Harvard Buys Yankees

(Cambridge, MA, May 11) -- In a surprise move, earlier today President Drew Faust of Harvard University announced that the Harvard Board of Overseers voted in a special meeting this weekend that Harvard will be purchasing the New York Yankees. "It's unfortunate that we'll be investing in the Yankees, despite our own origin in Yankee culture and regular presence in Yankee Magazine," Faust said. "However, we must abide by the vote of the Board of Overseers. With this huge expense in store, we'll be discontinuing the Harvard Athletics Program to compensate. After this year's stock market mishaps, and because a large portion of our Endowment was invested with Bernie Madoff, the budget simply couldn't handle both." Stipulations of the purchase, negotiated by Goldman, Sachs & Co., are that if The New York Times closes The Boston Globe, Harvard will suspend the remainder of the 2009 Yankee season. Furthermore, the Yankees are required to purchase Manny Ramirez's contract and Johnny Damon will be benched until 2010. Red Sox manager Terry Francona said: "I have already been in touch with George Steinbrenner concerning Harvard's purchase and its stipulations. It was a very unpleasant call." Steinbrenner refused to respond to repeated phone calls from The Globe. "He did agree to suspend the broadcasting of 'Sweet Caroline' during games, however," added Francona. Regarding the poor performance of the Yankees against the Red Sox so far this year, rumors abound that several Harvard students buried a baseball last used by Tim Wakefield under the new Yankee Stadium pitcher's mound. This rumor has not been confirmed. Dewey Machalot, Managing Partner of Goldman Sachs, Inc., said, "Additional rumors about Harvard purchasing Yale are untrue. They did consider it, but Yale's asking price was much too high. It was in the hundreds of thousands." "We would consider purchasing a better university," said Faust.

This Just In

Newspapers closing around the globe are reporting that the Red Sox are demanding concessions from the Yankees. (Didn't Yankees found the Red Sox? So confusing, I don't get it ... I've been insulted by Dixie Chicks for being a Yankee -- even while wearing red socks -- one in particular --you know who you are -- called me YANKEE -- for not understanding why she would fry chicken in the morning.) What concessions, what? They are not devastating to the labor class. That they cease playing "Sweet Caroline" on their loud speakers, that Derek Jeter stop strutting, at least when in Massachusetts. That certain outfielders who defected to NYC from better teams and more pleasant places and historic parks that haven't been abandoned like old gloves be allowed to grow their hair so long again that it obscures their clearly faulty vision. Without these concessions, reports are stating, the Red Sox will be forced to close the Yankees. That would be a shame. May 2009

Mother Earth Gave Us Birth

The limerick, a much underappreciated form, especially in Gender Studies, is available for constant self-amusement, and one my sister Dr. Christine V. Paige and I use as a regular form of conversation and written communication. She is better at it than I; it is perhaps the only thing, other than dentistry, sewing, close harmony vocalizing, performance arts, general niceness, and horsewomanship, at which she dominates in the never-ending battle for Sibling Superiority. As you can see I have lots of trouble acknowledging her talents. I invite you to contribute. Our editors shall review and post the worthy. Mother's Day 2009 I awakened one day with a shock To realize I'd birthed a whole flock Why don't they at college Provide us the knowledge That children your whole life will rock?

The Sonnet

Since college years, I have not attempted a sonnet. I've recently determined to reinvestigate form as I've become intrigued with its implications in all aspects of living, from the artistic to the mundane. I've found that within form, I've found joy ... the confines are exquisitely freeing and connect me to the masters. The below is something I've worked on for several months. Like Shakespeare's Dark Lady, the subject is elusive ... and that's because he's every good divorced (or no longer in long-term relationship) man I've met over the past 10 years, so many of whom are my dear friends. Women in Harrisburg whine that there are no good men. It's untrue. They are ubiquitous. The problem is that they've been as wounded as have we good women. It takes a long time to be willing to open up again after having been told for years that you are unworthy. Men have a hard time saying that -- playing the victim is counter to masculinity as defined by American (and perhaps worldwide) societal expectations. But if you look closely, you will find them. Befriend them. They need us. Gentlemen Is his kind life one touched by longing still Or a still life that seeks no love of yore? A glass that is by rising tide half-filled or gardens as from drought thirsty for more? His eyes like windows all his passions show -- Of vision, caring, steadiness he's made. His smiling heart by beauty ever pleased Though love, for peace, has been the price he's paid. No light like his should ever go unknown In nights of blackness it will pierce the sky Though starved for tender recognition gone He never has forgotten its delight. Dreams waken him with silent blinding fear And friendship quiets all his unshed tears. Copyrighted material

For Hilda

Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier

preceded Beethoven's Apassionata

and Mozart carefully but barely contained madness

In just a trill, it seemed, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

evolved into discordant cries of torment

and eerie screams for breath.

If you visit Berlin go to the Bebelplatz and you will read

Heinrich Heine's 1821 prescient verse that

"Dort, wo man Buecher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."

Had I not read those first awkward textbook conversations

in teenaged self-consciousness and curiosity, "Ich spiele gerne Schach,"

how would I have grown to understand those chilling lines?

(They translate, roughly, as,

Where men burn books

in the end they also will burn people.)

The Bibliothek at Bebelplatz lies underground,

under Unter den Linden, and its hollow space

is filled wih empty bookshelves defying Marx -- G-d is not dead.

There hover oh so many unwritten, end-jambed poems,

hopes that exploded into shards

like shop windows and human trust on Kristallnacht.

Today glass towers rise even in far-off Boston, in the land

that would not take the broken souls despite the words that 

circle her proud lady's feet in the New York harbor.

In Berlin, just off the Ku-damm, where burlesque and Eiscafe still co-exist,

and gaps between the buildings shudder in the winter wind

stands the Kaiserwilhemskirche, stretching skyward, unrepaired, a bombed-out Gedaechtnis.

Novalis, in his Hymns to the Night, wrote that in daylight 

he lived his faith but in the night he died in fire.

But to him, it was a lost romance -- he kept his life.

How can one explain it? It's drawn me to the language and the land

for a lifetime. But one who lost her father, mother, brother, all, said she believed

her father when he said, "An educated people wouldn't do that."

That? That unspeakable "that," which the rumors whispered,

the boots struck, the dogs barked, the guns rang out,

and the chimneys spouted.

Despite it all, for her, night once again turned into day,

just like grass again grows where her feet once shuffled.

She awakens daily celebrating bread and water in her kitchen.

But when they, like she, who never forgot how to love, or how to teach us,

have at last left us behind, who will remind the next that, like in Grimm, 

the human wolf is always at the door?

It's so simple, really.

His icy breath blows down our own houses,

howling its never-ending untruth:

If they don't go, if they don't go,

it will be we, it will be we

who'll ride the rails to ashes.

Lisa E. Paige

March, 2009

Copyrighted material

Valentine's Day for the Dodo Bird

Have you ever seen a peacock spread his tail feathers? Poor peahen has no chance. You might not think of turkeys as quite so … appealing, off the platter. But the male – called a gobbler, or a Tom – must have something going for him. He’s polygamous. That’s a euphemism, like for Saudis, whose cloaked and covered women outnumber even the camels that were their price. Toms strut in pairs and they can change the colors of their heads. Plus their wattles can enlarge. You can see why they will score. Now how about the falcon? Every year, the assignation at his and his mate’s urban aerie. Same time next year. All that flapping, like Leda with her swan. Could they be celebrating that they’re not extinct? But hey, at least he helps her incubate the eggs. Not at night, though. Then he hunts. So what of men – are they not birds of prey? The rule imposed on the poor fellows, Western, anyhow, is monogamy, which of course goes contrary to their nature. Like turkeys, Americanus Commonus struts in pairs, only hoping for a harem (unless he’s Mormon). Most heads have just one color hair – that is, if they’ve got any. And he’s gotta have a wing man, who will take one for the flock. In the human species, the man’s wallet the label on his jacket the table he can get the Porsche or Audi and the way he knows the somalier are important. But it’s the Western woman’s job to let real finery burst forth. Oh, the plumped and glossy lips. The collagen, push-up silky bras, satin vaginal floss. The mani-pedis, hair foils, tweezing, waxing, micro-dermabrasion, white-meat implants. Oh, the fishnets that we cast. And the stilettos, from which we just as surely gracelessly will stumble as from our self-esteem. For what? A dozen roses once a year? And protestations Hallmark bought from two-bit writers trained by afternoon TV? Or worse, the ever-popular post-coital “I love you”? (Which we all know really means, ’cause Harry told us, “Oh shit, how long before I can get out of here?” Or worse, “I’m gonna chew my arm off now.”) Under all these inhuman behaviors hides the lonely human. Hungry to be seen, heard, held. Men and women both. I know this, because I have a son. Maybe it’s not the lack of feathers, but the beating of the human heart that distinguishes man from vulture, and all the rest of nature, too. Sex isn’t love, mate, unless the love precedes the mating. So look, guys, don’t send her flowers on V-Day. (Oh, any other time is fine.) And women, hope for this: That they clothe themselves in goatskins, light a bonfire, fan it, let it flame into the night sky, harness the winds, name a star for you. And if either of you writes a poem, please remember: It’s the content, not the form. Lisa E. Paige February 2009 Copyrighted material

The Masters

The artist saw in her

all the colors he

could ever paint,

but she saw azure freedom

blazing o'er his shoulder.

Another's slippers

tapped out quarter notes

and triplets, dipping to

her partner in the waltz,

smiling, with a curtsy.

Yet another photographed

the world in black and white

to mimic his bleak inner landscape.

When she felt his cold contrasts

she wrapped herself

in shadow both for warmth and

to avoid the lens.

Like us, the pigment fades.

The gloves are wrapped in tissue.

Where is the hope

of tasting the sweet longing

of another, or of healing

someone's broken wing?

Oh, a few play jazzy sevenths

echoing the discord

between Vermeer and his young subject

painting her so bright that

the girl is not diminished

but immortal made,

and the moment, too.

How can we join the masters,

let our rhythm burst forth blindly

from our brushes,

close the shutter

against the driving rain,

awaken pulsing in the catwings

of every foggy morning

like dawn never came before?