StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. XXIII

When you give aid to the enemy,
When you harbor Red Coats in your home,
Provide medical care to Confederate assassins,
Or allow terrorists to shelter in your neighborhood,
You transform yourself from innocent collateral damage
To legitimate targets for bullets and drones,
The very same transformation the German people made
Before the Allies bombed them in World War II,
Or Atlanta and Richmond and rest of the traitors
Who took arms again the Union In the American Civil War.
The friend of my enemy is my enemy,
No questions asked.

There are sleeper cells in the schoolyard,
Terrorists waiting in the teacher's lounge,
There are jihadists driving taxicabs,
Fundamentalists in the cubicle beside you.

There are preachers out to make it rich,
Rabbits running in the ditch,
So many people you must watch out for,
So many unsubs walking after you.

What's a poor girl ever supposed to do
When she's grown too old to rock and roll,
I rather be watching baseball on the cable
Than fighting off dragons and bandersnatch.

There are walruses eating your refrigerator,
Eggmen working hard on new poisons,
The taxman shares your house with the mortgage,
Armageddon comes due next Monday..

Sometimes I read Whitman and he seems,
In all that matters, to share my voice,
Given the advances of science;
We both speak fluent American
With a Century of change between us,
But at the core, I am Walt
Rather than Allen, or Frost, or whoever
Is current in the big city;
Walt and I share sweet William Shakespeare
And a fondness for Melville, Lincoln, and
King James - Sappho is mine only it would seem
And Walt's affection for young boyfriends
Remains his and his alone. 

— Lisa Jain Thompson (June 2012)

We all carry the reminders
Of the battles we have fought,
Emotional scars, physical traumas,
Ancient wounds still bleeding
After decades have passed.

Who am I to say
Your damage is worse than mine
Or that a leg
Unwilling surrendered across the wire
Inflicts more pain
That a father assaulting his child?

A child does not choose her parents
Or volunteer to be raped;
Almost always, physical pain is passing,
To some degree, lessening over time:
The brain is instantaneous and everlasting,
No matter how much expertise
A therapist might claim.

We survive our nightmares only by believing
That in a few hours the sun will rise
And, when we open our eyes,
A new morning will have arrived
With our mind and body whole once again.

If I could choose, I would rather have polio
Or break my back on some icy Pocono road
Than have the memory of my innocence
Being ripped out of me by the one person
Who was supposed to protect me.

When we were younger, Springsteen was better,
He's so different now and changed
And tends to saunter instead of run:
What the fuck is wrong?

Bruce plays and he plays and still he plays
But my heart remains calm, my pulse is steady,
As for strapping my hands across his engine,
I suspect his pubic hair is gray down there
And the freedom of the road is something
He writes about from memory.

Aw Ma, he used to be so much better
But now even his blood ambles cold:
We applaud him for our ancient youth
And all the moments now lost in time
When Bruce was everything.

Hundreds slaughtered in Syria,
The President says we must talk,
Children dying, pregnant women,
The President prefers we talk.

Nazis roll free into Poland,
Chamberlain says we must talk,
Bombs exploding, Hebrews dying,
The Left still wants us to talk.

Iran is building nuclear warheads,
The President still wants to talk,
China's launching a world-wide navy,
The Left says no, we should talk.

Flee the Cloister,
Depart the Order,
The Prior has sons
He keeps as servants.

What's the point
Of prayer and fasting
If it leaves you unfit
When the devil comes tempting?

Proceed side shuffle,
A wearing weave,
This is not about your God,
Or my God or any God at all.

All Italia

All Italia est rocking,
The Earth must rattle and roll,
Between earthquakes and volcanoes,
Italy is determined,
Eutruscan, Roman, or Italiano.
If you are loking for a steady date,
Italia puella non est tua.