Beauty, cruelty, posing and indulgent,
Burnt-husk lovers next to her, their star, sit;
Fulgent she, fulgurant, and refulgent,
As luring and imprisoning as a tar pit.
The diamond studs have memorized their carbon;
The spotlight drowns the gleam of every barb in
Civilization and its discontents;
The black cloth shines; her glints of clavicle sharpen
High-class lowlifes, gentlemen, the gents.
Between the stars before the act: the tedium;
What is needed is some rented patience,
But sexual forces never will abate since
Even in the interstellar medium
A star is born, but supernovae are given:
Rivals, remnants, whatever is left is driven
To form new stars, new planets, and the living.
Fulgent – (Pronounced FUL-jənt) Dazzlingly bright.
Fulgurant – (Pronounced FUL-jər-ənt) Flashing like lightning.
Refulgent – (Pronounced ri-FUL-jənt) Radiant or resplendent.
Tar pit – Refers to geo-paleontological sites (tens of thousands of years old) such as the La Brea Tar Pits.
Studs – A play on two meanings of “stud”: 1) a clothing fastener such as a cuff link; and 2) a male animal kept for breeding; when applied to a human, it means a young man who is promiscuous.
The diamond studs have memorized their carbon – Diamonds are made from a rigid network of carbon atoms.
Civilization and its discontents –The title of a highly theoretical book by Sigmund Freud published in 1930 about the concept of the human sex drive and the concept of human aggression. Although the poem phrase seems to echo this title, it is something of a “red herring” as the book is irrelevant. The poem refers to disgruntled (“burnt‑husk”) rival suitors surrounding a movie star and at the same time to secondary bodies in outer space orbiting an astronomical star.
Clavicle – (Pronounced KLAV-i-kəl) Collarbone
The gents – A colloquial term derived from “gentlemen,” it is not common in American usage; it is sometimes used to mean the men’s toilets in a public establishment.
Rented patience – In the US, tuxedos are often not owned but rented for a formal occasion.
A Star is Born – A play on two meanings: 1) the astronomical event; and 2) the title of a 1937 movie (remade as a musical film in 1954, 1976, and 2018).
Supernovae – Plural of supernova, a catastrophic explosion at the end of the life of certain stars. “The explosion ejects heavy elements that seed the gas of the surrounding interstellar medium. The heavy elements are those formed in the progenitor star and others formed in the explosion. This enriched gas then condenses to form new stars, planets, and living things.”
(The Firefly Encyclopedia of Astronomy, 2004)