StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XIII, No. XXXI

Most likely when I die,
I will slip unknowingly into darkness,
Having failed to notice that some minor calamity
Was draining me of my life blood.
It's a thin line, anyway, between today and tomorrow
And my tolerance for pain often provides cover
For mischievous infections and general bodily dysfunctions.
One day we are not going to catch one in time
And, "poof," I'll be gone without ever having composed
My famous last words.

Operations begin with preparation,
Deterrence is a state of mind,
Prevention includes discouragement,
Response should be terrible and swift.

Diversity of sources,
Unpredictability of locations,
Identify the threat, defend against attack,
The rules of engagement are fuzzy.

In the land, in the sea,
In the air, space and cyber,
U. S. Territories, freely associated states,
The United States of America.

U. S. Constitution, U. S. Code,
Presidential Directives and Orders,
National Security, National Defense,
Sustaining global leadership.

You'll be fired if you do,
You'll be fired if you don't,
One kills your friend, the other, your enemies,
The President has complete deniability.

The closer I get to the end,
Even with decades left to write,
The more urgent these words become,
The more demanding they are I record
Everything immediately before I forget,
As if they would leave me in silence
If I did not write down what I hear.

I'm a messenger between immortalities,
A speaker of fine attribute, skill and craft,
Attempt to capture light in a Mason Jar
While running the bases in the sixth
And hoping to score still again.

— Lisa Jain Thompson (July 2012)

Our puppy has two speeds:
Pedal to the floor Tasmanian Devil
And full out coma lying on a rug;
She seems to be a normal
Five month Shepherd mix,
Chock loaded with potential
And inexhaustible curiosity --
We hope to survive her puppyhood.

Sitting here on Memorial Day,
Stars and Strips flying from the front steps,
Thinking about various battles,
The ones we one, the ones we lost,
The living and the dead;
I am no longer sure
How we survive our presidents,
Ill-prepared grand strategists most always
Who learned to play war in childhood,
Books and seminars in college:
Our troops deserve better
That our non-serving Commanders-In-Chief.

Seagulls circling the airport,
Holding because of the weather,
Airplanes disappearing in and out of clouds,
Rain in the forecast with scattered sunlight.

A strangely March day near August
But grayly humid and oppressive,
The frenzied absurdity of nature
Taking wing alongside Aurora.

People die in horrible agony,
Life goes on around them,
People gossip, speculate about crimes,
A flag of inconvenience quickly discarded.

Furious young men with machine guns,
Terrorists without hope of cause,
Testosterone driven vigilantes,
World burning mad men and sociopaths.

Innocents have perished without good reason,
Women and babies along with the men,
Temporary victories for villains and crazies
That civilization must resist.

The seagulls circle the airport,
The sun rather boringly sets,
The stars appear, night around us,
Drawing us further into darkness.

The bodies still lie in the killing zone,
Blood and last breath draining out,
The war goes on, they've never left,
The slow desperate dying of a survivor
Wondering how he cheated death
But not his brothers.

Sometimes the mind refuses to deal,
Even as a life continues,
Focusing instead in endless loop on
Bullets and explosions,
   Shattered faces and limbs,
Comrades who are gone, never to return,
Life disappears in the sound
   Of death coming in.

Between the Lines

Between baseball games,
Life slows down, seems to stop,
Everything of any importance
Happens on the diamond
Between foul lines
Stretching to infinity;

If Ahab had had both his legs,
He would have chased a baseball
And died each year in the pennant race
Searching for his first world series win
In over a century.