Good George Bush

(Sung to the tune of "Good King Wenceslaus")

Good George Bush, our president, has led this land to ruin.
If with this you disagree, it's only you you're foolin'.
Katrina hit the poor Gulf Coast and George was full of feelings,
But in the wake of that great storm, the people still are reeling.

Waterboards and wire taps, his modus operandi,
A Presidential power grab while our Congress stands by.
Let's all rejoice this Christmas time, his term will soon expire.
He'll be back in Crawford soon; his cronies we will fire.

- James D. Starkey

Los Cabos

There is a gap
in the roped-off beach
at Villa del Palmar

Where brown skinned vendors
in tattered hats
display their wares

Henna tattoos that last two weeks
cowboy hats in pink and blue
heavy cases strung with silverish strands

The rhythm of their language
seems to mock
the tanning gringoes in their chairs

You have to squeeze
your way through
to make it to the beach

And burning time-share owners
on their way to cool off
are careful to avoid those bark brown eyes

That's what the guide books say:
"Vendors can be annoying;
just ignore them as you pass."

It's hard to do

They sit there on their knees
while college boys boast of last night's drunken score
and fat retirees plan this evening's fun.

-James D. Starkey

Breasts and Catechisms

Circumstances first began chipping away at my innocence during a Catholic Youth Organization field trip, and there wasn't a priest in sight. It was Frances McGraw who was the agent of my descent into mortal sin.

She looked a lot like you would expect someone named Frances McGraw to look. She was one of those unfortunate seventh grade girls whose breasts developed long before her classmates'. Seventh grade girls back then were supposed to be skinny, athletic, and flat chested. Frances was none of these. But to my junior high eyes her breasts were things of wonder. I would catch myself staring at them, mouth agape, when the rest of the class was working on long division or parsing particularly knotty sentences. I dreamed about them at night, not quite sure what one was supposed to do with breasts, but somehow aware of their significance. The boys in class had a joke about Frances. We didn't know how she was going to die, but we were sure it would not be by drowning.

She, of course, wore glasses perched on a too big nose and even at thirteen the traces of a mustache showed faintly on her upper lip. Her glasses were pink things with pointy frames like a cat's eyes. Her dad was a rancher in Estes Park, a real outdoorsman, and Frances took after him. She had her own horse and often wore cowboy boots. And she wore Austrian sweaters, the kind with tightly knit wool still greasy with lanolin and patterned with a series of pine trees or deer parading across her chest. I was always expecting her to yodel or go off like Heidi, looking for her grandfather.

In spite of her physical attributes, or because of them, she was a wonderful girl, always laughing and fun to be around. She was also the class brain and a star in our weekly catechism class in the basement of Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church. She and I shared the star role in CYO. I was the head altar boy and she was president of the youth group. Rest assured, we both knew our catechism.

"Who made you?"

"God made me."

"Why did God make you?"

"God made me to know, love, and serve Him in this world and the next," we would trumpet back in unison.

I used to go to her ranch and we would go riding together. We spent one whole day in sixth grade riding up and down Fish Creek casting for brookies and talking about school and church and friends. As much as it was possible for a twelve year old boy and girl, we were best friends.

But then the CYO started taking field trips to Denver to see movies, or to go bowling at Celebrity Lanes, or to visit a museum. And the field trips took place on a bus. And the bus had a back seat. And the ride back up to Estes was long and dark. I noticed on one trip back from a showing of "The Robe" at the Denham Theater, Mike Kleineider and Carol Landis sat in the back of the bus and made out. The sponsors for that trip, ironically Mike's parents, sat in the front seat sound asleep while Mike and Carol sunk lower and lower in the back. I could hear my fellow Catholic youths giggling as they snuck furtive peeks at the goings on and I could only imagine the kinds of illicit things that Mike and Carol were up to. That was the year, after all, that I started reading James Bond novels and kept saying the name Pussy Galore over and over to put myself to sleep.

I saw Mike the next day and asked him to tell me all about his adventure. He smiled and told me he had unhooked her bra. Well, I could imagine the rest. And the rest of the summer I thought about riding back to Estes in the back of the bus hooking and unhooking Carol Landis' bra. I even snuck one of my mother's bras out of the laundry and practiced on it, the Oedipal ramifications of this act never occuring to me. Mostly, I saw it as an insurmountable obstacle. My mother's bra had two rows of four hooks each and it was stiff and armor-like. When she went to the dentist and got X-rays, the lead apron they put over her chest must have been a redundancy, I figured.

My friendship with Frances and girls in general started fading that summer. I had other things on my mind besides horses and fishing for trout. It is hard to be best friends with someone you only want to ravish.

School started again and the CYO planned a fall trip to Celebrity. Most of the kids went swimming, but I spent the day with Mike shooting pool and sneaking cigarettes. I was becoming a man. And it was with that new feeling that I made a mad dash for the back seat when we got on the bus for the return trip, patiently waiting for Carol Landis to join me.

"Can I ride back here Jimmy?" They were the words I wanted to hear, but it was Frances who sidled up next to me, Frances and her wooly sweater with the silver pine cone buttons and the wonders that lay beneath.

--James D. Starkey

Upon Hearing Reactions to Kolbert, Elizabeth. "Mr. Green." The New Yorker, January 23, 2007

"That's pie in the sky thinking," the critics retort
And thus new ideas are often sold short.

Ultra light cars are just one case in point
Of gas saving plans that we might anoint.

Solar panels and fluorescent lights
Both can ease environmental plights.

Renewable fuels come also to mind
As potential solutions of a different kind.

And the list goes on in its futile way;
Avant Garde thinking has never held sway.

--James D. Starkey

A Sestina Calling for Retirement

I.

On days when students wrestle over poems
Like "Message Clear" that focus in on Christ
I often walk among them offering advice,
My favorite way to run a senior class.
Of course, it's all because of how they grow
From freshmen to adults in four short years.

II.

And I have also grown in all these years.
I once had dreams to follow after Christ,
But at college, once I joined the freshmen class,
My vocation vanished as I watched my knowledge grow.
I forsook the collar despite my mom's advice
And now I try my hand at writing poems.

III.

As a kid I wrote a series of poems
Whose subject never failed to be Christ.
I kept that reverent practice up for years
And solicited from my teachers their advice.
I was the star of catechism class,
But my poetic talent did not grow.

IV.

My Catholic belief also ceased to grow
The day I put my stock in soldiers of Christ
Who had been practicing their trade for years,
The Jesuits, always ready to give advice
To help us write ecclesiastical poems
As exercises of our faith in class.

V.

And now I sit in front of my own class,
The last I'll have in all these many years,
And sure enough they're all here writing poems.
In their verse they offer sage advice
To juniors who haven't had the chance to grow
Into duplicates of martyred Christ.

VI.

That's how seniors moan each year, "Oh, Christ!
What are you doing having us write poems?
We've spent our time, going on four years,
And you still think we have some room to grow!
Well let us give you a word of sage advice.
We can't spent all our time on this one class."

VII.

Yes, Christ! I've come full circle with this class.
For poems I've simply run out of advice.
After all these years I'm the one who's ceased to grow.

--James D. Starkey

Northern Exposure

We bought this house when we were in our twenties.
The bad news is it faces toward the North,
Plus the yard is filled with blue spruce trees
And in the wind the snow blows back and forth.

The third big storm this month is due to fall
And I still haven't dug out from the last.
The white stuff's piled outside our kitchen wall.
We just aren't ready for this wintry blast.

Who was to know when making this dumb purchase
That shoveling snow would dominate my time
And icy patches would spread right out to hurt us.
Oh put me down for some more temperate clime.

What's this I hear of Global Warming?
All I know's the snow is swarming.

--James D. Starkey

The Feeling of Contentment is Hard Won

The feeling of contentment is hard won.
The children grown and money in the bank,
The task of grading papers finally done,
My long career has gone into the tank.

I've rid the basement of our store of books,
They fill one half of our two car garage.
The many tests my doting students took
All vanished now, a scholarly mirage.

So where is the peace my thirty years have earned?
Why do I rise at five each school day,
While thoughts of classes on my mind still turn,
Classes o'er which I really had no say?

Retirement is a lovely perk,
But I still feel like I'm at work.

--James D. Starkey

Retribution

Tom Tancredo's point's well made.
With holy sites he'd like to trade.

Their holy sites Tom has defined,
But ours are kind of hard to find.

The terrorists brought down our church
And left us all here in the lurch.

There's restaurants and shopping malls
And subway cars and that is all.

TV stations, that's one more
That could contribute to the gore.

But in the East the sites abound
And Babylon is close around.

It's here that mankind got its start
From Eden to the Sacred Heart.

What's fair is fair, Tom's apt to say.
Let's nuke them on the Sabbath Day.

--James D. Starkey

Christmas, 2006

The break is over; the kids have all flown home.
Our two part blizzard cut their visit short.
Abandoned are the snowshoe trails we roamed,
And, yes, the downhill tracks we skied for sport.

The first storm struck the week before they came
And four foot drifts clogged up our little place,
Yet Christmas day remained for us the same
As against the next onslaught we did brace.

The next storm dumped its load on New Year's Day.
The TV news said airports might all close,
So we packed the cars and drove out in the fray
And got out on the road before the city rose.

We made it to the plane on time
In spite of all this wintry rime.

--James D. Starkey

They Say One Should Make Resolutions

They say one should make resolutions
Through some kind of moral convolution.
On the first of each year
The conscience rings clear
And for misdeeds it makes restitution.

--James D. Starkey