| Starpoet Newsletter Vol. VIII, No. III |
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| News - Newsletters | |
| Written by Lisa Jain Thompson | |
| Sunday, 14 January 2007 | |
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The Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VIII, No. III
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ <><><><><> Bright morning Venus
Cutting through the wind chill That leaves me trembling I would be in our bed
Beside your warm body If the gods had not Otherwise decided Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C.E.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Number three already with winter fighting it out with El Nino
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ thought of her yesterday
In The Driveway
A year or so
After my father died, My mother rid herself of the present,
Shedding every memory in her head Since well before his funeral.
She never really came back
And from that moment We found my mother Calling for my father in the driveway To the night years later I watched her body glide into death, I never spoke to my mother again, Only to this lost frail woman Who wore my mother's face And could not remember me. Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ weather report
Fathoms
No snow, no snow,
Not even chilly weather,
Somebody tell the president
This ain't the way It's supposed to be. The fabled northwest passage
Will soon be open over the pole, And the Brits are busy tanning themselves On beaches throughout the isle. Don't call it global warming,
If denial suits you better, But get off your ass and do something
Before we're a dozen feet below sea level.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ I would like to get an electric vehicle
Because they are very quiet And I know some people I'd like to run over. __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ jeremiad
Product Line
We are all products
Of our parents' psychoses,
Yours aren't anything special So get over it. The past is gone,
The present barely here -- then it vanishes --
Dwelling on either
Will make you miss your future.
So deal with it
Or you might just become
That silly old coot You are always making fun of,
Or, worse yet,
A poet unloosed from time.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ The President's Justice System
GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba - At one end of a converted trailer in the American military detention center here, a graying Pakistani businessman sat shackled before a review board of uniformed officers, pleading for his freedom.
The prisoner had seen just a brief summary of what officials said was a thick dossier of intelligence linking him to Al Qaeda. He had not seen his own legal papers since they were taken away in an unrelated investigation. He has lawyers working on his behalf in Washington, London and Pakistan, but here his only assistance came from an Army lieutenant colonel, who stumbled as he read the prisoner's handwritten statement.
As the hearing concluded, the detainee, who cannot be identified publicly under military rules, had a question. He is a citizen of Pakistan, he noted. He was arrested on a business trip to Thailand. On what authority or charges was he even being held?
"That question," a Marine colonel presiding over the panel answered, "is outside the limits of what this board is permitted to consider."
--- New York Times via The Legal Reader __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ bits and pieces #1
Cycling Through
The last days of Christmas,
The tree is looking old,
The ponsettia is dying, And Jesus should be circumcised soon. Strike the set!
Stop the carols!
Does anyone know
When Spring Training starts? Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ bits and pieces #2
Lust
If I were forced to chose
Between a young Clint Eastwood
And a young Sean Connery,
My first thought would be to ask
If either of them Had any experience With a Ménage à trois.
They aint so bad
As old geezers either. Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Off The Main Sequence
At the highest, most general level, what I do at the Pentagon is minimize the number of those dying while doing what needs to be done. If I must chose between Americans dying and someone else, I will chose the latter and bear the judgement on myself.
Every American who dies or is in someway injured -- losing a leg, an arm, a face or worse -- means that, to some extent, I --we-- have failed in our mission. The wounded who are wheeled through the Pentagon corridors are testimony to our failures.
Their broke bodies weigh upon my soul until I shatter and remain so.
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ reference material for future biographers
May Have Been
I was an apprentice pressmen
Before I was a teacher, A driver's license examiner
Before I was a transporter, A logistician before I was a geek,
But I have always been
A woman and a poet, Spewing forth great torrents
Whoever might listen.
Eat my words
For I am. Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ another bit for the bio
Coming West
When grandma came west, her wagon,
Covered like some Hollywood movie show,
Carried everything a young girl knew, Everything her family had left, Everything of value they could move,
Including some of the genes
Inside Grandma
That eventually became me.
Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ If this all sounds vaguely familiar ...
Richard Nixon
November 3, 1969 There were some who urged that I end the war at once by ordering the immediate withdrawal of all American forces. From a political standpoint this would have been a popular and easy course to follow. The question facing us today is: Now that we are in the war, what is the best way to end it?
I could only conclude that the precipitate withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam would be a disaster not only for South Vietnam but for the United States and the cause of peace. For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allows the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15 years before.
For the United States, this first defeat in our Nation's history would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in Asia but throughout the world. For the future of peace, precipitate withdrawal would be a disaster of immense magnitude. A nation cannot remain great if it betrays its allies and lets down its friends.
Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.
This would spark violence wherever our commitments help maintain the peace -- in the Middle East, in Berlin, eventually even in the Western Hemisphere.
Ultimately, this would cost more lives.
For these reasons, I rejected the recommendation that I should end the war by immediately withdrawing all of our forces. I chose instead to change American policy on both the negotiating front and battlefront.
At the time we launched our search for peace I recognized we might not succeed in bringing an end to the war through negotiation. I, therefore, put into effect another plan to bring peace -- a plan which will bring the war to an end regardless of what happens on the negotiating front. It is in line with a major shift in U.S. foreign policy which I described in my press conference at Guam on July 25. Let me briefly explain what has been described as the Nixon Doctrine -- a policy which not only will help end the war in Vietnam, but which is an essential element of our program to prevent future Vietnams.
We Americans are a do-it-yourself people. We are an impatient people. Instead of teaching someone else to do a job, we like to do it ourselves. And this trait has been carried over into our foreign policy.
In the previous administration, we Americanized the war in Vietnam. In this administration, we are Vietnamizing the search for peace.
The policy of the previous administration not only resulted in our assuming the primary responsibility for fighting the war, but even more significantly did not adequately stress the goal of strengthening the South Vietnamese so that they could defend themselves when we left. The Vietnamization plan was launched following Secretary Laird's visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces.
In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General Abrams' orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.
The South Vietnamese have continued to gain in strength. As a result they have been able to take over combat responsibilities from our American troops.
We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater. I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program. And there are obvious reasons for this decision which I am sure you will understand.
We must retain the flexibility to base each withdrawal decision on the situation as it is at that time rather than on estimates that are no longer valid. Along with this optimistic estimate, I must -- in all candour -- leave one note of caution.
If the level of enemy activity significantly increases we might have to adjust our timetable accordingly.
My fellow Americans, I am sure you can recognize from what I have said that we really only have two choices open to us if we want to end this war.
I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action. Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary -- a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom. I have chosen the second course. It is not the easy way. It is the right way. It is a plan which will end the war and serve the cause of peace -- not just in Vietnam but in the Pacific and in the world.
... What goes around comes around
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ I had this vegan, lesbo,
I only wear cotton shoes friend, But she liked my Magic Wand. __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ starpoet on a roll
Spaceways
My father was a blind man,
My mother a suicide,
I'm the bastard daughter of wandering poets
Shouting my words to the darkness. Some have used parchment,
Papyrus, or paper,
Some have sung on corners To whoever might be listening: But I'm a fine lady upon a pale horse,
A keyboard at my fingers,
Electrons at my command, Sending all my goodly written bits Into the boundless maw of the universe. Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ urban life
The Commute of Women
Young and old men grouping
In the path of the Metro doors, Forcing all the girls and the women To slip between them While avoid their various body parts, Including the stray groping male hand.
The boys think this is all grand fun,
The women, that they would be better off
If they had been born lesbian. Lisa Jain Thompson
January 2007 __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ Observation while being jossled on a Metro Escalator
The metaphoric phallic symbolism
of the length of a man's tie has been replaced with the size of a man's backpack (don't you dare call it a purse). LJT __/\/\/\/\__
^^\/\/\/\/^^ PEACE
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^^\/\/\/\/^^ Copyright © Lisa Jain Thompson 1995-2007. Further distribution of this newsletter in its entirety is authorized. Email your letters and postcards or visit her contact page at the Starpoet website.
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