Friday, November 30, 2018

That First Night in Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

That First Night in Viet-Nam

In the old French barracks, shelvings of cots
No ventilation – that was for officers
The night was hot, wet; sleep was difficult
No one knew anyone or anything

A siren. Life paused. Should we do something?
We barefooted outside in our skivvies
Hot. Silent. Still. Stuffy. Respirations
Is this a false alarm? Is it over now?

BLAM!

Boom. BOOM! Boom-boom-boom-boom. BOOM!

And during a pause

a small voice said, “I don’t think they want us here.”

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham - Still Frenemies after all These Years - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham –
Still Frenemies after all These Years

The latest Robin Hood film is reported to be a financial failure, and there is no surprise in that. Simply to see the screen shot used in advertising, a vague figure huddled in an impossibly large hood and a quilted coat that would be too fey for a junior high cheerleader, is to be warned off.

The last good screen Robin Hood was the fox in the Disney cartoon (1973). After that, the various films dump onto the viewer a series of pouty, sullen, hoody Robin Hoods who look like sniveling taggers who have just discovered that their spray paint has run out. The modern versions are dimly lit, muddy, dark, brooding, and, worst of all, preachy. Howard Pyle (https://www.biography.com/people/howard-pyle-9449021) cobbled together from the old stories the most famous book about Robin Hood, and the best films all borrow from Pyle. The worst films ignore Pyle, and are as Miz-Grundy-screechy as the remake of Murphy Brown.

Robin Hood is, first of all, meant to be fun. A writer or producer who ignores that exhibits disdain for his audience. There are good arguments for Robin Hood being either a historical man or possibly a combination of real outlaws. The earliest tales and ballads present an often naughty, almost Chaucerian bad boy, and one who loses fights as often as his wins them. Pyle’s Robin Hood is a much better man, with a much better sense of justice, but still he is great fun.

Douglas Fairbanks’ 1922 silent turn as Robin Hood is a wonder film, and you get to participate by reading the dialogue for yourself. The piano is optional.

The most famous Robin Hood is that Tasmanian devil himself, Errol Flynn, in the beautifully lit and staged 1938 version. The ultimate Snidely Whiplash, Basil Rathbone, a hero of the First World War (https://sistercelluloid.com/2015/11/05/world-war-i/)is the snideliest, whiplashiest Sheriff of Nottingham ever, and beautiful Olivia de Havilland the most elegant Marian. Even the scene where Marian is trying to conceal a letter from the Sheriff is brilliant in its table-top choreography.

Richard Todd, who fought at the Pegasus Bridge in 1944 (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/5460628/D-Day-I-was-the-first-man-out-of-the-plane-over-Normandy.html) starred in a very good Disney live-action film in 1952.

For your ‘umble scrivener, the best Robin Hood of all is Richard Greene (Royal Armoured Corps, Second World War). His television series was filmed in England (which looks like England, not California) from 1955-1959, brilliantly produced by Hannah Weinstein (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0918438/). M. Weinstein’s 142 half-hour shows are rattling good fun indeed, as any Robin Hood film should be, but she also develops characters and situations with a now rare sense of justice and historical sensitivity. Her half-hour plays are ethical without ever lapsing into screeching and preaching.

Weinstein also allows her Robin Hood sometimes to find himself in comical situations as in the old tales, but still G-rated.

The Robin Hood stories are great fun, and the movie versions will again be joyful when the producers stop misusing Robin and his merrie men as loudspeakers for hectoring audiences about how wrong they are about everything.

And, hey, producers, turn on the lights – the sun does shine in England.

As that archer, swordsman, hero, lover, and righter of wrongs might say, quoting from Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, “I’m STILL big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

-30-


The Night Patrol - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Night Patrol

Outside with the dogs for their night patrol
A bright flashlight for fear of wild winter wolves
Death-singing from the tree-line beyond the field -
My little dogs bark boldly, but stay close

They’re never permitted beyond the fence
That Hadrian’s Wall of doggylization
Through which they plot escape on sunny days
But not on this wolf-howling moonlit night

Better to have a chew-toy than to be one
So with them I close the door against the dark

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

A Manifesto Against Manifestos (no "hey-hey, ho-ho," please)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


A Manifesto Against Manifestos

“You can silence me, but you can never convince me”
-graffiti on a bulkhead in Viet-Nam

I am not woke; I am awake. No one
Commands me how to see and think and write
I am not one of The Masses. I am.
I am not one of The People. I am.

I choose as my teachers Dostoyevsky
And Byron, too, and Shelley, Keats, and Waugh
Ahkmatova, Shakespeare, Chesterton, and Lewis -
Not some embalm’ed face upon a screen

I am not obedient, and no one
Commands me how to see and think and write

Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Homage to Pascal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Homage to Pascal

For Thomas V. Morris and William J. Bennett
In gratitude for a wonderful summer at Notre Dame

O, thou dry Jansenist! A night of fire
Left in your pocket like a shopping list
Sitting quietly in a room, will never burn
To set your sere and withered soul alight

And one might wager that your calculator
In brass, for counting brass, touches not the heart
Which has its reasons which the mind knows too
Pensees which never make a night a day

Forgive thou, then, this lettre provinciale
And count it as a friend’s memorial

Monday, November 26, 2018

The Natural Curiosity of Lot's Wife - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Natural Curiosity of Lot’s Wife

When Lot’s wife shook with
Anger or fear, and looked back -
What there did she see?

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Love and the Sunday Funnies - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Love and the Sunday Funnies

We will not turn on the radio today
We will repudiate its veto over us
We will silence its news and its noise
We will not wait upon its appointed hours

We will sit in the windowlight and read
Maybe the Great Books, or maybe the funnies
                   -The funnies!
Let’s read the funnies to each other, and laugh
About Charlie Brown and his kite-eating tree

And joyfully fling the funnies and ourselves
Upon the sunbeams, all over the floor

Saturday, November 24, 2018

A Child Whispers to Himself - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Child Whispers to Himself

Someday I will wake up in the morning
And not be wrong
Someday I will look outside the window
And not be wrong
Someday I will not make up my bed just right
(or maybe not make it up at all)
And not be wrong
Someday I will open the refrigerator
And not be wrong
Someday I will choose my clothes for the day
And not be wrong
Someday I will say something I think
And not be wrong
Someday I will toast a slice of bread
And not be wrong
Someday I will read a book because I like it
And not be wrong
Someday I will visit a friend of my choosing
And not be wrong
Someday I will admire the pictures I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will play in the leaves with the dogs
And not be wrong
Someday I will order from a menu
And not be wrong
Someday I will eat my dessert first
And not be wrong
Someday I will hug only people I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will buy the coat I want to wear
And not be wrong
Someday I will smile at the girl next door
And not be wrong
Someday I will write poetry openly
And not be wrong
Someday I will say, “That’s a pretty car”
And not be wrong
Someday I will say, “I like the fog and mist”
And not be wrong
Someday at the store I will buy some little thing
And not be wrong
Someday I will use the shampoo I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will take long, hot, soapy baths
And not be wrong
Someday I will tell someone about my dreams
And not be wrong

Someday…

Someday I will leave this unhappy house
And not look back
And not be wrong


Friday, November 23, 2018

Wristwatches on a Refectory Table - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Wristwatches on a Refectory Table

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”

-Thoreau

Some six or so cheap watches set in a row
Ten-dollar Timex models with shabby straps
Cast-offs and hand-me-downs – and so one asks:
Why are there watches on a refectory table?

The abbey’s clocks are the moon and the sun
And the cycle of seasons each in turn
The changing leaves and liturgies in time
With the Great Dance of stars in their appointed spheres

But even so:

Those six or so cheap watches set in a row

Are

For outside appointments - and now we know!


Wednesday, November 21, 2018

A Good, Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving with the Family and the Relatives Who Just Won't Go Away - rhyming nonsense



A Good, Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving with the Family
and the Relatives Who Just Won’t Go Away

The dead-bolts on the interior doors
Against the nephews most securely locked
(One is destructive; the other explores)
Ignored by their mother (usually crocked)

The brother-in-law babbles about his bowels
And surgeries over the festive spread
Ignoring his wife’s disapproving scowls
Detailing each grim therapy and med

The puppies are safely penned inside
Because of an incident with a crowbar
And a nephew who kicked and screamed and cried -
He wasn’t allowed to kill the dogs or bash the car

His mother comforted him in his tears
And glowered at me for telling him no
And comforted herself with a few more beers
Her special child is sensitive, you know

The brother-in-law’s colonoscopy
With lurid adjectives of graphic doom
Comes with the pie and more iced tea
His miseries circulate around the room

Then from the living room an expensive crash
“Not me!” “Not me!” More screams and denials and cries
An old family vase – it’s now just trash
“You shouldn’t have glass around,” their mother sighs

The brother-in-law offers to show his scars
He finds his shirt buttons, makes his move
We other men escape outside for cigars
Cigars!? The women uniformly disapprove

One nephew leaps upon a garden seat
And jumps and yells until it falls apart
Their mother says her boy is cute and sweet
“Are you all right, my dear little heart?”

The brother-in-law holds his tummy and groans
And tells us all about his flatulence
And just which foods lead to what moans
(Perhaps he should practice some abstinence)

The women come outside to cough and choke
With practiced puritan disapproval and sneers
About the satanic scent of tobacco smoke
The world’s best mother chugs a few more beers

The brother-in-law explains why he can’t drink
It’s about his digestion (be surprised)
And we shouldn’t smoke; if only we’d think
And we (got a match?) are properly chastised

Then at the end of this mandatory day
Of mandatory Hallmark merriment
All of them finally go the (space) away
And how did the mailbox get broken and bent?

But the brother-in-law pauses at the garden gate
“Say, did I tell you about my new pills…?”
And so dear solitude again must wait
While darkness slowly falls upon the hills

For our Mothers and Grandmothers on Thanksgiving - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Our Grandmothers’ Litany of Gratitude

In the run-up to Thanksgiving and then Christmas men and boys wisely stay away from the kitchen. A woman can be a physician, a CEO, a senator, or the president, but in the seasonal rhythms of Creation she will also serve (and rule) all those in her queendom as a provider, a nurturer. Thus, do not annoy the goddess in her primal role.

At a festive meal the spouse-person in my life usually indicates that which is obvious: “Here is the turkey, and here the dressing, and here the peas…” My mother did much the same, and the s-p’s mother even more so. No one was going to touch the first bite of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner until the mother-in-law proudly pointed out each of the dishes she had cooked: “Here is the ham if you don’t won’t turkey, or you can have both, and here are the rolls and cornbread, and this is Katherine’s waldorf salad, and here…”

Why did women born early in the twentieth century recite the dishes they served on special occasions as if they were praying a litany or following a liturgy?

Because praying a litany or following a liturgy is exactly what they were doing.

For the men and women whose childhoods were lived in the Great Depression and the Second World War, food was sacred. There wasn’t much of it. Sometimes there was none.

My father spoke of weeks when all his family had to eat were black-eyed peas and cornbread. The point is that they had black-eyed peas and cornbread.

In our time a question after a meal might be “How was the presentation?” In the recent past the question was “Was the food good?” For our parents and grandparents, the question was a still-anxious “Did you get enough?”

In illo tempore a man did not worry about a promotion or climbing that metaphorical corporate ladder; he worried about having a job, any job.

A woman did not worry about pleasing a demanding child’s delicate palate; she worried about being able to feed her child at all.

Men now gone to Glory remembered chowtime in recruit training as the first time in their lives they had enough to eat. After the war – it was always The War, capitalized – war brides and adopted children arriving here where there had been no fighting over the fields and burning of homes said the same. They marveled at having enough to eat, and never forgot the hungry times.

And so, that is why your mother and grandmother pointed out and named every dish: “…and here is the iced tea and here is the lemonade, and when everyone’s through we have pecan pie and chocolate pie and apple pie…” For and by her and through her each dish was spoken of as if it were a prayer of thanksgiving because it was.

Shame and ashes be upon us if we forget our mothers and fathers through all the generations.

“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon them.”

And thank you.

-30-

Donald J. Trump's Draft Notice - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Donald J. Trump’s Draft Notice

A Citizen of the United States

To: Donald J. Trump

Greeting:

You are reluctant to go to the wars
And I do understand – I went to one
And you missed out. I was sorry to hear
Of your physical disabilities

You are reluctant to go to the wars
And I do understand – but why are you
Eager to send the daughters and sons
Of other fathers off to die for - what?

You are reluctant to go to the wars
And I do understand -

Now get off your *** and go see those kids

And bring them home

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

The Pocket Knife of Damocles - doggerel

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall45184@aol.com

The Pocket Knife of Damocles

Every morning good Damocles wakes up
And after breakfast from a drive-through bag
Salutes the time-clock with a merry ding
From a little card that records his time

He drives his forklift or his cubby-desk
And sorts each pallet or computer code
Into their places in the secular scheme
The minor chain of being more-or-less

Until a meeting when, and with great sorrow,
A Suit tells all, “we’re shutting down tomorrow.
Oh, the company still exists (and what could be finer?),
But we’re sending all your jobs away to China.”

Monday, November 19, 2018

Community PEAVEY Wide PEAVEY Thanksgiving PEAVEY Service - a poem with booms and bangs

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Community PEAVEY Wide PEAVEY
Thanksgiving PEAVEY Service

Prelude PEAVEY you give PEAVEY the splendor
Of the PEAVEY CAN I HAVE AN ‘AMEN’!?
How great is our PEAVEY WOOOOOO! The lion and
The PEAVEY name above all YEAH!!!!!

Age to PEAVEY chorus PEAVEY bridge PEAVEY
You are PEAVEY touching my PEAVEY these
Bones will PEAVEY shout your PEAVEY OH YEAH!!!!
We pour out our PEAVEY WOOOOO!!!!! YEAHHHH!!! An’ Lord

We just wanna PEAVEY you YEAH! And WOOOOO!!!
REPEAT 4X PEAVEY YEAH! WOOOOO!!!! We are
God’s PEAVEY AMEN!!!! CAN I HEAR AN ‘AMEN!?’
Food drive PEAVEY outreach ministries PEAVEY

Love offering PEAVEY I worship PEAVEY
Outreach WOOOOO! And Lord we just offer up our
PEAVEY…!!!!!


(You can always walk away – and I did)

Sunday, November 18, 2018

Premediated Amnesia - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Premeditated Amnesia 1

For nothing here is old, save for deep layers
Of moss and muck and mouldering remains
Civilisations lit by visions and fire
Now lost beneath a Wal-Mart Parking lot

Incuriously the tentacles of Now
Slither more deeply into the pale past
And churn up yet another housing estate
At the corner of Kingsford Lane and Heather Way

Near the Motorcycle Church, for piston prayers:
For nothing here is old, save for deep layers



1 "The U.S. is probably the contemporary world’s purest example of a society which is perpetually trying to abolish history, to avoid thinking in historical terms, to associate dynamism with premeditated amnesia.” -Alexander Woodside quoted by Susan Sontag:

https://bostonreview.net/susan-sontag-interview-geoffrey-movius?utm_source=Boston+Review+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=b581739691-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_08_17_04_17_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2cb428c5ad-b581739691-41080789


Saturday, November 17, 2018

Don't You Dare Judge Me While I'm Judging You! - a poem (of sorts)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Don’t You Dare Judge Me While I’m Judging You!

Don’t you judge me while I am judging you
For judging me when I was judging you
For judging me since I was judging you
For judging me ‘cause I was judging you

Don’t interrupt while I am interrupting you
For interrupting when I was interrupting
For interrupting since I was interrupting
For interrupting ‘cause I was interrupting

What’s that? You say you didn’t hear or see?
How dare you not focus your life on me!?



Friday, November 16, 2018

Three Chords and a Meth Lab - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Three Chords and a Meth Lab

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”
Embroidered on the back of his letterman jacket
Hanging from the kitchen chair where he sits
Practicing chords while the meth cooks to crank

In the trailer back of his momma’s house
Where she lets him live while he looks for work
They didn’t treat him right at the truck stop
His uncle might get him on at the mill

A crankster wankster twanging out his art
Unless the Cossaks find out about…


                                                                   “Who’s there…?”

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Self-Government is not a Video Game - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Self-Government is not a Video Game

In a poorly-written article featuring cluttered sentence structure, botched parallelisms, unnecessary and inappropriately-placed adverbs, and inadequately sourced quotations, a scrivener alleges that a physical education teacher in Florida was punished for refusing to watch a girl change clothes in the boys’ locker room.

The article appears in numerous InterGossip outlets but given that there appears to be only one source recycled over and over and that the InterGossip is unreliable we must first consider the possibility that the article might not be true, or if true that the narrative is not accurate – remember the story about the purportedly homeless man who was said to have given a stalled driver his last twenty dollars so that she could drive safely home. Yes, cue the tears and the $400,000 dollars given through a Go Loot Me site on the InterGossip. In the end, the narrative was demonstrated to be a money-grubbing hoax and the perps’ next teary-eyed story will be to a judge.

But let us say, for the sake of an argument, that the narrative, one of those tiresome LGQBT-and-a-buzzard-in-a-peach-tree things, is in substance correct. If – IF - a school board in Florida hired an LTBGQ-something liaison (whatever that is), and if – IF – the school board gave the liaison-person authority over restrooms, locker rooms, and the duties of teachers, then who should the people be mad at?

Yes, I know that should read “with whom should the people be angry,” but let it stand.

If – IF – these inappropriate things happened, the people of that school can only be mad at / angry with themselves, for the people are the school.

Governance of a public school district is both democratic-with-a-small-d and republican-with-a-small-r – that is, through open elections (that’s the democratic-with-a-small-d part) the people wisely and prayerfully choose the trustees of their local school board. The elected school board then controls (that’s the republican-with-a-small-r-part) the school district’s properties, sets policies, and hires and fires all of the people’s servants, from the superintendent to the nice folks who tidy up late into the night. Depending on state and local laws, the school board also establishes the assessment and collection of taxes, lots of taxes, on private property.

And yet Americans tend not to bother with the most important elections of all, those for their local school board.

Some of those who won’t vote for their trustees will, if the gossip is salacious enough, herd up and appear at a school board meeting with signs and petitions and protestations of outrage at the purported enormities of a board they didn’t bother to elect.

Yelling at the school board is not democracy; voting is. Twootering on the InterGossip is not democracy; voting is.

We don’t know what happened at a school in Florida, but we can know what decisions our own trustees make by showing up at our school board meetings or by reading about them in the local newspaper.

Democracy is not a spectator sport, nor is it a video game; it is the exercise of the rights of a free people by free people voting.

Don’t complain; vote.

-30-

Outside McDonald's: Sweeper, Man Your Broom - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Outside McDonald’s: Sweeper, Man Your Broom

And so he sweeps, against the blustery winds
That blow his efforts back into the cold
Cigarette ends and plastic straws adrift
Across the parking lot and far away

His hoody hides his face against the world
And shabby gloves protect his trembling hands
His body bends against November’s winds
Before the great American fast-food dream

We sweep inside, for coffee, breakfast, and warmth
The sweeper sweeps, against the blustery winds

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Simon and Schuster and Their Explosive Brit - a frivolity featuring awkward rhymes

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Simon & Schuster and Their Explosive Brit

“Catherine Coulter and J.T. Ellison’s explosive Brit
in the FBI thriller The Sixth Day is now in paperback!”

One wouldn’t like to see an exploding Brit
Who would ruin one’s tweed country suit
Splattering English gore all over it –
That exploding galloping major brute!

But

Before the man went CRACK!
How did they ever fit
That pyrotechnic Brit
into a paperback?

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

A Trochee Christmas and its Several Anapests - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Trochee Christmas and its Several Interchangeable Anapests
 
Brought to You in some Desperation
By your Local Chamber of Commerce
(Second Trailer Past the Stoplight)

Christmas in the Park
Christmas on the Main
Christmas on the Lake
Christmas on the Strand
Christmas on the Square
Christmas on the Farm
Christmas on the Beach
Christmas on the Mall
Christmas in the Mall
Christmas on the Block
Christmas on the Coast
Christmas on the Gulf
Christmas on the Hill
Christmas in the Keys
Christmas on the Quay
Christmas on the Quad
Christmas on the Range
Christmas on the Ranch
Christmas in the Vale
And this year, Christmas at the 'Gras!

But no Christmas without anapests, ‘kay?

Monday, November 12, 2018

Gravitas in the White House Press Briefing Room - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gravitas in the White House Press Briefing Room

The wind that blows is all that anyone knows

-Thoreau

“She hit me!” “She did not!” “He hit her first!”
“You can ask anyone – I hit the mike!”
“No, no, she hit me!” “No, he is the worst!”
“No, not at all, that’s not what it was like!”

“The president’s a meany!” “The press is rude!”
“This is unprecedented!” “You’re a fake!”
“Take away his pass; I’m not in the mood!”
“It’s unacceptable!” “Well, you’re a snake!”

As the nation crumbles in violence and smoke
The press and president are one bad joke

Sunday, November 11, 2018

Under the Shadow-Tree - a poem on Remembrance Day

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Under the Shadow-Tree

For David Jones, 1895-1974
Poet, Artist
Pte., Royal Welch Fusiliers

One can go back to one's own home…
and everything is so changed that one is a stranger.

― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

I went away, a young and foolish lad
Imagining I would go home someday
Made manly in the war, someone to respect
Admired by all in the old, familiar scenes

There was only exile. Echoes and screams
Fumbling through the flashbacks for charger clips
And stepping carefully lest the lawn explode
In dreams lit only by parachute flares

While waiting for the order for volley fire
And is the safety on? Or am I off?

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Ecclesiastical Frequent Flyer Miles - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ecclesiastical Frequent Flyer Miles

1.

(Our bishops in synod in Rome respond to a crisis)

Ombudsman, ombudsperson, om, om, om
As pressing as that issue is enhanced
Mediation roles for the whistleblowers
Accountable to the norms of canon law

Refashion the role of a promoter
Of justice creating a climate of
Having legal tools available for a
Strategic partnership the bottom line

And somewhere yet again a line or two
About the ‘way cool spirit of Vatican II

2.

(A populist priest posts about his of-the-people-ness
as he stands up to rascally bishops)

There wasn’t Fox News in the first-class lounge
But only CNN my plane was late
The merlot in first class was mediocre
And here’s a picture of my first-class lunch

Oh, such a long flight all the way to Rome
Where I’m fighting for you and for the Faith
In the cutest little sidewalk cafes’
And here’s a picture of my cappuccino

Travelling for your prayers is such a slog
So send me money to support my ‘blog

3.

(In a poor parish scheduled by the bishop for closure)

Father is on perpetual holiday
The abandoned faithful are left to say
Introibo ad altare Dei
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam

And what is an ombudsperson?

Friday, November 9, 2018

The Geriatric Cosmic Casino Bus in a McDonald's Parking Lot - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Geriatric Cosmic Casino Bus in a McDonald’s Parking Lot

A space casino painted on its sides
Its airbrakes hissing and spitting against the wheels
The charter bus clanks to a potty stop
Its hatches open to discharge aliens

Optimistically rattling their walkers
And dragging their oxygen machines along
Spongy shoes challenged by the parking lot
Knobby white knees all rattling through the dawn

The moustache in his cool gas-station shades
Admires himself in his big West Coast mirror



(Casino gambling is illegal in Texas, thus the fleets of charter busses zooming to the Louisiana border.)

Thursday, November 8, 2018

The Great American Dream Ballot - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Great American Dream Ballot

After our nation’s recent fratricidal dust-up, and in anticipation of the next, I propose that we consider a return to paper ballots for all elections.

Mr. Mueller’s investigation of purported hanky-panky-Pokemon™® between Mr. Trump and the pesky Russians has being going on for two years now. While Thanksgiving dinner with that uncle who insists on sharing over the turkey all the details of his latest gastrointestinal adventures might seem longer than two years, it only seems that way.

That Vladimir Putin was sitting at his glorious desk in the Moscow Kremlin and manipulating your auntie’s vote via his Official Danger Man®™ Snoopocontrolloscope (the collectible model comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the late Patrick McGoohan) seems unlikely, but the allegations of electronic tonkering have cost all of us millions of dollars in order to pay the alligator-shoe-boys to share tittle-tattle.

Further, the reports of hardware failures, computer failures, printout failures, power failures, and in at least one Houston location a shortage of extension cords – yes, extension cords – delayed last week’s voting in many locations.

How much do the various brands and models of gollygeewhizpinball voting machines cost us? How reliable are they? How much do the various brands and models of tabulating machines, printers, scanners cost us? How much do the legions of IT functionaries, electricians, operating crews, programmers, software developers, software sales people, and the bidding and acquisition processes cost us?

And, yeah, the extension cords – the glories of our mighty Republic had to be put on hold while someone found a hardware store still open late at night.

And, in the end, how many Americans trust a jumped-up video game to have been programmed honestly and to record accurately even one vote?

The honest, effective, rational, and cost-saving approach to fair elections is to vote on paper ballots, and then for each ballot in its turn counted, checked, and verified by small committees of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other. If a ballot is approved by all it is counted; if there are disagreements then the ballot is carried by a messenger to another room where another small committee of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other resolve the problem.

Make the ballots big. Make them clear. Make the choices obvious through plain language free of weak verbs, the passive voice, and euphemisms.

The useless pachinko voting machines could be broken up for scrap metal or sunk along the coast as artificial reefs for the little fishes.

Paper ballots – good for America, good for the little fishes, bad for the Chinese manufacturers of videogaming toys, and really bad for the comrades in Broward County, Florida.

-30-

Why Did He Shoot People He Did Not Know? - poem (speculation only)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Why Did He Shoot People He Did Not Know?

Why did he shoot people he did not know?
Maybe he did not know what else to do

He was told all his life he could do anything
But he couldn’t
He was told all his life how special he was
But he wasn’t

He was told all his life to follow his dreams
But what are dreams?
And the success and the money would follow
But they didn’t

He was told all his life to be himself
But what was he?
He was given noises all his life, but when
The silence fell…

He had no poetry, no prayer, no art
He looked inside himself, and nothing was there

Why did he shoot people he did not know?
Maybe he did not know what else to do

Wednesday, November 7, 2018

Simon and Schuster and the Construction Trades - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Simon and Schuster and the Construction Trades

“…you’ll love this riveting memoir.”

One longs to see a memoir riveting,
Setting in place with tongs the hot red steel,
Bucking the tail, and quickly pivoting
For another – a worker’s life is real

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Election Day: Executive Inaction with Moderate Prejudice in Fits of Absent-Mindedness - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Election Day:
Executive Inaction with Moderate Prejudice
in Fits of Absent-Mindedness

The old order changeth, yielding place to new

-Tennyson, Idylls of the King

Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there

If you vote they give you a sticker

The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees

If you vote they give you a sticker

The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.

If you vote they give you a sticker

Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps

If you vote they give you a sticker

Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The meth lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math

If you vote they give you a sticker

An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather

If you vote they give you a sticker

And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence

If you vote they give you a sticker

While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world

If you vote they give you a sticker

And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists

(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)

But if you vote they give you a sticker

Monday, November 5, 2018

Guy Fawkes Forgot to Set His Smart Phone on Silent - not nearly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Guy Fawkes Forgot to Set His Smart Phone on Silent

Remember, remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason, and plot!
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason…
Wait – dude, is there an app for that?

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Western Civilization and Radio Static - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Western Civilization and Radio Static

…These men are worth your tears:
You are not worth their merriment.

-Wilfred Owen, “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean? Paradise Lost? Probably not
Nor Saint Paul speaking on the Field of Mars

The Kalevala, Hagia Sophia
With its pendentives lifting up our prayers
Horatius fighting to defend his bridge
And Wilfred Owen dying bravely on his

Lord Tennyson and Idylls of the King
Chapultepec, Henry V, Becket
The paratroops at Arnhem, Saint Thomas More,
His King’s loyal servant, but God’s first

The Stray Dog poets of Saint Petersburg
The brave last stand of Roland at Roncesvalles
Lewis and Tolkien and glasses of beer
Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham

Hildegard von Bingen, Siegfried and the Rhine
Magna Carta, HMS Hood, the Thames
The Grove of Daphne, “The Old Rugged Cross”
Beatrix Potter and her little pet rabbit

El Cid, Anne Frank, John Keats, Saint Benedict
“I Have a Dream,” Dostoyevsky, and Greene
Viktor Frankl, Dag Hammarkskjold, and Proust
Good Chaucer’s naughty pilgrims telling tales

The Gettysburg Address, Willie and Joe
Stern Saint Augustine of North Africa
Wodehouse writing a jolly bit of fun
Saint Corbinian and Bavaria

The ancient glories of Byzantium
Pius XII contra the bombs and lies
The 602nd TD Battalion
Saint Joan, the Prado, and Robert Frost

And far, far more.

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean?



Of your mercy please pray for the repose of the soul of Wilfred Owen who was killed in action on 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice.

Clockery - a Practical Guide for Bending Time to One's Will - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Clockery – a Practical Guide for Bending Time to One’s Will

“I can buy a clock, sir!”

-Will Roper, obtuse as usual, to Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

Some vague authority for this and that
Advises us that now is the time for all
Good men to come to the aid of their clockery
And set each loyal clock an hour back

For after all, the old times were much better
When an American-made watch or clock
Required a good, strong man to wind it up –
None o’ yer godless Chinese ‘tronics, eh

And as the seasonal will must have it so
Upon my rounds to each house clock I go!

Saturday, November 3, 2018

The First Day of Deer Season (a catchy and original title, eh!) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Day of Deer Season

The first shots slammed across the woods at dawn
Into my sleep, there taking down my dreams
Which can’t be slung into a pickup truck
And carried to the processors by noon

Venison is a bit gamey, of course:
That’s why they call it game, wild game, then food
Blended with pork and spices for Thanksgiving
And that’s a nice little dream in itself

Let’s not indulge sentimentality here
In forest glades or on china plates – it’s just a deer

Friday, November 2, 2018

An Earthworm in Flood-Time - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Earthworm in Flood-Time

If that poor worm remained in his earthy lair
He then would drown in mud and muck and mould
And if that worm crawled up to breathe the air
A robin would eat him as a luncheon cold

He had to make a choice…

And as he died the poor worm cried:
“Mid-term elections! Everybody lied!”

Thursday, November 1, 2018

A Cafeteria Constitution? - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Cafeteria Constitution?

Will Roper: “So now you give the Devil benefit of law!?”

Thomas More: “Yes, what would you do, cut a great road to the law to get at the Devil?”

Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

That some members of Congress and some American citizens want to regard the Constitution as a sort of salad bar and thus reject the bits they don’t want is disturbing. The Constitution is a foundation document, not a throwaway leaflet, and that some Americans regard it as nothing more than an obstacle to the acquisition of power both by individuals and by identity groups is a rebuke to their character.

Enjoying the freedom to vote for our leaders and for many laws and causes means, by definition, that we don’t always get what we want. An ill-mannered child who demands the biggest slice of chocolate cake does not understand that; an adult should

The utility of the electoral college (Article 1 and the 12th Amendment) is always questioned when a candidate for the presidency wins the popular vote but loses the electoral vote. Those of us who did not pay attention in civics (our name is Legion) fail to grasp that the Constitution requires that the president be chosen by the several states, not by a majority vote. This was designed as a hedge against the tyranny of large groups – without the electoral college and other calculated inefficiencies this nation would be ruled only by the populations of a New York / New Jersey / Chicago / Los Angeles / San Antonio / Houston / Dallas Borg. No candidate for president would ever campaign outside those jurisdictions nor would a president serve any interests but those of the Borg.

In 2016 Mr. Trump was outvoted by Mrs. Clinton by 2.9 million votes (https://www.thoughtco.com/why-keep-the-electoral-college-3322050), and in 2000 Mr. Bush won 543,800 few votes than Mr. Gore. Some maintain that this is unfair, but a stable government does not function according to moods and feelings, but according to the agreed-upon laws which govern us all.

This situation has been uncommon; only four other candidates have won the presidency without the popular vote: Mr. Harrison, Mr. Hayes, Mr. John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Lincoln, who won with only 40% of the popular vote.

Another Constitutional matter some wish to violate is the 14th Amendment, which begins with “All persons born or naturalized in the United State and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State where in they reside…”

Some have suggested that this Amendment is flawed because of the phrase “…and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…’ suggesting that a foreign national is subject to the laws of his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) own nation. Perhaps, but an immediate reality is that a visitor is subject to the laws of this nation too. A German is not exempted from the traffic laws of Wisconsin, and a Russian may not rob a bank with impunity because he is not an American.

Even granting the argument, a more urgent law is this: the Constitution can be amended only by a two thirds vote of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The matter is subject to debate; it always is. That a foreign national born in the USA is automatically a citizen is questionable. If we are going to change that, we must do so by the laws we claim to be the source of our freedom.

No president may presume to alter the Constitution; to attempt to do so is a violation of the Constitution, of the core document of federal law.

Our previous president also suffered from the I’ve-got-a-pen-and-a-telephone ego-thing, which was often accepted passively by our Merovingian Congress. It wasn’t right then, and it wouldn’t be right now.

The Constitution is based on wisdom, on the heritage of at least 6,000 years of human civilization and experience and learning, not on the numbers of individuals who upvote or downvote a game show on the Orwellian telescreen.

Remember what Thomas More said: if we tear down the law to get at those we don’t like, then the law will no longer exist to protect us.

-30-