Sunday, March 31, 2019

A Luddite and His Timex Watch - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Watch Out!

Some millionaire on the a.m. radio was pitying himself the other day: his expensive, high-tech, high-tone Fruit™ watch (or was it a vegetable watch?) wasn’t acting right, wouldn’t hold a charge, and had to be re-programmed every day until tech support (or Tech Support) worked their magic on it.

Mr. Millionaire, meet the $10 Timex. Oops - it’s up to $24 now. My Timex, which “takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” as John Cameron Swayze used to say, cost only $10 at Giganto-Mart, but that was years ago.

A Timex needs no programming; all you do is re-set it twice a year for the semi-annual fall-fully-forward-spring-latch-back-attack thing.

The basic Timex watch is soooooooooooooo uncool. A Timex will not impress your date. A Timex will not impress your beagle. A Timex is redolent of the pool room, not the board room. A discriminating mugger will sneer at a Timex with the same contempt he once demonstrated for the Ford Fiesta. A Timex does not speak of elegance, guess your height and weight, tell you the future, measure the deterioration of your liver, or calculate the decay of the planet’s orbit around the sun. All a Timex does is show you the time with two little pointers, also known as hands, although they aren’t really hands. We just call them hands, you see.

Clever people, those Chinese, to have invented such a cheap and reliable way of telling time. Not that time will listen to what you tell it.

A Timex comes in a variety of colors and straps, and some variations are named Expedition™ and Iron Man™ and such, plain little ol’ watches that have watched too many Rambo movies and have costumed themselves in dime-store camouflage and outfitted themselves with itty-bitty Russian Kalashnikovs.

When the battery in a Timex wears out, you can usually replace it yourself. Just unscrew the back, drop the battery, note the number, and go to the drug store for a replacement. This is needful only every two or three years, sometimes longer.

A watch should not need programming. Nor should a radio or a teevee set or a telephone, but the STEMinstas will not have it that when you buy something it should simply work. Oh, no; now you must read books and access sites and give strangers your credit card numbers and a snapshot of your passport in order to validate and start up a gadget for which you have already paid.

I suppose next we’ll have to program our pocket knives and fountain pens. A carpenter roofing in the hot sun might have to knock off work for an hour to access a spiderwebsite and purchase a yearly update for his hammer. Screwdrivers might need occasional re-programming. And don’t get me started on the complications of electronic 2 x 4s.

Young people might find adapting to a wristwatch of any kind a challenge. Instead of automatically reaching into a pocket or purse for the MePhone to check the time they would have to learn how to swing an arm out and up to read the little dial. And, yes, they’d have to figure out what “hands” are and how to work out the time from the hands’ positions.

But then, wearing a watch at all, even a Timex, might enhance a young man or woman’s coolness factor: “Hey, Heather-Misty-Dakota-Shane, what’s that neat-looking thing on your wrist? I’ve got to get me one!”

Well, as they say in that old movie in which James Arness plays a giant, carnivorous carrot, “Watch the skies!”

-30-

William Shakespeare Murdered Edward deVere in the Library with the Pipe Wrench - hardly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

William Shakespeare Murdered Edward deVere in
the Library with the Pipe Wrench

Of course one asks what was the library doing
With a pipe wrench.

-The End-

Saturday, March 30, 2019

I Lit a Candle for You at Mass, Only I Didn't - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Lit a Candle for You - Only I Didn’t


Before the Mass I went to light for you
A Penny Candle (it’s a Looney now)
And with it send a prayer up through the air
Throughout the liturgy, into the night

But, oh, how sad that it could not be so
For all the little paper matches were damp
And all I have to offer you today
Are heaps of cardboard strips in a little tray

But even so: within my heart, you know
There is for you forever a votive glow


(Looney - a Canadian dollar, but of course one needn’t put in a coin at all)

Friday, March 29, 2019

About Those University Admission Bribes... - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Temporary, Part-Time, Adjunct Faculty Instructor of No Significance Whatsoever at a Little Cinder-Block Community College Unknown to Anyone Beyond the Interstate Bypass Asks the Most Important Question About Admissions Bribery


Oh, please forgive this seeming diatribe
But I am one of the scrivening tribe
A poor Chaucerian scholar, a scribe

Who asks

Why doesn’t anyone offer me a bribe?

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big? - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big?

“Men Ditch Suits, and Retailers Struggle to Adapt”

-Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2019

We all must be good comrades now
We all must wear good comradewear
As if we worked with wrench and plough
Instead of cruising an office chair

We all must be good comrades, da!
And from one’s well-lit office space
Sneer at “the suits” - so long, Grandpa!
And so decolonise this place

We all must be good comrades now -
But have you ever milked a cow?

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

0400 at Denny's Along the Interstate - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

0400 at Denny’s Along the Interstate

A line cook at Denny’s (must have own pans)
Is an artist, accomplished in assemblage
Compositions of eggs (rather like Cezanne’s)
Toast, bacon, waffles for his decoupage

His gesso is the window layered in steam
Built of reflections and condensation
Hinting at the flowing Interstate stream
Beyond the No Smoking pumping station

The line cook has indeed his pans and plans -
Art, as the muse of cookery commands

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Morning Courage - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Morning Courage

Some have said that the bravest thing we do
Is to get up each morning and face the dawn
It may be so. The light is grey and cold
There seem to be no reasons to go on

And yet - the morning sun begins to kiss
The sensitive, delicate springtime leaves
Turning their own hopes to the morning sun
Stretching their chloroplasts awake to life

So even as sunlight embraces the tree
So maybe there will be kisses - we’ll see!

Monday, March 25, 2019

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report

“And art made tongue-tied by authority”

-Sonnet 66, often quoted by Pasternak

The Russian reports on my desk include:

Selected Poems, Yevtushenko
The Possessed, Dostoyevsky
The Zhivago Affair, Finn and Couvee
The Complete Poems of Anna Ahkmatova
August 1914, Solzhenitsyn


And some of them unread, some of them read
And better read than red, so someone said
Some of them shelved (We and The House of the Dead)
But now I’m going to work the flower bed

And what century is it outside? 1


1 Pasternak

Sunday, March 24, 2019

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were

“He is a dreamer; let us leave him – pass.” Julius Caesar I.ii.24

Strident philosophers at Hyde Park Corner
Poor buskers at Queen Victoria’s feet
Chalk artists remaking the pavement as Rome
A Seventh Sister with her folk guitar

These are not dreamers passive in their beds
Or supplicants awaiting permission:
They are the worker bees; they know of pain
And sweat, and sunstroke in the fields - and truth

When a sidewalk artist notes that the Ides
Have come, Caesar indeed should turn to hear

Saturday, March 23, 2019

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance - rhyming triplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance

Whether I am on the right side of history
Is a fantasy and an irrelevancy -
History had better be on the right side of me

Friday, March 22, 2019

Across the Cemetery Fence - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Across the Cemetery Fence

Hart-Bevil Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas


From service as Companions of the Conqueror
To the democracy of death and dust


This was family land in the long ago
Now alienated from the living
Accessible through permissions and locks
But we and the ghosts are okay with that

They say that only four of them were hanged
The dealer in false deeds died of old age
Some possibly were saints; hard to believe
For after all, we are de Beauville’s kin

From Normandy, and then green Chesterton
And then dispersed to the colonies
At the convenience of His Majesty
De Beauvilles and Bevilles and then Bevils

And some are buried on this lonely knoll
Dim mossy bones and stones among the pines
Across the fence a little heap of glass
Broken flower vases from the dime store


Now the democracy of dust and death
But once
                     Companions of the Conqueror

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Select Committee for Something or Other Meets in Market Basket #3 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Select Committee for Something or Other
Meets in Market Basket #3

We have no fine old paneling of oak
No ancient silver on a sideboard new
When Charles the First still wore his handsome head
We have no Latin, we may not smoke, but still -

Between the cinder blocks and coffee urn
Dining upon the finest plastic foam
We laugh at yarns that Saint Augustine thought
Well out of date when Africa lost Rome

We have no fine old paneling of oak
But every day we share a fine old joke

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

A Young Wasp in Spring - Appropriate Respect for Life Forms - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Young Wasp in Spring

The spring morning was chill when from its nest
A young wasp fell, helpless and young
Upon the ground, needing the warmth of the sun
To spread its tiny dragon’s wings into new life

A creature of God, needing only an hour
To gain its strength, and so to live the life
Destined for it, its appointed mission
In the unknowable Plan of Creation

It seemed to beg for mercy with each desperate breath
And so with great care I crushed it to death

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Saint Joseph's Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Saint Joseph the Just

Saint Joseph in a dreary winter night
Took to himself a newborn not his own,
Who yet is always his, the Child of Light
Whose crib Saint Joseph knew to be a throne

Saint Joseph shows men truth: each child is ours,
Adopted by each good man upon birth;
True fatherhood ordained in starlit hours
And ratified in Heaven and on earth.

Saint Joseph is the man who looked into
The eyes of Mary in her happy youth;
This strong man looked into her eyes and knew
She bore within her all eternal Truth.

Our witness is Saint Joseph, ever just:
God calls each man to take each child in trust.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini

Your grandmother and I are the only ones
Who listen still to Rod McKuen, and dream
Of Mission Beach ‘way back in ‘68
Or maybe not so far back after all

The sands still sing of sea and salt and seals
There are no watchful clocks to time our hopes
No calendars to tell us we are old
As we slow dance to a tiny transistor

But not with each other, not any more
For I had my orders, and she had hers

Sunday, March 17, 2019

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval

Sweet music on the Mustang’s radio
We’re sitting in her parents’ driveway

And sort of talking about the movie
And sort of talking about poetry and life

Frost is settling on the hood of the car
But all is warm in our bubble of love

Until

Our kiss is interrupted by the flickering
Of the parental, watchful front porch light

We sigh. We kiss. The censorial eye -
It orders me away - “That’s all! Bye-bye!”

(Oh, flick that porch light anyway!)

Saturday, March 16, 2019

A Contemporary Vocabulary fro Writers and Artists - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Contemporary Vocabulary for Writers and Artists

As culled from an art magazine, 13 March 2019
 
Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.
 
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry

collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted
members of the creative community
Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization

Friday, March 15, 2019

The 15th of March, 1917 - poem (from last year)

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




(2 March 1917 O.S.)

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Texas Standard Time - WHOOP! - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Texas Standard Time - Whoop!

Our Texas State Representative, James White, has proposed a constant Texas Standard Time independent of any other time ordered by any other state or by any federal agency. This is a fine idea.

Like Texans themselves (except for some of the in-laws over in Newton County), Texas Standard Time would be steady and dependable. People everywhere, when asked the time, would check their custom Texas A & M watches and say, “Well, I’m not sure about here, but in Texas it’s half-past Bevo…”

Texas Standard Time would be the standard for the world. In Greenwich the Royal Observatory would be shut down and a memorial plaque posted on the door as a remembrance of when Greenwich Mean Time meant something.

I know that Representative White is anxious to hear my suggestions in the matter of Texas Standard Time, and so I make the follow suggestions for designating Texas State Hours:



Midnight - As Mickey Gilley says, the girls get prettier at closing time.

0100 - Goodnight, Moon. Say, that would make a great book title.

0200 - All-night truckers and shift-workers reach for another cuppa coffee.

0300 - Reveille, reveille, reveille! Rise and shine! It’s a great day to serve the United States Navy! Or, better yet, the Texas Navy. Coffee.

0400 - Time for some to get up and go milk the cows. Coffee.

0500 - Time for others to get up and get ready for work at the shop or the office. Coffee.

0600 - Get the kidlets ready for school with a real breakfast. The naughtiest of the kidlets will, on the way out the door, present Mom with a teacher-note to be signed. Coffee.

0700 - The Belle-Jim on the courthouse square in Jasper serves breakfast and enlightening conversation that Plato and Socrates might envy. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0800 - The school-zone flashers switch off; however, beware the Mad Momma turning into elementary school driveway on two wheels without any lights or turn signals, with a cell ‘phone in one hand, a bottle of that Fuji water in the other, and yelling at the kids in the back seat. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1000 - the public library opens for the day. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1100 - Clients and customers are waiting impatiently. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea (pronounced “icetea”).

1200 - You’d like to go for lunch, but the boss says… There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1300 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1400 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Dang, this iced tea is old.

1500 - This is the hour you desperately need a cup of coffee but the guys and gals who seem to hang out by the coffee machine all day drank it all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

1600 - Time to milk the cows again. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Fresh iced tea.

1700 - “Junior, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1800 - “Missie, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1830. The Wheel. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

2000 - In a civilized world, Gunsmoke would air on CBS. Someone’s used all the hot water. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2100 - So the dog isn’t quite house-trained after all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2200 - “Mom! Would you help me with this homework I forgot?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2300 - What? Are you still up?

All funnin’ aside, we are blessed in our state representative, James White; our state senator, Robert Nichols; our U.S. Representative, Brian Babin; and our U.S. senator, John Cornyn. I’ll say something nice about Senator Cruz after he shaves. Dang, Ted, what are you thinking?

-30-

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man

To make the worship of a state the source
Of all the aspirations of a man
Of all his duties and of all his arts
Is not to be a man or artist at all

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Penguins and Oxford Blues - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Penguins and Oxford Blues

Poor sailors and poor students parse the past
Between the paper covers of poor Penguins
Poor crumbling pages and crumbling civilizations
Held together with rubber bands and Scotch tape

And when in middle age The City of God
At last succumbs to the barbarians of time
A fresh one is built up in Oxford blue
By Vivian Ridler, who saved for us the words

And yet - the arguments of several Romes
Were somehow fresher at $3.75

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

"The F*g with the Bow Tie" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“The F*g with the Bow Tie” 1

“Only in Russia is poetry respected – it gets people killed.
Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”

-Osip Mandelstam 2

Spain. Poetry got people killed in Spain -
And still wherever tyrants of delicate nerves
And artistic sensitivities hear
Whispered rumors of whispered disapproval

And so an innocent, fearful and trembling
Must be motored away to a moonless death
Upon orders spoken, written, tweeted
Telephoned, telegraphed, or teletyped

One prays he has a moment to adjust his tie
Perfectly - as an honor to Poetry




1 The slur is attributed to Federico Garcia Lorca’s murderers:
https://lithub.com/dictators-kill-poets-on-federico-garcia-lorcas-last-days/

2 Quoted by Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 20th Century Russian Poetry

Monday, March 11, 2019

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598

There is perhaps a certain indignity
In grounding back on earth among some weeds
Your late balloon a fragment of itself
Your parachute all damp and limp and still

But, oh! what an adventure you have lived!
Scuffy the Tugboat might well envy you
Your day and night in scientific flight
With helium instead of pixie dust

Like Peter Pan you sailed along the wind
Straight on until morning, then home again

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Billy Possum Destroys the Bird Feeder (again) - rhyming doggerel (or possumerrel)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Billy Possum Destroys the Bird Feeder in the Night

(Again)

That climbing ratitude
In nightly interlude
And moral turpitude
Eats all the birdy-food

(I haven’t thought up an appropriate amphimacer [yes, I had to look that up] “ude” rhyme for the destruction of a bird feeder, but if I do it will go here)

Thus shows his gratitude
Oh! What an attitude!
I speak with acritude
Thus ends this platitude


For the true adventures of Billy Possum, see Thornton W. Burgess’ wonderful Mother West Wind stories.


Saturday, March 9, 2019

"Only the Solitary Seek the Truth" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Workers of the World, Untie

“Every herd is a refuge for giftlessness…Only the solitary seek the truth,
and they break with all those who don't love it sufficiently.”

― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

You cannot write with your fist clenched in hate
You cannot sing with a conscripted voice
You cannot dance if you are made to march
You cannot love if your heart is not free

You cannot think if they slogan your mind
You cannot play if they deny your joy
You cannot dream if they program your spirit
You cannot pray if they poison your soul

You are an artist, a seeker of truth:
And no one should finish this line for you

Friday, March 8, 2019

The Happy Killer Who Dug The Lovin' Spoonful - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Happy Killer Who Dug The Lovin’ Spoonful

Caught in the net of conscription, most of us
Some joining up before being press-ganged
Why wait to be pushed into your own death
When you can push yourself, and wonder why

An E-4 not yet thirty - we called him Pops
A curly-haired kid named Skip - his head blown off
That Army guy who let go of the boat and drowned
The happy killer who dug The Lovin’ Spoonful

Caught in the net of conscription, most of us
Along with Miss March, withering in the heat

Thursday, March 7, 2019

My Weather Balloon - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

It Fell From the Skies!

But don’t worry - the “it” was an iMet-4 radiosonde, tethered to a nifty parachute, and at a few ounces it would hardly have disturbed a flower petal.

Early on Sunday morning I, y’r ‘umble rustic scrivener, found a little parachute alongside a country road. The parachute had a harness and a line dangling, and atop it a burst balloon. I followed the line into the weeds, expecting to find a weather service device, a little camera, or a science experiment.

In the event, it was two of the three, a little plastic box on which was lettered “IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL (XXX-XXX-XXXX).” On the other side the maker’s label read “iMet-4” and “InterMet Systems.” Alongside the label was a row of indicators marked “402MHz” to “405Mx,” and a button for setting the frequency. On top was a connector of some sort and the attachment for the lanyard. On the bottom protruded a six-inch flexible antenna.

The parachute was of a very tight weave; from it was suspended a blue plastic ring built to accept the attachment of various scientific instruments.

Finally, there was a burst balloon. When the balloon failed, everything floated gently down to the weeds along my road.

The concept of the radiosonde dates from the 1930s, and was invented simultaneously in the USA and in the unfortunate Soviet Union.

This particular model, from International Met Systems of Grand Rapids, Michigan, measures temperature, humidity, air pressure, geopotential height (I don’t know what that means), wind speed, and wind direction, and sends this information constantly to its receiving station.

And while we were asleep this particular I-Met 4 spent the night in the silences high above the ground, swinging from its balloon while sniffing the air and feeling the wind and thinking happy electronic thoughts.

Dr. Don Conlee of God’s University, Texas A & M, sent me an electrical note thanking me for its recovery, and added: “We are involved in an experiment to better understand tornadoes in the SE U.S., and have been launching quite frequently of late.”

Given the deadly nature of tornadoes, we can all be grateful to Dr. Conlee, his students, and his fellow scientists for launching this little gadget and all its little electronic classmates from Easterwood Field in College Station to acquire knowledge that will save lives.

Dr. Conlee continued: “If you have a convenient way to return it to us…at A & M…that would be great. If not, I would suggest that you see if a local middle school or high school science teacher would like to take it, along with my contact information, and we can see how they might use it in the classroom to talk about weather/physics/etc.”

And so it was agreed. I have a young friend who teaches science and will take charge of the radiosonde for her students, and Dr. Conlee will send her and her students “…information about the launch, pictures of the data it collected, and maps that will be interesting.” Thus, the radiosonde will have contributed to civilization twice, first in the acquisition of knowledge that will help save lives, and then again through the intellectual enrichment of the young.

And that is The Aggie Way. Whoop!

When I was a lad I enjoyed science (until in the higher grades teachers messed it up with mathematics), and I would have had that single, tempting phillips screw out as soon as I could open up my Swiss Army Knife to see if there were any tiny little Martians aboard.

As it was, in my responsible old age I did not take the machine apart, though I did put it to my ear to listen for any secrets being beamed back out to space. It was silent, and there were no Martians.

Sigh.

Despite the intrusion of mathematics (maths are not in the Bible, you know), science is both useful and fun.

In this instance the radiosonde, its rigging, the blue plastic ring, the poofy parachute, and the balloon were also quite pretty. I wish I had seen them floating down through the sky because, as Blaise Pascal says, “the heart has its reasons, which the mind knows not.”

-30-



Be a Manly Catholic Man (Your Major Credit Card Welcome)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ya Can’t be a Manly Catholic Man ™® Without
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“Church? It's a shop! Salvation by the shilling!”

-Will Roper to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons


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And somewhere there’s possibly a pizza,
A Manly Catholic Man ™® Combat™® Rosary™®,
and a manly group hug

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

My School of Thought - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

My School of Thought

We’ve heard of schools of thought for ideas sought -
Philosophy, history, music, and art -
Where everyone agrees that they are all smart
So I would like to build my own school of thought:

In the mornings the children will raise my flag
And all will pledge true allegiance to me
And in class children will look up to see
My thoughtful image, and they will brag

How everyone now thinks as I say they ought:
And that, dear friends, is my own school of thought!

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Diskos et Calyx - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Diskos et Calyx

The universe spirals through its starlit dance
Creation spins around, in, and down
Eternity circles the paten and cup

Miraculum

Eternity circles the paten and cup
Around and out and up, Creation spins
Through its starlit dance the universe spirals

Monday, March 4, 2019

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity - Limerick

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity
(and a book deal)


Dear Feds:

I wish to apply for immunity
Though I have done nothing with impunity
Show me how to conspire
So that I might acquire
Largess from the working community

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall

Sunday, March 3, 2019

There Are Only Two Dreams - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

There Are Only Two Dreams

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
And if you wake exiled from Eden again
From a moment of exquisite happiness
Your dream was wonderfully, happily true

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
Any other topic is not a dream
But only the clamorings of others
Demanding always a piece of your soul

There are only two dreams: freedom and love -
Tears mean only that you must wait awhile

Saturday, March 2, 2019

The Sorceress of Santarem - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Sorceress of Santarem

Whatever happened to the sorceress?
The narratives leave her story unresolved -
Upon the Altar reposes the sacred Host
Before the Altar kneel graced penitents

But did the sorceress find mercy too
Or does she still cringe in her crusted cave
In a gully before the rubbish fires
Whose incense is the writhing smoke of Hell

Whatever happened to her life of blight -
Was she too wakened by that same true Light?





Suggested by a thought in a letter from Fr. Raphael Barousse, OSB

Friday, March 1, 2019

Looking for Something in a Burning Street

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol

Looking for Something in a Burning Street

He was looking for something in a burning street
Among blown wreckage and necrotic smoke
Among the drifting ashes and debris
Alone among grey-morning-crumbling stones

He later could not remember much of it
Among the empty greyness - were there dead?
Among the silences where screams had flown
Alone among accusers who weren’t there

“Don’t look for it. Go into solitude.
Don’t look for it. It will be found for you.”