The
Starpoet
Newsletter
Vol. VII, No. XLVII
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Soon we will feast
With our families and our friends
After spending many hours
Preparing for the meal
We cannot hide our love
Even if we wished
The fire within us
Is much to fierce
To ever go unnoticed.
Lisa Jain Thompson c. 2007 C.E.
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I'm a day late 'cos the Server ate my newsletter.
Have a great Thanksgiving holiday.
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Leave your prisoners in the bush
Where alibis don't count for much,
That's all I ask, lover,
But don't let them get to you.
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I had one of those ugly physicals last week, blood tests and everything else degrading.
Blood Test
Slightly elevated enzymes in the liver,
A curious statement of something unknown;
Too much alcohol, too many meds,
Some primordial infection
Lurking deep inside the flesh;
Hepatits perhaps
Or a reaction to a virus
That my body constrained
Rather than dismissed.
Some incipient cancer,
As yet undetected,
Growing slowly to the point
Where it will devour me;
A statistical fluke,
A testing aberration,
Some false positive indication
Of nothing at all.
The retest awakes.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2006
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persistance
Battle Plan
Strength of will
Is everything
To survive
Imposition
Of your strength
On the opposition
Is critical
For continued success
Existence
Is mandatory
All else follows
Life must go on
We cannot allow
The universe
To pretend
Humanity
Means less
Than rock and silicon
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2006
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The problem with great men, of course,
is that although they are great,
they are still men.
-- Stephen Hunter
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Tombstone Daily Epitaph - October 27, 1881
The After-Occurrence
Close upon the heels of this came the finale, which is best told in the words of R.F. Coleman who was an eye-witness from the beginning to the end. Mr. Coleman says: I was in the O.K. Corral at 2:30 p.m., when I saw the two Clantons and the two McLowrys in an earnest conversation across the street in Dunbar's corral. I went up the street and notified Sheriff Behan and told him it was my opinion they meant trouble, and it was his duty, as sheriff, to go and disarm them. I told him they had gone to the West End Corral. I then went and saw Marshal Virgil Earp and notified him to the same effect. I then met Billy Allen and we walked through the O.K. Corral, about fifty yards behind the sheriff. On reaching Fremont street I saw Virgil Earp, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday, in the center of the street, all armed.
I had reached Bauer's meat market. Johnny Behan had just left the cowboys, after having a conversation with them. I went along to Fly's photograph gallery, when I heard Virg Earp say, "Give up your arms or throw up your arms." There was some reply made by Frank McLowry, when firing became general, over thirty shots being fired. Tom McLowry fell first, but raised and fired again before he died. Bill Clanton fell next, and raised to fire again when Mr. Fly took his revolver from him. Frank McLowry ran a few rods and fell.
Morgan Earp was shot through and fell. Doc Holliday was hit in the left hip but kept on firing. Virgil Earp was hit in the third or fourth fire, in the leg which staggered him but he kept up his effective work. Wyatt Earp stood up and fired in rapid succession, as cool as a cucumber, and was not hit. Doc Holliday was as calm as though at target practice and fired rapidly.
After the firing was over, Sheriff Behan went up to Wyatt Earp and said, "I'll have to arrest you." Wyatt replied: "I won't be arrested today.
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the poet as reporter removed in time
Off Fremont Street
Virgil turned around to Doc Holliday,
Morgan Earp and myself and told us
to come and assist him in disarming them.
-- Wyatt at the Inquest
Off Fremont Street,
The bloody miscalculation
Drove the Earps,
And their containment man,
Into myth and pulp legend,
Obscuring whatever truth there was
Beneath a publicist’s sense
Of what would sell newspapers
And paperback novels.
A century later,
The gunfight would have led
The evening news
With videos of the bloody corral
Played in an endless loop
On cable network teasers.
Reporters would rush
To get up close and personal
To the mother of Billy Clanton
And the wives of Virgil and Morgan.
Wyatt and Doc Holliday
Would be touring the talk circuit,
Exchanging bon mots David Letterman
And tearful moments with Winfrey.
Wyatt was 32,
Thirty seconds from immortality,
Doc, half a decade
From wasting away in Colorado.
It was one of those moments
When the whole world
Changes direction,
When common place actions
Bring extraordinary results,
When what happened matters less
Than the collective memory of us all.
The Gunfight at the OK,
Wyatt Earp, Doc, and Tombstone,
A handful among many
That make us who we are,
Children of a west
Than never was,
Fitting new problems and situations
Into the pattern of haphazard old myths.
Only the brothers and Doc
Knew what went down that afternoon
And they won’t be accepting advances
To tell their stories to the media.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2006
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These men had formed a conspiracy to murder my brothers Morgan and Virgil, and Doc Holliday and myself. I believe I would have been legally and morally justified in shooting any of them on sight, but I did not do so or attempt to do so; I sought no advantage. When I went as deputy marshal to help disarm them and arrest them, I went as a part of my duty and under the direction of my brother the marshal. I did not intend to fight unless it became necessary in self defense, and in the performance of official duty. When Billy Clanton and Frank McLowry drew their pistols I knew it was a fight for life, and I drew and fired in defense of my own life and the lives of my brothers and Doc Holliday.
The two first shots which were fired were fired by Billy Clanton and myself he; shot at me, and I shot at Frank McLowry. I do not know which shot was first; we fired almost together. The fight then became general. After about four shots were fired Ike Clanton ran up and grabbed my arm. I could see no weapon in his hand and thought at the time he had none, and so I said to him, "The fight has now commenced go to fighting or get away." At the same time I pushed him off with my left hand. He started and ran down the side of the building and disappeared between the lodging house and the photograph gallery. My first shot struck Frank McLowry in the belly. He staggered off on the sidewalk but first fired one shot at me. When we told them to throw up their hands Claiborne held up his left hand, and then broke and ran. I never saw him afterwards until later in the afternoon, after the fight. I never drew my pistol or made a motion to shoot until after Billy Clanton and Frank McLowry drew their pistols.
-- Wyatt at the inquest
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No amount of system security will stop the user
from hosing his or her system.
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tracing lines
The Line
This line of death
Extending back through each generation
Until we leave the savannah,
Until we leave the trees,
Until we split from the common ancestor
And go our separate ways.
I feel the weight
Of all my parents
Who invested their chain of lives
So that I would be here,
This moment,
To write these words
For you to read.
I would not disappoint them,
Nor you,
Although I suspect I will
Given my penchant
For dramatic excess
And the obscurity
Of my sometime darkest lady.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2006
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Jack Williamson
John Stewart Williamson, writer:
born Bisbee, Arizona Territory 29 April 1908;
married 1947 Blanche Slaton Harp
(died 1985; one stepdaughter);
died Portales, New Mexico 10 November 2006.
First story published 1928
Last novel published late 2005
Nebula Grand Master Award 1975
World Fantasy Life Achievement Award 1994
Induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame 1996
Grandmaster of the World Horror Convention 2004.
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Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
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autobio
Laying The Roots
I am no smarter
Than the average poet,
No brighter than an educated polymath
Or enlightened creole intellectual.
I admit to my middle class roots
So recently arrived at by brain and muscle.
If I am nouveau riche,
I have not seen the money.
My skills as such are borrowed,
Passed from generation to generation;
Once they were my great grandparents',
Now they are mine.
I hold more paper than my predecessors,
But that is more a product of the time
Than a true measure of their worth;
I am indentured to them
As they were to their parents
And they to theirs.
I speak with the words of the ages
And the ages yet to come,
Yet they are no smarter than me,
Or braver, we all just carry on,
Struggling to be human
For as long as our time allows.
Lisa Jain Thompson
November 2006
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What a coward,
He wouldn't shoot when I came near him,
He stood there helpless and trembling for his life.
As I rushed him
He put out his hands and clutched at my shotgun.
I let go both barrels,
And he stumbled down dead and mangled
At my feet.
--Wyatt Earp
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Peace
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© Lisa Jain Thompson 2006
Further distribution of this newsletter in its entirety is authorized.
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