StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. XIX

Opening day, the banners are flying,
All the pennants are yet to be;
Strasburg's on the mound, as close to perfection
As ever I'll likely see.

The sod is new, the Kid's in Triple A,
The future is close, if not yet here;
The team is ready, the old guard ages,
Tomorrow begins this afternoon.

A Division, then a League
And eventually a World Series,
Each step carefully planned and taken;
Four or five all stars,
Possibly three Hall of Famers,
We're going to make Walter Johnson proud.

John Winston, I miss you,
Your wit, your songs,
Your boorish, clowning behavior;
What would you have shared
At fifty and sixty if a bullet
Hadn't ended your life?

Would you have grown soft
Like Sir Paul and Slow Hand,
Toured like Ringo
With the help of your friends;
Hosted a talk show on cable T.V.,
Occupy Wall Street or demand
To see their plan?

I read the news today, John Winston,
Nothing seems to have changed very much,
We're still counting holes and chanting slogans
And the Jester's grown old and safe.

I still keep the faith and love a backbeat
And a hot wailling sax can do so much,
But I closer to my Diamond than the Sixties
And no one gives a damn anymore.

There were a lot of IEDs today,
Our mistakes, their bodies,
Legs and arms dismembered,
Skulls fractured and sewn together,
Spouses and family dutifully beside them
-- These are the survivors, the lucky ones,
Who will refight their final battles
Over the remainder of their lives
While the stay-at-homes, the non-participants,
Expertly pontificate on the true cost of war.

— Lisa Jain Thompson (May 2012)

Gosh it's hard to watch them
Wheeling past us on a Friday,
We applaud them as wounded warriors,
Watch them walk past us on metal legs,
Count the fingers left on their hands
As we cheer them on and an Army band
Plays God Bless America.

The Great Mass of the Dead
Plays out across the universe,
The Day of Wrath awaits us all;
Our inconstant sun will someday die,
Taking Earth and mankind into oblivion.

We may well survive on some other gaudy planet,
A New Earth whose valleys fill with our descendents;
They will know our planet from myth and fable,
The cradle of humanity, the source of the genome,
But we, Homo Sapiens, shall be no more,
Bundled in history like the Neandertal, a source
Of endless speculation and carefully composed submissions
That no one but professors ever read.

Robins, Mockingbirds,
Sparrows and Cardinals,
All the birds of spring
Are in the air.
Two red foxes,
Returning to the lake,
Pause to turn and stare
As the poet and her dog
Pretend not to notice
And continue on their way.

The sky is overcast,
The air is warm,
Tornadoes in the midland,
Baseball in D.C.

I'm on the metro,
Searching for the stadium,
Curly W's everywhere,
The Nats are in first place..

Before Sunrise

National Airport,
Cathedral and Monument on the horizon,
The rush of metro, starting, stopping,
The grumble of commuters inbound to work.
Monday morning before sunrise.