Sunday, May 31, 2020

Pentecost and Drifting Smoke - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


Pentecost and Drifting Smoke

I will not leave you orphans

-John 14:18

A mighty wind has passed, an ashen wind
It was not the Wind we were waiting for
Nor yet again Holy Wisdom’s tongues of fire
But only Babel’s burning ziggurat

Since still we speak in many languages
And not the language of the Son of God
We pray for next year in Jerusalem
And fail to see that it is here, and now

For when our brothers prayed for life and breath
Our silence gave them only tears and death

Saturday, May 30, 2020

Protest, Defiance, or Maybe a Prayer - photograph by Julio Cortez, AP, via The Atlantic



Protest, Defiance, or Maybe a Prayer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Protest, Defiance, or Maybe a Prayer

“I have died, but you are still among the living”

-Boris Pasternak, “Wind”

A dancing man is silhouetted there
Against the light of a burning liquor store
Waving an upside down flag against the light
And a bottle – perhaps against the night

A marching man is silhouetted there
Against the flames of discount anesthetics
Cheap smokes and tokes and lottery-ticket lies
Skin magazines - but from the street wild cries

A desperate man is silhouetted there
Protest, defiance, or maybe – a prayer

Friday, May 29, 2020

"No Mass till [sic] Futher [sic] Notice" - MePhone photograph


No masses
No CCD (=Sunday school)
No Lenten liturgies
No stations of the cross
No Easter liturgies
No first communion
No confirmation
No graduation mass
No coffee hour

But still, as Maw Joad says in The Grapes of Wrath, "But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people."

The Class of 2020 Has Met Adulthood Already - weekly column

Lawrence (Mack) Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

[The several misspellings of “there” in the third line are deliberate; please do not change.]

The Class of 2020 Has Met Adulthood Already

Some high school graduates are in the top ten per cent of their class, and that’s good enough for them, but I was in the top eighty percent of my class, and eighty is a higher number than ten, so their. Or they’re. Or something.

Ranking as highly as I did I wasn’t able to see much of my commencement program because I was ‘way back somewhere in the middle, a glorious mediocrity whose personal academic achievements were recognized by my teachers for twelve years; they even took the trouble to write them out on my report cards: “Mack needs to try harder,” “Mack needs to pay attention in class,” and “Mack needs to do his homework.”

For this year’s graduating class, everyone, regardless of ranking, will be more visible – either spaced six feet apart on the football field or in a parking lot, or right up front a few inches away from a glowing screen. If senior tosses his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) cap it’s likely to take out a living-room light bulb.

There is no point in old sourpusses snorting that high school graduation is not important; it is to those involved. It is a secular liturgy, a rite of passage from childhood or to adulthood (although many of those elected to high national office seem to have flunked adulthood). Graduation might not be a big deal to the old grumpies twitting on their MePhones, but then graduation not about them. Graduation is a big deal for every eighteen-year-old, and it is a marvel to see how every school board (whom we elected, remember) has supported administrators, teachers, and parents (the ones who work, not the ones who complain on the InterGossip) in making sure that, come (Newark, New Jersey) or high water, the kids are going to have a graduation this year.

Inside ceremonies are forbidden because of The Virus That Must Not Be Named, and outside ceremonies here on the same latitude as Calcutta will be subject to heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and thunderstorms, but, still, sorta being sorta together will be sorta nice.

Antisocial distancing via computer wouldn’t be as much fun, but it would be air-conditioned and dry and mosquito-free, and if the guest speaker, the salutatorian, and the valedictorian rattle on too long about metaphorical keys that unlock metaphorical doors to metaphorical whatevers the graduate can discreetly peek at another channel.

I long to see a graduation ceremony in which the two graduates with the lowest GPAs get to give speeches too. That would be something to hear.

As with every graduating class, each former student will wake up on the next Monday morning to realize that he or she is no longer a senior but rather just another unemployed American who needs to look for a job. This year’s graduating class is different from any since the 1930s because on their first Monday morning of adulthood they will wake up to a national unemployment rate of around 15% (https://unemploymentdata.com/charts/current-unemployment-rate-chart/).

As adjusted for reality, you are 100% unemployed if you don’t have a job.

Beginning a career this year is going to require a little hustle (as a coach would say), but, yes, the no-longer-kids are going to be fine.

And the old grumpies should remember that this year’s high school graduates will in ten years be our doctors, cops, firefighters, nurses, dentists, soldiers, high-rise builders, teachers, oil drillers, bankers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, moms, and dads.

By then, of course, the class of 2020 will be complaining about the impertinence of the class of 2030 and the class of 2030 will be complaining about those old people who graduated in 2020 and need to get out of the way.

Life goes on, and it is (mostly) good.

Happy graduation!

-30-


Thursday, May 28, 2020

"Something Went Wrong" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Something Went Wrong”

Something went wrong an error occurred
While loading this page try refreshing this page
Or navigate back to the front page -
Maybe it’s just a metaphor for life

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Signals from the Stars, or Maybe from Gilligan's Island - MePhone photograph


The Most Judgmental Man You will Encounter today - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Most Judgmental Man You will Encounter Today

The most judgmental man in the world
Is not the thundering pagan augur
Nor yet the it’s-my-sidewalk yuppie jogger
Nor yet again the Madison Avenue flogger

Because we have learned

Hell hath no fury like a Catholic ‘blogger

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Squirrel with Attitude - MePhone photograph

But WHY is She Coming 'Round the Mountain? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

But Why is She Coming ‘Round the Mountain?

As children we sang about an unknown she
Never really questioning who she was
Or why should she come around a mountain
Especially since we had no mountain at all

And now about those six white horses, huh:
Did she steal them? Did they pull her stagecoach?
I didn’t want to go out and meet her
Especially if she was wearing pajamas

Childhood is a series of mysteries
The teacher took my Sergeant Preston pen

Monday, May 25, 2020

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.

There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.


from The Road to Magdalena, 2012

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Coloring Inside the Lines - Poem and a MePhone Photograph


Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


Coloring Inside the Lines














Sometimes it’s okay
To color inside the lines
That, too, is freedom






Saturday, May 23, 2020

Victory for the Slain, by Hugh Lofting - a brief review



Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Today I finished a first reading of Hugh Lofting’s Victory for the Slain only hours after receiving it in the mail. This is one of the best things I have ever read, and I am going to begin re-reading it tonight, slowly and carefully, savoring each line and each cultural and historical allusion.

Mr. Lofting, famous for the Doctor Doolittle stories for children, was wounded in body and heart in the First World War, and in 1942 wrote this deeply-felt and deeply-thought poem as a rebuke to the keyboard commandos who are in every generation so eager to sacrifice the lives of young men and women (not their own children, of course; they are sent to serve bravely in law school). As a Viet-Nam veteran I “amen” almost every line.

Mr. Lofting’s Catholic upbringing and solid education are obvious; Victory for the Slain is a work built upon a life of faith, study, thought, prayer, and bloody experience. It is a message poem, all right, but a brilliant and disciplined one. One reads the tired old weak defense of a poor piece of work with, “But it’s from the heart” – well, this poem is from the heart, right enough, but it is also from the head and from the careful consideration of the thousands of years of civilization.

Walmer is a small press (but not literally a press; the book was printed in the USA) in Shetland (http://michaelwalmer.com/index.html). They have taken this neglected poem and printed it on beautiful, cream-colored paper in a beautiful, accessible typeface.

Victory for the Slain is a keeper.

Immigration Policies along Beer Can Road - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Immigration Policies along Beer Can Road

Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre

There where the road bends, refugee Californians
are shooting at targets in their back field
At the other end of the road refugee Mexicans
Are plowing with the tractor they can now afford

Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre

Refugee New Yorkers are learning the joys
Of racing four-wheelers up and down
Past where this refugee from a day’s work
Clings to his Wordsworth and a glass of Scotch

Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre

Welcome to Texas
It’s a little crazy here, and we love it

Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre!

Friday, May 22, 2020

Conversation with the ‘Possum Who Sees my Garden as its Salad Bar - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Conversation with the ‘Possum Who Sees my Garden as its Salad Bar

We wretched humans are always setting traps
Usually for each other, but sometimes
Live-traps for the little critters of night:
“’Possum, I want you out of my garden.”

The ‘possum replies, “Hiss!”

“’Possum, you’ve been in this trap all night long;
So now if I let you out of this cage
Will you promise to be a better critter,
And leave my tomatoes alone, okay?”

The ‘possum replies, “Hisss!”

“’Possum, I know that these fields are your home,
But if you keep nibbling up the young squash
I’m going to take you away into the woods
And let you loose there; I wouldn’t like that”

The ‘possum replies, “Hissss!”

“’Possum, we’ve had this conversation before;
Do you want all this on your permanent record?”

The ‘possum replies, “Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!”

Lancaster Bomber Repurposed as a Passenger Plane, Dinky Toy, Meccano, York




I don't have a starship Enterprise but I do have this nifty toy Lanc rebuilt for passenger service

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Shakespeare Aboard the Enterprise - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Shakespeare Aboard the Enterprise

While isolated in my rural estate here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension I have been dragging hoses, reading Robert Frost, saying bad things about the ‘possums pillaging my vegetable garden, and considering Star Trek:

Star Trek: The Movie works much better if you don’t think of it as a Star Trek movie but as maybe a Robert A. Heinlein movie with Star Trek characters.

Still, the pajamas are awkward.

There are no Methodists in Star Trek. Nor are there any Baptists or Catholics or Jews. Once in a while Spock goes to his room to meditate in some sort of vague, fuzzy way, or maybe he’s just smoking a cigarette, but there is seldom a hint of a deity.

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan the eponymous anti-hero, brilliantly played by Ricardo Montalban, almost seems to be quoting Satan from Milton’s Paradise Lost (he’s not, though) in his dying, hate-filled repudiation of any concept of the good, even his own value as a created being, in his pathetic obsession with revenge: “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

Pretty gamey stuff, but when we consider the equally pathological responses on popular InterGossip sites, Khan seems to reflect the intellectual and ethical lapses of our time.

The story arc of films II, III, and IV does consider thoughtfully the possibility of the existence of the soul, and V considers the possibility of God.

Both in the various series and in the films William Shakespeare pops up so often that he might as well be one of the crew. He certainly deserves credit for the many plots, sub-plots, quotations, allusions, and moral themes that are a constant in Star Trek.

James T. Kirk is the guy you’d want covering your back in a cafeteria rumble, but Jean-Luc Picard is the guy you’d want sitting next to you during an exam.

And why “Jean-Luc?” Captain Picard’s beverage of choice is Earl Grey tea (Twining’s, no doubt) and he is more Shakespeare than Shakespeare. He’s so English that you expect some crop-headed harridan wearing sustainably-farmed sneakers to run onto the set screaming, “Decolonize this bridge!”

Lieutenant Uhura – the adult aboard the starship.

Lieutenant Sulu – a Boy Wonder in search of his Batman, but don’t call him “Tiny.”

Ensign Chekov – like Ilya Kuryakin from The Man from Uncle, an adorable little Commie. He probably beams Federation secrets to Saint Petersburg / Leningrad.

Commander Spock – probably not much fun at a party.

Commander Scott – give him a wrench, a roll of duct tape, a multi-tester, a technical journal, and a dram of Scotch and he’ll re-float and re-build the Titanic within four days. Okay, Captain Kirk, for you, two days.

For the duration of the isolation Patrick Stewart, now Sir Patrick (but he wears his knighthood lightly), reads each day a sonnet by Shakespeare with the occasional amusing aside and sometimes a firm dismissal, every schoolboy’s dream: “I don’t like Sonnet 9…I’m not going to do it. Because nobody’s going to make me.”

https://twitter.com/SirPatStew

-30-

Garden Pest - MePhone photograph




And of course I let him or her off with a caution.



Opossums / 'possums are beneficent creatures who eat carrion and who attract and then eat ticks which carry diseases deadly to humans. My argument with this little fellow was that he found my garden tomatoes more delish than carrion and ticks. After he spent a night in the cells and had to listen a stern barking-to by the dogs I released him into the wild. 

And the Star over Bethlehem - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

And the Star over Bethlehem

"In our world…a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."

“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."

― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader


To wish upon a star is good enough
But maybe we should also ask that star
To pray for us. If it is a sentient being
Then it would probably like to be asked

But we should not pray for the star in turn
Because although stars have been known to fall
They have never disobeyed the Creator
And thus in Truth they have never Fallen at all

But all is well:

For even if a star is not a sentient being
God sees to it that prayers are never misplaced

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Always Proofread Your Work - image from the Orwellian telescreen


Always proofread your work.

A Christian Writer Breaks His Silence - poem (and a true story)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Christian Writer Breaks His Silence

On a monastic retreat many years ago

At the guests’ table late on Sunday night
We were but few, and permitted to speak
But one was silent, who didn’t think it right
The Famous Writer, gaunt, and pale of cheek

He graced the company with his knowing smile;
His healing books, his poems about Christian peace
So noted for their teachings and grace-filled style
Made our poor converse seem like mere caprice

But as someone came ‘round with the coffee pot
He finally spoke: “Reagan ought to be shot!"


(My poor memory suggests that his actual words were, "That Reagan oughta be shot!" or "That Reagan needs to be shot!")

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Anna-Apples in the Merry Month of May


These will be mature at the beginning of June, God, raccoons, winds, rains, and hail permitting.

Creation's Intermittent Rain - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com




Creation’s Intermittent Rain

Soft rain to make the apples plump with pride
          Bright sun to make the apples blush with red
Soft rain to batter at the sunflowers’ stride

Soft rain to fill the honeybees’ round pools
          Bright sun to call the honeybees to work
Soft rain to make all flowers into jewels
          Bright sun again – is this a solar quirk?

Soft rain to baptize God’s beloved earth
          Bright sun to display its glory and worth




(Anna-apples, modified for hot climates, ripen their sweet little apples in June)


(The transfer is erratic; there should be no underlining, blue coloring, or other errata.)

Monday, May 18, 2020

Welcoming a Baby Squash into the World - MePhone Photograph


Burning a Vacuum Cleaner - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Burning a Vacuum Cleaner

I burned a vacuum cleaner – and I was GLAD
It was broken beyond repair and so
I took it away to the Smithfield place
And torched the industrial revolution

After its long career of breaking the peace
Of violating domestic harmony
Of terrorizing little kittens and pups
And screaming all through Sunday afternoons

It finally fragmented, flailed, and failed
Polluting the atmosphere (I could be jailed!)

Sunday, May 17, 2020

An Unremarkable MePhone Photograph of a Tree Frog in the Rain Gauge


This tree frog lives in perfect safety at #5.


I use two drops of food color to make the water level more visible.


Fahrenheit, Celsius, and a Non-Sequitur Tree Frog - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Fahrenheit, Celsius, and a Non-Sequitur Tree Frog

To ask what the temperature is today
Is too ask how high is up or low is down
For one must read what a red pointer says
In the arc of a circle or a line in a tube

The only true measures of temperature
Are sweating and shivering and just right
Those measures are of childhood and old age:
Sitting under an oak and reading in peace

A tree frog lives in the plastic rain gauge
When the rain falls he moves out ‘til it’s over

Saturday, May 16, 2020

Crucifix - MePhone Photograph


The Crucifix on the Wall has no Sount Effects - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Crucifix on the Wall has no Sound Effects

A crucifix

A crucifix offers no sound effects
Perhaps a tiny electronic box
Could be hidden within it, programmed to speak
the words of Us – just pull the little string

A crucifix

God nailed to the Cross, then nailed to the wall
“That’s ever so nice; where did you get it?”
Hecho en China by way of Amazon
You can track our Lord’s delivery date

A crucifix

It can’t project the noise, the jeers, the boos -
It doesn’t drip Blood on your Sunday shoes

Friday, May 15, 2020

An Up-to-Date Darwinian Squeaks, Speaks, Thunders, and Harrumphs - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

An Up-to-Date Darwinian Squeaks, Speaks, Thunders, and Harrumphs

“…we’re going to get science applied to social problems and backed by the whole power of the state…”

-Mark Studdock in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength


Well, they were old; they needed to die, okay?
The children are immune, well, mostly immune
We won’t lose many of them, and we’ve got more
Let herd immunity sort them all out

Follow the science

Follow the science - we’ve got this new vaccine
We’ll try it out on the bedridden first
And old malarial pills for the veterans
Take another bullet for your country, guys

Follow the science

As for me

I sold my stocks early at an awesome rate
And now I Zoom™ science from my country estate

Obey The Science

Scenes Along Beer Can Road - MePhone photographs


Relics of My People
 

Hey, where's the couch?

Thursday, May 14, 2020

In Isolation on Beer Can Road - weekly column

Lawrence (Mack) Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

In Isolation on Beer Can Road

As Garrison Keillor might have said, before he got all Lefty and petty, it has been a quiet week here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension.

The economic situation has been cruel to many businesses, but obviously not to the beer industry, whose cast-off cans sparkle in the spring sunshine up and down the road past my rustic rural retreat. And then there’s that old couch someone dumped weeks ago. I don’t suppose there’s a dead body in it, but I’m not going to look.

The guy speeding in the hot red sedan seems to be trying to make it launch, and that is possible, but without wings and controls the car would land in a tree – or tree in a tree – and that would be an unhappy ending. But maybe all the beer cans would cushion the impact.

This spring’s weather has been unusually pleasant. Soon enough the withering heat and humidity of summer will fall upon us, but for now sitting under an oak tree in the late afternoon with a refreshing beverage and the poems of Robert Frost is a joy.

Joining in the merriment are woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, one tiny Carolina or black-capped chickadee, and a few insolent squirrels. They all gather at the water dish and the feeder to feast on chicken scratch from the feed store. Clouds of humming bees monopolize the water dish but will permit the birds and squirrels to take a sip if they act nicely and behave themselves. These are perfect occasions for reading Robert Frost, and the critters don’t seem to mind either him or me.

The setting sun permits a visual display of the bees as they speed between the water dish and their hives a few hundred yards away. Without those late sunbeams a human could not see them in transit and marvel at their speed and navigation. That they don’t hit each other head-on is a great mystery.

Without bees we would have very little to eat; their transfer of pollens from and to all sorts of trees, crops, grasses, and other plants makes possible the generation of fruits, grains, and vegetables season after season.

Thus, providing water for the little fellows and avoiding dusting the garden against pests until after dark is, as the old farmers always remind us, an essential in life.

As the sun sets the book must be closed and the seat cushions brought inside. After dark the raccoons, flying squirrels, ‘possums, feral cats, and an occasional deer will begin their night patrols in the front yard. Flying squirrels are so tiny that all the security camera catches of them are their bright eyes. If a bit of kitchen scrap has been tossed out then sometimes the Darwinian struggle – well, okay, more of a Darwinian hissy-fit – is played out as ‘possum vs. ‘possum, raccoon vs. racoon, and even raccoon vs. possum. The big raccoon always wins the supper against the ‘possum, but the ‘possum makes a good show of belligerence.

In the mornings there is a scent of skunk lately, but this creature hasn’t yet shown up on the video feed. And I understand; if we smelled like that we wouldn’t want to be out in public either.

-30-



The Darwinian Tomato and a Dead Ant - MePhone Photograph

Just before the rains I plucked this tomato because, although not quite ripe, it was on the ground and I feared it would rot. On the bottom of the tomato I observed a dead ant, somehow crushed by the tomato in the Samsara of my little garden.



Elephant Ears - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Elephant Ears

Summer's small children in shorts and bare feet
Scamper about in the dewy morning lawns
Among the elephant ears, chasing and laughing
Looking for the rest of the elephant

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

This is not a Combat Photograph - MePhone photograph




Death to War Metaphors - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Death to War Metaphors

No soldier nervously checking his magazines at dawn
Whispered that it was just like catching pneumonia
No soldier collapsing over his dying pals
Cried that it was as bad as working in a grocery

No soldier on that thousand-mile front in Russia
Thought that it was like missing graduation
No soldier drowning when his landing craft sank
Screamed that it was just like having to self-isolate

No soldier dying in his own blood and vomit
Agreed that it was like wearing a surgical mask

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

An Incomplete Guide to Magnolia Trees - poem and MePhone photograph

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com



An Incomplete Guide to Magnolia Trees

The poor magnolia now is weaponized
Objectified through puerile jokes and scorn
A coarse cliché, a forlorn stereotype
An easy laugh or a malignant sneer

But before man fell with slavery and axe
Its moonlight blossoms blessed the wilderness
With their gifts of beauty and sweet incense
This Eden tree of truth and innocence

There is no evil in anything given
Unless foul man chooses to twist it so

Monday, May 11, 2020

Pushkin - MePhone photograph (didn't know MePhones were around in the early 19th century...)


On Transcendent Poetry - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

On Transcendent Poetry

Contra Wallace Stevens

That which is modern can only decay
Locked within the prison of transience
Ossification as a death sentence
Always refusing to roll the stone away

That which is modern is immediately lost
But springtime, flowers, pilgrimages, lovers
The darling, dancing hummingbird that hovers
Are ever young, not dead eternal frost

That which is modern is fast-rotting flesh
That which is transcendent is always fresh

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Do Children Really Craft Mines? - MePhone photograph


A Virus-Free Haircut in Honor of the Governor of Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Virus-Free Haircut in Honor of the Governor of Texas

And in memory of Harry and Shorty Driskill,
Our little town’s barbers in the long-ago

A haircut today – my wolfman look is shorn
The virus-time follicles set to rights
Follies and follicles, the locks of lockdown
A-tumbling down in coarse, unseemly waves

The haircut lady continues a narrative
Begun two months before, a local scandal
Unmasked (as are we) to the buzz of the shears
“And I’d tell the governor where he can go…!”

My hair…

In isolation so long embedded -
But suddenly, now, I feel light-headed!

(A shortcoming of lady barbers is that their shops do not feature pictures of poker-playing dogs.)

Saturday, May 9, 2020

"Live Snakes" - MePhone photograph


The Unwilling Suspension of Belief - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com


The Unwilling Suspension of Belief

Prelates, preachers, premiers, princes, and presidents
Now publish proclamations at the speed of lies
And just as rapidly retract them again
Regretting only their subjects’ lack of wit:

Obey The Science, whatever it is today
For it will be something else tomorrow
And so we need not fear our punishments
For the mistakes that our leaders never made

But, shhhhhhhhhhh…

If everything they teach is proven to be bluff
Then we must be the truth –
                                                and we are enough


The reader will remember the concept of willing suspension of disbelief from drama, such as when the Prologue in Henry V urges the audience to imagine the “The vasty fields of France… / Within this wooden O...”

Friday, May 8, 2020

Illuminated Spider - MePhone Photograph in Monochrome, April 2020


Like Far-Out Totally Drug Trippin', Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Like Far-Out Totally Drug Trippin’, Man

A pill or two, inhaling funny stuff
Green stripes floating before and through my eyes
Oh, wow, dude, and maybe behind my eyes
The sixties regrooved in day-glow colored lights

Floating above this alien planet, I was
A dream aloft, or lofting up a dream
Shankaring that zitaring ups we go
That falls like moonbeams on a blue-slept sea

For an hour disharmony seemed resolved -
Oh, why does there have to be dentistry involved?

Thursday, May 7, 2020

So That's Why Texas Jails Beauticians - weekly column


Lawrence (Mack) Hall, HSG


 

So That’s Why Texas Jails Beauticians

 

The concept of essential jobs and nonessential jobs eludes many of us. If you have a job it’s an essential job because food, clothing, and shelter are essential.  Who is it who sits enthroned on high with the authority from some planetary overlord to determine whether your job is essential?

 

Beauticians, whose daily practices and spaces have always been required to meet strict education, re-education, safety, health, and hygiene requirements, have of late been shut down, shut out, and shut up, and when several of them got all uppity about needing to work – work – have been investigated and sometimes jailed (https://reason.com/2020/05/07/texas-governor-greg-abbott-will-not-jail-people-shelley-luther-for-violating-coronavirus-social-distancing/).

 

And we the people understand: law-abiding citizens must be protected from wild-eyed barbers and beauticians wielding semi-automatic assault scissors with 30-round banana magazines. No one knows the horrible death rate inflicted on innocents by those out-of-control clipper-crazies.

 

Why can’t beauticians and barbers be more like, oh, hot-air balloon pilots who charge people for flights?

 

According to the FAA (http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/faa_bal.htm), requirements to fly as a commercial balloon pilot begin with:

Subpart E -- Commercial Pilots

·         The age requirement for a commercial pilot certificate is 18 years.

·         Read, speak and understand the English language.

·         No medical certificate required. Same as paragraph 3 above.

·         The applicant must pass a more advanced written test on the subject matter listed in paragraph 4 above, additional operating procedures relating to commercial operations, and those duties required of a flight instructor.

·         Advanced training must be received from an authorized instructor including those items listed in paragraph 5 above plus emergency recovery from a terminal velocity descent.

·         The applicant for a commercial certificate must have at least 35 hours of flight time as a pilot, of which 20 hours must be in balloons, 6 under the supervision of an instructor, 2 solo flights, 2 flights of at least one duration, and one flight to 5000 feet above the take-off point.

The holder of a commercial pilot's certificate may operate a balloon for hire and may give flight instruction.

 

Want to go for a balloon ride?

 

According to the State of Texas, requirements to work as a cosmetologist or barber (https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/cosmet/cosmetlaw.htm) (pour yourself a cup of coffee; this is going to take a while) begin with:

 

OCCUPATIONS CODE

TITLE 9. REGULATION OF BARBERS, COSMETOLOGISTS, AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS

CHAPTER 1602. COSMETOLOGISTS

(Effective date September 1, 2019)

Table of Contents






 






 



 















 








 







 










 

















 

These strict requirements wisely keep beauticians and barbers from killing people by flying them into power lines or by dropping them thousands of feet to their deaths when the balloon catches fire.

 

So, yeah, that’s why Texas jails beauticians.

 

-30-

 

Barnes & Noble - and the nice young lady is making a fresh pot of coffee - MePhone Photograph


Upon Release from Lockdown - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Upon Release from Lockdown

But we keep a-comin’. We’re the people that live.

-Ma Joad, The Grapes of Wrath

With friends for lunch after two dreary months
How we looked forward to it! The neon café
Along the interstate, tourists and truckers
All waiting to be seated – how many, sir?

But how desolate it is in the dimness
Almost empty - half the furniture gone
No merriment, no hum of activity
One masked server, flickering about like a ghost

The road out past the empty parking lot
Leads to California. Maybe we should go

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Preacher's Daughter


A Television Ad for the Virus Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Television Ad for the Virus Time

Begin the same old insta-emo piano music; roll stock footage of beautiful, happy families having far more fun in isolation than you ever will.

Voice-over narrator in the slow, soft, persuasive tones we associate with some of our nation’s more accomplished mass-murderers:

We’re here for you we’re here to help together
Trust together we’re in this together
We care together we’re listening together
We will rise to the challenge together                      [Keep it SLOW]

The indomitable human spirit together
We’ll learn something about each other that
We just didn’t know before together
We are all on the same team together                      [SLOWWWW]

And when this is over, when we all smile again     [Slow and then pause]

Together                                                                   [SLOW and ‘WAY LOW, pause]

We’ll all buy a bottle of Bob’s Boysenberry Gin!   [PATRIOTIC EXUBERANCE!]

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

In Troibo ad Altare Dei - MePhone Photograph


Water-Stained Pages in a Missal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Water-Stained Pages in a Missal

Crinkly, wrinkly pages in a missal
They’re water-stained – how did that come to be?
Maybe it was when the bishop visited
And sloshed us with his shaky aspergillum

Or when an infant at her baptism
Protested the proceedings with a splash
The stains might be from another child’s sippy-cup
Or a careless moment at the holy-water font

And so

The pages aren’t water-stained; they’re water-blessed
With beautiful mysteries – Word, water, and child

Monday, May 4, 2020

Dole (tm) Banana #4011 - MePhone Photograph

Dole Banana #4011. Is there a Dole Banana #4010? #4012?

"Dole Central Command to Banana #4011. Come in, #4011. I repeat, come in, #4011..."


(Thanks to Dole, my potassium level is where it should be.)