Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Trousers, Gentlemen, Trousers! - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Trousers, Gentlemen, Trousers!

 

“There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'"


"The mood will pass, sir.”


 P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

 

Had you visited the post office today

You might have heard an elderly man say

(After opening his newspaper, by the way)

 

“Trousers, gentlemen, trousers”

 

For there in black and white, on the front page

Was pictured each and every schoolboard sage

Attired in shorts, in deference to the age

 

“Trousers, gentlemen, trousers”

 

While one appreciates our volunteers

Who serve our schools for free (let’s give them cheers)

The vision of old men’s legs must lead to jeers

 

Their veined and wrinkled knees – is this a tease?

“Trousers, gentlemen, trousers – please!”

OMG! It's the Most Agonizing Awful Pain Ever!!!!! - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

OMG! It’s the Most Agonizing Awful Pain Ever!!!!!!!!!

 

(Have you got an aspirin?)

 

Unless it involves writhing on the floor

(Or another appropriate surface)

Feeding the ducks, explosions behind the eyes

Flailing at the end of a cosmic centrifuge

 

Shrieking in pain hearing a butterfly

Floating around some twenty miles away

Grasping at bottles of futile agony pills

And begging for a merciful end to life

 

Unless it’s all of these, and sometimes more -

 

It’s not a migraine

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

The Children's Back Yard Museum of Art - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Children's Back Yard Museum of Art

 

Children are the truest arbiters of art

Finding beauty in the unlikeliest things:

A bottle cap, a rusted auto part

Metal washers, broken glass, cigar rings

 

A discarded knife with a broken blade

One dime-store earring with one rhinestone

A greenish bit of plastic – can it be jade?

And a real-life, genuine dinosaur bone!

 

Art nicely displayed along the fence row -

Adults think it just junk, but what do they know?

Monday, September 27, 2021

Every Day is Poetry Day, But Sometimes... - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Every Day is Poetry Day, But Sometimes…

 

I dunno; is life getting in the way?

Some days the gods, the fates, the little elves

Are fiercely determined to part you from your words

That you must not encounter books or thoughts

 

(Even the little notebook in your pocket)

 

But only the vacuum cleaner, the crescent wrench

The washing machine, the cows, the dogs, the lawn

The daily round of crises, duties, and chores -

And maybe only a few lines read at lunch

 

(Because you always have a book at hand)

 

A few lines scribbled at the end of the day

Well, they will have to do – whaddaya say?

 

(Busting a sweat makes you a better writer)

Sunday, September 26, 2021

Treadmills, Exercise, Open Cars, Champagne, and Cigars - weekly column, 26 September 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Treadmills, Exercise, Open Cars, Champagne, and Cigars

 

The panther-like litheness of my youth (cough) long ago expanded into the, oh, prosperous look of Chaucer’s merchant, and so I have gotten into the excellent but Calvinistic habit of well, treading along a treadmill every day. That’s what you do on treadmills; you tread. The treadmill upon which I tread is inside in the air-conditioning and under a ceiling fan, so there is little chance of me being run over by some of the race cars here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension.

 

Some people find exercise invigorating. I find it tedious.

 

My old…um…legacy treadmill was pretty flashy in its time, with red crystal lights telling me what speed I have chosen, how far I’ve wheezed…um, walked…how many calories I’ve burned, and how long I’ve been a good lad each session.

 

Tedious.

 

Television ads now show us show modern, high-tuned machines that are so ‘way cool that they are not even called treadmills. Treadmill – so declasse’. Sniff. They are given brand names that are just noise-labels, like some cars, and feature computerized Orwellian telescreens with moving pictures of different roads you can pretend to run on and with some really buff athletes yelling cliches at you:

 

“C’MON; YOU CAN DO IT! YOU’VE GOT THIS! JUST A LITTLE MORE! KEEP GOING! PUSH YOURSELF HARDER! DARE TO BE GREAT! YOU’RE RUNNING TO THE FUTURE!”

 

And blah, blah, blah.

 

Nevertheless, she persisted with cliches on the sides of made-in-China coffee cups.

 

If you’re going to exercise, do you really need or want someone yelling bogus recorded slogans and abuse at you?

 

Someone who likes being yelled at while running might want join the Army, Marines, or Navy. I was in the Navy and occasionally we did time with the Marines, much to the embarrassment of the Marines, so there was twice the verbal abuse while exercising. 

 

If my mama could have heard some of the vulgar things the mean old CPO and the mean old sergeant yelled at us she would have had some choice words of her own to say to them, and they would have felt pretty darned silly, yessir.

 

I have set before my, oh, heritage treadmill a television set. While treading the road of life I watch DVDs of The Bob Newhart Show. There isn’t much yelling, and although Bob and Emily occasionally jog or play a little tennis, that’s about it.

 

In Chicago today, of course, Bob would get LOTS more exercise in dodging the gunfire. Let’s call it nation-building.

 

In a scene from Chariots of Fire the candidates for the Olympics jog down a country road as their friends in the pace car smoke cigars and drink champagne while urging them on.

 

Now that’s the kind of exercise I can go for.  No, no, not the running, the riding around in an open car smoking cigars and drinking champagne.

 

-30-

 

 

I Don't Miss Working on the Farm

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

I Don’t Miss Working on the Farm

 

The hay balers are out early in the fields

Headlights outshining late September stars

The din of diesel engines shaking the world

I don’t miss working on the farm at all

 

The operator smoking a cigarette

While his sunburnt old hands wrestle the machine

His khakis and chambray shirt already wet

I don’t miss working on the farm at all

 

Yep, laboring in the fields from can ‘til can’t -

I don’t miss working on the farm at all

Friday, September 24, 2021

Is William Shatner Going to Deliver my Overdue Book from Amazon? - poem (of a sort)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Is William Shatner Going to Deliver my Overdue Book from Amazon?

 

-William Shatner is reportedly going to space in Jeff Bezos’ civilian space rocket | The Independent

 

Shipped with USPS Now expected 

September 24 - September 25

We’re very sorry your delivery

is late. Most late packages arrive in a day.

If you have not received your package by 

September 25, you can come back here

the next day for a refund or replacement.

Tracking ID: 9341989671004370746008

Wednesday, September 22 2:37 AM

Package left an Amazon facility.

Humble, TEXAS US 12:58 AM

Package left the carrier facility.

Humble, TX US Tuesday, September 21

11:30 AM Package arrived

at an Amazon facility. Humble, TEXAS US

Carrier picked up the package.

Times are shown in the local timezone.

A Too-Long and Too-Complex Password - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Enter a Password

 

Your password must consist of at least nine

letters and three numbers three of the letters

must be capitalized and two must be

underlined however while one of the

capital letters may be underlined

the other underlining or underlinings

must be small letters but none of the numbers

is to be underlined you must include

at least one specialty key but no more

than four and the password must not be entered

under a full moon or within three days

of Michaelmas either way we’re sorry

your time has expired please exit this window

and then re-submit but not the same password

you entered before

Thursday, September 23, 2021

An Hour with Dachshunds and Keats - poems

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

An Hour with Dachshunds and Keats

 

The first day of autumn – surprisingly cool

In this almost tropical latitude

So after a day of working outside

I sat with Keats before a brushy fire

 

As is my custom I read his “Ode to Autumn”

With a tumbler of – lemonade – to hand

While the little fire sang its own kind of song

And the dachshunds snuffled among the leaves

 

The first day of autumn – surprisingly cool

And in her rising the Evening Star blesses us

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

Lawrence's Apple Watch is Fully Charged - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

“Lawrence’s Apple Watch is Fully Charged”

 

Oh, sure, the MePhone is pleased to say that now

But long before the day spins down the watch

Percentages add up to little and so

I must find the magnetic sticky thing

 

The charger and the watch embrace with passion

You can almost see the electricity

That sparks their one-ness and their holy bond

Leaving my wrist empty and timeless for a time

 

“Lawrence’s Apple Watch is fully charged”

But reluctant to leave its charger for long

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

My Garage Sale One-Dollar Mister Spock Clock - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

My Garage Sale One-Dollar Mister Spock Clock

 

All stern he is, in science department blue

Behind the clear face of an old-fashioned clock

An hour hand, a minute hand, a sweep hand too

Orbiting around our wise Mister Spock

 

Behind his back a motor, made in Taiwan

Powered by a double-A Duracell

Counts the minutes and hours as they drag on

(There is no dilithium fuel cell)

 

Spock scans for me the starndate, no fuss at all

Always at his post on my office wall

Monday, September 20, 2021

On Teaching Jean Anouilh's BECKET to High School Seniors - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

On Teaching Jean Anouilh’s Becket to High School Seniors

 

Beginning with the film

 

1st student young person on the roll sheet: “Is that th' pope?”
2nd student young person on the roll sheet: “I’d like to shoot that old pope.”

 

We have a lot of work ahead of us

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Love Against Chaos - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Love Against Chaos

 

Chaos - when a child doesn’t have a bed for sleep

Good meals for nourishment, peace every day

Books of her very own to read and keep

Parents and friends, a few toys for play -

 

But when you make a child safe and warm for the night

And give her breakfast at the family table

Daily lessons for instruction and delight

A few easy chores, as far as she is able

 

And all in a home ruled with blessings and love

You give that child a happy life

                             And you give Chaos a shove

Friday, September 17, 2021

To Oaf Qweepers and Such - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

To Oaf Qweepers and Such

 

In your made-in-China cheap camouflage

A forty-four strapped to each forty-six waist

You fast-food waddle and wheeze along the streets

Waving your Pepe and Confederate flags

 

Playing at movie soldiers yet again

With other aging oafs in beards and tats

And yelping at people who work for a living

While you parasites just stink up the place

 

The rest of us are trying to build a nation

So

Get out of the way

Go home

And fondle your director’s cut of Patton

The Death of Our Old Hippie Truck Driver - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Death of Our Old Hippie Truck Driver

 

For Brian, of Happy Memory

 

For every star that falls to earth a new one glows.
For every dream that fades away a new one grows.

 

-Rod McKuen

 

Suddenly there was cancer eating away

At what was left of his star and his dreams

That second star to the right was suddenly closer

And we can’t know what that far shore is like

 

But he had often seen the rainbow’s end

Shining across the windshield of his rig

Over his mountains and his magic lands

Interstates according to Peter Max

 

For years he rolled to the beat of ‘68 -

No more runs, now; his logbook’s up to date

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Edgar Allan Poe Takes a Selfie and I Take an Antihistamine - errant nonsense

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Edgar Allan Poe Takes a Selfie and I Take an Antihistamine

 

Quoth the critic:

                             No one’s ravin’ y’know

Something about a bird – maybe a crow?

Lenore married a physicist on the go

Plutonium shore, not Plutonian (oh!)

 

Quoth the critic:

                              No more her beau

She kept the cage, but gave the bird to Poe

Anyway, the scientist’s name is Moe

She says his nuclear fission makes her glow

 

Quoth the critic:

                             Let’s end this show

(Antihistamines – I shoulda said no)

(‘Choo!)

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

An Address to the Several Caesars and their Generals - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

For the Good of the Republic

 

To the Caesars and their Generals

(But not to the Senate; they have made themselves irrelevant)

 

Illustris:

 

You have medals and money and country estates

Book deals and bank accounts and pleasure gardens

You can retire in soft luxury now -

Your military contractors have seen to that

 

The Rubicon is ruby with your soldiers’ blood

And the Tiber is stopped with the loyal dead

Who fell upon your sword-sharp signatures -

And now you conspire against each other

 

You have done enough; go home to your musicians

Your receptions, your hunting parties, your…wives

You could pray for the dead

But you won’t

 

Still,

 

If you love your nation you will not meet

At the Milvian Bridge

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

You are a Solitaire - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

You are a Solitaire

 

A generation cannot choose to be lost

Even though many might give up on life

Sulk in self-pity in a crowded space

As if no one ever suffered before

 

But trust yourself to make a stronger choice

Refuse to be defined except by you

Consider the teachings of the wise, not the loud

And build your life by the standards you set

 

For after all, you are not a generation -

You are your own creative, industrious self

Monday, September 13, 2021

Paying the Electric Bill to a Tattooed Arm - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Paying the Electric Bill to a Tattooed Arm

 

In the August-hot, exhaust-fumed drive-through

Summer-sun glare against the window glass

Armored against robbers and customers

Who might want to steal electricity in person

 

Through the glass one can see a slender arm

And a shift in the light shows it to be

All splotchy in decaying reds, greens, and blues

Seemingly covered in a foul tropical blight

 

The window slides open to a beautiful smile

The corpse-like arm pushes out

          God

                   Beauty

                                 A receipt

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Chicago, a German U-Boat, and a Cab Driver with a Secret Sorrow - weekly column, 12 September 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Chicago, a German U-Boat, and a Cab Driver with a Secret Sorrow

 

Many years ago I had occasion to take a taxi in Chicago.

 

I’m still doing therapy.

 

I had arrived by train (“Grandpa, what’s a train?”) and had a six-hour wait for the next, so I took a taxi from Union Station to the Museum of Science and Industry for a celebration of Young Sheldon-ness.

 

The temperature that day was 106, but that was before climate change was invented so Chicago might be cooler now.

 

Union Station was not air-conditioned.

 

Chicago was not air-conditioned.

 

The cab was not air-conditioned.

 

The vinyl back seat was all greasy and yucky as if it had recently been used for carrying corpses down to the river.

 

The driver was all greasy and yucky too, and really big, so I kept the conversation to general topics and he kept it to an occasional grunt.  He seemed to be carrying a secret sorrow and maybe weaponry.

 

At one point there was a traffic jam so he whipped his cab onto the sidewalk for a block or so, scattering pedestrians. He appeared not to be in a sporting mood so the walkers became leapers, and energetic ones at that.

 

A few blocks further on we were stopped at a traffic light when he and the equally large driver in the cab next to us began exchanging verbal unpleasantries questioning each other’s genetic coding, modes of life, and value systems, not unlike primeval carnivores sizing each other up for lunch.

 

At one point my driver pulled off his shirt – he was not pretty – preparatory to doing battle. So did the other driver. Not pretty, no, no.

 

Chicago, city of the big shoulders. Big waistlines. Big fists.

 

Happily, at this moment the light changed and every driver began honking and, um, vocalizing their impatience. I discovered that this is a Chicago tradition: whenever the traffic light turns green everyone within a quarter-mile radius begins honking the horn, bellowing impatiently, and making any pedestrians around play dodge-human. Both the big men driving the taxies magically appealed to each other’s better natures and I was carried in safety to my destination.

 

You never see any of this on The Bob Newhart Show.

 

The Museum of Science and Industry – provided you can get there alive – is fascinating. One of the favorite exhibits was the computer display where you can walk through the remains of a second world-war British computer. Beyond the huge steel frame and what looked like chain drives there is little left.

 

Especially fascinating was a working replica of Blaise Pascal’s 17th century calculating machine, often considered the world’s first such gadget although it is possible that the Greeks and Romans managed similar devices. No apps for games, though.

 

How the Pascaline Works - YouTube

 

The claustrophobia-inducing German u-boat is also fascinating. Someone cut some hatches on the sides of the hulls so you can sort-of walk through it. I don’t remember that I was able to stand up fully at any point. I do remember the pretty blue-and-white-checked sheets and an occasional wooden bulkhead panel. Sleep was a matter of a rotating hot-bunk system and everyone lived and worked and often died in a milieu of heat and racket and machinery and torpedoes and valves and gauges. In the summer heat the temperature inside the hull was over 110, which, the docent advised us, was about the typical inside temperature when the boat was at sea.

 

The deck gun had been removed and placed inside where children played on it and pointed and trained the gun all around.

 

I understand that in Chicago children still play with guns.

 

The unarmed taxi drivers are scary enough.

 

-30-

 

The Last Time I Saw Dan - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Last Time I saw Dan

 

It’s only a Denny’s, right? Over on Garth Road

Just off the interstate.  Breakfast with Dan

Years ago now, but the table was still there

Where we drank coffee and I mostly listened

 

Oh, his body was frail, had been for years

But his mind, oh, that mind, physician and pilot

Philosopher, writer, scientist, raconteur

His thoughts were always far beyond the stars

 

I thought of him all through my breakfast special

And when I left, patted the vinyl bench

                                               where he had lived

Friday, September 10, 2021

Camellia Sinensis Dancing Striptease - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Camellia Sinensis Dancing Striptease

 

Anyone who bangs on about the nuances

And the complex properties of tea

Loose leaves, filtered water, thermometers

How a slurp is superior to a sip

 

The low-Prole vulgarity of teabags

Assessing the full body of the tea

Then teasing out the flavour of the tea

(Camellia Sinensis dancing a striptease?)

 

Is a barbarian.

                         Just pour me out

A good cuppa char from the old Brown Betty

Saint Augustine's Stolen Apples, My Dead 'Possum - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Saint Augustine’s Stolen Apples, My Dead ‘Possum

 

Saint Augustine reflected on the sins of his youth

The stolen apples especially bothered him

In his life-long penance and his quest for truth

That memory, somehow, was especially grim

 

As for me I remember a long-ago night

When I flung a dead ‘possum at Miss Cates’ door

I know that such a thing just isn’t right

But she was mean and old (maybe twenty-four)

 

Saint Augustine’s sins hung about him like weights

And I –

I don’t feel bad about tormenting Miss Cates!

 

 

(My friend Gordon and I found the ‘possum as ripe roadkill, and the deed quickly followed the inspiration. I did the tossing because Gordon was the getaway driver. Miss Cates was a brand-new teacher and probably quite nice. I do know that we were little jerks and that she deserved better. Gordon won the Silver Star in Viet-Nam, was a good husband and a beloved stepfather, and died in early middle age.)

Thursday, September 9, 2021

Searching September for You - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Searching September for You

 

Everyone writes poems about September

That month which serves as a hinge to each year

Tired summer collapsing into cool autumn

A new term and new terms on the quarter-day

 

I remember walking in the fields with you

And holding hands among the stubbled crops

While you sang to me and our changing world -

You were the joy of golden Michaelmas-time

 

And though all those Septembers have flown away

Whenever I pass a field

                                        I look for you

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

General Robert E. Lee Stands Down - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

General Robert E. Lee Stands Down

 

Richmond, Virginia

8 September 2021

 

Today his statue will be lifted down

And broken up to be museumed somewhere

Beyond the roar of cannon and musketry

Beyond the hiss of tear gas and abuse

 

The most sentimental mythologies

Might be the worst: moonlight and magnolias

And sweet old songs softening and perfuming

The memories of bloody chains and whips

 

Let us hope that the plinth is left intact -

For a new statue, a universal pact

If This Were Kabul We’d Call It Nation Building - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

If This Were Kabul We’d Call It Nation Building

 

At Least 6 Killed, 56 Wounded In Chicago Labor Day Weekend Gun Violence

 

-CBS 2 Chicago

 

Maybe one of the civilized nations

Will send us aid: food packages, nylons

Chocolate for the children, used clothing

Cigarettes for the old men, can openers

 

Maybe one of the civilized nations

Will send their young soldiers to guard our streets

And missionaries to teach us the Bible

And volunteer nurses to teach us hygiene

 

Maybe one of the civilized nations

Will pity us, and make us a protectorate

 

 

(From a reminder by Anthony Germain)

Monday, September 6, 2021

Cognitive Dissonance by Order of Higher Authority - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Cognitive Dissonance by Order of Higher Authority

 

The greatest evil is…conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried,

and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices…

 

-C. S Lewis, Preface to The Screwtape Letters

 

It is illogical to determine

That a class of humans must not be human

And so not only may this class be destroyed

But must be destroyed for some sort of cause

 

It is illogical to determine

That some should be ashes or specimens in jars

Quivering bloody lumps flung into fires

Or into bags labeled “Medical Waste”

 

It is illogical to determine

Who may live, and who must be

                                                    medically served

Sunday, September 5, 2021

A Wristwatch Named Karen - weekly column, 5 September 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Wristwatch Named Karen

 

Okay, that’s really not fair. Every Karen I have every known is a joy to be around. Let’s just say that I have a wristwatch with a bossy ‘tude.

 

This summer someone near and dear to me gave me one of those clever computerized watches to replace my classic (old) $8 Timex.

 

Karen-the-Watch features a big screen onto which I can easily sweep dozens of different faces. I picked the one most like my minimalist (old) Timex with sweep hands and plain numbers that light up all the time, the day, the date, and, as a tribute to our ancestors who followed lunar calendars, a moon phase image.

 

When I sweep the face up a dashboard with six features appears: wi-fi signal strength meter, a find-the-dumb-phone tap-thing, a battery indicator, an on-off for sounds, a switch to kill the watch’s lights while in a theatre, and a walkie-talkie gadget I haven’t yet figured out.

 

If I receive a message from Dick Tracy or anyone else, or some other notification (they bounce from the MePhone), I sweep the face down to read it.

 

Tapping the stem calls up a list of some 47 (I counted) features, including all the applications on my MePhone made available on Karen-the-Watch, only somewhat modified. On a news app, for instance, you see the headlines and maybe a part of the story. If you have more apps on your MePhone you will have more apps on your Karen-the-Watch

 

Others on the list include pulse, blood oxygen levels (ask your grandpa about femoral sticks for that purpose), ‘phone, pulse, wake-up alarm (soft Viennese music that slowly becomes rather Germanically noisy if you don’t respond), calendar, calculator, compass, and lots of things I’ve yet to figure out.

 

One of the coolest is an EKG.  I can’t read an EKG, but I can see it on the screen and on the MePhone. All those squiggly lines probably mean something. Maybe it’s a coded message from R (or P – some consonant, anyway).

 

Karen-the-Watch tracks the number of steps I take and the distance I make. I’m shooting for 6,000 steps and three miles every 24 hours and usually accomplish them. There are little bars for each hour which light up in sequence when you stand up and do something. Sitting at a desk or in front of a legacy (old) television set doesn’t count. If you are sedentary for too long Karen-the-Watch sends you a message suggesting (sort of like a drill sergeant’s suggestions) that you should get up and move about for a minute or so.

 

My Karen-the-Watch came with an ugly and uncomfortable rubber strap (what was someone not thinking?) which I quickly replaced with several inexpensive after-market cloth and leather straps from Volga.com (or is it Danube.com – some river, anyway). To change a strap doesn’t require fiddling with spring-loaded pins; you just slide-and-click the straps out and in as necessary.

 

Karen-the-Watch synchronizes with the MePhone for most purposes, but when they are far away from each other Karen shows the time and tracks fitness but won’t send or receive messages.

 

The only complaint (first-world problems, right?) is that Karen-the-Phone holds its charge for only about 24 hours. If you’re going on a trip you’ll have to bring along her special little magnetic charger.

 

Beyond that…but wait…Karen-the-Watch speaks:

 

“You need to get to the treadmill now. The nice people have better things to do than listen to you babble.”

 

“Yes, dear.”

 

-30-

 

A Meditation on Caspar David Friedrich’s “Wanderer above the Mist” - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Meditation on Caspar David Friedrich’s

“Wanderer above the Mist”

 

For victory alone he chooses to exist

He takes a triumphant and well-earned breath

But what if that wanderer above the mist

Slips on a banana peel to his death!

Saturday, September 4, 2021

No Surrender to Viruses or Fools - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

No Surrender to Viruses or Fools

 

My head is bloody, but unbowed

 

-Henley, “Invictus”

 

We planned to build in peace a better world

With hands and tools and minds and arts and sweat

A home and bed for every little child

With love and peace around each family’s hearth

 

But now we daily read the deaths of friends

 

Futility is wormed into our hopes

By fatal vapors coursing through the air

Adrift on breathy particles, scornful

Of everything we’ve worked for all out lives

 

For still we daily read the deaths of friends

 

Some of us blame each other, or just give up

And wallow in despair, but not you and I

                                                         

Let’s help each other - we’ve got a world to build

 

 

 


 

("Invictus" is something of a cliche' now, and flawed in some ways, but its attitude of defiance and stoicism is still admirable.)

Friday, September 3, 2021

The© Happy™ Home© Akku-Rite™ OTC Covid-1 Test© - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The© Happy™ Home© Akku-Rite™ OTC Covid-1 Test©

 

The picture on the box features a couple

Cuddling cutely in domestic bliss

As they poke the swabs way up each other’s nose

(Oh, don’t be scandalized; they’re married, of course!)

 

These and other fine products are distributed by

Consolidated HelthKare Medical, Inc.

Makers of the Kut-Kut© Home Vasectomy Kit

And

Ol’ Doc Zeke’s™ Happy Mule© Diarrhea Remedy

 

Ol’ Doc Zeke’s™ Happy Mule© Diarrhea Remedy™

Is not approved for use in humans (wink, wink)

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Liberation Begins with our Minds - Poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Liberation Begins with our Minds

 

At lunch today, or during a coffee break

We could switch the break room radio on

To the voices of someone else’s America

Demagogues yelling at us what to think

 

Or we could open that ancient paperback

Held together with tape and rubber bands

And continue Saint Augustine’s Confessions

Which we began in our younger, happier days

 

Eternal words, and not some Leader’s noise

Because you and I are not trapped in time

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Communities - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Communities

 

We often read about communities:

 

The intelligence community

The black community

The LGBT community

The arts community

 

Communities

 

The Hispanic community

The white community

The evangelical community

The educational community

 

Communities

 

One imagines a community:

Volunteer fire department, VFW

Parks, shops, a Methodist church across the street

From Our Lady of Guadalupe

 

Communities

 

But communities seem mostly to be

Lonely people stereotyping others

On the InterGossip with big ol’ words