deathbed gasp

Showing us the way to godhood.

Knowing his leaving was inevitable,

He left us our birthright, his blessing,

In our primate brains

And the direction of the arrow

So we may continue his work

After he has gone.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2006

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Garbage in the Gulf,

Ours and theirs,
One ships and explosives,

The other raw sewarge,

Both equally effective

At killing the earth.

LJT

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People are not paying to see Barbra Streisand.

They are paying to feel young again,

like the age they were

when they first dug Barbra.

And that is worth the price of the ticket.

-- Gene Weingarten

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navel gazing, but not too hard

Ponder This

If I stopped to ponder

All the eyes of the world,

I would be frozen rigid

Into place;

Unable to speak a word,

My muse would die,

And I, this fragile poet,

With her,

Silent for all time.

Eternity will come

Far too soon enough

Without me

Speeding its arrival.

Lisa Jain Thompson

October 2006

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As long as the beating of women is acceptable in Islam,
the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists and others
who espouse violence will not go away;
to me, they form part of a continuum.

-- Asra Q. Nomani

Standing Alone:
An American Woman's Struggle
for the Soul of Islam

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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full circle

The Chill

The chill blows through

This cotton dress

That clings to my breasts

And hips.

My heart has stopped

Quick frozen
By the words