Saturday, March 31, 2018

Easter Vigil, Sort Of - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Easter Vigil, Sort Of

A vigil, no, simply quiet reflection
Minutes before midnight, with all asleep
Little Liesl-Dog perhaps dreams of squirrels,
For she has chased and barked them all the day;
The kittens are disposed with their mother
After an hour of kitty-baby-talk,
Adored by all, except by Calvin-Cat,
That venerable, cranky old orange hair-ball,
Who resents youthful intrusion upon
His proper role as object of worship.

The household settles in for the spring night,
Anticipating Easter, early Mass,
And then the appropriately pagan
Merriments of chocolates and colored eggs
And children with baskets squealing for more
As children should, in the springtime of life.

Friday, March 30, 2018

A Night of Fallen Nothingness - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Night of Fallen Nothingness

The Altar stripped, the candles dark, the Cross
Concealed behind a purple shroud, the sun
Mere slantings through an afternoon of grief
While all the world is emptied of all hope.
The dead remain, the failing light withdraws
As do the broken faithful, silently,
Into a night of fallen nothingness.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

The Life and Times of Pontius Pilate, the Law West of the Jordan - column

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Life and Times of Pontius Pilate, the Law West of the Jordan

History, other than those weird little Jack Chick booklets and stuff about The Lizard People on the GossipNet, says little of Pontius Pilate. Apparently his career in the Roman diplomatic was fairly short before he was retired by suicide.

A life of loyal public service under the emperors was often rewarded with death, which was probably better than a farewell kiss from the president.

As a colonial governor Pilate would have been expected to keep the peace among all sorts of peoples, not because of the benevolence of Tiberius but because tax-tax is always better than war-war (as Churchill did not say).

One wonders if in his corner office Pilate displayed pictures of himself shaking hands with famous people, or maybe ordering their executions, and plaques from the Little Gladiator teams he sponsored. Did he give speeches at local business dinners? “I am Praefectvs Pontivs Pilatvs, but you may call me Poncho. I’m from Rome, and I’m here to help you grow your businesses.”

No doubt the after-dinner speech included a few wheezes: “Say, boys, you’ll like this one. A Greek, a Roman, and a Jew walk into a bar owned by an Egyptian…”

Pontius Pilate probably gave motivational speeches (which in itself should be a death penalty offense) and talked about thinking outside the box outside of which he never thought himself, and kept his resume updated in hopes of a better gig in a happier colony, maybe Crete or Cyprus or Hispania.

He would have been subjected to scrutiny by spies and investigations by special prosecutors, and in turn would have sent around the highways and byways of the Empire his own spies and, when he felt he had the power and the connections to get rid of some old pal he didn’t now like, special prosecutors under his authority.

His staff would have kept his files cross-indexed and neat, and at midday he probably joined the boys for a two-falernian lunch, properly submitted under his expense account.

Pilate named roads and bridges and theatres for his Emperor, had the usual suspects executed for the entertainment of The People, bless them, and probably told anti-Semitic jokes. He was so dull, safe, successful, and predictable that he was governor for some ten years before being recalled to Rome.

Nothing reliable is known of his end. Pilate is said to have been required to commit suicide instead of being given a cheap Seiko sun-dial as a memento, but perhaps he did indeed retire to his vineyards in central Italy, and took leisurely afternoons to write his memoirs, in which few were interested and which eventually were used by Germanic invaders to start a fire, and so lost to history.

Whether he remembered one Jesus of Nazareth is unknown.

-30-

Russians Under Our Beds (a Russia Series, 66) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Russians Under Our Beds

For Our Special Prosecutors,
Who Guard and Guide Us

Oh, borscht! Those pesky Russkies under my bed
Were marching around all night, changing my votes
Beaming mysterious rays through my sleepy head
And snooping through my lesson plans and notes

They programmed my radio with Marx and Lenin
Plastered a poster of Putin to my wall
Sailed Admiral Kuznetzov across my linen
Layered a Petrograd accent over my Texas drawl

The special prosecutor says no further discussions –
Everything’s the fault of those perfidious Russians!

Maundy Thursday - Mass of the Last Supper (poem)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Maundy Thursday – Mass of the Last Supper

“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”
-Shakespeare

The air is thurified – the incense given
Our Lord upon His birth is fumed at last;
The censer’s chains, clanking like manacles
Offend against the silence at the end of Mass

Supper is concluded; the servants strip
The Table bare of all the Seder service:
Cups, linens, and dishes, leaving in the dark
An Altar bare, prepared for sacrifice

In Gethsemane the flowered air is sweet
But iron-heeled caligae offend the night

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Prince Myshkin's Vigil (a Russia series, 65) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Prince Myshkin’s Vigil

Pale Prince Myshkin keeps vigil in a room
In which two aspects of civilization repose:
That which is dying, and that which is dead
That which is cold, and that which is very cold

The wounded healer waits, because he was asked
And harrows there the darkness with his light
He waits with the dead in a rented room
And on a hill, beside a waterfall

A keeper of souls for an appointed time
And his own is kept by Somebody Else



cf, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot

The First Hummingbird of Spring - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Hummingbird of Spring

O wing’ed messenger of happiness,
Aloft among the pollinating flowers,
At last you have returned from Mexico
And warm months there among soft latitudes
Where little birds can make a holiday
Far, far away from withering Arctic winds.

O tiny traveler, what souvenirs
Did you declare to customs at the Rio Grande?
South winds to tell the flowers to wake up
And Rosaries of morning fogs to bless
The yawning grasses with a morning drink,
And fresh new sunlight for the industrious bees.

O buzzing and impatient little friend!
Just wait a minute, your breakfast is coming -
The old glass feeder washed and packed away
In harvest-rich October’s golden light
Must be recovered and refreshed for you,

And

How good it is to have you home again.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Staretz (a Russia series, 64) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Staretz

For Fr. Raphael

In middle life the sunflower bends its head,
No longer to the sun as in its youth,
But to the earth in all humility,
Ripening for us all its dreams and works,
And aging happily to eternal dawn.

Where are the Squirrels of Spring? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Where are the Squirrels of Spring?

(John Keats wrote much of the first line; I took care of the rest)

Where are the squirrels of spring? Ay, where are they?
Flattened by a log truck, just yesterday
When old enough to leave the family nest
They ran into the road, there flattened, pressed

Though cautioned by their wise sciuridaean sire
They panicked before an approaching tire
They had little time for a valedictory squeal
Before they died, so young, beneath the wheel –

So even if the old folks seem such a bother
You really ought to listen to your father

Monday, March 26, 2018

A Russian Sunflower (a Russia series, 63) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Russian Sunflower

Deep-rooted in the earth, old Zossima
Turns daily to the sun, our star in the east,
And of his kindness blesses all of us
Who pilgrimage to holy Russia where
He tells us, sure, what we already know:
Fall to the earth; from there look up and see
That like a sunflower, one can turn to Heaven

Pontius Pilate's Plea - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Pontius Pilate’s Plea

My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To distant duties, and never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew

Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards

I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip

But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it. And why was that my fault?

Sunday, March 25, 2018

The Russian Soldier, 1918 (a Russia series, 62)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Russian Soldier, 1918

The Russian soldier, Moskina1 in hand,
Though filthy, tired, unknown, unpaid, unfed,
Fights for his God, his Czar, and his Fatherland:
No medals, no vodka, no sleep, no bread

His clumsy lowest-bidder boots,2 they rot
Into the foulness where the world’s sins pitch
Into the slime of old Iscariot3
Good men to die in some Gehenna-ditch

Saint George, Saint Michael, and Saint
Seraphim
Preserve him in the end from Judas’ crime4
Life’s-end tears, life’s-end prayers, a blood-
choked scream
And so he climbs the trench wall one last time,

Three cartridges5 clenched in his frozen fist,
He disappears at last into the mist6

1. Mosin-Nagant rifle
2. Betrayal by contractors
3. Betrayal by politicians and Bolsheviks
4. The Russian soldier does not fail in his his duty
5. Ammunition shortage / God, Czar, and Fatherland
6. The Russian soldier is known to God

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez' Pickup Truck - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez’ Pickup Truck

“And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes”

-Chaucer

Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Seeking the strange, elusive shores of truth
Each pilgrim bearing in his eager hands
A palm frond and a photocopied hymn

The pilgrimage begins in the parking lot
And marshaled by the blue HANDICAPPED signs
Ascends to the doors, the narthex, and in,
Up to the Altar, there where all worlds meet

Come to Jerusalem; you’re on the way -
Everyone is a palmer this holy day

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Russians in Moc Hoa (a Russia series, 61) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam:

Russians in Moc Hoa

I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
And then I learned about Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!


Moc Hoa (pronounced something like “mock wah”) is a now-prosperous town on the Song Vam Co Tay near the border with Cambodia. In 1970 it was rather down at the heels and was a center of military activity, including mercenaries presumably controlled by the C.I.A.

Welders - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Welders

Load a squad of welders into a truck
Without any of their equipment or gear
And drop them in a wilderness at dawn
With an impossible mission to complete

Return at dusk; you will find all of them
Grilling steaks over a ‘cue they just built
While chillin’ under their funny cloth caps -
And the as-built is even better than the specs

No one knows how; this is a metallic mystery
And, really, we just don’t need to know, okay?

Friday, March 23, 2018

A Novitiate in the World (a Russia series, 60) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Novitiate in the World

“…you will go forth from these walls,
but will live like a monk in the world.”

-Father Zossima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

Every vocation is a novitiate
And every labor a monastic prayer:
Matins and Lauds are sung over coffee,
Then Terce for the plough, the lathe, and the wheel

Sext is gratitude for the midday meal
And None is the hour for downing tools
Soft Vespers is the song of happy homes
‘Til Compline sends all good folk to their beds -

Final vows are taken at death; for now,
Every vocation is a novitiate

"A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows" - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows”

Until last week the rascally Russians were credited with swinging the 2016 election to President Locker-Room-Mouth, with Boris and Natasha yanking both the voting machine levers and our chains.

This week it’s all the fault of Cambridge Analytica, which is not located in any Cambridge but in New York.

Or so they would have you believe.

If you call something Cambridge or Oxford it sounds all cool and sophisticated, and the neologism analytica is soooo Big Bang Theory swoon-worthy.

Apparently, Cambridge Analytica is a room full of not very nice people using their STEM (but not any sense of ethics) to snoop on all the computers in America and all the ships at sea to gather gossip that can be used for marketing and for manipulating elections.

The tee-shirt boys at Facebook – not the Russians - have admitted to cooperating with Cambridge Analytica in giving – or selling – access to everything you have ever posted to that infamous scheme.

The sneaker-boys employ such euphemisms as psychographic micro-target, digital operations, multiple data teams, enhanced predictability models, data analytics, data farming, data scraping, cross-referencing, analyzing, and synthesizing to poke around in your mind, your heart, and your soul to sell (does anyone really think that Facebook is financed by rainbows and pixie dust?) to advertisers, governments, and wanna-be goverments to manipulate your mind, your heart, and your soul for their purposes, not for your good or the common good.

The axiom that progress is good is an error in logic, for some progress is bad indeed.


“Hero to general, from general to politician, from politician to secret service agent,
and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows, and thence to a toad,
and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

-30-

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul

“…and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows,
and thence to a toad, and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

When your last psychographic micro-target
Has through our digital operations
Been processed by multiple data teams
As enhanced predictability models

Standard data analytics suggest
That scraping data from your thoughts, your words
The way you touch the screen may sting a little
But we know what is best for you hashtag

Cross-referenced, analyzed, and synthesized
And vacuum-sealed into a Golden Age

Thursday, March 22, 2018

What Were You THINKING, CBS!? - haiku

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Were You Thinking, CBS!?

There is basketball
But no Young Sheldon tonight
Life has no meaning

Iconophiles (a Russia series, 59) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Iconophiles

Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries
Lowering their voices but raising their hearts
Falling into a written picture-prayer
Upon a bit of board or card – Creation

Made small and held within the hand, the eye
And knowing deeper in, all that was made
And Him Who was begotten before all
Permitting us to see before we see

Hymning formlessness into light and truth-
Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries

If Wars Were Subject to Copyright - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If Wars Were Subject to Copyright

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then candidates would have to pay a fee
Each time they appeal to the glorious past
When standing for the election, the proceeds
To fall like bloody weregeld on the dead
Who can never cash the checks anyway

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then Hollywood movies should pay their dues
Whenever a bold, scripted commando,
Body-waxed muscles glistening with makeup,
Advances up Hamburger-Helper Hill
With a patriotic song on his lipstick

If wars were subject to a copyright –
The generals’ memoirs, the admirals’, too,
Would pay to lighten the blighted young lives
Of soul-fragmented lads whose pain and blood
Won the air-conditioned another star
And unctuous applause at the officers’ club

If wars were subject to a copyright -
The President would have to pay his bill
Each time he banged the lectern for a war,
That glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and smoke

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Ad Orientem (a Russia series, 58) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ad Orientem

Let us now face the sun, and not ourselves
And so forswear the mirrored loop of Us
That zeitgeist chasing its ossified Now
Into a spiral of dark nothingness

A club that looks endlessly at itself
Sharing dismal, universal handshakes1
Can never see the Incarnation dawn
As joyful, laughing Light upon the world

His star is in the east, and too His sun -
Let us worship the Lord, and not ourselves

1Yes, pinched from John Milton

Satan's Gasoline Pump - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Satan’s Gasoline Pump

X-treem card?
(Beep!) World Poker Tour card?
Credit card?
Debit card?
(BEEP!) Insert card now.
No, not that way, stupid!
Turn it around!
Would you like a receipt?
Why not?
What is your weight?
What is your (beep!) fate?
Would you like a free car wash?
Don’t talk to me like that –
I’m going to make you push some more buttons.
Push the “enter” button
which is cleverly (beep!) hidden
in a thicket of other buttons.
Oh, dear, you couldn’t find
The “enter” button in time!
Start over (Beep!) hahahahahahaha.
Gas went up ten cents a qallon since you got here.
There’s a motorcycle gang waiting behind you.
Impatiently.
Hurry!
You want air? (Beep!) Drive around back
And have your credit card ready.
Do you want water for your radiator? Yes?
Arctic Mountain Springs?
Montana (Beep!) Mountain Springs?
Sierra Mountain Springs?
All-Natural Mountain Springs?
City water??????
Would you like to come inside
and buy (Beep!) cigarettes from a hefty country girl
with a mouth full of chewing tobacco?
No?
Lift handle and select…
COMPUTER ERROR
Please start over.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Eligible for an Upgrade (a Russia series, 57) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Eligible for an Upgrade

Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines
To register submission to The Cause
And beg for life while starving in the cold
Applauding all the while their misery

Good comrades still fall in obediently
To register submission to the ‘phone
And fight for selfie-space – oooh, look at me!
Applauding bars of connectivity

The irony of queueing before false shrines-
Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines

1 Corinthians 1:22 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

1 Corinthians 1:22

For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom
 
-Douay-Rheims

Having barely graduated from school
Being fitted with wisdom just won’t happen
But a sign would be nice, a miracle
Just a small one, to make sense of all this

I wouldn’t know a Q source from shoe polish
But don’t patronize me with bumper stickers,
Reimagine Truth as paradigm shifts,
Or shout out with a Sola Scriptura

I am already my own stumbling block
And my own foolishness (complete with notes)

Monday, March 19, 2018

The Duck and Cover Drill (a Russia series, 56) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Duck and Cover

The duck and cover drill was never frightening
Not like arithmetic, or the teacher’s stare
For if the rockets fell, no more homework
Or switch-inducing notes to Mom and Dad

“Lawrence is a smart boy but needs to work harder.”
We crouched beside our desks and giggled
About old Khruschev bombing East Texas
Any American could whip three Commies

We had James Stewart and President Eisenhower

And so

The duck and cover drill was never frightening

An Inheritance of Fragments - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Inheritance of Fragments

Upon reading John Mark Reynolds’ essay
“The Shattered Image of the Thirteenth Century”

We’re born as exiles in a castle’s ruins
And learn to play among long-fallen stones
We hold up shards of glass against the sun
Delighting in the colors falling through

Pendentives now bear up only the skies
Above twelve empty niches in a row
A prophet-wind sighs through an upper room
And fallen leaves decay on shelves collapsed

A gone-wild garden roams along the walls
And through an ancient arch an apple falls

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims (a Russia series, 55) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims

Doctor Zhivago, p. 75

No one is first along a pilgrim road
Other footsteps began our journey for us -
To Bethlehem, Emmaus, Damascus –
Wherever the heart is centered in hope

Someone has stepped on this cactus before
And sat on that rock to pull out the spines
And muttered about the indignity
Of a holy man pestered with stickers

But humility is part of the search

Because

No one is last along a pilgrim road

Wormold's Strange Machinery in Oriente Province

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Wormold’s Strange Machinery in Oriente Province

When powered up in operation mode
A structure rotates like a merry-go-mad
At the cylinder’s cone, and further back
Uprights rectilineal pulse in place

A slender tube poised for flight, it seems,
All sinister and sleek, ready for launch -
But purposed for what?
                                          Electrification
Of dental hygiene for The People’s teeth

Our Man in Havana has sent us the pix:
The Atomic Toothbrush is our dental fix!

Saturday, March 17, 2018

The 15th of March, 1917 (a Russia series, 54) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The 15th of March, 1917

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day

Voiceless Voices Empowering the Marginalized Visionary Voiceful - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Voiceless Voices Empowering the Marginalized Visionary Voiceful

Voices visions #resistance
PayPal and all major credit cards selfie
Occupation under Trump diversity
In Trump’s Amerika alt.woke.taghash

Get your rosaries off my recycled batteries
Transgressive lines in a paradigm shi(f)t
We need to start the conversation, so shut up
While I’m centering thoughts and prayers on me

But the baby’s nappies need changing again
And who is going to carry the garbage out?

Friday, March 16, 2018

Because the Dragon Never Forgets (a Russia series, 53) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Because the Dragon Never Forgets

St. George, who fights our daily dragons for us
With golden prayers, and silver sword aloft-
Shall we neglect him on his festal day
Dismissing him as a Perseus myth?

Oh, no – for any man is more a myth
Than any saint, whose glory is in God
And not in his calendar reputation
Or in the vaporous memories of men

Even unremembered, he is our shield -
St. George, who fights our daily dragons with us

The First Moon Landing as Explained by a Waitress in Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Moon Landing as Explained
by a Waitress in Texas

1st Waitress

“Like, the flag’s waving in the wind, okay?
But there ain’t no wind on the moon. I’ve been
Graduated two years, and they can’t fool me.”

2nd Waitress

“It was, like, on a pole and stuff, you know?”

1st Waitress

“They would say that, wouldn’t they, right? Okay?”

Thursday, March 15, 2018

School Walkouts - What Would Little Sheldon Do? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

What Would Little Sheldon Do?

The concept of a school walkout, which is a temper tantrum on the level of “I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue,” isn’t in itself an intellectual challenge – the subject opens the door, often with his or her little fistie clinched while yelling “My momma said I don’t have to put up with your **** anymore,” and walks away.

Is that so difficult?

According to several news sources, the students of Antioch High School in Tennessee messed up a hissy-fit walk-out so badly that they had to try again on Thursday.

According to its own site, Antioch High School is proud to be a S.T.E.M. school (https://schools.mnps.org/antioch-high-school). The principal or her amanuensis also tippy-typed the usual filler-language about “high-quality academic programs, “state-of-the-art” something-or-other, “vision,” “knowledge, skills and character,” and “vision” again.

That’s all well and good, but the future Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einsteins couldn’t even manage skipping school. They tore down a flag and trod on it, vandalized a police car, and fought with each other, all in the name of non-violence.

But, hey, if you call boorish behavior S.T.E.M. then everything’s okay.

On Thursday a selected few young scientists were permitted to walk out again, and reportedly made a success of look-at-me hooky. They raised the flag they had walked on the day before, and the band played the National Anthem.

But how curious that a high school administration organized a walkout. How did they determine which students would be permitted to leave school and who would be required to stay?

In a press release (to go with the student release), the district said:

We encourage parents to talk to your child(ren) about how they may be feeling, and the importance of expressing themselves in appropriate ways while at school. MNPS also has counselors available and ready to talk to students at any time. (https://patch.com/tennessee/antioch-south-nashville/national-school-walkout-antioch-students-rip-down-flag)

Well, all right, the young S.T.E.M visionaries left their classes, and with knowledge, skills, and character tore down the flag, vandalized a police car, and got into fights. And all this peace ‘n’ love was under the guidance of their school administration, who function under the authority of the democratically-elected school board. Maybe the parents will want to share their feelings with the trustees they elected to organize a program of instruction, not a program of rioting.

-30-

Contra Julius and Gregory (a Russia series, 52) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Julius and Gregory

A year does not fail, because there are no years
There are only seasons dancing through being
The choreography of Creation
Written with meteors dreamed out of stars

And so the first day of January
Is the thirty-second of December
And neither is either or even itself
But only a mark that says left foot forward

Continuing a step from beyond forever –
The year does not fail, because there are no years

A Song of My People

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of My People

What Would Woody Guthrie Say?

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From your post-hole diggers to that nice pry bar
From your leaf blower to your garden rake
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

While I was climbing
Your backyard fence
I saw your bolt-cutters
Don’t take offense

But you are rich
(You’ve got a job)
I’m sharing your wealth
(I don’t really rob)

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From the real long power cord to that full tool box
From your brand new shovel to your socket set
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Repudiating the Writers' Soviet (a Russia series, 51) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Repudiating the Writers’ Soviet

To Propagandists of All Flavors in All Nations

Sometimes my work is joyful, sometimes sad
Sometimes my work is good, more often bad -
But never does it belong to you, comrade.

Leonard Cohen - Kensington Avenue

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Kensington Avenue

With Leonard gone, who can wear a fedora?

A pilgrimage away from Kensington
Lovers and mountains and islands and words
Questions flung far into the universe
Returned as Alleluias angelic

Or as Comments Constant in lonely rooms
Where Marianne in memories spoke to him
Sometimes upon a wire from otherness
Finishing words about the avenue

Now home from mountains and islands and song -
Perhaps one answer was here all along

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Rasputin (a Russia series, 50) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Rasputin

There once was a scoundrel, Rasputin
Whose diet was entirely free of gluten
          Since it was all whiskey and gin
          And big helpings of sin -
But he died from poison and shootin’

Monday, March 12, 2018

More Byzantine than Russian, Still... (A Russia series, 49) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Theodora

There once was an empress, Theodora
Whose subjects began to bore her
          They were too much at home
          In the old Hippodrome
So she killed ‘em - they’re pushing up flora.

Everybody Honors Th' Workin' Man, But Nobody Honors a Working Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody Honors Th’ Workin’ Man

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man
With songs about the dignity of work
Poems, impassioned speeches in Congress
The latest book about worker housing

But everybody ignores that working man
Who builds the stage on which the singer sings
The plumber who makes the artist’s royal flush
The electrician who wires the elections

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man -
But nobody honors a working man

Sunday, March 11, 2018

"But They Didn't Let Me Finish!" (a Russia series, 48) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“But They Didn’t Let Me Finish!”

For Isaac Babel

Babel, you hated Russian, Pole, and Jew
You wrote as you were told, in ink all Red
You wrote the same old bigotry, nothing new
In gratitude dear Stalin shot you dead

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather

The homeowner:

“O should we warn your kids that my yard fence
Is now electrified against possums
And foul raccoons most pestiferous?”

The stepfather:

                                                                  “No.”

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator (a Russia series, 47) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator

From Le Chansons de Volga File Clerks Rouge
© 1962 by Les Chansons, Leningrad

O sing a song of reproduction
Accomplished by electrical induction
As workers’ hands insert the paper
Deep into the magic vapor
Chanting without a fuss or stink,
“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of ink!”
Ions charge the chemical toner
Unless there’s none, ‘cause it’s all goner
Or even worse – if there’s a jam
And then the worker yells out (“Goodness!”)
But with a wrench and a mighty shout
Like that ol’ Czar, the jam is OUT
The Committee decrees a Print Command
This is their red-star’red demand
And out comes the paper, newly free
Fresh from a cartridge in a… (There! See?)
By Good Comrade Worker, Ivan-on-the-Spot
Alas, the message is for him to be…

                                                              shot

Your Signature Cheeseburger - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Your Signature Cheeseburger

A drive-in fast-foodery advertises
Its golly-gee new signature cheeseburger
But what in burgers does “signature” mean?
Who signs a cheeseburger, and how, and why?

Maybe…

The Artist Known as Nihil composes his
Signature cheeseburger, customized for you,
While waiting for his big break in Vegas
And then he’ll show all you little people

But for now he needs to sign your cheeseburger:
“To Customer 362,
                                Best wishes,
                                                      from Nihil”

Friday, March 9, 2018

Does This Machine Kill Fascists? (a Russia series, 46) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Machine Kill Fascists?

Does this machine kill Fascists? Probably not
Unless it bores them to a yawning death
Through soporific clichés crudely imposed
Upon a few poor, battered chords that twang
Like the barbed wire of an Arctic gulag
Where happy comrades
          Shiver in the snow
          Wither in the wind
          Starve on slops
          Burn with typhus
          Rot in the tundra
As they build the future upon mass graves
While the anti-Fascist cashes his checks

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let's Talk about You - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let’s Talk about You

These hours are not The Age of Trump, oh, no
Nor yet the age of McDonald’s arches
Turned upside down like pendant parts spilt from
The four-color process of a Playboy mag

All time is God’s, and as a gift to you
May be employed in work and play as you
Think best in gratitude for all the light
That falls upon your acts, your arts, your loves

Whatever else, this is an age of you
In quest for the good, the beautiful, and
                                                   the true

Thursday, March 8, 2018

The Revolution (a Russia series, 45) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Revolution

Little men arguing in shabby rooms
Meetings, manifestos, revolvers, bombs
Informers, spies, social organization,
Speeches, minutes, dues, What is to be Done?
The great cause of the Proletariat
Greetings from our good comrades in Smolensk
Nihilism, committees, secrecy
The thirst for culture is aristocratic
Nihilism is the only art of the people
Rumors, whispers, clandestine magazines
The unification of workers and peasants
Resolutions passed in the factory soviet
Clenched fists to reject the personal life
Electrification and equality
Cigarettes, vodka, the people’s justice
Against the parasitical bourgeoisie
Solidarity to destroy the kulaks
His poetry reeks of sentimentality
Self-centered intellectual decadence
The people’s will for the people’s party
Education for the twentieth century
Lift high the red banner,
                                             fill full the graves

The Futility of the Coccolithophores - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Futility of the Coccolithophores

In a careless moment, much to my grief
I lost the heritage of millions dead
And much like an unconscionable thief
Considered my atrocities, and fled

In reefs and shoals they lived, they worked, they died
From ancient times, and even until now
In patience layering their art with pride
Each tiny home and funereal how

Not even in their ruins can they now talk
Because I dropped and broke them – goodbye, chalk!

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

A Song of Liberation (a Russia series, 44) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of Liberation

Grandfather’s Saint George medal – hide it first
The ikon of Saint Seraphim – that’s next
Babushka’s crucifix – O, how she loved it
The picture of the Czar – away! Away!

Do not betray your thoughts – a careless word
A smile not authorized, a memory
A fragment from a cheerful Christmas song:
These do not advance The Revolution

Beneath our Brave Red Star they must lie hidden
While our dear comrades love and watch us all

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin

(smells kinda funny in here)

Words:

Behold the Lamb of God, Exit, Please turn
The air-conditioner off, NO SMOKING PLEASE
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Nicene Creed, 6th Grade Classroom, On this Rock

Things:

Crucifix, thermostat, coffee machine
American flag in a flower vase
Clock, napkins, chairs, a misplaced plastic fork
And folding tables unfolded to the light

Sounds:

A choir of refrigerators out of tune
With each other, and with Ordinary Time

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Futurism (a Russia series, 43) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Futurism

Futurism acknowledges the past
But only to condemn it, discard it:
A song that was sung sweetly yesterday
By a pretty girl while driving to work

A baby laughing at a butterfly
A beagle pup chasing a rubber ball
Geese honking through their autumn pilgrimage
And former people who would not adapt

Reflecting on the mass graves it has filled
Futurism acknowledges its past

"Order 263...263...!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Order 263…263…!”

For Yue Wang Yidhna
And All Who Brew Morning Poetry for the World

You are neither barista nor priestess
Even though perhaps a little bit of both
You do not serve either McDonald or Tim
But rather the supplicants who approach

Who plead with you to offer them the Cup
Of transient peace and hope in this sad world
A layered paper chalice wherein is borne
Colombian savour, healing and warm

And it is from your hands that they receive
A special blessing, and strength for their day

Monday, March 5, 2018

Ellipses (a Russia series, 42) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ellipses

Upon reading the poems of Anna Ahkmatova

…….. are most useful things; they hide
One’s thoughts from the …….. ………
Who search and sniff each line for any whiff
Of ………, ……….., or …..

Since …… …… in their arrogance,
…………. who forget their place
Will scribble heresies and call it art
But like to hide their plots in lots of dots

Say what you will (but you’d better not):
…….. are most useful things; they hide.

"May I Borrow Your Finger?" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“May I Borrow Your Finger?”

A small child asked another. An old man turned
To wonder about a question he had never heard
How does one lend a finger? But then he saw:
A fingerprint to open a little ‘phone

For children borrow from each other’s lives, and joy
In all the little daily ceremonies
Of childhood, giggling over telescreens
And, too, their hopes and dreams and ice-cream cones

A finger now a child may lend or borrow
And, as always, maybe his heart tomorrow

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Dimitri in America (a Russia series, 41) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dimitri in America

Did Mitya escape to America?
He might have changed his name to Bob or Al
Married Myrtle in the Methodist Church -
Myrtle, nee’ Agrafena Alexandrovna –

And worked the candy counter at Woolworth’s
Riding the trolley downtown every day
While saving up for a new Model T
In obedience to his New World staretz

Horatio Alger hissing behind a tree:
Was Mitya sentenced to America?

Another Non-Combat Death in Iraq - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Another Non-Combat Death in Iraq

She took an oath to defend the Constitution
But no one seemed to have taken an oath
                                                                      to defend her


(Now back to the Gridiron Dinner)

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Contra Ivan Karamazov (a Russia series, 40) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Ivan Karamazov

Though some maintain that parallels don’t meet
And three-point-something is the sum of pi
And whether X is found; no one knows why
(Is it lost, perhaps wandering in the street?)

Curious matters all Euclidian
Even for the bold mathematician
Are as obdurate as obsidian
Each an illogical proposition

To the rationalist impossible, and yet -
Parallel lines are at the Altar met

Soft Targets - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Soft Targets

“…schools, as soft targets, need to be fortified”
-the sheriff of Broward County

Perhaps we are Essenes in the desert
Or Sicarii fortifying Masada
A civilization fragmented, lost
Confused and lost, withering, withdrawing

We are in any event determined
To save something against the future time
Anything – so that men may pray again -
A rosary, an anthology of Keats

Deep in the dust deep in a cave upon a hill
While in the plain below dark armies drill

Friday, March 2, 2018

Chertkovo (a Russia series, 39) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Chertkovo

For Eugenio Corti

Perhaps the site is now a garbage heap
A parking lot, a drainage ditch, a field
Where little children chase a soccer ball
Among the flowers of a Russian spring

Whispering a memory of Italy
For here a poor Italian soldier died
His life ripped from him in a desolation
Of screams and violence and frozen horror:

But he is a candle, lit again, in Heaven where
His feet are always warm, and “Savoia!” is a hymn

Educational Leadership - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Educational Leadership

It’s for the children transparency
Because children are our most important
Resource we need to put this behind us
The children come first the healing process
Needs to begin the best interests of the children
Because we’re a team focus on the children
Distractions it’s all about the children
We need to move forward because we’re a family

He and his attorneys could not immediately
Be reached for comment for the children

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Old Karamazov (a Russia series, 38) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Old Karamazov

Young Karamazov – once upon a time
Strolled dreaming through the happy hopes of youth
And surely wondered about spring and love
Wrote clumsy verse, perhaps, for a pretty girl

Then fell unfortunately into fashion:
The acquisition of proud vanities
Through the disposition of dreams and souls
Until he was only an old man who

Sat brooding through the bitter schemes of age
Old Karamazov – lost upon a time

Yes, Yes, But They Need Good Jobs in the Real World - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Yes, Yes, But They Need Good Jobs in the Real World

The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible

The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed

But do you wonder, at night beneath your lamp
Why you are building a concentration camp?