Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Texas A & M University and Mickey Mouse’s Dog

Private Joe Gomez: “What you readin'?”

Private Marion Hotchkiss: “Plato.”

Joe: “You mean they wrote a whole big book about Mickey Mouse's dog?”

-Leon Uris, Battle Cry

Texas A & M has banished wise Plato

(Some colonel is shaking in his aiguilette)

Shoved philosophy out through the old North Gate-O

(Asking questions scares the admin soviet)

We mustn’t teach thinking on the Texas plains

Or read the books that our ancestors wrote

That kept us free from cruel tyrants’ chains -

No Plato, now, and maybe soon no vote

A university no more; that how it looks -

Their homecoming bonfire now is for burning books

NB: In the long-ago A & M rightly dropped my lazy (self) for skipping class. I wasn’t allowed to skip class in Viet-Nam, and that was a sterner lesson.

Texas A&M deems Plato unnecessary for approved thought

Texas A&M blocks readings on gender ideology in philosophy class: 'Plato has been censored'

Texas A&M flags parts of Plato readings as violations of new anti-gender theory policy

Texas A&M Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato Because of Gender Rules - The New York Times

Texas A&M Forbids A Plato Reading In An Intro Philosophy Course

Crawfish are not in the Bible - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Crawfish are not in the Bible

…spawned in that slime

Conceived by a pair of those monsters

Born of Cain

-From Beowulf in Burton Raffel’s fine translation

Eating crawfish is seasonally lawful

But I tell you true, they’re simply offal!

Friday, January 2, 2026

Randolph Scott at the Saturday Matinee on my Birthday - poem

Lawrence Hall

Randolph Scott at the Saturday Matinee on my Birthday

…and life's rewards were chocolate bars and nickel bubble gum.

-Rod McKuen, “People on Their Birthdays”

At 78 I am old enough again

To play with my Mattel Dream Car on the lawn

Watch Randolph Scott at the Saturday matinee

And dream of catching a freight train out of town

My grandfather was 78 the summer I was six

He was born in a wagon; he never knew where

Manifest Destiny was an iron wheel over the bones

Of the First Nations, and of mothers who died young

We sat on the back steps while he whittled

And spit tobacco into the grass, and talked

And I don’t remember what he said

Or maybe what he said is in the wind

The passing of my dreaming barefoot summers

And of his life came as these things do -

We turn around and find that the gates of the past

Are shut against us and we don’t know why

I hope that on some shimmering summer day

Fishing poles on our shoulders

He’ll whistle up the dogs, and we’ll away

(There’s no rush – life is fun, and I haven’t yet visited the Kamakura Daibutsu!)

Thursday, January 1, 2026

Scenes from a Funeral Home Calendar Featuring a Decidedly English Jesus - poem

Lawrence Hall

Scenes from a Funeral Home Calendar Featuring a Decidedly English Jesus

“It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

-the Devil in Kipling’s “The Conundrum of the Workshops”

Jesus and his followers appear to be on sabbatical from Oxford

Strolling along in a peaceful English world

Among perfect climax-forest English oaks

Under a dreamy English summer sky

Young Mary plays with placid English lambs

In an English meadow all flowered and green

Anna and Simeon prophesy in an English temple

The Centurion is as English as a Grenadier Guard For a child (me) who grew up on a farm in poverty

Realism in pastoral art just won’t do, you see!

(And, really, we can’t have young Jesus

Skipping among sheep droppings, now can we?)

For a child (me) who grew up on a farm in poverty

Realism in pastoral art just won’t do, you see!

(And, really, we can’t have young Jesus

Skipping among sheep droppings, now can we?)

Resolution for a New Year – or for a New Life

Lawrence Hall

Resolution for a New Year – or for a New Life

Perhaps dear old Puddleglum, who burnt his feet

When stamping out the fires of wickedness

Made a fine new year’s resolution with

“I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can.”

A Little New Year's Magic - poem

Lawrence Hall

A Little New Year’s Magic for You

A far frosty field

Full fit for a fairies’ dance

‘Neath the New Year’s moon

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Cuddled up with Cold Medicine and a Warm Dachshund - poem

Lawrence Hall & Nyquil ™

Cuddled up with Cold Medicine and a Warm Dachshund

A January lawn is a desert of desiccated leaves

Winter winds driving them as desolate dunes

Shoaling against the oaks who gave them life

Then in the autumn watched them fall to their deaths

Croakery crows almost seem to splash among them

Searching out seeds and corn and kitchen scraps

In beak to nose confrontations with squirrels

Darwinians struggling upon the sleeping earth

A January lawn is a desert of desiccated leaves

As winter winds batter my window eaves

Addendum:

(Each line is framed with a cough or a sneeze

And fever one minute followed by a freeze

And a wheeze!)

Meditation upon a Starlit Northern Sea - poem

Lawrence Hall

Meditation upon a Starlit Northern Sea

The sea is black, the sky is midnight blue

The crowning moon and her cold, pendant stars

Call color to fall upon the shoreline sand and snow

And too upon a silent Dreamer who stands

A silent Dreamer privileged to view this scene

Who stands upon this mysterious Arctic shore

To place for us our hopes beneath the stars

And yield them to the mysteries of the night

The sea is black, the sky is midnight blue

And the silent Dreamer is who else but…?

Sunday, December 28, 2025

If This Were Your Real Life You Would Have Been Given Better Instructions - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

If This Were Your Real Life

You Would Have Been Given Better Instructions

This is only a test -

if this were your real life you would have been given better instructions

-seen on a bumper sticker

I took my cough to a plastic plaque

My wheezing and sneezing and headache too

My unaccountably rigidy back

And sputum that reeked like a witches’ brew

I waved the little cotton probe all through

My nostrils where the wicked virus lurked

And then I thoughtfully dropped five drops unto

A window in the plaque, and, lo! It worked!

I don’t have the covid and I don’t have the ‘flu

So why do I feel so blown-out blue!

(N.B. I take my medical advice from my brilliant nurse practitioner, not from the InterGossip nor from Robert Kennedy.)

Not Herod's Household Cavalry This Time - poem

Lawrence Hall

Not Herod’s Household Cavalry This time

The Holy Innocents

Not Herod’s household cavalry this time

His personal SS with their spears and swords

From screaming children ripping their sacred lives

And flinging the tiny fragments into the dust

Now Herod sends his tailored representatives

With silky-soft, serpentine promises

Would you like a dress as nice as this?

For only an hour or two of easy work

Softly now

Don’t worry; your parents will never know -

Because they will never choose to know

Sneeze Across Texas - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

Sneeze Across Texas

(widespread respiratory infections in Texas during Christmas 2025)

I would almost rather gnaw off an arm than endure what passes for contemporary country music. By the Grace of God we will always have the authentic work of Ernest Tubb. One of his best is “Waltz Across Texas.”

When we cough together under Texas skies

It’s rather a nightmare that has come true

And when you look at me, with those red, rheumy eyes

I could sneeze across Texas with you

Sneeze across Texas with you and our virus

Sneeze across Texas with you

Like a medical movie ending but with no one to admire us

I could sneeze across Texas with you

My rhinorrhea just won’t be gone
The moment that you come in view
And with our soggy hankies we could wheeze on and on
I could sneeze across Texas with you

Sneeze across Texas with you in my arms
Cough across Texas with you
Like a bad novel ending I'm semi-comatose in your charms
And I could sneeze across Texas with you

NB: “Waltz Across Texas” is the property of its several authors, musicians, and copyright holders. Respect.

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Aeolian Wisdom - poem

Lawrence Hall

Aeolian Wisdom

When I was taking my ‘versity courses

‘Twas my obsession to cite my sources

To assume without knowing was an academic sin

But now that I am old

I learn much wisdom from the westering wind

Sunday, December 14, 2025

The Back of the Wardrobe - poem

Lawrence Hall

The Back of the Wardrobe

If you invite me to your house one day

And if in a spare room you have a wardrobe

Then will you let me open it? I pray

And reach far in, and touch and tap and probe

Old coats, old shoes, old dreams, your MeeMaw’s old hats

Someone’s uniform from a long-ago war

Boxes of Christmas ornaments stacked on some mats

Some surprisingly cold mothballs rolling on the floor

Because your wardrobe might be an Advent itself

With Narnia on the other side

Eight Lamps to Give Us Light - poem

Lawrence Hall

Eight Lamps to Give Us Light

For the Martyrs of Bondi Beach

Hanukkah, 5786

For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

-Isaiah 9:5

The Temple in Jerusalem cannot be destroyed -

For all the bloody-booted conquerors

Who swagger and clatter and rattle over the Stair

Defile and burn and pillage only their own souls

Wherever a candle is lit, the Temple is there

Wherever the yad touches a davar, the Temple is there

Wherever Truth is honored, the Temple is there

Wherever children sing, the Temple is there

Temple and Torah, poet and prayer

Poetry, prayer, eight lamps, and love, and care –

the Temple is there

Friday, December 12, 2025

The Hate in Orwell's 1984 was only Two Minutes - poem, sort of...

Lawrence Hall

The Hate in Orwell’s 1984 was only Two Minutes

Progressive, Progressivist, Culture warrior

Boomer, GenX, GenZ, Millennial

Liberal, Conservative, Neo-con

RadTrad, Fascist, Neo-Fascist

Socialist, Neo-Socialist, Marxist

Communist, Trotskyite, Colonialist

Neo-colonialist, Imperialist, Neo-imperialist

Occupier, Bourgeois, Petite bourgeois

Libertarian, MAGA, Capitalist

Nazi, Neo-Nazi, Invader

Zionist, Settler, Sexist, Neo-sexist

Denier, Neo-denier, Reactionary

GenY, GenY-inian, Neo-GenY-inian

Social Parasite, Sheeple, Feminazi

Limousine liberal, Champagne Socialist

Counterrevolutionary, RINO

Low-information voter, Elitist

Republicrat, Democrap, MAGA-tista

Social justice warrior, Garbage people

Low-IQ voter, racist, Leftist

Cracker and Queer, and maybe Cracker-Queer

People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian

Neo-People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian

All sorts of names we scream at each other

Abjectly obeying our Dear Leaders’ trends

So quick to condemn each sister and brother

But maybe we all could just try to be…friends?

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Anthony's Pilgrimage in Nunavut - poem

Lawrence Hall

Anthony’s Pilgrimage In Nunavut

“What went ye into the desert to see?”

-Saint Matthew II

What went ye among the Innu to see?

To see

To hear

To smell

To taste

To touch

Sedna and Qailertetang have given you fish

They have fed you. And now you must sit and learn

What went ye into the waters to see?

From the ice and the rocks the waters flow

Rippling in the light to delight the eye

The dancing, shimmering visions from Ignirtoq

What went ye among the whispering rocks to hear?

The Angakkuq of earth, water, and air

Whose teachings and songs the people memorise

The liturgies of good and ancient ways

What went ye into the waters to smell?

Healing vapours from the dawn of Creation

From Taimmani until now, forever

For The People, and for the stranger too

What went you into the deep North to taste?

There is truth in salmon, and salt in the air

You can taste the stories on the shifting winds -

(And on Sunday there’s lunch after Mass)

What went ye along the falling streams to touch?

If you touch the earth, the ice, the sea

You touch the Unipkaaqs, you touch their truths

And you will be healed by the touch of those truths

Malina passes, Aningan rises - tonight

The eternal dances of the spheres to light

This land of Nunavut, this realm in white

Be healed, and know that all is made aright

Sit

Sit before the fire

Sit in silence and learn from Nunavut

See

Hear

Smell

Taste

Touch

Tuesday, December 9, 2025

A Right Turn in Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall

A Right Turn in Viet-Nam

And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
Forever and forever farewell…
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.

Julius Caesar V.i.125-129

This is not a metaphor for anything

Only a memory of driving an ambulance

A clapped-out relic of the Second World War

On a street on the Tien Sha Peninsula

1969

For a left turn the driver extends his left hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

For a right turn the driver extends his right hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

If there’s a passenger, he extends his right hand

And waves

It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point

If there are two passengers, the one most to the right…

But you get the point

It’s okay to wave back – that’s the point

A Dodge ambulance, a Vietnamese Army Jeep, and a Renault

Meet at an intersection – and somehow miss each other

And I miss Viet-Nam.

If we do meet again…

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Cats Creep in on Measurable Meter - poem

Lawrence Hall

Cats Creep in on Measurable Meter

Having Coffee with Carl Sandburg

Little cats do not creep as the sleepy fog creeps

But rather in a so-soft measurable meter -

Besides, the fog does not wear little bells

Or an electronic tracker to beep its creep

In the foggy hours of the untimed night

Dear cat pads silently across my face

And mews her gentle let-me-out song

To join the sacred mysteries on misty fields

At dawn I ask her what strange worlds she has spanned -

She sweetly purrs to me, “you wouldn’t understand”

Saturday, December 6, 2025

A Window on the Century - poem

Lawrence Hall