We Have No King but Narcissus - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

We Have No King but Narcissus

                                               …he doth bestride the narrow world
                                               Like a Colossus, and we petty men
                                              Walk under his huge legs and peep about
                                              To find ourselves dishonorable graves

-Julius Caesar I.ii.135-138

Our Caesar telephones, and missiles rain
Kalashnikov now rules our streets and schools
Warrantless searches on the Amtrak train
Cabinetlings squatting on specimen stools

And we are urged to clench our fists and shout
In ordered, servile choreography
To bring his family coup d’etat about
Through well-surveillanced demagoguery

Our master baits the poor Constitution
Groaning while grasping his moral pollution

King Henry V and Traditional Norman Entertainments - Rhyming Doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

King Henry V and Traditional Norman Entertainments

Henry V II.i.47ff

For supper Lord Cambridge was given a chop
The very meal Lord Masham was dreading
Northumberland was carved in that very same shop -
What Norman doesn’t enjoy a lovely beheading?

The Potential for a Potentially Potential Hurricane Season - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Potential for a Potentially Potential Hurricane Season

I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him.

None of his institutions control or pervade her.

-attributed to Henry David Thoreau

The buzzy words this hurricane season are the noun “potential” and its adverb “potentially.” In Latin “potential” means powerful; in modern English the meaning has drifted into a consideration of the possible. In Latin a potential storm is one that is powerful; in English a potential storm is not a storm at all but rather a weather disturbance that might become a storm.

We haven’t yet read a sentence such as “The potential hurricane is potentially heading for a potential landing on Florida’s cost,” but we might before the season is over. “Potential” is The Word; you are not going to see or hear the weather news this year without the speaker casting it about like pixie dust: “Potentially you are not going to potentially see or hear the potential weather news without the potential speaker casting it potentially about like potential pixie dust.”

Weather Underground (I don’t think they are really underground) came up with a fresh storm metaphor this year, “muscling,” as in “Hurricane Dorian is muscling its way to Florida.” That’s pretty good the first few hundred times you hear it.

Otherwise, the weather news is clotted with the same old metaphors about storms making landfall, brewing in the Gulf, building up steam, storming ashore (because, after all, storming is what storms do), lashing, pounding, barreling, reducing to rubble, battening down the hatches, wreaking havoc, leaving swaths of destruction, trees snapping like matchsticks, cars tossing around like toys, cities dodging the bullet, a street looking like a war zone, we’re not out of the woods, the eerie calm before the storm, the eerie calm in the eye of the storm, the eerie calm after the storm, perfect storm, storm of the century, in the crosshairs, fish storm, decimated, ground zero, and on and on.

Mother Nature’s Wrath and Mother Nature’s Fury used to be part of the babble, but no more. We have progressed from Greco-Roman mythology about nature goddess to Renaissance obsessions with witches. Someone must be blamed for hurricanes, and now the fault is beastly climate-change deniers instead of goddesses.

Climate-change deniers? Really?

As Henry David Thoreau said, “The wind that blows is all that anyone knows.”

-30-

The Veterans' Administration Thanks You for Your Service (Now Shut Up and Go Away)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Veterans’ Administration Thanks You for Your Service

(Now shut up and go away.)

Rarely do they murder us
Mostly they just ignore us

Lady Macbeth's Advice to Young Men Contemplating the Holy and Honourable Estate of Matrimony - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lady Macbeth’s Advice to Young Men Contemplating

the Holy and Honourable Estate of Matrimony

Okay, yeah, sure, a little domestic strife
A resume written with a big ol’ knife
But if you want to get ahead in life
Even a king should listen to his wife

Luna-Dog and I - doggerel indeed!

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Luna-Dog and I

She gently takes the proffered nibbly bite
Between her toothful jaws, my little ally
This is our bedtime custom every night
That’s why my dog is fat - and so am I!

"Straight Pride Event..." - couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Straight Pride Event Draws LGBTQ+ Protests”

-headline

What’s important?



Young lovers soaring through a Neverland night
Savouring each other in sweet delight

"The Queen Stands at Your Right Hand, Arrayed in Gold" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"The Queen Stands at Your Right Hand, Arrayed in Gold"

-Psalm 45

The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold
The Queen is not ornamented in gold
The Queen is not decorated in gold
The Queen is not merely costumed in gold

The Queen is royally arrayed in gold
For She alone is the Theotokos
In Whose honor the sun is given to shine
Through Her, the Passage between worlds

The Light of the world is the Saviour indeed:
The Queen stands at His right hand, arrayed in gold

Cf:
Psalm 45
St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 38

Talibanning Ourselves - Weekly Column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Talibanning Ourselves

Our North American Taliban are again attempting to destroy history.

Last week Mexico City’s Angel of Independence (https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/mexico/articles/9-fascinating-facts-about-mexico-citys-angel-of-independence/) was grotesquely vandalized by the usual protestors with the usual spray paint in scrawling the usual obscenities. The pretext for the desecration was gender-based violence. The irony of a sacred cultural marker celebrating freedom for all being defaced by a mob is an irony.

The peace-loving protestors also assaulted television reporters covering the demonstration, beating one unconscious. While protesting violence.

The monument dates from 1910 and celebrates Mexico’s independence from Spain. From a large base a pillar rises to a statue of Father Hidalgo, whose Grito de Dolores (http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org/adp/archives/documents/hidalgo.html) on 16 September 1810 commenced the revolution against colonial rule. At the very top of the monument is a winged Nike (the Greek goddess of victory, and if she were real she’d probably fry everyone for mispronouncing her name) holding a crown of laurels, symbolizing martyrdom and victory.

One of the images is of an Irishman, William Lambert, Guiellen de Lampart, who is said to be one of the several inspirations for Zorro because of his participation in the early struggles for independence. The Spanish government had some hard feelings about this and executed him by burning in 1659.

Within the base are buried heroes of the revolution, including Father Hidalgo, Guadalupe Victoria (the first president), Leona Vicario, and her husband Andrés.

The Angel of Independence is a visual history lesson featuring images of heroes of Mexico, a child leading a lion, and, among many other statues and devices, four women at the four points of the base, symbolizing Law, War, Justice, and Peace. The Angel is a big deal (as in BIG DEAL), and before her and around her families take quinceañera pictures, footer fans celebrate victories, protestors protest, speeches are made, and independence is celebrated.

The Angel of Independence represents the noblest aspirations of humanity, and anyone who would deface her represents nothing more than a temper tantrum.

The destruction of culture, the suppression of free speech, and the attempted erasure of history are features of Nazism, Communism, and Taliban-ism, and are unworthy of anyone with any claim to love the Platonic ideals of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

If we disagree with a writer’s book we write our own book countering it.

If we dislike a statue’s implied message we place a different statue with a different message in the same park.

If we disagree with a speaker we listen and then against his thesis propose a reasoned antithesis.

If we don’t like a newspaper’s views we subscribe to another newspaper.

If a television program promotes content we want to spare our children then we switch channels or, better, turn the darned thing off and turn the kidlets to the bookshelves in the living room.

The recent ugly rise of burning, banning, censoring, and silencing of art, music, literature, and political discourse, always in the name of a purported higher cause, is not what any nation’s constitution is about.

-30-

Ransomware Never Crippled Who We Were - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Ransomware Cripples Cities”

-a common headline

Ransomware never crippled an Olivetti
But a broken spring did so once or twice
So I carried the old machine to old Bill
Whose magic always made it fly again

Ransomware never crippled a cardboard file
Nor yet the flyleaf of the book in which
She wrote the kindest sentiment of love
In the sweet optimism of our youth

Ransomware never crippled who we were -
I did that to us when I walked away

Rib Cage in the Road - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Rib Cage in the Road

A fuzzy structure there beside the road -
It proves to be the rib cage of the dead
Which nights before enclosed the heart and lungs
Of a creature on its errands dutiful

Gone now to buzzards and bacterial decay
On this, neither the Road to Damascus
Nor to Emmaus, and the Good Samaritan
Could have done nothing had he come along

It sinks into the dust, and so will we
Beneath the tire-treads of mortality

"I Am the Chosen One" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“I Am the Chosen One”

-The King of Israel,

the Second Coming of God,

and Member of the Order of the Purple Heart

21 August 2019

No
No, no
Oh, no
Now please
Just go

Inbox / Sent / Spam / Trash - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Inbox / Sent / Spam / Trash

Inbox:
Messages and pictures suddenly appear

Sent:
And others then are made to go away

Spam:
And here - oh, my! - delete (goodbye, my dear!)

Trash:
And is all this how we should pass each day?

I Do Not Want to be One of The People - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Do Not Want to be One of The People

“He’s an individual, and they’re always trying.”

-The Colonel in Many Happy Returns, episode 7 of The Prisoner

I do not want to be one of The People
With nose rings and tattoos, tee-shirts, knee pants
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on the radio
Foul fungal feet and toes shoved into flops

I do not want to be one of The People
A howling face in an anonymous mob
With a Kalashnikov and ammo drum
A made-in-China heel-spurred baseball ap

I do not want to be one of The People
And so…

New Hampshire's Brigadoon Diner - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

New Hampshire’s Brigadoon Diner

It appears, not every century, no
But every four years in the season of snow
When presidential candidates are hard-pressed
For votes, and in new lumberjack shirts are dressed

The Brigadoon Diner appears in the mist
Whenever there are babies to be kissed
By politicians flown first-class from the city
In designer boots that have never been s**tty

Pancakes and coffee, and an incessant buzz
In a down-home America that never was

Portland, You Don't Shriek for Me - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Portland, You Don’t Shriek for Me

Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?
CarryBOO herds in ballcaps, tees, and tats
Outlaw-scary-masks and gas-station shades
Parachute-pantsies and designer sneaks

     You write no books, you sing no songs – you shriek
     You do no work, you make no art         – you shriek
     You do no good, you help no one          - you shriek
     You make no thoughtful arguments      – you shriek

And all of you dressed like corpses-in-law:
Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?

Death Beyond an Emergency-Room Curtain - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Beyond an Emergency-Room Curtain

A plastic fabric forest of oak leaves
Some blue, some white, almost abstract in shape
An anonymous professional hand
Through unheard signals draws them open, then closed

My friend will be okay: “just a precaution
Overnight for observation, then home
A little heartbeat irregularity
We’ll get you to a room, something to eat…”

Beyond the fabric forest of oak leaves
Other voices, always soft, always kind
Softer and kinder still: “if you will sign this
End-of-life care, DNR, who can we call…”

A moment alone: “Oh, Momma…Momma…”
Whispered out into Creation

                                                           and heard

Retirement on the Time-Payment Plan - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Retirement on the Time-Payment Plan

German refugee husband: “Liebchen – sweetness – what watch?”

German refugee wife: “Ten watch.”

Husband: “Such watch?”

Carl the Bartender: “You will get along beautifully in America.”

-Casablanca

I check the time on my retirement watch
(A Seiko; they did not think much of me)
And consider that there is no time at all
Unless Creation is some sort of clock

Childhood is watchless, timeless, careless, free
But adults must be catalogued and timed:
Bulova, Timex, Rolex, and Longines
And even a railway Regulator

I check the time on my retirement watch -
And hustle off to my chapter two job

Coach Sheldon Cooper Gives the Chess Team a Pep Talk - weekly column 8.15.19

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Coach Sheldon Cooper Gives the Chess Team a Pep Talk

“Now guys, today’s the big game against M.I.T., and before we thunder out to the table I want to review with you the new rules of the league.

“Before the match I don’t want to see any of you taking a knee when the band plays the theme to Big Bang Theory. We stand in unity, okay? When that song is played we are ONE team, the mighty, mighty SACRIFICIAL PAWNS! We are no longer divided by our Star Trek backgrounds or our Star Wars backgrounds. When our sacred Big Bang Theory song is played WE BEAM DOWN AS ONE and we STAND AWKWARDLY AS ONE like the all-American nerds we are. No one is either Captain Kirk or Han Solo; we are all SACRIFICIAL PAWNS! OOOOH-RAH! Gimme an OOOH-RAH!”

“…um…oooh-rah?”

“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“(squeak) ooh-rah?”

“Okay, fine, fine. Now, then, if the other team offers a prayer, just go with that, okay?”

“But Coach,” said Trevor, “we’re chess players. We see existential reality only in the Spanish Opening, El Ruy Lopez, and nothing more.”

“Au contraire,” replied Neville. “Who can consider the symmetry, the logic, the elegance of the Giuoco Piano and fail to understand that only the Creator of the universe could make that opening?”

“But then how do you explain the Pirc Defense, which is obviously from the Dark Side?” asked Ponsonby.

“Focus, men. If we get into all that theology stuff someone will think we’re…ugh…liberal arts students.”

Team: “EEEEyewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

“Now, when you make a capture, remember that under the new rules we’ll be penalized two pawns and a cheerleader if you spike a rook, knight, or bishop.”

“Okay, coach, but can we spike the punch, haha?”

“You’re getting a penalty for that bad pun, Vladislav. One more thing, men. You’re going to have to clean up your language around the cheerleaders.”

“Awwwwwwwwww, mannnnnnnnnnn,” whined Clive. “Whenever I’m around Chloe Zoe, well, she just makes my Rubik’s Cube whirrrr out of sync. She makes me want to whisper a Shakespearean sonnet to her.”

“Now THAT is just the kind of language we just DON’T need, not even in our manly-man locker room. Shakespeare! If I had said “Shakespeare” or “Keats” my old physics instructor would have washed my mouth out with H202.”

“Yessss, Coach.”

“Now then,” concluded Coach Sheldon, holding up a regulation chess clock: “Out there on the field of mental battle you’ll have only two friends, your superior left-brained intellect (dramatic pause) and this. Now let’s go out there and kick some serious quantum entanglement and non-locality! Yeahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

-30-

Good Morning! Crash! - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Good Morning! Crash!

Chorus:

“Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! Good
Morning! GOOD MORNING! Good morning! Good mor
Ning! Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!!!!!!!!!”

Narrator:

CRASH! (‘cause someone dropped a good-morning dish)

Narrator continues:

At the Waffle House on the interstate
Where dawn and comforting cholesterol
A plastic menu card and that first cuppa
Promise us adventures on this new day

And strengthen the night-shift cops, a welding crew
A day-shift-nurse or two, and me and you!

So my Lawnmower Repair Guy was Wounded in a Shootout...

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

So my Lawnmower Repair Guy was Wounded in a Shoot-Out…

The wind that blows

Is all that anyone knows

-Henry David Thoreau

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

And my lawnmower is hidden behind a fence
A chain-link fence, among mowers in rows
The owner lost a gunfight; he was taken hence
And what about the mowers? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

UPS has left notes; the door is locked
There is no sound of man or machine
No one has answered when customers knocked
Only the guard-dogs (yeah, they’re really mean)

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

Sergeant Schultz at the cop-shop - she knows nothink
She’s busy with her personal smartphone
Her eyes are fixed; they do not move or blink
And I am all alone in The Twilight Zone

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So what really happened? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So who can I contact? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows


Only the wind…

Eternal Condemnation and Summer Muscadines - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Eternal Condemnation and Summer Muscadines

We were admiring the summer muscadines
I mentioned that my one experiment
In making wine resulted in only
A series of dramatic explosions

And he spake unto me:

Better that, far better, than to be Condemned
Grapes are for jelly, or you’ll be Condemned
Not for Strong Drink, no, or you’ll be Condemned
If you use grapes for wine you’ll be Condemned

He said on a hellishly hot summer day
Then he returned to baling my Catholic hay

The Blessed Sacrament, a Beer, and Miss Swivelly Hips - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Blessed Sacrament, a Beer, and Miss Swivelly Hips

I.

“No One was Before the Blessed Sacrament

Between the Hours of 8:00-9:20, 10:20-11:45, & 1:10-1:50”

-the parish bulletin

And yet we are always before something:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips in her kinky-boots

But still, the small red lamp alone in the dark
Shines on for us, for Miss Swivelly too
Throughout the careless hours when we neglect
Duty for the fellowship of the pub

“No one was before the Blessed Sacrament…”
And yet we are always before something

II.

“No One was Here for the Weekly Darts Tournament”

-the old geezer in the corner

And yet there is much to be said for the pub:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips – but we have mentioned her

That fluorescent beer ad’s a kind of red
The old geezer’s cheeks shine, especially when
Miss Swivelley-Hips flirts him for a beer
There is an honest joy in fellowship

“No one was here for the darts tournament”
(Maybe they were before the Sacrament?)

They Say the Prisoner Hanged Himself - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

They Say the Prisoner Hanged Himself

With references to Article 58, Senator McCarthy, and Casablanca

He’s one of them
That is, he was
And now he’s dead

If he’s not safe
Then you’re not safe
It only takes
An accusation

They have a list
It’s on the ‘net
You’re on the list
You’re on the ‘net
They’re at your door

You didn’t do it?
You all say that

They haven’t decided
If you will suffer
A heart attack
Or die while trying

To escape

What Can We Do About Violence? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Can We Do About Violence?

They may break our bodies…but they need not dominate our minds.

-C. S. Lewis

Every book we read to a little child
Every kindness we work for another soul
Every bowl we fill while serving the poor
Every prayer whispered, spoken, or dreamed

Every cup of coffee shared with a pal
Every wheezy old joke about Pat and Mike
(Or, to be fair, about Trevor and Neville)
Every small joy sung to the universe

Is a beginning

"Your Time is Up" - weekly column about political debates

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“Your Time is Up”

Moderator: “Candidate Number One, have you ever played golf? If so, and if you are elected president, do you promise to abstain for the duration of your time in office?”

Candidate Number One: “So, well, like, you see, the working people…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Two, what is your position on why the Federal Communications Commission allows sales calls to dominate our telephone service?”

Candidate Number Two: “As senator for the working people of Margaritaville I have an I.T. staff who…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Three, how would you, as president, connect with the poor people of this nation?”

Candidate Number Three: “As one of the working people, when I was touring Switzerland during my gap year between St. Swithin’s Academy and Harvard I actually saw some poor people…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Four, most nations do not tax bank savings accounts. Do you think the bank savings of ordinary Americans should be taxed?”

Candidate Number Four: “For the working people I consulted my Ouija board on that very topic…”

Moderator: “Your time is up…”

Candidate Number Seven: “Just let me say that Candidate Number Nine is a poopy-pants and no friend of the working people!”

Candidate Number Nine: “I am not a poopy-pants! I wrote the dar(n)ed book on poopy-pants and the working people!”

Candidate Number Four: “My working-class tarot cards say that Candidate Number Nine is a racist!”

Moderator: “Thank you, thank you, now please, please, let’s all focus. Candidate Number Five, you have won half of a car, so if you’ll just pick up that plaque and wave it around and look cute, yes, just like that. Now, then, Candidate Number Five, what is Vanna wearing tonight?”

Candidate Number Five: “In this great nation, why hasn’t any president ever asked in the name of the working people what Pat Sajak is wearing…?”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Six…oh, there’s the official Dallas Cowboys buzzer. I’ll spin the wheel one last time…”

Candidate Number Six: “For the sake of the working people I demand a senate investigation! Wheel of Fortune has been infiltrated by the Russians…!”

Candidate Number Eight: “Well, you’re old!”

Moderator: “Now, now, let’s all concentrate on our marvy set with all the glowing and flickering lights. In order to help save the planet this set is going to be repurposed for next season’s Vote the Bachelorette with the Most Fascistic Tendencies off the Island! Now if you will all look under your seats, yes, you’ll find a marvelous gift for each of you – an autographed picture of a great Chinese industrialist! Let’s give a great big hand for CNN, and America, and world peace, and Greenpeace, and green peas!”

In November of 2020 at least one voter will, in the privy-like privacy of the booth, consider the names of all the candidates of the two dominant political parties and think for himself: “Your time is up. All of you – your time is up.”

-30-

Pat and Mike and Some Old Words - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Pat and Mike and Some Old Words

Over lunch last week a friend and I discussed words which in our youth we encountered in the King James Bible and in our lifetime reading. Here are some words not in common use now (indeed, they would frighten tweeters), and of course most words have multiple meanings that can only be sorted out in context:

Anathema – cursed or da®ned

Art – are

Centurion – the leader of a century in the Roman army, that is, a hundred soldiers, and so the equivalent of a company commander

Degree – social status

Dost – do

Doth – does

Ere – before

Hast - have

Peradventure – perhaps

Saint Swithin – Robin Hood often alludes to Saint Swithin, a bishop of Winchester (the diocese, not the deer rifle) who died in AD 862. His feast day is 15 July, and he is famous for the doggerel farmers said about him:

"St Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days will rain na mair"

We would now verify the rain forecast with Greg Bostwick on the radio.

Unction – anointing

Verily – an adverb meaning truly; it can also serve as an amen.

Vouchsafe – to grant a favor or request

Watch – in a clockless society the night was divided into three watches. This concept survives in the Navy

Wast – was

Whence – from where

Wherefore – why

But of course not all lunchtime conversations are frivolous games in etymology. We concluded our meal with a serious study in Pat and Mike jokes:

Pat’s old dog Eamon died, and so he and his pal Mike went to see the parish priest.

“Father Muldoon,” said Pat, would ye be after sayin’ a funeral mass for my poor ol’ dog Eamon.”

“Yes,” said Mike, “Eamon was the bestest dog ya ever did see, sure.”

“A funeral mass for a dog!” thundered Father Muldoon. “Faith an’ begorrah, sure, and we’re good Christian folk in this parish. I’ll not be sayin’ a funeral mass for a dog.”

“Then what can we do?” asked Pat. “A dog this wonderful deserves something special at his death.”

“Well,” said Father Muldoon, “ye might take ‘im down th’ road to th’ godless Anglicans; they don’t seem to believe in much of nothin’, sure.”

“Thanks, Father,” said Pat. “An’ d’ye think a hundred pounds is enough for an offerin’ for them to say the obsequies over poor Eamon?”

“A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Father Muldoon. “Sure, an’ why didn’t ye tell me the good old dog was a Catholic!”

Cheers!

-30-

The Heat of August is an Emptied Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Heat of August is an Emptied Man

The heat of August does not rise; it sinks
Space-planting on the earth like hopes collapsed
Guarding the air against all happiness
With damp and rust and rot and air-thick sighs

The heat of August does not heal; it stinks
Of everything gone wrong at once, of either
Stepping outside to a witch-slap of pain
Or lurking inside with headaches and ennui

The heat of August is an emptied man
On a Sunday afternoon when love has died

"Our Poisoned Chalice" (I wish I could think of a catchier title) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Our Poisoned Chalice”

-Macbeth I.vii.10-12

We commend each other with curses exchanged
Between a cop and a hard place in space
Red MAGA caps against Commie berets
All of these accessories China-made

Our battleground an asphalt parking lot
Our forward first-aid post a coffee shop
Where Communists glare over their nitros cold
And Fascists froth their frappuccinos hot

We commend each other with a chalice defiled
Over the broken body of a Child

Occasionally Facetious - A Repudiation of Both Miz Grundy and Comrade Grundy

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Occasionally Facetious – A Repudiation of Both Miz Grundy and Comrade Grundy

You can’t be serious all of the time
Because there are bellowing tyrants around
Who bully and demand, who preach and screech
Whose arguments are threats and censorship

Recusancy is their worst enemy
A casual indifference to their demands
A refusal to wear their branded livery
And clenching one’s fist around only

A brush
A pen
A wrench
A book
A thought
A hope

If all you do is to react, they win
You can’t be serious all of the time

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined Only Those Who Accepted Being Define

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined Only Those Who Accepted Being Defined

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS
Are pleased to announce that Woodstock defined
A generation. In reality,
Generations are not defined at all:

My argument is that women and men
Of conscience, courage, character, and class
Define themselves, and stubbornly refuse
To be counted, conned, or categorized

And only followers would acquiesce

To

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS

A Five-Dollar Garage-Sale Record Player - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Five-Dollar Garage-Sale Record Player

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
A five-cent-piece Scotch-taped onto the arm
A plastic K-Mart special from long ago
A groovy thing for a junior high kid

But he was a thirty-something day-laborer
And in the silent cell of his solitude
Wanted to spin some tunes in the darkness
Just like he did when he was a junior high kid

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
Wagner, Sinatra, McKuen - and hope

Bulletproof School Backpacks for Children - DeLuxe Models with Emojis

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Bulletproof School Backpacks for Children

DeLuxe model with emojis and a charging port

School days, school days
Dear old shooting drill days
Coding and walkouts and smart pad functions
Taught to a federal court’s latest injunctions
You were my queen in tats (Day-Glo®)
I was your Trump at every gun show
You carved in my skin “i luv U ‘n’ Che Guevara so”
When we were a couple of latch-key kids


As of 3 August 2019 bulletproof backpacks were not on the approved list for the Texas Comptroller’s tax-free school supplies weekend; bulletproof vests are on the list as taxable (https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/98-490/clothing-footwear.php).

A Three Years' Child in Church - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Three-Years’ Child

She was restless in Mass, a three-years’ child
And in her patient father’s loving arms

She wriggled
She squiggled
She giggled

And then she lay ‘way back and looked ‘way up

What went she into the desert to see -
A light fixture? An air-conditioning vent?

Oh, no

Her eyes were large
Her lips were still
Her breaths were soft

- she saw much more

She was happy in Mass, a three-years’ child
And from her father’s arms something she saw…

What?

Who?

She smiled


(And of course she may have been delighted with the vision of an air-conditioning vent after all; a small child’s learning curve is more open to joy than ours)

"Fruit of the Vine and Work of Human Hands" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"Fruit of the Vine and Work of Human Hands"

Grapevines are the first songs of civilization
Their leaves, their tendrils, their late-summer grapes
As given in the Mass: fruit of the vine
And work of human hands, of human love

But when a vine neglects its ancient realm
And reaches out to grasp and colonize
Its peaceful neighbors, privet and rose and oak
It must be brought to heel with sweat and steel

And in its healing recover its purposes:
Grapevines are the first songs of civilization

A Poem Slouching Like a Civilian - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Slouching Like a Civilian

From an idea suggested by Robert Graves in

On English Poetry

I. Thesis

Formalist poetry to attention stands
In ordered meters, ranks and files and lines
Of scansion as determined by disciplined minds
And set in place through skillful strategy

II. Antithesis

Other poetry slouches indolently, insolently with its louche trilby askew
Sleeping late, smoking cigarettes,
                                                        sauntering off
                                                                                  for a beer
Through scansion as admitted by the heart or the pancreas or something
And seldom set in place at all unless it just sort of happens

III. A Perhaps Unnecessary but Useful Conjunction

But

IV. Synthesis

All poems ramble the same neighborhood
In quest of the true, the beautiful, the good