Lyrical Somerville

Somerville Poet Lisa King died this year at the age of 46. She was one of the most dynamic performance poets in the Boston-area. She was a member of the 1993 Slam Champion Team, an individual Boston Slam Champion, and a member of the 1996 Boston Slam team. King devoted much of her time working with Gay and Lesbian youth groups, as well as working in schools as a "poet in residence." She inspired people to thrive through poetry. I selected a couple of poems from her chapbook "Eyes Blinking Backward," that was reprinted for a recent memorial reading for her in Cambridge. To have your work considered for the Lyrical send it to: Doug Holder 25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143. dougholder@post.harvard.edu



The Death of Stars

In between the soft sand and shoulder
and the white lined road
a heavy curtain of velvet night
drapes down.

Slowly stars bore holes
through the dark.
Shimmering certain death.

I feel kinship with them,
as they press against my mind
with twinkling fatality.

Poets are like stars.
They pierce the darkness of time,
to deliver image and emotion
from the void.

And unfortunately like stars,
they may already be dead
by the time their light
reaches you.



Nature's Revolution

Through a vortex of flying pigeons,
my eyes catch a deeper shade of city.
Away from thickly strangled streets.
Far from the bustle of horns blaring,
lies the beauty of peaceful resistance.

Like where the sidewalk breaks from tree roots
pushing back the attack.
Or where blades of grass work through
concrete cracks on the side of a pulsing highway.

This is nature's revolution.
The rooted ones silent conspiracy
to remake the world.

--Lisa King