50. 31 January 2024, Wednesday
in the 4th week in Ordinary Time.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
She Had a Problem with Amarillo, Texas
She bought a revolver and a box of cartridges
And on her way outta town she put six rounds
Into the Amarillo city limits
sign
And for the most part lived
happily ever after
This is something told to me long ago. Amarillo is great fun
and could be a vacation destination.
25 Amazing Things to Do in Amarillo - Lone Star Travel Guide
Lawrence Hall, HSG
“My Oath of Enlistment Does Not Have an Expiration Date”
Well, yeah, it does
If it doesn’t then I’m out of uniform
If it doesn’t then I’m absent without leave
(54 years –
you’d think someone would have noticed)
If it doesn’t then I need to report to base
If it doesn’t then I must obey President Biden
If it doesn’t then I must obey all officers
(Is that a
shavetail ensign at my door?)
If it doesn’t then the manual of arms…
(With a
walking-stick? Really?)
If it doesn’t then I gotta get up at 0400
If it doesn’t then my Sperry Topsiders need a shine
I left my oath of enlistment in Viet-Nam
There, with the memories of many dear friends
It will rest in peace without any regard
For someone else’s made-in-China slogan tee
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Elon Musk Invites Us Down
for Chips and Dip and Destruction
They have pulled down Deep Heaven on their Heads
-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
He’s implanted a chip, says Mr. Musk
Into the brain (certainly not the hip)
Of some poor patient who’s now just a husk
A talking head, a thing, a radar blip
And what could go wrong with this poor android
A man now fitted with an electric brain
Adjusted and programmed and tweaked and toyed -
A failed experiment thrashing in pain?
And if he fails, this humanoid chip
Musk might use him for guacamole dip
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Penny Candle – and if
You Don’t Have a Penny, Love Will Do
The key to the lighting of a church candle is that, in its tiny light, all the mystery of life is drawn up into an eternity excluding only sorrow and loss.
-Tod Mixson
It’s not just that a candle struggles against darkness
But that we do too, trying to sort the chaos
With weary eyes and unsure, trembling hands -
But it is something that we’ve lit the candle
It’s not just that a candle flickers in the darkness
But that we shape against shadows all our hopes
Bundling them into a pilgrim’s haversack
For whatever remains of our journey to Light
For in the end we give the candle away
Offering it to a passing Whisper in the night
Lawrence Hall, HSG
This Smart Watch Will
Last
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in
-Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I do not set the time; time simply is:
The dawning day requires no entrance code
The morning frost need not be set to wake
The yakking crows cannot be switched to “Off”
The lingering fog sends no notifications
The bare-limbed oaks re-set themselves in spring
The sky is the background app refresh
The wind is a warranty for life
All these good things are made to be -
I do not set the time, but God sets me
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Army of God and, Like, Stuff
They’re loud and they’re
smarmy
They boo and they hiss
They say they’re God’s Army -
But does God know this?
An 'Army of God' Vigilante Group
Plans to Head to the U.S.-Mexico Border (esquire.com)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Avon Man and the
Mystery of His First-Best Bed
I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…
-Attributed
to Shakespeare in his will. Or Churchill. Or Milton. Or Elvis. Or Some Famous
Man. And Shakespeare was secretly a Catholic. (No, he wasn’t.) (Yes, he was.)
(No, he wasn’t.) (Yes, he was; I read it on the InterGossip.)
That second-best bed doesn’t matter a pop
Those anyones whoever slept in it are deads
Memorialized as dashboard bobbleheads
At Ye Olde Anne Hathawaye gifte shoppe
Kinge Richarde nevere cryede, “mye kyngdome fore ye bedde!”
Yea, goode olde Sirre Erpinghame joked, “Now lye I like a
kynge”
So what’s the deale withe the firste-beste bedde thynge?
Thatte seconde bedde is where the Widowe rested hir hedde
Ande thusse ye scholares maken withouten cessatione
Unsupportede argumentes and allegationes
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Dentistry and Dogs
What would the world be like without dogs?
-Mary Oliver
Our little bit of the world was frozen that day
At the dentist’s office something that makes something else
Do something else was frozen and would not work
And so I waited with Mary’s book about dogs
Dog is one of the
messengers of that rich and still magical first world.
The frost was still upon the windowsill
As an hour passed for me and Mary’s dogs
Their adventures in the woods, their lonely times
Their happy glances into their human’s eyes
Our new dog, named for the
beloved poet, / ate a book
Even though the something else was frozen in ice
Our little bit of the world was warmer for a time
Because of the dog’s
joyfulness, our own is increased
Quotes from Mary Oliver, Dog
Songs, Penguin, New York: 2013
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Hickory-Doomsday
Clock
Analogue or Digital?
That Doomsday Clock has ticked since
1947
The sweep hand always dancing on the edge of doom
Sometimes a missile more (7, 6, 5, 4…
Sometimes a virus less (a jab, I guess)
I’ve been thinking of buying me one
Maybe from the times-table at Wal-Mart
Or as a timeless fashion from Amazon
I want to know the hour we’re going to die
But are we truly any closer to Heaven?
That Doomsday Clock has tocked since 1947
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Out-Outpatient Surgery
A little happy pill along the
way
A fuzzy memory of the waiting
room
A bright fluorescent-lit
consulting room
A slippery fake-leather
patient chair
The nurse and I spoke of
children and dogs
(Dang! That needle hurt!)
And about the rain outside
this winter day
(Dang! That needle hurt even more!)
And the doctor spoke (of
what?) (of what?)
Soothingly through the sounds
of cutting flesh
Soothingly through the smells
of burning flesh
And lengths of suture flying
before my eyes
At home I took a happy codeine
pill
While Randolph Scott rode
across the TV
Nurses and doctors make you
all better
Life is good
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You Are Not a Series
of Adjectives
Adjectives can sometimes be useful things
And even aesthetically pleasing, you know
But
You are not a series of adjectives
You are yourself – and how wonderful you are!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
An Apology to Brazos
Bookstore
on Banned Books Week
Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame
to remember, when punishing vile acts,
that most peculiar time, when
plain honesty was labeled 'courage’
-Yevtushenko, “Conversation with an
American Writer”
Dear Brazos Bookstore:
Several years ago I wrote you a polite note
Suggesting that you were a bit hyperbolic
On the touchy subject of banning books
“This is America,” I said; “it doesn’t happen here”
I was wrong
I apologize
And you are brave
Cordially,
Brazos Bookstore
www.brazosBookstore.com
2421 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX 77005
(I have no professional connection
with Brazos Bookstore, that wonderful, independent purveyor of books and an agora
of ideas.)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Awkward Adolescent
Verse
Poetry…
The
authority of empires, driven mad,
Threatened
it so many times,
But
it was the rulers who perished
-Yevtushenko, “Poetry is a Great Power”
They stole his boots even before he died
And scavengers have eaten out his eyes
His flesh and blood commingle with the mud
His rotting hands still claw the earth, the pain
A dime-store notebook, shredded with his heart
Once pencilled with his awkward, juvenile lines
Of undeveloped images and clumsy rhymes
Which will not be shaped and sharpened in this world
Among young bodies rats squabble and hiss -
Someone will be given a peace prize for this
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Methodist Pecans
Methodist pecans
Connie-the-Haircut-Queen sells us pecans
Every Christmas, good Methodist pecans
A fundraiser sponsored by the women’s club
To be baked into cookies and pies for Christmas day
Methodist pecans
They used to come from my grandfather’s trees
But now they’re grown and gathered somewhere else
Packaged in plastic, certified, and sealed
But still they’re good Methodist pecans
Methodist pecans
And in January when the hail-storms rattle
Stuffed in a barn-coat pocket while tracking cattle
Methodist pecans - Texas blessed and Texas’ best!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Quomodo Catholici
inter se Loquuntur?
Scortillum, scortillum, scortillum!
(Catholic news sites, I’ve had my fill of ‘em)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Sailing a Couch into
History
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our
destiny, but what we put into it is ours.
-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, p. 51
Through eating, fatting, sleeping, video games
En couchant in a stasis ossified
By the low expectations of the zeitgeist
(“What’s a zeitgeist?”) some flail into history
The ironic echoes of Call of Duty
Flatten against an empty ‘tater-chip bag
Yesterday flung into the baby’s crib
(“Ain’t no one seen little Shawnee today?”)
His MePhone case is manly hunter green
He's checkin’ out the fantasies on a glowing screen
Lawrence Hall, HSG
In the Foggy Dawn - a
Hawk on a Fencepost
For him the hayfield is his restaurant
A baby mouse, perhaps, or a tasty rabbit
But I prefer a bacon-egg-cheese croissant -
For breakfast we are all creatures of habit!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
What Do These
Teachers Teach These Children in These Schools?
PETA thinks this is how farmers get the wool off sheep? 😂 | Not the Bee
Sheep-shearing isn’t a topic in English class
Not here in cattle country; we give sheep a pass
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You’re Going to Be
Okay
You’re going to be okay
Your feet hit the deck this morning
You offered up that cup of coffee to God
And He delighted in your happiness
Lawrence Hall, HSG
My Illegal Oxygen-ish Apple Watch
My Apple Watch ™ © ® has the oxygen feature –
Do I confess to the Law? Or to the preacher?
(My Apple Watch worked fine until it was messed up by the last two updates, which cannot be undone. When this thing fails completely I will find a cheap knockoff on amazon.)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Awaiting Cataract
Surgery
You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long
enough to suit me.
- attributed to C. S. Lewis
and others
I will give up my books
When someone pries my cold, dead hands from them
Companions of my youth, tellers of truth
Next to my heart when the mortar rounds fell
But now I see the world
As through a dark lens darkly, well enough
For most common household purposes
But those dear words on any page – not so
I never thought I’d say
That I’m looking forward to surgery day!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Our Former President Loves Us All
The People grant him power; he grasps for more
He asks them for their votes and for their deaths
His eunuchs tell us that it was just a joke
Like Two Corinthians walking into a bar
But when the folding chairs are folded away
And that one night of transient glory is over
The caucus captains and their caps depart
Cheap souvenirs tatted in white and gold
They stumble home through limousine fumes and ice:
“For a moment I was Somebody – it was nice”
Lawrence Hall
A Government Church?
We establish no religion in this country. We command no
worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must
remain separate.
- President Ronald Reagan, Speech in Temple Hillel, Valley
Stream, New York,
26 October 1984
Each American may his own conscience search
For by the Grace of God we have no national church
Cf. The Constitution, Article
VI and Amendment I
Lawrence Hall
To Accept Israel
“Israel
was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is
the child of hope and the home of the brave. It carries the shield of democracy
and it honors the sword of freedom.”
– President John F. Kennedy)
To deny Israel is to curse ourselves
For we are inheritors of the Covenant
That He should be our God, and we His people
He creates us, He calls us – this is so
He has given us prophecy and law
Cattle in the fields, fish in all the seas
And lovers, flowers, sunsets, songs, salvation
The Great Dance of Creation - and Himself
Let not the sinister whisperer divide us!
To accept Israel is to accept - everyone
Lawrence Hall, HSG
An English Major
Screaming at a Wall Clock
(A French officer would be too well-mannered to do that)
Passing from one office to another in quest
Of some elusive official signature
I saw a woman screaming at a clock
And heard her, too, because screams are like that
“She’s an English major,” someone said in explanation
“She and her boy Wordsworth are at it again
And meddlesome Coleridge keeps putting his oar in”
I nodded in understanding; Milton had mentioned it
A scholar should never scream at institutional clocks;
He should discreetly disapprove of them
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Garage-Sale Rolodex®
for Seventy-Five Cents
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
-Patrick McGoohan as Number Six in The
Prisoner
The Rolodex was once a symbol of power
Of knowledge marshalled into sequences
Orderly sequences alphabetized by names
By names and cross indices of subjects and dates
Of enemies or allies or contacts, rarely friends
Condensed in ink on smoothly finished cards
Restrained in place by colored plastic tabs
Awaiting the stroke of an office tyrant’s hand
The Rolodex was subsumed within The ‘Phone
Thus still your life cannot be called your own
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Third Couplet for
the Coup
The president’s son humiliated our representatives -
They’re as useless as gas-station pregnancy preventatives
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Another Couplet for
the Coup
Presidents and their bangers bully judges, you see
So the laws apply only to you and me
Lawrence Hall, HSG
He Won’t Even Notice
- a Bitter Couplet for the Coup
They cry that he is anointed of Jesus, that he saves
(His limousine will rumble over their poor graves)
Lawrence Hall
Upon the Return of
Artifacts to Wounded Knee
“We hope the spirits are on their way now.”
-Richard Broken Nose
A knife, a needle, an arrow, a pair of shoes
Some beads, a shirt, a drum, a tobacco pouch
A little girl’s doll, fragments of a pot
And tools for completing one’s daily chores
They are not artifacts; they are not displays
They are the ordinary necessities of life
Stolen from the dead hands of innocents
To be numbered, indexed, filed, boxed, and mocked
These things are sacred now, part of the Great Dance of Creation
We pray the spirits will come and take them home
As plundered items return to Wounded Knee, decisions await
(artdaily.com)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Endsville
All in all, at the end of the day, and in conclusion, when
the curvy lady sings, when the truth be told, when all is said and done, when
the chickens come home to roost, when all the evidence is in, in sum, in short,
in brief, the bottom line is, we can only conclude, to conclude, in the end, so
as I said before, to sum up, and as Churchill / Gandhi / Harry Potter / a wise
man once said, therefore, all things considered, most importantly, taking the
facts into account, to wrap things up, on the whole, and most importantly, and
finally…
(I was going somewhere with this…)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Polysyllabic Aspirational
Bourgeois Vanity
(and, like, stuff)
Surrealism
A melting clock is not aesthetically pleasing
Nor is it of any utility
It celebrates chaos instead of life
And bullies us with a manifesto
Surrealism
Gives pale aesthetes topics for their idle hours
Surrendering imagination to cliches’
The endlessly self-referential I, I, me, me
(Another double-latte, if you please)
Surrealism
The republican’s derivative art is but
The emperor’s new clothes turned inside out
(And have you seen my serial
takes on Greek ikons re-imagined and re-envisioned as diatomic forms through
vegan egg-tempera on recycled barn wood as a repudiation of hidebound colonialist
oppressivist occupationist Orthodoxy by sequencing monks on Mount Athos as agnostic
Jewish fast-food workers influenced by the works of Dali and the Rapallo poets through
a motif of running wedges in asymmetric lines from a cosmopolitan image of
Heaven to a day-glow Wal-Mart beside a sea of transcendental bubbles which
symbolize my feelings when my latest grant was canceled? Hmmmmmmm? Of course
the straights don’t get it; their lack of imagination is why they stopped The
People’s funding I deserve so that I can make great art chiding them for being dullard
capitalist mechanicals. I do take all major credit cards for my works.)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
End. Stops. Employed.
As. Arguments.
Learn. To. Code. You. Had. One. Job. End. Of. Fact.
Decolonize. This. Place. Best. Job. Ever.
Burn. It. Down. Get. A. Job. Not. In. Our. Name.
Not. My. King. Not. My President. Spot. On.
Worst. Day. Ever. Votes. Have. Consequences.
What. Could. Go. Wrong. It. Begins. Heads. Will. Roll.
O. M. G. Let. It. Go. This. Isn’t. Over.
Come. And. Take. It. Not. Just. Shut. Up. Just. No.
Shut. It. Down. Let. It. Go. I. Have. No. Words.
This. Ends. Now. End. Of. Story. Grow. Up. Full. Stop.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Elections of 2024
How sharply our children will be ashamed…
remembering how in so strange a time
common integrity could look like courage
-Yevtushenko,
“Talk”
1. Thesis (of a sort)
The nation shamble-shuffles erratically
Erratically to a lectern and microphone
A microphone on a Potemkin stage
While a bewildered audience feebly applauds
2. Antithesis (of a
sort)
The nation lemming-marches along the streets
Lemming-marches along with bullhorns and flags
Bullhorns bellowing in 5.56
The Gospel according to Saint QAnon
3. Recusancy instead
of synthesis
But I am an American, not a D, an R, a Q
My faith is in the Constitution, and maybe
In you
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I Demanded to be Heard
When I was young I demanded
to be heard
And I was not heard, which
turned out for the best
Because I had almost nothing
to say
And that almost-nothing was
sodden with cliché
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You Have Never
Voted for a President
You have never voted for a president, and neither have I.
Certain plaintiffs in certain states have recently petitioned
their state courts to bar a certain candidate from standing for the presidency
based on Section 3 of the XIVth Amendment. This states that no one can be a
senator, representative, or presidential or vice-presidential elector, or hold
any public office, civil or military, federal or state, if he (the pronoun is
gender-neutral), as a member of congress, an officer in the United States, a
member of any state legislature, or an executive or judicial officer in any
state if he, having sworn loyalty to the Constitution, “shall have engaged in
insurrection against the same (the Constitution).”
The XIVth Amendment was enacted following the Civil War
and in response to it, but an amendment is not limited in time and place. It is
active law, not a museum curiosity.
But how can a state presume to bar a candidate from a
presidential ballot in that state?
That leads us back to Article II, which states clearly
that presidents are elected by electors from each state, not by a popular vote.
Further, these electors from each state are appointed by the legislature of
each state, “…in such Manner as the Legislature may direct…”
The fifty states and the too-much-indulged District of
Columbia can, as a matter of states’ rights, choose their electors in any
manner they chose. Hey, it’s in the Constitution. And do we follow our
Constitution or not? As practiced the popular vote in each state is for
electors, not for candidates, and the electors then vote for the president.
Some states do not allow their electors to vote against the will of the
electorate, but some do.
Our clumsy system of voting sounds illogical, but its
function is to ensure that sparsely-populated states and districts are not
subjected to the votes of heavily-populated cities. Without our electoral
college (they don’t have a football team, though) our presidential elections would
always be decided by the west coast axis and the east coast axis.
This protection is similar to the constitutional
requirement that while the states send a number or representatives to the House
based on population, they each send two senators to the Senate regardless of
population.
All this is a little awkward, but it means that the great
population centers cannot use the rest of us – “flyover country,” “deplorables,”
and so on – as simply a source of raw materials for their industries and recruits
for their many undeclared wars, and dumping grounds for their garbage.
Under the Constitution the citizens of a state may indeed
appeal to their state legislature for barring a candidate from the ballot in
that state only based on the XIVth Amendment in that same federal
Constitution. It is a matter of states’ rights not only in the XIVth amendment but
in the Xth.
The argument that the President is not mentioned as an
officer in the amendment is specious, even a little desperate. No one in over
two hundred years has ever denied that the office of the presidency is in fact
and function the office of the presidency. The President is not in a position
of employment or contract; he is an officer.
The argument that the amendment does not apply if the
candidate has not been convicted might carry some weight except for the fact
that the authority for granting eligibility rests with a ¾ vote of the House of
Representatives.
Where the petitioners may have gone off those
metaphorical rails is presenting their petition to their state courts instead
of to their state legislatures. The state courts under the Constitution should
bounce this to their legislatures.
So why isn’t this taught in school? Well, it is; it’s
just that no 16-year-old is in the least interested in civics class. Nor does
he (the pronoun is gender-neutral) give a rat’s rear end for Shakespeare,
sentence structure, molecular theory, physics, algebra, or the food pyramid.
Geometry is kinda fun, though.
But they’re kids. They’re learning. We adults have no
excuses, and the language of the Constitution is clear enough. We have a duty
to perceive issues rationally as adults, come to conclusions based in law, and
participate in civilization as citizens of a great republic.
There are many elementals in civilized behavior – one is
that when we vote we often don’t get our way. That’s the deal. That’s our
Constitution.
-30-
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Russian Christmas
Card
For Tod and Max
I allowed the time, the year, the day to slip
And so I can only imagine a card for you
A Russian Christmas card in paper and paints
Of Christmas scenes from a happy golden time:
And let there be small children in furry boots
Dragging a little fir tree over the snow
Among artistically disposed squirrels and deer
To the delight of Father Christmas and the sweet Snow Queen
And let there be Saint Michael’s at the end of the lane
Its ancient bell ringing the ancient joys
While ancient stars and humble cottage windows
Give light to the faithful on their way to Mass
And let us be among them, as God will allow
Before the Theotokos and Child, kneeling now
Happy Orthodox Christmas, dear friends!
(a re-post from 2021)
Lawrence Hall
All the
President’s Mob
Sedition batters past the capitol police -
As Congress, sweet harmless Merovingians,
Arming from a thesaurus of pomposity
Meet the attempted coup with lofty words
While hidden far away, lurking unseen
Our Leader screams into his telescreen
Moving his dementia along the Potomac:
Glorifying himself in the highest
Our government, cowering on the floor
Maintains that it will not be intimidated
Lawrence Hall, HSG
“No Threat to the
Community”
“…an isolated Incident “
-Orange (Texas) Police Department
The neighbors are in shock; news cameras peek and see -
But let the children play outside; oh, don’t be shy
Because there is “no threat to the community”
(Four dead in a house, and no one knows why)
[Police in Orange investigating deaths of four people in home
| KFDM]
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Each Birthday is a Step in the Right Direction
The
Road goes ever on and on,
Down
from the door where it began
-Tolkien
A birthday is not the beginning of something new
But rather part of a continuing story
From its Prologue and its Chapter One
Through the dark leaves of Mirkwood and beyond
Yes, there be dragons, more than ever, it seems
But sometimes still we glimpse magic by moonlight
Or take an ale or two at a wayside inn
Then sticks and packs again, our faces set West
If this were my last hour, I still could say
With Tollers and Jack: the Road goes ever on
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Colin Cloute on the
First of January
And now is come thy wynters stormy state,
Thy mantle mard, wherein thou maskedst late
-Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, “Januarye,”
23-25
The calendar year is advertised as new
But the slanting, yellowing sun is old
Almost weepy-eyed, exhausted, and weak
Beyond the icy cirrhus clouds of dusk
In a few weeks I will turn over the garden soil
A mediaeval ploughman with his electric tiller
Following the ancient seasons of the English year
Anticipating Lent and Eastertide
For now, the fireside and a comforting page
And a cuppa for warming the bones of age
Lawrence Hall, HSG
On the Day Papa
Benedict Died
This day a year ago Papa Benedict died
I heard it in a post-anaesthetic mist
Was there a TV in ICU? A radio?
Did someone say it? I don’t remember now
I knew only that Papa Benedict had died
That I was alive, and didn’t know why
Little toy cowboys rode across my mind
But in my lungs the air was sweet and cold
Papa Benedict had something to do with it
And Saint Elizabeth of Thuringen
And I am thankful
