Sweepers, Man Your Brooms! - poem

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

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms!

(It’s a Navy thing)

If you think you’re too special to sweep the deck
Well, you’re not; get over yourself and turn to
But if someone hands you a broom and a ‘tude
That Irish pennant needs to get over himself

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation - poem

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

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation

“…and that the fury of the storms may pass away.”

-Missale Romanum, p. 1612

The temperature is 97

The hummingbird feeders must go up first

The humidity is 77

The feeder for the birds and squirrels is next

The temperature is 97

The outside cats are nowhere to be seen

The humidity is 77

But food and water are waiting for them too

The temperature is 97

The largest oak has lost much of itself

The humidity is 77

Red oak – more firewood for the winter

The temperature is 97

The electrical lines are down – how long?

The humidity is 77

But happiness - the house itself seems okay

The temperature is 97

Leaves shoal across the lawn and against the walls

The humidity is 77

Insulation from lost houses reef the fields

The temperature is 97

Debris, human and natural, debris

The humidity is 77

The world is covered with a litterfall

The temperature is 97

The generator coughs and barks and starts

The humidity is 77

We will sleep under electric fans tonight

The temperature is 97

Electric cords slither across the floors

The humidity is 77

The refrigerator takes turns with the coffee pot

The temperature is 97

The window unit that worked two weeks ago

The humidity is 77

Failed – everything is damp and hot and still

The temperature is 97

The damp and rot make sleep impossible

The humidity is 77

Dawn is but headaches, heat, dampness, and despair

The temperature is 97

Shifting fallen limbs from the driveway and lawn

The humidity is 77

And breathing heavily in the soggy heat

The temperature is 97

The road is blocked down at the other end

The humidity is 77

Strangers back up to my lane to turn around

The temperature is 97

We share information, rumors mostly

The humidity is 77

And wish each other well in this fallen time

The temperature is 97

The cats return, shyly, and one by one

The humidity is 77

From among green cover new to them

The temperature is 97

I sit in the shade and drink lots of water

The humidity is 77

And sweat and stink and try to catch my breath

The temperature is 97

An insolent hummingbird buzzes me

The Humidity is 77

He wears a green coat and a bright red tie

The temperature is 97

The bees are back at their freshwater pool

The humidity is 77

I poison the ants who are invading the house

The temperature is 97

Day after day, like The Ancient Mariner

The humidity is 77

Becalmed for days on a sunbeaten sea

But then: today, to everyone’s great joy

The electrics were restored by the rural co-op

And I stopped cleaning up the yard and house

To kill the generator and roll up cords

And to write to you to say that all is well
At our little house

Because we have houses to live in, you and I,

And lots of people don’t, and that’s easy to forget

At the foot of the thermostat

Peace especially for the homeless and for exiles
And for you too

The Juggler of Midlothian (Midlothian Marriot Courtyard, Desk Clerk Leto)

An enjoyable stay while in exile from Hurricane Laura. All the staff at the Midlothian Marriott Courtyard are very friendly and helpful. I was up at dawn for that first cup of coffee and met Leto, one of the many nice folks who work in this hotel.

"Now Tell Me Again the Things We're Against" - poem

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

“Now Tell Me Again the Things We’re Against”

She told us that she had truly been saved
Her new life of freedom had now 
          commenced
Then she turned to a co-religionist and 
          raved
“Oh, tell me again about the things we’re
          against!”

"Make Sure all Your Devices are Fully Charged" - poem

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

“Make Sure All Your Devices 
are Fully charged”

Nothing about a storm respects our trifles:
A flashlight is no good against the rain
A MePhone cannot block a falling tree
A watch cannot divert wild thunderbolts

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

A wireless doorbell cannot stop the wind
A radio cannot swim to save its life
A tablet cannot operate a boat
A laptop is quite unable to float

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

That’s thin advice when facing the eternal:
Nothing about a storm respects our lives

What Toppings Would You Like on Your Hurricane Cone? - poem for 23 August 2020

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

What Toppings Would You Like 
on Your Hurricane Cone?

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Two cones? I’d rather just one. Vanilla
And Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence was 
          fun
I had to sort out conic sections in math
But cones like that are lacking in good 
          taste

And now two cones are moving up the 
          coast
Maybe tomorrow they’ll move back down 
          again
While we stack toilet paper and MREs
Perhaps the ice cream truck’s an ice cream 
          float

No one knows if the cones are there or 
          here –
That’s pretty much a metaphor for this 
          year

John Milton Title Page, MePhone Photograph

Of your kindness please pray for the repose of 

Professor Huston Diehl

of happy, happy memory -

A true scholar and a wonderful teacher

University in the Virus-Time - poem

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

University in the Virus-Time

The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him.

-C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I don’t know if you should put down your 
     glass
Or even stub out that late-night cigarette
But please know that a more rebellious 
     vice
Lies in an understanding of Paradise Lost

(Although blind Milton was genocidal…)

And it takes courage and humility
To get all naughty with quadratic 
     equations
Or slip between the sheets and cuddle up
With Augustine, Euclid, Plato, or Keats

(I would never date a math course, of course…)

Many are called to university
But few are chosen – so choose to learn 
     yourself 1

(Pssssst – Cliff’s Notes, okay? Just don’t tell anyone...)


1 That there are three meanings is deliberate

What's the Buzz? - rhyming doggerel

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

What’s the Buzz?

Mosquitoes at humans must smugly smirk
They plot all day long and hide in the mud
Then as the sun sets, in bushes they lurk
And when you pass by, they drink all your 
     blood!

Yevtushenko, Book Cover, 20th Century Russian Poetry

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself - weekly column

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

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself

Only in Russia is poetry respected –

it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else

where poetry is so common a motive for murder?

-attributed to Osip Mandelstam

Recently I finished a book only half-remembered from my youth, Yevtushenko’s A Precocious Autobiography.

I had no idea that a poet I had long admired was such a, well, jerk. He claims to have been a championship table-tennis player, that he could have been a professional soccer player, that he mastered ju-jitsu and can beat anyone up and that he is afraid of nothing, that everyone failed to understand his brilliance as a poet while simultaneously admiring him for his brilliance, that the Soviets picked on him even while flying him all over the world to represent the Soviet Union and proudly assert his Communism, and that he who would later earn lots of money and own at least two homes airily disapproved of money like a good comrade.

A photograph in the book is labeled “Yevtushenko and Galya at the home of the former Luftwaffe General Huebner” but an admittedly quick search through the InterGossip does not indicate that there was any such person.

The famous first line of his autobiography is “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry.”

Yevtushenko accuses Arthur Rimbaud of having been a slave trader when in fact there is no evidence for it (Rimbaud was certainly bad enough in other ways, including being an arms dealer). Yevtushenko also claims to be a sophisticated art critic and patronizes other cultures and peoples in unfortunate and sometimes offensive language. He faults Western nations for their failings (and fair enough) but ignores the seventy years of horror and mass executions and mass incarcerations and the genocidal mania of the Communist Revolution. Oh, and Lenin was a good fellow; Communism would have worked had not Stalin betrayed the Revolution.

And so it goes, for 124 self-serving pages.

Perhaps Yevtushenko’s most famous poem is “Babiy Yar” (there are variant spellings in English even by Yevtushenko himself), admitting the Russian / Ukrainian silencing of the Nazi massacre of some 34,000 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev in two days in 1941, with thousands of more Jews as well as Roma, prisoners of war, Russians accused of partisan activity, the mentally ill, and others. Possibly some 100,000 people were murdered there in the Nazi time, and there may have been Russian / Ukrainian compliance. After the war the Communists downplayed the Jewish focus. Yevtushenko is praised for his courage in bringing up the matter, but the reality is that he could not have published that poem without the permission of the Communist government, and perhaps on their orders.

In this short poem Yevtushenko refers to himself in first-person pronouns at least 27 times, making Babi Yar about himself.

Given all this, I recommend the book highly. Yes, it really is interesting, but as with the most gaseous old man in the corner down at the diner you can’t rely upon his veracity.

Beyond that, Yevtushenko’s poetry is fascinating. I have no Russian, and while the standard for Russian poetry is rhyming iambic tetrameter, I don’t know how he structured it, but the content is brilliant.

Also brilliant is his anthology, 20th Century Russian Poetry (he doesn’t neglect to give himself lots of space in it).

Yevtushenko admires himself, but, yes, there is much to admire.

Peace to you, Yevgeny, you old rascal; you’ll always be one of my favorites.

-30-

An August Day - But on What Planet? - poem

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

An August Day – But on What Planet?

An August day of dragging hoses, washing 
     dishes
Watching hummingbirds while doing the
     laundry
Pulling up the last exhausted tomato vines
Feeding the dogs and cats, mowing the 
     lawns:

The summery hours of heat and work and 
     sweat
Considering the clouds and praying for 
     rain
Enjoying the way the light falls on the 
     grapes
And marveling how green the grass still is

And in the evening a glass of iced tea
And then the news –
                               What planet are they on?

"The days are gone / When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory" - SEAFARER, Anglo-Saxon, anonymous, trans. Burton Raffel

Among Jacobins - poem

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

Among Jacobins

“…the thoughts and feelings of each individual who really exists

are unique and cannot be duplicated.”

-Yevtushenko

A connection is not a surrender -
When we connect we exchange, we give 
     and receive
Ideas, jokes, poems, questions, a bit of 
     gossip
Cheesecake recipes and garden vegetables

But to deny the self is to cease to be
And nothing is left but an echoing, hiving 
     We
Galvanic responses instead of thoughts
Useful, obedient, disposable

Among the Jacobins there are no ideas
No poetry, no questions – only obedience

Virtual Candidate Drop - poem

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

Virtual Candidate Drop

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission...For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.

-The Outer Limits, 1963-1965

The Party faithful gather together as one
Because there is only one; I am alone
In unison roaring with the comrades who
Except as Zoomies may not even exist

Conventions meet in the aether this year
On glowing screens in isolation rooms
Not much point to a funny hat or tie
Or a drop of flickering CGI balloons

The candidates are chosen! O let me sing
And party with a solo pierce-and-ping!

We now return control of your television set to you…

Colonel Klink and his Gonculator - poem

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

Colonel Klink and his Gonculator

Colonel Klink’s machine was the very first
But not the last; the twentieth century
Bequeathed unto us The Gonculator
An electronic curse to blight our lives

With beepings and rumblings and flashing 
     lights
It wants our thoughts, our words, 
     our dreams, our souls
Twisting and misshaping our imaginings
With vaporous fantasies of packaged gods

It calls us from our work and recreations
And bids us stare into it, and believe…

Believe, believe…
We believe, O Gonculator, and we obey!


The story of Colonel Klink, that classic Miles Gloriosus, and his primitive prototype can be found on the gonculator that possesses you:

https://hogansheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Gonculator

Evening Thundercloud 16 August 2020, MePhone Photograph

And Now Four Fingers of House Scotch - a Diptych or a Dipstick or something...

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

Two Fingers of House Scotch – 

a Diptych or a Dipstick or Something

1. Two Fingers of House Scotch

A bartender should be paunchy and 
     middle-aged
His oldest kid in college, the youngest in 
     jail
Cigarettes in five ashtrays down the bar
His name is Blue; nobody knows just why

If there must be a woman behind the bar
Let her name be Sophie or Maud or Toots
Makeup slapped-on, her hair dyed 
     trash-fire red
She misses stripping at the Flamingo

Frank Sinatra once bought her a drink, 
     yeah, true
But now she kinda has a thing for Blue


2. Six Centimeters of House Scotch

A bartender programmed by MicroPlop
Prototype to a braking system that failed
Disposable batteries smoking, on fire
Its model number is Hey You B-52

It remembers a third-party vendor by 
     name
What is the gender for a robot bartender?
Hey, big spender, is that a credit card?
Or maybe you’re just happy to code me

And the programmer who hacked it out of 
     plot
It’s rather like a lust-crazed coffee pot

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/goodbye-to-bartenders-robots-could-soon-make-your-drink/article_e24e2abf-0b1f-51df-b6b5-b79da01e0ff1.html

Two Fingers of House Scotch - poem

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

Two Fingers of House Scotch

A bartender should be paunchy and 
     middle-aged
His oldest kid in college, the youngest in 
     jail
Cigarettes in five ashtrays down the bar
His name is Blue; nobody knows just why

If there must be a woman behind the bar
Let her name be Sophie or Maud or Toots
Makeup, her hair dyed trash-fire red
She misses stripping at the Flamingo

Frank Sinatra once bought her a drink, 
     yeah, true
But now she kinda has a thing for Blue

But is it True? - poem

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

But is it True?

How was it possible for even gifted and intelligent people to be deceived?

-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, p. 74

Then:

Proletariat bourgeoisie egotistical
Calculation labor capital revolutionary
Theory freedom of speech people’s army
Specter of Metternich capitalist hyenas

Now:

Visual aesthetic frank discussion
Defund decolonize decommission
Assumptions unpack the conversation
Re-imagine emerging non-profits

Transcendent:

The Good, the True, the Beautiful

Mi Corazon - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mi Corazon

A friend and I were enjoying a now rare lunch occasion at Flying J / Denny’s-Limited-Menu-Wear-a-Mask along the interstate. The food was fine, as always, but the place was corona-time dreary, with tables spaced far apart, half the booths marked off with yellow plastic CAUTION tape, old acquaintances among the staff now missing, few patrons, and sadly quiet, but then, much of life is dreary just now.

As we were finishing our meal and our catching-up, the restaurant manager walked by slowly with an elegant, elderly lady on his arm.

“This is my son,” the elegant lady said to us. “Don’t you think he is handsome?”

We agreed that he was, and he smiled proudly, patted his companion on the arm, and said, “Mi Corazon.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“My heart,” he replied.

And she said to him, “My heart too.”

Gentle readers, you may now say, “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.”

The elegant lady told us that she and her husband had come to this restaurant often, and now that he had died she would have to go live with her sister in Mississippi. In the meantime, she visited the restaurant as often as she could to take a meal and visit with all the staff, whom she happily claimed as her children.

As her favorite child, the manager was granted the honor of escorting the elegant lady to her car after her meal.

The elegant lady looked at my friend and said, “You would make a great son.”

She did not say anything about me.

And then she gently chided my friend with, “You need to finish your lunch.” With children of the Depression and the Second World War, finishing your meal is not only a patriotic duty but a religious one.

Gentle readers, when was the last time your mom told you to finish you lunch?

We wished the elegant lady every happiness, and with great dignity and pride the restaurant manager carefully walked her to her car, with everyone on staff telling her “Good-bye” and “See you tomorrow.”

I just thought you would want to know.

Yes, much of life is dreary just now, but there are those elegant souls – and their adopted favorite sons - who have a gift for un-drearying things and reminding us how good life is, how good people are.

-30-

A Statue of our Favorite War Hero - poem

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

A Statue of our Favorite War Hero

Let us build a statue of Sergeant Schultz
Standing bravely at the door of Baracke 2
With a bouquet of flowers in one mighty 
     hand
And a slice of apple strudel in the other

And on the base let there be deeply 
     engraved
“In war I do not like to take sides”
On the reverse we will write, “I see 
     nothing!”
And then perhaps on the sides, 
     “Ach du liebe!”

Let us build a statue of Sergeant Schultz
On earth’s last ever battlefield

Children in Clear Plastic Cages - poem

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

Children in Clear Plastic Cages

“I tell you, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3 percent, in terms of total mortality.”

-Dr. Mehmet Oz

A child
Is not a herd immunity parameter
Nor is she a working hypothesis
A flatten-the-curve probability
Or a distribution of antibodies

A child
Is not an appetizing opportunity
Nor is she a 2 to 3% tradeoff
A deceived Darwinian’s variable
Or the it in “It is what it is”

A child
Is the small, still voice of God calling to us


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dr-oz-slammed-for-suggesting-it-may-only-cost-us-2-to-3-of-american-lives-to-reopen-schools-2020-04-16

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/it-what-it-trump-interview-covid-19-death-toll-u-n1235734

1 Kings 19

Poetry - Ideas Dressed up with Some Place to Go - a poem about poems, but not a poem about poems about poems, or maybe it is...

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

Poetry – Ideas Dressed up with Some Place to Go

A poem need not be so overdressed
That it embarrasses free-verse poseurs
Awash in self-absorbed, self-pitying tears
The sound of one first-person pronoun clapping

But still they should be instructed

That a poem is not about the poet
It is about the reader who has turned
His attention and the writer’s pages
To the existential questions of life

And so is properly dressed for its work

Poetry and Hamburgers - poem

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

Poetry and Hamburgers

Only in Russia is poetry respected –

it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else

where poetry is so common a motive for murder?

-attributed to Osip Mandelstam

Only in America is a hamburger respected -
It gets people killed. Is there anywhere else
Where not making a ‘burger fast enough
Is so common a motive for murder?


https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-food-industry-attempts-to-address-shootings-threat-training-2019-8?op=1

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/04/fast-food-crime-why-is-there-so-much-violent-crime-at-fast-food-restaurants.html

When We Arrive in Saint Petersburg - poem

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

When We Arrive in Saint Petersburg

When the Paris plane lands at Pulkovo
We will be groggy from traveling through time
But we must drop our bags at the Nevsky 88
And report to the Emperor on Senate Square

Two coffees from a kiosk, and a bench
We’ll probably buy a postcard or two
And watch passing lovers on that summer day
And make no plans beyond that moment

The Horseman in the sun will be enough
For we will have arrived in Saint Petersburg

A Reflection on Choices Made - poem

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

A Reflection on Choices Made

“…they have failed to tell the truth, preferring a safe distance”

-Yevtushenko

Maybe I disappoint, but now I prefer
That safe distance Yevtushenko condemned
Because in media res all is chaos
The immediacy of emotion and pain

The best of intentions, sodden with blood
Conflicting condemnations stinging with pain
Choosing to be involved, and then condemned
The sneers and scorn of an ungrateful nation

Only in reflection, with confusion crossed
Does a man learn whether he won or lost

Just Drop the Deck - a poem about lawnmower repairs (caution - strong asterisk usage)

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

Just Drop the Deck

When the lawnmower goes CLUNK – and it often
     does –
I burrow into the InterGossip to find
One of those fixit videos by some fellow
Named Darryl or Wayne or Red or Mitch who
     spends
The first five minutes on exposition:

“Like, you know, this is my garage, like, you know, and this is my mower, and there’s the kids’ bicycles, you know, and I was mowing the yard, you know, you can see where I stopped (shaky video shift), ha ha, when the machine went CLUNK, you know, and, well, here it is, you know, as you can see it’s a classic Snarkwell-Guppy, like, you know, and they sure don’t build ‘em like this anymore, like, you know, so today I’m going to show you how to diagnose the CLUNK, like, you know, so first you take your wire cutters, you know, because they cut wires, you know, and you cut all these wires here, you know, like and you take your tester, you know, and, like, oh, I need to change the 9-volt battery, like, you know, okay, so we know the CLUNK is from the PTO, so now you just drop the
     deck…”

Why do ALL lawnmower repairs begin
With “…just drop the deck?” Yeah, an
     hour of heat
And sweat and barking your knuckles
With three sizes of wrenches and searching
For that last little nut hidden in some
Inaccessible place and then the
Heavy-*** deck falls on your hand and you
Yell the sort of thing that got your mouth washed
     out
With soap by Mom when you were little

But I no longer drop the ***-**** deck
I take that ***-****ed mower to the shop

My mower is about two inches too wide
For the pickup truck, so I borrow my brother
And a trailer and we heave that ***-**-*-*****
Mower onto it and haul it away

Uh, oh…is that tire flat…? ***-**-*-*****!

Then we take the mower to the good ol’ shop
That has changed hands ‘cause Old Bubba retired,
And they promise the mower in twelve days
And they don’t call and they don’t answer the
     ‘phone
And when you finally go in to check on it
The girls their sweet time looking up
From their take-out burgers and fries and shakes,
And then look at you as if you have interrupted
Their leisurely day of eating, snickering
And making personal ‘phone calls. Then one goes
To the back while the other keeps giggling
And spraying food on her ‘phone,
And the other one returns to say
They lost a mechanic and they’re sorry
They’ll get right on it tomorrow, yessir,
Which means another two weeks at the least

I got the mower home yesterday
And after a half-hour it laid down and died

Thus endeth the lesson

A Spring Harvest, Geoffrey Bache Smith - a Review

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Spring Harvest, Geoffrey Bache Smith – a Review

I bought my copy of Geoffrey Bache Smith’s A Spring Harvest from That Company via the InterGossip, and caution those wishing to read Smith’s poems to verify the quality of what they are buying.

There is a contemporary problem with all sorts of people cobbling together all sorts of drivel and finding a way of tacking the names of C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien to these mashups in order to make a sale.

Shameful borrowers lacking any creativity of their own, for instance, often write pastiche letters from Screwtape, an unfortunate practice even with children, who at least can plead youthful ignorance, but adults, who should demonstrate a sense of ethics, have gotten away with looting Lewis’ works for profit.

The recent film biography of Tolkien is universally condemned, and rightly so. One hopes the fine young actors’ careers aren’t stalled, and that the producers’ careers are.

A more recent misfortune is a crudely glued-together pamphlet of the poems of Geoffrey Bache Smith, a friend and schoolmate of Tolkien’s who was killed in France in 1916.

After the war, as a tribute to his boyhood friend and as a kindness to his grieving mother, Tolkien edited some of Smith’s poems into a little book, A Spring Harvest, and had them printed.

Undoubtedly the original edition was thoughtfully set out by the publishers.

This 2020 printing is a mess. The only identifying information is inside the back cover, probably because the perpetrators do not wish to be known:

Made in the USA
Coppell, TX
07 July 2020

Presumably Smith’s poems are out of copyright; even so, this shabby “Coppell, TX” treatment should never have happened: the typeface is inappropriate, the layout is crude, and the cover is a greasy, fingerprint-y sheet of cardboard. The copy of a copy of a copy of a photograph shows us that in the anonymous editor’s mind Lieutenant Smith should be depicted in an unhappy shade of aqua.

And now to the poems: Smith was only 22 when he died of his wounds, and so his work can fairly be regarded as juvenilia, with some good exceptions. He was the product of the middle class and a good education (not simply staring into a screen and pushing buttons), and was an inheritor of Romantic and Victorian usages and traditions. His formal diction can seem stilted, but such was common in the days of parlour poetry. Smith was just out of boyhood, and so was learning his way through language and poetry. His usage and content is formed on Celtic mythology, King Arthur, and knights and their ladies fair, and a sense of loyalty to nation, king, and empire that seems wholly alien now: “Sonnet to the British Navy,” for instance, is painful to read.

Smith’s structure, though, is excellent. “Sonnet to the British Navy” is certainly derivative in wording and style, but the artistic discipline of his precise Shakespearean sonnet form is much to be praised. In a time when most poetry is nothing more than insipid, undisciplined, self-obsessed, me-me-me-poor-me free verse, Smith’s command of meter and rhyme is to be praised.

One of the most delightful poems in the pamphlet is “Pure Virginia,” a tribute to American tobacco. This is a well-crafted Petrarchan sonnet in which Smith forgets to be too formal and lets himself have a little fun.

The most touching poem is “Domum Redi Poeta” (the poet returns home). The Latin is not an affectation; like all carefully brought up children until fairly recently, Smith, Lewis, and Tolkien were quite at home in the language of ancient Rome, even in making jokes and writing poetry.

This little two-stanza piece in rhyming iambic tetrameter expresses the poet’s desire to return to the innocent joys of his boyhood home, and knowing as we do that he didn’t, the pathos is very real.

A Spring Harvest shows us the unfulfilled promise of a life ended young in yet another futile war. Geoffrey Bache Smith died well, though, and in his brief life accomplished more than taking selfies and watching television.

For those who are fond of the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Williams, and their friends), A Spring Harvest will be a worthy edition to their libraries - in another edition.

-30-

Moonlight and the Transfiguration - poem

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

Moonlight and the Transfiguration

Up before dawn; the dogs would have it so
Demanding to be taken for their first patrol
Snuffling and barking mysteries along the ground
While we consider the mysteries of the stars

The moon is full, and Venus anticipates the dawn
Dogs know nothing of the Transfiguration
And I don’t really understand it myself
And that’s okay

Up before dawn, for God will have us so
Savoring the beautiful mysteries given us

But He Had a Pre-Existing Condition - poem

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

But He Had a Pre-Existing Condition

Foul smoke, yellow and sour from rubbish fires
Spasms like a snake with a broken back
Twisting among our crumbling Qumran caves
Wherein our scrollies might someday be found

Rumors as well as smoke patrol our roads
Each contradicting the other with absolutes
The eternal verities of this hour
Which must be obeyed until they must not

The death of your friend is irrelevant:
He had a pre-existing condition

It is what it is

The Divine Office at Night - poem

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

The Divine Office at Night 1

Even if those happy spheres are sentient beings
We need not pray for the abbess moon and her
     stars
For they never rebelled in the gardens of space
For there they found space enough, beyond time

Perhaps they wonder if we are sentient beings
And much in need of their sung prayers instead
We, with our ancient hatreds and endless wars
As soon as formed disobedient to God

We need not pray for the abbess moon and her
     stars
But be most grateful if they pray for us


1 Cf. The Rule of Saint Benedict

New Along Beer Can Road & County Dump Extension - MePhone Photograph

Civic Holiday (Canada) - poem

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

Civic Holiday (Canada)

With Jesus and some children and a sheep
The funeral home Catholic calendar says
That today is “Civic Holiday (Canada)”
I don’t know what that is, this August day

Do children in Nunavit make Civic floats?
Are there midnight Civic fireworks in Labrador
Or Civic picnics in British Columbia
Or Civic costume parties in Manitoba?

I still don’t know, but God bless Canada
Whose goodness needs no excuse for a party

Moon and Venus - MePhone Photograph

Loaves and Wishes - poem (sort of)

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

Loaves and Wishes

Jesus told the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then he took the seven loaves and the fishes,
and when he had given thanks, he broke them
and gave them to the disciples, and they
in turn to the people.

-St. Matthew

“Is there a vegan option?”
“Are these fish from renewable stocks?”
“Is this bread gluten free?”
“Is this all you’ve got – bread and fish?”
“Are your bread and fish locally sourced?”
“I have allergies, you know.”
“Could I see the menu?”
“I’d like my bread thinly sliced.”
“No dessert?”
“Yeah, I know who’s paying for this – the workin’ man. You can’t fool me.”
“I want a hamburger!”
“I want fried chicken!”
“Where’s your health certificate?”
“Waiter, I was here before these other people!”
“The presentation is deplorable. Don’t expect a tip, okay?”
“Sitting on the ground with The People! Oh, how quaint and colorful and ethnic! I feel almost like a good comrade!"
"Will they do some of their funny little folk dances later? Should we toss coins at them?”
“Where’s the men’s room?”
“Is there a wine list?”
“I’ll start with a salad.”
“Not the milieu I would have chosen for a date night, of course, but it’s not bad.”
“I’ll expect my clergy discount.”
“No flatware? Napkins?”
“Could I have a doggie bag, please?”
“Tell me about your locally crafted beers.”
“I don’t see the nutritional information.”
“No, no, you’ve got it all wrong, waitress; I ordered the bread and fish and my friend ordered the fish and bread.”
“Is there a children’s menu?”
“If I get sick from this unrefrigerated food you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“Is there a plug-in for my ‘phone?”
“Please seat my party with a view of a nicer rock than this.”
“But don’t seat us next to any Romans.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Pharisees.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Sadducees.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Cyrenians.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Egyptians.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Ethiopians.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Samaritans.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Judaeans.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Galileans.”
“Oh – the Host is a Galilean? Really?”
“Don’t seat us next to any Arabians.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Hellenes.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Canaanites.”
“Don’t seat us next to any Edomites.”
“What’s an Edomite?”
“Hey, my brother-in-law’s an Edomite! Ya wanna make something of it? Just open yer mouth one more time about Edomites!”
“This is nice. We should come here more often.”

Amen.

He was Reading a Kristin Hannah Novel - poem

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

He was Reading a Kristin Hannah Novel

My pharmacist died today. The CV.
Two weeks ago we were laughing about books
About each other, our reading habits
My Yevtushenko, his Kristin Hannah

I mocked his chick-lit; he mocked my Russians
He said I would really like Winter Garden
Because in it I could visit Saint Petersburg
Which is every reader’s dream

A pharmacist and friend - he died today
I must go and find Winter Garden