Two Drowsy Old Dogs - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Two Drowsy Old Dogs

The adventures are pretty much over now
And the field gear was turned in long ago
An old dog dozes in front of the fire
Dreaming of rabbits he chased as a pup
An old man dozes over an open book
Dreaming of what was, and what might have been
In letters, words, and lines upon a page
Shaped into mountains and rivers of fire
And sunrise over the rim of the world
Where awaits the greatest Adventure of all

The Dying Romantic Mathematician - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Dying Romantic Mathematician

“Your trapezoid is vectored to a sphere”
She sighed, “and parallels are polygon.”
“All, all is perpendicular,” he coughed,
“And arcs are so rectangle to sad Pi
Equiangular in the radius
And rhombus has gone Pythagorean.
O canst thou concave the isosceles?”
“Yes!” she coplanared. “Yes!” he gasped in pain,
“Oh, yes, our love is solved for X!"
He died,
Quadratic equations upon his lips

Halloween Storm - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Halloween Storm

October’s wind and rain are being bad
They beat against the windows and the walls
Demanding to be let inside the house
Then thunder and lightning from the darkness leap
And shout “Baroom! Barrrrrrroooom! Boom! Boom!” and “Boo!”
Small children burrow deeper beneath the covers
Along with Bunny, Bo-Peep-Sheep, and Bear
And giggle through the stormy night because
It’s just Old Thunder laughing like Santa Claus,
And October’s wind and rain, making life fun

The Unbeliever's Rosary- Poem

The Unbeliever’s Rosary
On the Occasion of a Passing

Say:

Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Then say:

Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.
Funerals are for the living.

Followed by:

This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.
This is a celebration of life.

Then tie a stuffed toy to a chain-link fence, check your emails, take a selfie, and depart in peace.

The Deposit of Faith - a Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Deposit of Faith

Do Catholics believe in anything now?
Our ancient Faith is a tangle of ruins
Where Aves and Paters are never heard
The only sounds now are ghosts arguing
Accusing each other of desecration
And keyboards clattering in ecstasies
Of outrage at synods droning in time
To the bowel sounds of bitter partisans
Other than gossip and mutual sneers
Do Catholics believe in anything now?

Twinky-Twank Jesus - a Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Twinky-Twank Jesus

These are my church clothes; it’s all about me
Dressed to praise Jesus in my sneaks and my tee
I’ve got my electric worship guitar
Drums, keyboard, and cymbals (but no sitar)

MY Bible all dressed in a fluffy pillow
I’ll clap and sing, and sway like a willow
I’ll wave my hands all up in the air
Which is good for drying my armpit hair

Twinky-twank is salvation, don’t you see
And Jesus is lucky to have precious me!

So Who's the Snowflake?

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

So who’s the Snowflake?

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves…”
- Julius Caesar I.ii.140-141

A good citizen is always hesitant to believe anything that flashes across the little screen of The Abominable Autoscribe (cf. A Canticle for Leibowitz). While respecting this caveat, the reports of students at something called Mizzou expressing anger that the murders of over 100 people in France displaced attention from the students’ hurt feelings are not surprising (http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-the-college-crybullies-1447458587,
http://nypost.com/2015/11/13/sorry-kids-a-real-movement-needs-more-than-hurt-feelings/, http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/11/14/mizzou-campus-activists-and-black-lives-matter-complain-about-paris-stealing-the-spotlight/.)

Most people have never been blessed with the opportunity to study at university. Last week some of the privileged few, alleging hurt feelings based on nyah-nyah he-called-me-a-bad-name moments never substantiated, demanded the submission of the university administration. Over hurt feelings. As in a Soviet show trial in the 1930s and 1940s the president abased himself and resigned. Unlike the sequel to a Soviet show trial, he was not shot.

And now the protesting Mizzouzi snowflakes – who weren’t treated even to a whiff of tear gas – are outraged that their look-at-me-me-me moment has expired as the world turns its attention to other young people, young people who were murdered during a sustained attack in Paris.

The immaturity and the bullying of Missouzi students has been well noted. However, none of this should be a surprise. What else have they ever known? That is how they were raised. Consider the adult – adult - role models the Mizzouzi students (so to speak) have known since infancy:

The Secret Service
Bill Cosby
The NFL
The Veterans’ Administration
Bradley / Chelsea Manning
General Petraeus and his flying harem
President Clinton
Senator Clinton
Al Sharpton
Al Gore
The Diocese of Boston
Black Friday shoppers who trample people to death
John Kerry and his band-aid Purple Heart
The 50% who don’t vote in presidential elections
The 90+% who don’t vote in school board elections
The Khardassians
Jerry Springer
That strange woman who twerks
The View
The Brothers Castro
Helicopter parents

The list could go on and on.

In sum, why should Junior be expected to show good manners and remove his cap at a funeral when his father doesn’t remove his, and his mother is taking a selfie? Why should Zoey Kloey restrain herself from yelling obscenities when that is how her grandmother expresses herself?

There are rumors that this is not consistently so – rumors that there are young people who want thoughtful sermons, not guitar sing-alongs; genuine challenges and risks of failure, not participation ribbons; Tolkien and Chesterton and Lewis and even Dostoyevsky, not coloring books; real music, not three-chord poseurs shrieking propaganda; soap and water and vigorous health, not self-disfigurement; a few turns with a pipe wrench instead of making a Power Pointless Presentation; sunlight slanting across the autumn woods, not vampire videos in a dark, unclean room; a day on the deer stand instead of smoking marijuana behind a dumpster.

Sadly, when young people do try to better themselves and grow up to take a man’s place or a woman’s place in the worlds, their efforts are often in defiance of the poor role modelling by the grownups around them.

-30-

"At this Point, What Differend Does it Make?

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“At This Point, What Difference Does it Make?”

The Constitution, through a series of complexities including the Electoral College (and, hey, is their team going to a bowl game this season?), provides for the election of certain federal officials through a cloud of obscure words and run-on sentences, and a complete lack of paragraphing. Quick, now, sort this out:

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;-The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted;-The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person having such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the vote shall be taken by states…

Got all that?

This is only the beginning of an excerpt from Article II, modified by the 12th Amendment, itself later modified by the 20th Amendment. To understand the Constitution requires neither an attorney nor the Delphic Oracle, but a miracle. If our repeatedly patched-up, added-on, and torn-from Constitution were a building it couldn’t pass the plumbing code in Tupelo, Mississippi.

At present the Constitution seems much ignored anyway, with rule by executive and judicial fiat, and now selection of candidates by comedy programs on declining television networks.

Is there a presidential candidate in the last three or four election cycles who hasn’t been required to present himself or herself for an inquisition by talk shows, comedy shows, or the screaming coven on daytime teevee?

Imagine George Washington in a comedy sketch – “Okay, George, we’ve got this really funny set-up. You’re back at Jumonville Glen in 1754, okay, ha-ha…?”

Or President Truman – “Right, then, it’s 1945, late at night in the White House; you are in prayer for hours about whether to use the atomic bomb, and an aide sneaks up behind you and pops a balloon. What a classy network comedy moment, eh!”

Lyndon Johnson could guest on Gilligan’s Island in a skit about the Professor performing an emergency appendectomy on the President, bungled by Gilligan’s well-meaning attempts to help. The President then holds Gilligan up by his ears. Broadcast date 4 August 1964.

Given that broadcast television is declining, perhaps in 2019 potential candidates will be selected by the number of their electronic friends on MyFaceSpaceBook. President Justin Bieber right there in your in-box, pitching a shrieking hissy-fit so intense that his junior high school tattoos fly off.

In the meantime, stay tuned for next week’s Dancing with the Stars featuring Kim Jong Un.

On this Veterans’ Day we may well reflect on how all of us, especially young Americans in the military deployed in hot zones all over the world, deserve constitutional government, not arbitrary rule by personalities in two of our branches of government while most – there are noble exceptions - of the members of the third branch sit around, form committees, and investigate things without results.

-30-

Used Spy Blimp for Sale

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Used Spy Blimp for Sale

Given the numbers of garage sales, yard sales, flea markets, and resale shops, and telescreen shows about them, one wonders how much of the national economy at present is based on the population selling their old stuff to each other. In line with the times, I’m thinking of starting my own internet resale site. I’ll call it MeBay:

Cheap – two first-class tickets on an airplane owned by a leasing company in one country, flown by a SomethingJet airline based in another country, and crewed by a bunch of folks who can’t understand each other.

Hitler’s Childhood Rubber Ducky – we’ve got, like, papers and stuff, like, provenance, y’know, to prove it.

Bargain Landfill – made-in-China electronics. Sold by the ton. Some of it might not be all that toxic.

Scientology – a granola bar with an image of L. Ron Hubbard that appears in a glowing green color when the lights are turned off. The world’s greatest scientists have not been able to explain this mystery. Imported.

Ancient Critters - the skin of a genuine chubacabra. Or maybe a sophomore. Just the thing for your ManBro Toronto Blue Jays corner.

Carpeting – from John Boehner’s office. Smoke detectors sold separately.

Blimp – a fixer-upper. According to the U.S. government blimp technology is the future of surveillance technology. You and your friends will enjoy the Hindenburg experience aboard your own genuine military surplus blimp as this nation continues its progress into the 19th century. Some re-assembly required.

Stock Certificates – Enron, Radio Shack, Pan Am, Westinghouse, Kodak, Texaco, Hudson’s Bay. Begin saving for your future now.

Black Rifles – in a crumbling adobe warehouse just south of Magdalena, New Mexico our investigators found a cache of Viet-Nam-era Black Rifles in the original boxes. Never used. Some of them might not jam every two or three rounds. Maybe.

Doctor Zhivago – a rare first edition in the original English. With a certificate of authenticity.

Music – from 1962, Frank Sinatra Sings the Best of Happenin’ Elvis. LP record. Mint condition. Together with random Pez dispensers of the 1945 Boston Red Sox.

Fine Art – a velvet painting of President Reagan, Stephen Harper, Vladimir Putin, Teddy Roosevelt, and Rin-Tin-Tin playing poker. A classic.

Sherlock Holmes – a matched set of combination Holmes and Watson apple corers and pencil sharpeners.

Sergeant Preston of the Yukon – The Lost Episodes. These rare VHS tapes were discovered in a secret vault in an abandoned (and said to be haunted) Tim Horton’s in Salvage, Newfoundland. Most people don’t know that Sergeant Preston of the Yukon episodes were used as training films in the RCMP for years. “Hush, you muskies!” Or something.

You really want that C.I.A.N.S.A.N.C.I.S. blimp, don’t you! Nobody can tell us we’re behind the Russians and the Chinese in military technology. Have they got a blimp? Nooooooo.

-30-

A Few Fragmented Thoughts in Search of a Thesis

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Few Fragmented Thoughts in Search of a Thesis

A cracker purported to be from the Titanic (how do they know?) has been sold for $23,000 at an auction. That’s no big deal; crackers that old were packaged in C-rations.

Or maybe they were talking about one of y’r ‘umble scrivener’s relatives.

Maybe we should sort through our pantries and find genuine antiques to sell – “Hey, John Jacob Astor was carrying this bag of potato chips aboard the Titanic – you can have it for a mere $23,000.”

Election ballots should feature a “none of the above” option at the bottom.

The literacy challenge of our time is for any news writer to generate an article without using “iconic,” “absolutely,” “actually,” “jaw-dropping,” “ground-breaking,” “makeshift shrine,” “_____ of the century,” “worst _________ ever recorded,” or “raising awareness.”

“Snowflake” as a metaphor for a spoiled brat should be good for another month or so.

The recent synod in Rome seemed to be the Church’s equivalent of a staff meeting – a bunch of people sitting around and talking about stuff while hoping some brave soul will make a motion to adjourn.

The death penalty is inappropriate. No judge, jury, prosecution, or defense is without human error. If a man is wrongly imprisoned, he might someday be released. If he has been killed by the state, a “We’re sorry” and a settlement are meaningless. If we really believe in a culture of life then the death penalty should be ended. Except for advertisers whose pop-ups block the Orwellian telescreen.

Chris Christie, who used to be somebody, was recently chastised by Amtrak for being loud and obnoxious while aboard a train. And we had forgotten about this great hope for the Republican Party, who celebrated him for being loud and obnoxious. And then Ted Cruz was the great hope. And then somebody else. And now a wealthy bigot. Once upon a time the Republicans were the party of Eisenhower and Reagan. Now their leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties is a guest list for one of those old-women-screeching-at-each-other shows.


When Ireland won her independence from the British Empire a century ago she then sadly forsook her ancient traditions, murdered a number of her truest sons, and formed yet another tawdry republic whose ethics would disgrace a Chicago street gang. Ireland has been blessed with many great artists, poets, musicians, and good folk, but they seem unwilling to vote for a government that respects them.

Perhaps modern Ireland’s greatest gift to the world was Maureen O’Hara, who died last week at the age of 95. Ireland, although a republic, from 1920 until her death had a great queen in the fiery redhead from Dublin. Maureen O’Hara - ‘Tis Herself indeed.

-30-

Listen to the Moon - A Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Listen to the Moon

When you are very old, speak to the moon,
Just as you did when you were very young
And if you listen, listen carefully
The moon will continue telling a story
That she began in the long, long ago
Just at the moment when you thought yourself
Too grown-up then to listen to the night
She smiles, and waits, that queen among the stars
For you to grow as wise as once you were:
When you are very old, listen to the moon

The True-Born Englishman Wants his Nap - A Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The True-Born Englishman Wants his Nap

Whenever an Englishman wants to sleep
He attends a cricket match, where snores are deep

Another Inadequate Baptismal Metaphor - A Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Another Inadequate Baptismal Metaphor

September rain is a baptism of sorts
Redeeming summer’s woods and fields from drought
From death, at least a little while, so they
May vest themselves in robes liturgical

For late October’s frost-time funeral mass
Is celebrated with true festal joy
As in cathedrals, forests of the heart
With autumn filtering down through leafy prayers

The green months then slip softly out of time -
September rain is a baptism of dreams

Where are the Squirrels of Spring? - A Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Where are the Squirrels of Spring?

(John Keats wrote much of the first line; I helped him with the rest)

Where are the squirrels of spring? Ay, where are they?
Flattened by a log truck, just yesterday
When old enough to leave the autumn nest
They ran into the road, there flattened, pressed
Though cautioned by their wise sciuridaean sire
They panicked before an approaching tire
They had little time for a valedictory squeal
Before they died, so young, beneath the wheel -
So even if the old folks seem such a bother
You really ought to listen to your father

Deer Season

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Deer Season

An autumn morning in the chilly woods
The campfire mostly ashes grey and warm
Some early riser fumbling with the stove
To light the gas and set the coffee pot
On a hissing circle of thin blue fire
While an outraged fox squirrel protests everything
The leaves are damp, pale-pearled with yawning light
From a weak, shivering November sun -
Dogs, men, boys, guns, boots, biscuits, pipes, cigars
Dawn sighing in the pine tops this perfect day

Night Terrors - A Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Night Terrors

When in the darkness monsters creeping near
Chase all the dreams from a little boy’s head
And have him clutching the covers in fear
He remembers the flashlight beside his bed
And aims it at the noises in the dark
Grim midnight’s hiddenness and mystery
Where monsters gibber and mutter and bark
He snaps it on – and what there does he see?
Curled warm in her bed, all in a tiny heap
It’s only the dog, snort-snorting in sleep

Halloween Follies of 2015

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Halloween Follies of 2015

Halloween is dismissed by some as a superstitious folly, though of course it is far less superstitious than the belief that throwing a bucket of cold water over one’s head will cure a sickness suffered by somebody else. Otherwise rational people also believe that a paint stripe will keep two cars from crashing into each other, and that the lights and noises crackling from a little box constitute friendship.

Once a religious observance in honor of all saints, both known and unknown, Halloween was later kept as a children’s amusement but has since deteriorated into the first gimme-more-stuff day of our secular distraction season extending to Super Bowl Sunday

Children once dressed in old bedsheets or other homemade costumes to trick-or-treat under the watchful protection of adults. Adults now act far more childishly than any child, and the children themselves must be kept inside so they will be safe from looting and arson.

Children require only newspaper hats and wooden swords to present themselves as pirates or as Robin Hood. Adults spend money on manufactured costumes, a far more childish thing to do. Instead of cowboys and princesses, adults pretend to be the very persons they dislike, which can’t be much fun. Who would want to be a president or a secretary of state instead of a hero?

Given that Halloween is a political mess, here are a few unhelpful contributions to this year’s weirdness in costuming and in decorum:

Costume suggestion - a MePhone with a little human surgically attached.

A man in a suit stumbling around in confusion – clearly this Halloween character is a Republican Party leader.

An ensemble - an anti-gun Democratic congressman protected by guards with guns.

A wireless executive – after accepting the candy this character then advises you that by giving him candy you have agreed to a two-year contract and must give him treats every night or be subject to a fine for early termination of the contract.

MyFaceSpaceBook – this costumed character doesn’t go out and trick-or-treat; it slumps in a chair and friends (sic) pictures of chocolate.

A federal sky marshal – the character points a weapon at the householder and demands better candy.

A vegetarian vampire biting into a head of lettuce.

Donald Trump – this costumed character doesn’t ask for anything; he sends local armed authorities to seize your Halloween treats under Eminent Domain.

Trick-or-treating at the White House: “When the Secret Service man sobers up he’ll give you a nice, healthy acorn, sweetie.”

Trick-or-treating at tech support – “Your visit is important to us. The next available candy will assist you in (click) four (buzz) days. Your visit is important to us…”

Trick-or-treating at the home of an Air Canada cabin attendant: “NO! There isn’t any more candy, eh! We ran out of candy twenty rows ago! Go away!”

Trick-or-treating at the home of a United Airlines cabin attendant: “There’s an extra charge for that.”

Trick-or-treating at the home of an Aeroflot cabin attendant: “We have lots of candy. In Syria. Have you ever visited Syria? Would you like to visit Syria?”

Trick-or-treating at the home of a modern poet: “I, I, I, me, me, me, candy you say trick you say treat you say but my my my my oppressed marginalized victim voiceless voice cries out potty-mouth in serene thunderous existential angst against like stuff I, I, I, me, me, me.”

Yes, merriment is always much better when little pirates, princesses, cowboys, fairies, and heroes are in charge of it.

-30-

An American Hero Who Wasn't an American

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An American Hero Who Wasn’t an American

An American hero died this week. He wasn’t an American, though, so just why he is an American hero needs some explaining.

In 1979, when the President of the United States was so useless that even a Merovingian might despise him, the Ayatollah Khomeini and his murderous mobs decided to seize the American Embassy in Tehran.

Fifty-two Americans were imprisoned and humiliated for 444 days while the President of the United States did little but wallow in his own helplessness.

Happily, not every nation was as feckless. Six American staffers who happened not to be in the embassy during the takeover were smuggled into the Canadian Embassy through the help of others, including – and we must not forget this - Iranians.

Ken Taylor, Canada’s ambassador to Iran in 1979, along with John Sheardown and his wife and other Canadians, hid the Americans for three months while planning an escape for them. The Canadian government generated false passports and a good cover story, and despite poor decisions by the C.I.A. which almost ruined everything, Ambassador Taylor and his staff managed to smuggle the Americans out of Iran on a commercial flight before escaping themselves.

Had this gone bad the Canadians might have been murdered by any of the mobs whose riots and murders and shifting allegiances constituted the Iranian government under the Ayatollahs.

Hollywood, in gratitude to Canada and Ambassador Taylor, made a movie about the operation in which the C.I.A. got the Americans out while the Canadians did little to help. This – and the threat of a wall – is how our nation often treats its best friend and strongest ally.

Mr. Taylor reminded everyone that there were Iranians who knew of the fugitive Americans and risked their own lives in not ratting them out. Not for these brave Iranians and Canadians the concept of “what difference…does it make?”

The other Americans in Tehran spent another long and dreary year in bondage until the day a good man, and a good friend to Canada, took the Oath as President.

Thanks to an American hero who wasn’t an American, Ken Taylor of Canada, six Americans were saved from that horror and degradation.

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon him.”

-30-

Prayer for Saint John Paul II with a Bar Code - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Prayer for Saint John Paul II with a Bar Code

A homily scrunched onto a prayer card
A catalogue of petitions and prayers
With barely enough room for the bar code
Fitted to the bottom mechanically

Condense the happiness, remembering
A merry moment not so long ago
The young chanting
“John Paul II, we love you!”

Over and over in the happy night
And that joyful man at the window there
Replying to them
“John Paul II – he loves you!”


Erase the card’s long lines of words, and then
Write only this:

V: “John Paul II, we love you!”
R: “John Paul II – he loves you!”

Blood Moon - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Blood Moon

The end of the world is upon us again
Twice in one month our planet has been cursed
Or doomed or something; it’s all about sin
And cobbled superstitions badly versed

Oh, no -

For we are given a September night
Incensed with last week’s rolled-up summer grass
And blessed with choirs of autumn stars for light
A silver sanctuary lamp, and prayers to pass

In procession solemn this Saint Michael’s Eve
And joyful to us who trust and believe

The Long Retreat - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Long Retreat

Everything seems to be sad twilight now
Our golden dusk has dimmed, and slipped away
Built of ego and credit card receipts
The barricades were easily overrun

Desperately in time, desperately out of date
The battle hymns of yesterday ring out
Through the corridors of the old folks’ home
As leaden oldies groovin’ to the past

Let us stand down and vigil the Dawn, for
Everything seems to be sad twilight now

Song of the Wild Sheep - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Song of the Wild Sheep

Does a sheep ever long to be a free spirit?
While waiting in a pen for shearing time
And flocked with other sheep between the rows
Of fences channeling them here and there?

Does it imagine itself a timbersheep
Stalking poor winter grass through snowy woods
Or a furry hippie groovin’ at Sheepstock
Or yet a philosopher named Ovis?

If a sheep ever mahhhhhs a manifesto
It will be set to mewesic by Mahhhhhler!

Cane, Shillelagh, or Pilgrim’s Staff?

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Cane, Shillelagh, or Pilgrim’s Staff?

A walking stick does not walk at all; it is carried by fashionable gentlemen who employ it both for adornment and for balance.

An acquaintance who shall rename nameless…don’t tell them your name, Pike! Oops – too late. Anyway, my buddy Pike must work with some uncooperative knee joints just now – knee joints are like that – but resists using his walking stick. My buddy Pike is like that.

Thus, I ask the reading public to help persuade Pike to take his walking stick with him on his adventures. Here is a beginning:

With the addition of a straw boater Pike could work on his Maurice Chevalier routine: “Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise…”

For football games Pike could bring out his weekend sports model, a walking stick with a portrait of Elvis carved into the handle.

All the cool kids have walking sticks this year.

An aluminum walking stick is a serious babe magnet.

Well, okay, a quadrupedal aluminum thingie is not cool, but for amusement Pike could name each of the four feet: Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Donald Trump, perhaps, or maybe Larry, Moe, Curly Joe, and Trevor.

Some walking sticks have a little compass in the handle. What could be more important than knowing where north is while roaming free in the vegetable aisle at the grocery store?

If Pike carries a walking stick and moans in pain occasionally, people won’t expect him to help move furniture.

A walking stick makes any elegant boulevardier appear even more elegant.

Pike could carry one of those clever walking sticks with a little flask of brandy concealed in the handle.

“Open Channel D.” Pike’s walking stick could also be a secret radio for transmitting T.H.R.U.S.H secrets to Mr. Waverly at U.N.C.L.E.

A walking stick can be used to measure the depth of street puddles and the Atlantic Ocean.

A swordstick would be handy for dealing with Commie assassins on darkened Berlin streets. It would also amuse TSA agents at airports.

A walking stick is good for beating snakes to death, especially the endangered species.

Why a walking stick? Because a walking pine cone just won’t do.

Most of all, I think my friend Pike should use his walking stick because without it he might fall and hurt himself. And that would make me very sad.

Pike would be sad too.

-30-

On the Shortage of Farmhands - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


On the Shortage of Farmhands

Or

Got Gratitude?

No televised awards for milking cows
No presidential medals of milkdom
No red carpets or memorial plaques
No offices, carpets, or retirement plans

The poets are silent on those who milk
Those pretty girls in cool convertibles
Are never known to swoon over good farmhands
And no one sings “She thinks my Jersey’s sexy!”

No takers? No need to wonder why and how
Since no one honors the man who milks a cow

Autumn Equinox with Heat and Dust - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Autumn Equinox with Heat and Dust

Perhaps old Janus is an autumn god
His door is open to the summer too
Open both ways at this the equinox
Upon tired heat and fall’s pale promises

Sunsets are earlier, and now the dusk
Is noisy with the mowers of late-summer
Still making hay while tractor headlights shine
Upon sad, dust-blown fields for one last turn

This is Saint Matthew’s Day, and summer still
Hangs heavily, like poor Macbeth’s late summons

An Offset Wing - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Offset Wing

A pine nut rotors down, suspended from
Its only wing for this its only flight
Dreamed long ago, and sung into this autumn
To free-fall-spin on warm September’s wind

This aviator of the mono-wing
Knows nothing of machined efficiency
Or scheduled maintenance according to
Electric rhythms in a plastic box

Its flight is brief, but changes everything:
A pine nut rotors down, and moves the world


Variant:

An Offset Wing

A pine nut rotors down, suspended from
Its only wing for this its only flight
Dreamed long ago, and sung into this autumn
To free-fall-spin on warm September’s wind

This aviator on a mono-wing
Knows nothing of machine efficiency
Or scheduled maintenance for turn-around
Its brevity is for eternity

The flight is brief, but changes everything:
A pine nut rotors down, and moves the world

Notification of Death - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Notification of Death

A sheet of paper is a forest leaf
Two sides of life reflected in the sun:
On one side is written the joy of youth
And on the other side an elegy

A single leaf is but ephemera
When one side disappears into the mist
So does the other one – or maybe not:
We are told both sides are corrected and kept

Fair-copied cleanly by a steady Hand
And folded then into the Book of Bliss

The Joint Task Force Combat Commando Pillow Brigade of Fluffy Death

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Joint Task Force Combat Commando Pillow Brigade of Fluffy Death

During the American Revolution, West Point, nee’ Fort Clinton, nee’ Fort Arnold, was fortified in order to keep the British Navy from controlling the Hudson River. The position was so important that the British paid General Arnold a great deal of money and a generalship in the British Army to betray the soldiers in his command. The plot failed but General Arnold got his British general’s uniform and maybe a nice pillow.

The matter of the Great West Point Pillow Fight of 2015 seems to have gone to sleep in the past few weeks. The thoughtful reader will remember that West Point ends its summer training with a pillow fight, just like the Marines, the 300 Spartans, the Samurai, the SEALS, the S.A.S., and the Spetsnaz.

The West Point Ye Olde Army Pillow Fight is said to be a century-old tradition. Several West Pointers from the 1970s report never having heard of it. Maybe West Point is like other schools, inventing brand-new old-time traditions every week or so.

One does not easily imagine Meade, Sherman, Lee, Patton, Pershing, Eisenhower, Abrams, Clark, Merrill, Ridgeway, and Haig pillow-fighting. Or their commandant ordering them to do so.

This year some of the lads decided that placing hard objects such as their helmets into the pillow cases would add to the merriment. Emergency room admissions followed. Nothing says Army Strong like breaking a fellow soldier’s arm or skull through a Benedict Arnold-ish dirty trick. In future wars these young officers will certainly know how much they can trust each other.

Since this is how future officers of the U.S. Army go all frat boy on each other, will they respect the service and dignity of the young enlisted men and women under their command?

The Russian army and air force are now active in Syria, and the Chinese navy is poking about in the ocean off Alaska. Russian bombers play double-dog-dare along the air spaces of free countries in Europe. In response, West Point is training the future leaders of the American army through Cub Scout hijinks.

Perhaps that’s in Sun Tzu’s The Art of Pillow.

“This is my pillow. There are many like it. But this one is mine.”

No doubt our young soldiers posted to Whose-Stupid-Idea-Was-This-Istan make their way into camp after exhausting patrols and small-unit action in the dust and heat and then amuse themselves with a jolly pillow fight.

Just like their superior officers.

The superintendent of West Point, a modern, sensitive sort of general who refers to soldiers as teammates, promised a full investigation, followed by short-sheeting the perpetrators.

Jokes aside, the New York Times reports that thirty cadets were injured in the pillow fight, with twenty-four of them suffering from concussion. In a pillow fight.

A pillow fight.

Thirty casualties.

In a pillow fight.

What would the odious Benedict Arnold think of that?

-30-

Room at the Inn

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Room at the Inn

If Jesus had been born in Newfoundland, the folks there would have found room for the Holy Family.

Many Americans fly over Newfoundland on their way to and from Europe, but too few visit that beautiful island. Fourteen years ago, when all flights to and from the USA were forbidden, a great many people of all nations found themselves taking an unexpected time-out there.

This piece of 9/11 history comes from Newfoundland via a friend of a friend there. Heather McKinnon, the operations manager of the Delta Hotel and Conference Center in St. John’s, relates this remembrance of 9.11.2001 and the days following:


I will never forget this day for the rest of my days. It was a Tuesday, on Sept 11, 2001. We became aware at the Delta that we would start accepting the passengers whose flights were landing in quick succession at YYT [St. John’s]. The first group of guests who arrived were flight crews from two United Airlines flights who had just lost many of their colleagues. They were shell shocked. Then the passengers started arriving - hundreds more than we could handle comfortably. And they kept coming. They slept on the floor in the ballrooms and meeting rooms, on couches in the lobby, anywhere they could find a space. This went on until the following Sunday. And my team here at the Delta displayed a level of humanity I won't soon forget. They swung into action. Worked an 8 hour shift and then volunteered to stay behind as unpaid volunteers for another 8-10 hours - served food, read stories to the children, organized games, took passengers to their homes for showers, did pharmacy runs. It went on and on. Corporate partners like Margot Bruce-O'Connell at ExxonMobil reached out to help us manage the masses. George Street United Church ministers conducted an ecumenical service in our lobby and everyone gathered together. Air Canada and United Airlines stranded flight crew showed up in their uniforms as a sign of respect to the fallen air crew of the US flight crew. It was heart breaking.

We had to ask all the ballroom sleeping bag guests to pack up their belongings on the Saturday before they left so a wedding could go ahead. Once the dinner was over, the bride threw open the doors to the ballroom and invited the passengers to the dance. For the first dance, they all joined hands in a massive circle around the wedding couple as they took their first dance. These passengers arrived as strangers. On Sunday, they left as grateful friends. On this day, every year since, I still receive messages from some of the guests from that week. They say the same thing. They will never forget. I have kept every one of those messages. What a week that was.

Amen.

An excellent book related to the thousands of travelers grateful to have been given sanctuary by the generous citizens of Newfoundland is Jim DeFede’s The Day the World Came to Town, New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

-30-

Enemies Foreign and Domestic - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Some battles are fought in dripping woods
And others along rivers lost in mist
Still others are fought in book and pen and thought
And in unhappy dreams, still lost in mist

About Those Purple Socks - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

About Those Purple Socks

Graham Greene’s Monsignor Quixote

The world had no more use for any of them:
An old Communist, an old priest, an old car
All of them well into their horsemeat days
And so they fled, and crashed into the truth

On a chivalric quest for purple socks
Wandering on the road to Golgotha
Their Stations of the Cross a cinema,
A pair of Guardia, a brothel, wine

And so they fled, and fell into the truth
There at the foot of the Altar of God

The History Side of Wrong - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aolcom

The History Side of Wrong

How very joyful then to be condemned
For serving on the wrong side of history
Stubbornly refusing the Kronos-trap
And laughing at a clock that isn’t there

Poor centuries are but long lists of lies
Death’s dated data-base of next best things
That weren’t, as pointless as a game of Pong
Played out by polyester Arians

For the tired thoughtcrime of not groovin’ in time:
How very joyful now to be condemned!

A Salvage Sunday Morning - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Salvage Sunday Morning

Pearly morning mist over our little harbour
The water sloshing a few feet away
A censer swinging, wafting goodly odours:
Sweet water, air, and earth, consubstantial
With coffee in a mug from Canadian Tire
A morning offering in gratitude
From this small porch, for all of Creation
For the quiet before Bert starts cussing his boat
(Because the engine is balky again) -
For here where we have found a Heaven indeed

Room at the Inn

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Room at the Inn

If Jesus had been born in Newfoundland, the folks there would have found room for the Holy Family.

Many Americans fly over Newfoundland on their way to and from Europe, but too few visit that beautiful island. Fourteen years ago, when all flights to and from the USA were forbidden, a great many people of all nations found themselves taking an unexpected time-out there.

This piece of 9/11 history comes from Newfoundland via a friend of a friend there. Heather McKinnon, the operations manager of the Delta Hotel and Conference Center in St. John’s, relates this remembrance of 9.11.2001 and the days following:


I will never forget this day for the rest of my days. It was a Tuesday, on Sept 11, 2001. We became aware at the Delta that we would start accepting the passengers whose flights were landing in quick succession at YYT [St. John’s]. The first group of guests who arrived were flight crews from two United Airlines flights who had just lost many of their colleagues. They were shell shocked. Then the passengers started arriving - hundreds more than we could handle comfortably. And they kept coming. They slept on the floor in the ballrooms and meeting rooms, on couches in the lobby, anywhere they could find a space. This went on until the following Sunday. And my team here at the Delta displayed a level of humanity I won't soon forget. They swung into action. Worked an 8 hour shift and then volunteered to stay behind as unpaid volunteers for another 8-10 hours - served food, read stories to the children, organized games, took passengers to their homes for showers, did pharmacy runs. It went on and on. Corporate partners like Margot Bruce-O'Connell at ExxonMobil reached out to help us manage the masses. George Street United Church ministers conducted an ecumenical service in our lobby and everyone gathered together. Air Canada and United Airlines stranded flight crew showed up in their uniforms as a sign of respect to the fallen air crew of the US flight crew. It was heart breaking.

We had to ask all the ballroom sleeping bag guests to pack up their belongings on the Saturday before they left so a wedding could go ahead. Once the dinner was over, the bride threw open the doors to the ballroom and invited the passengers to the dance. For the first dance, they all joined hands in a massive circle around the wedding couple as they took their first dance. These passengers arrived as strangers. On Sunday, they left as grateful friends. On this day, every year since, I still receive messages from some of the guests from that week. They say the same thing. They will never forget. I have kept every one of those messages. What a week that was.

Amen.

An excellent book related to the thousands of travelers grateful to have been given sanctuary by the generous citizens of Newfoundland is Jim DeFede’s The Day the World Came to Town, New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

-30-

Perhaps Today - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Perhaps Today…

The sun appears each dawn, predictably
In its accustomed cosmic liturgy
Arising from the baptism of the night
The sins of yesterday now washed away

It smiles upon all earthbound penitents
And sings a morning hymn of sacraments
For now a theme, a dream, to dance as light
Thin filaments of air, soft-sighing there

Are teasingly presented, and then – withdrawn:
Another night of feverish, ragged sleep

Untamed Poem - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Untamed Poem

A writer in an online 'zeen issues
An edict that must not be disobeyed:
By order poetry will be untamed
Untamed and free! (to specifications)

Now unmuzzle the trammeled trimeter
Let trope and trochee gallop wild and free
Release pentameters to pentabout
And dactyls to anaphora their dreams

O wild little poem, telling truth through metaphor -
You will be neutered by the editor

Whatever Happened to Gilligan's Castaways?

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Whatever Happened to Gilligan’s Castaways?

After a busy day we are all tempted to take a well-deserved break from work and family chores in order to flop into a comfortable chair and vegetate in front of jolly post-war Italian cinema, the merry visions of Fritz Lang’s silent German films (silent, and somehow still loudly German), or the fluffy Soviet films of Sergei Bondarchuk, Sergei Eisenstein, and Grigory Chukhray.

Who hasn’t shed tears of joy and laughter as the cackling, sneering, moustache-twirling Czarist cavalry run down innocent, granola-earing, flower-sniffing workers and peasants through the thoughtful character development and in the subtle artistry for which Soviet films are famous?

We have to remind herself that for the sake of intellectual and ethical development we should occasionally challenge ourselves to consider more demanding works of the visual arts: Gilligan’s Island comes to mind.

The exposition is this - in the autumn of 1964 the tour boat Minnow is disabled by a storm and beached on an unknown island. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales the Skipper is a pirate, but now he has reformed and doesn’t murder people. Although the Skipper is an experienced seaman, hiring bumbling Gilligan as his ship’s crew does indicate a tendency to self-destruction. Also aboard, and then beached, are a rascally Republican millionaire and his wife, a movie star, a professor, and a farm girl.

For three years of half-hour programs and then a series of television movies and cartoon remakes the castaways enjoyed adventures among themselves and with hundreds of visitors – including Soviet cosmonauts and the Harlem Globetrotters – on that supposedly unknown island.

The irony of Gilligan’s Island is that while the castaways want to leave the beach and the palm trees, the rest of us think that a month or so of sloshing around in the lagoon and drinking refreshing beverages from a coconut shell would be great therapy. And let the people say “existential.”

And what happened to the castaways?

After returning to the USA Gilligan became the lead technology guru for the State Department.

The Skipper, as a middle-aged white male, was declared redundant. He is said to spend his days on the beach in Florida bumming spare change from tourists and singing “Margaritaville” in bars.

Thurston Howell IV is currently the director of the Donald Trump campaign. Mr. Howell’s wife, Lovey, left him for Brad Pitt. The bitter custody battle over her pink poodles and Mr. Howell’s famous suitcase full of cash continues to this day.

Glamorous Ginger, now over thirty, finds work only as erratic mothers in guest spots in unimaginative, heavily laugh-tracked sitcoms.

The Professor was vetted by his university for ideological correctness, sensitivity, and multi-culti, and is permitted to continue teaching and research as long as he understands that physics, chemistry, and the maths are not objective realities, and can be changed often since they are always subject to the collective needs and cultural visions of The People.

Mary Ann developed a television cooker show called The Ruthlessly Chipper Cupcake which was a staple of daytime programming for years until she was convicted for poisoning three husbands, four boyfriends, and an unknown number of unhappy staffers. Her case was not helped when she baked the judge and prosecutor a batch of happy-face cupcakes sodden with a rare poison she discovered while on the island.

Does anyone imagine that Gilligan’s Island, with its innocent plots and gags and physical comedy, would be accepted for prime-time programming now?

The little ship Minnow is said to have been named as a dig at Newton Minnow, the chairman of the FCC who famously dismissed television as “a vast wasteland.” If Gilligan’s Island is a wasteland, well, this poor old world certainly could use a little more waste.

-30-

September at Last - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

September at Last

A dawn under clouds – September at last
No one longs for August, or misses it
The heat and humidity linger still
But the mythology of the calendar

Has drawn the summer’s metaphorical fangs
And grownups now anticipate cold fronts
Like children who know that Christmas will come
Although the season seems to be taking

Its own sweet time in bringing home its gifts
Of chilly mornings, and geese winging south

The Apocalyptic Wasp Spray of Cosmic Doom

Mhall46184@aol.com

The Apocalyptic Wasp Spray of Cosmic Doom

As with rattlesnakes, fire ants, and presidential candidates, the purpose of wasps within the glory of Creation is a great mystery.

Big red Communist wasps, their wicked, batlike wings pulsating slowly to the degenerate rhythm of a pagan blood-song of pain, lurk in porch corners - or along any of Donald Trump or Scott Walker’s Berlin walls - and then attack with a sting as painful and bitter as a glare of disapproval from a poll watcher from the other party who sees you voting in The Wrong Primary.

As the old hippie song does not say: Wasps! Unh! What are they good for!? Absolutely nothin’!

And if the county agricultural extension agent tells you that wasps are a beneficent species because they blah, blah, blah, she’s probably a Fascist or something. So there. Tell me something. End of. And stuff. And other logical rebuttals.

Real Americans buy aerosols of toxic poisons for sending wasps to the Grendel-doom they’ve earned. If the environment must be destroyed in order that wasps die, that’s a fair and reasonable exchange.

Usually the sprays work, but sometimes the wasps fly insolently away, unimpressed with better dying through chemistry.

What this world needs is a really good wasp spray. The ideal wasp spray would not kill wasps instantly, though. Oh, no. The perfect bug bomb would send each wasp spinning down like The Red Baron in flames, thudding to the ground still alive but dying in such gruesome (or is that grueful?) pain that the progressive Renaissance practice of hanging, drawing, and quartering would seem like a walk in the mall.

The American consumer wants that wasp to feel the soul-destroying existential despair of a freshman football player at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville when he (or “zhe”) is told that the name of his (or “zher”) team has been changed from The Tennessee Volunteers to The Incredible Edible Eloi.

The dying wasp must wallow in the same agony as a traveler doomed to wander throughout eternity the wretched-hive-of-scum-and-villainy hallways of Newark International Airport.

The dying wasp must be made to feel the ghostly chill that reduces even the bravest, strongest young manly-man into a quivering emotional puddle when he arrives at school on Monday morning and suddenly remembers that he is scheduled to take an algebra II exam at 0800.

The dying wasp must experience total bleakness of spirit as he realizes in his last moments that, just like a Republican in the summer of 2015, his life suddenly has no meaning after all. And that’s really hairy.

The dying wasp must sob in spasms of grief and sorrow, rather like a hungry child standing in line for her Michelle Obama lunch.

The dying wasp must be made to scream in horror like an ear-banging-hammer-metal-scum-rock DJ who finds that he is scheduled to work the three-day All Lovin’ Spoonful All The Time Festival.

Anyone who has ever applied cold compresses to a swollen, wasp-stung ear can only wonder why wasps were allowed to board the Ark and unicorns were not.

We need a meaner wasp spray.

-30-

Make America Change and Hope Yet Again

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Make America Change and Hope Yet Again

Roderick Spode: “…this great country can go forward once more to glory!...Citizens…I say to you that nothing stands between us and our victory except defeat! Tomorrow is a new day! The future lies ahead!”

Man in audience: “You know, I never thought of that.”

-Jeeves and Wooster

Just like poor Charlie Brown believing, despite humiliating experience, that this time Lucy is not going to snatch away that football, the American people believe, over and over, that this time they’ve got a candidate. But again and again their football of happiness is snatched away - by Senator Clinton, Governor Christie, Senator Cruz, and a series of other Lucy Van Pelts.

As John Keats did not say, where are the candidates of spring? Ay, where are they?

They are gone, lost down the Orwellian Memory Hole along with pet rocks, the End of the World in 1999, the Hale-Bopp Comet spaceships, the End of the World in 2000, Jade Helm ninjas, the End of the World some other time, unmarked UN helicopters, the End of the World yet again, the Central Texas Disney World, the End of the World we really mean it this time, global-warming, the End of the World this September 13th, and those buckets of magic ice water that were said to cure disease.

Quick – who were the candidates who stood against George H. W. Bush in the primaries? Who was Bill Clinton’s first pick for vice-president? Who were the big noises for each political party only last June?

The current big noise promises to make America great again – just like all the other big noises since George Washington.

As a modest contribution to the low-Prole unreality show that by populist acclamation has replaced thinking in this nation, here is a matrix of well-used terms, some of them quite international, for future presidential campaign slogans. Read them, and then follow the instructions below for each candidate who is really going to save us this time, just like that last one, and the one before that, and the one before:

We are the people we are the 99% transparency we shall triumph the whole world is watching make American great again sustainable forward together hope and change long live our glorious leader the buck stops here remember the Maine power to the people no war but class war Le Québec aux Québécois justice for everyone je suis Charlie it’s Scotland’s oil heim ins reich every man a king Ross for boss change we can believe in si se puede bread and roses me no frego let’s keep fighting for progress Peron o muerte where’s the beef? reigniting the promise of America not just peanuts he’s making us proud again kinder gentler nation for people a new American century time for a change it’s time to change America integrity vote for change commitment honest putting people first building a bridge to the 21st century in your heart you know he’s right a time for greatness to begin anew peace and prosperity a revolution is coming happy days are here again he kept us out of war fighting for us rum Romanism and rebellion go Greens turn the rascals out forward the people’s president a green new deal for America had enough? strength and experience reform prosperity and peace drill baby drill America first country first hope let America be America again taking America back vote for leadership a real choice for America defeat the Washington machine unleash the American dream a safer world and a more hopeful America tea party working for America the choice is clear a stronger America prosperity and progress compassionate conservatism leadership for the new millennium we can’t wait everyday Americans need a champion I want to be that champion from hope to higher ground the people united will never be defeated bread and freedom a chicken in every pot I’ll build a wall it’s time for a change death to world capitalism greater together.

And stuff.

Cut up this scribble into individual words. Dump all of them into a gimme cap. Pull any four words out of the cap. Have those four words stitched onto the cap. Practice saying the words over and over while taking selfies. And there you are, all ready for Campaign 2016 for any political party you choose.

-30-

Poets are Remarkably Silent on the Subject of Wrenches - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Poets are Remarkably Silent on the Subject of Wrenches

In life one suffers many twists and turns
And this is why one takes a wrench in hand
And turns the good things forward, the bad things back
When mending broken gadgets, lives, or hopes
So take the wrench, and turn the twist aright
Or take the wrench, and twist the turn aright
And spiral something beautiful into being
Because, as a worthy Marine might say,
This is a wrench. There are many like it
But this one is in the hands of an artist

Hurricane Tracks - Two Poems

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Hurricane Tracks

What if your life were a hurricane map
Available upon a glowing screen
Or as a supermarket paper handout
With all of life gridded into neat squares

You then would know exactly what to do
And where to go, predicated upon
The latest scientific spaghetti
Curved colored strings ordering you aright

But you are free not to follow the lines
Because your life is not a gridded map




Hurricane Tracks – The Kirk Briggs Variant

What if your life were a hurricane map
Available upon a glowing screen
Or as a supermarket paper handout
With all of life gridded into neat squares

You then would know exactly what to do
And where to go, predicated upon
The latest scientific spaghetti
Curved colored strings ordering you aright

But you are free not to follow…oh…wait:
You could also stall, strengthen, or fizzle out!

The Palmer Method of Child Cruelty - a poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Palmer Method of Child Cruelty

Left-handed children will write prettily
To Old Lady Stalin’s specifications
When Buna, Texas freezes over – twice
Or wicked Palmer rises from the dead

“Why can’t you write neatly, like your brother?
Just look what a chicken-scratch you’re making
You’ll stay in from recess and write it over
And don’t you waste so much paper this time…”

No stories, no thoughts, only soulless curves
Left-handed children will write angrily

Corporal Himmelstoss - A Poem About the Office

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Corporal Himmelstoss

Oh, yes, we all know Corporal Himmelstoss
That dutiful office functionary
Bully and thief, master of the resume’
Keeper of the entrance to the boss-cave
A creature of fluorescent lights, a worm
Obsequious above, brutal below
The listener at doors, the writer of reports
The examiner of secrets and lies
The administrator of loyalty oaths
Oh, yes, we all know Corporal Himmelstoss

Two Cups of Coffee - a poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Two Cups of Coffee

Two lovers surely sat here long ago
One evening early, as the winter rain
Slid down the windows like children at play
The raindrops teasing and chasing each other;

Across the table shyly flirting eyes
A little bit unsure, a little bit lost -
But happily so – they also teased and played
As softly as the winter’s window-mist

Two lovers surely sat here long ago
“Yes, sugar, please,” she said. “How did you know?”

The First Lesson in Diplomacy - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The First Lesson in Diplomacy

A fountain pen cannot be monitored
By frightened Norks at ranks of glowing screens
Or hipster graduates of M.I.T.
Submissive to their way-cool boy-gods

A sheet of paper never breaks an oath
Or whispers carelessly across the sky
A bottle of ink stands firm upon your desk
And knows all secrets only ‘til they dry

A fountain pen cannot be monitored
So take it up, and not that spying ‘phone

High-Tuned Little Magazine of Little Poetry - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

High-Tuned Little Magazine of Little Poetry

Negates stultifying silencing I
Originary events negate me
Bible Belt culture of racism I
Nuanced imperialist grappling we
Compelled surrounding culture footnote I
Grew the poetry community me
Identify attitudes impulse I
Literally typically dismissed we
Cursory recurring dismissal I
Imbalanced anemic valuing I

Who is That Absurd Old Man? - a poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Who is That Absurd Old Man?

Who is that old man in the looking-glass
That absurd old man with the puffy face
And thinning hair, more grey than anything
Whence came that wobbly chin, those hairy ears?

The face in the mirror is supposed to be
Narrow and sharp, with lots of tousled hair
Falling over bright and healthy eyes
Eagerly greeting the morning of life

But this is no matter – lift high the blade
(Rotary now) and with it challenge the dawn!

Pretty Klan Girls - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Pretty Klan Girls

Three girls, three teenaged girls, three giggling girls
So fresh and lovely in their springtime prints
A daring bit of makeup, hair just right
At early breakfast with their moms and dads
But sitting at a separate table so
Their youthful giddiness does not disturb
The adults’ serious, prayerful conversation
Over coffee in the no-smoking area
Three girls, three teenaged girls, three giggling girls
All pretty for the rally later today

Elias and the Broom Tree - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Elias and the Broom Tree

Asleep beneath a broom tree in Judaea
A man brought low, and lost among the waste
Stopped there to die, exhausted and alone
In refuge from a queen’s pursuivants
But in a little while a Messenger
Unseen will leave a gift of water and of bread
Food for a journey to the Mountain of God
But now, for now, for a few healing hours
Guarded in holy silence, only a man
Asleep beneath a mysterious Tree

Who is That Absurd Old Man? - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Who is That Absurd Old Man?

Who is that old man in the looking-glass
That absurd old man with the puffy face
And thinning hair, more grey than anything
Whence came that wobbly chin, those hairy ears?

The face in the mirror is supposed to be
Narrow and sharp, with lots of tousled hair
Falling over bright and healthy eyes
Eagerly greeting the morning of life

But this is no matter – lift high the blade
(Rotary now) and with it challenge the dawn!

The Ninja Jade Helm Dinner Roll of Flying Death

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Ninja Jade Helm Dinner Roll of Flying Death

South of Springfield, Missouri, in the little town of Ozark, the hungry traveler will find Lambert’s Café, where the staff throw dinner rolls. There are two other Lambert’s Cafes, one in Sikeston, Missouri and another in Foley, Alabama, where more rolls are thrown.

And why do the waiters and waitresses at Lambert’s throw dinner rolls?

Because throwing green peas just won’t work.

Except for one-year-olds. A one-year-old can fling a mean cloud of peas.

Lambert’s is a highway-side establishment cluttered with the usual garage-sale debris tacked to the walls and which serves good, honest, industrial-strength-cholesterol road food. Lots of cafes do just that, so to stand out Lambert’s bills itself as The Home of the Throwed Roll. The diner who wishes another dinner roll catches the waiter’s eye and holds up a hand. The waiter then skillfully tosses a roll for the patron to catch. Your ‘umble scrivener has dined at Lambert’s. He caught his second dinner roll (hey, the first one was a bad pitch, okay?) without bodily harm, and can testify that it’s all good, low-prole merriment.

Naturally, Lambert’s is being sued by a customer who was brutally mauled by a ninja jade helm dinner roll of flying death.

The complainant alleges a catalogue of head injuries just short of decapitation. Apparently Lambert’s light, fluffy dinner rolls are really stealth gluten toxic death bombs.

Grievously wounded by a poof of flour and air, the diner went all Donald Trumpy hissy-fitty and demanded the cost of a new car instead of dessert. After all, she could not possibly have read the signs about the “throwed” rolls or have seen the aerial celebrations of the in-house baker’s art flying as gracefully through the air as spring butterflies.

One is reminded of the story, some years ago, of the high school girl who sued for a spot on the football team and then sued again because a blocker on the opposing team knocked her down during a game. Her grounds for the second lawsuit were that no one had told her she could get hurt playing football.

But to be taken down by a dinner roll - oh, the humanity.

Thank goodness the weapon wasn’t something heavier and sharper, such as a marshmallow.

Lambert’s might need to place warnings on its dinner rolls: “The Surgeon General of the State of Missouri has determined that food is dangerous to your health.”

Think of a carbohydrate movie treatment: Sergeant Preston and his husky King keep Canada safe for the Empire with just a dog sled and a buttered croissant.

Or Casablanca: “Get away from that ‘phone! I was willing to fling an English muffin at Captain Reynaud and I’m willing to fling an English muffin at you!”

Hunters will have to pass day-long bread safety courses before they can legally take to the woods with a biscuit.

The United States Senate, aka The Marx Brothers and Sisters, will hold hearings on the racism of flinging dinner rolls made of white flour.

Many businesses do not lend themselves to the concept of flinging. Auto parts come to mind: “Hey, Joe, here’s your new exhaust manifold…catch!”

Or children’s health clinics: “Okay, kids, who wants to play dodge-the-flu-shots?”

Many people take up hobbies that feature some element of danger: skydiving, mountain climbing, skiing, motorcycling, and beating Vladimir Putin at chess come to mind. But no one would have thought of the lurking menace (cue the Jaws shark music), the raw, savage, blood-crazed, edge-of-your-seat terror in asking the waitress for another dinner roll.

-30-

It Begins With an Unreferenced Pronoun - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

It Begins With an Unreferenced Pronoun

That which is not winding down is gearing up
Then said to be however under way
Exciting year anticipates even better
Rekindling old friendships short enjoyable
Forward to the high school cafeteria
Another great please plan to join and look
Begin another year preparing it
To seeing you has convocation it
Committed to excellence each of you
That which is not gearing down is winding up

A U-Haul Box - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


A U-Haul Box

A cardboard U-Haul box is a time machine
Which stores the years in careless unity
A lonely chessman lost and wandering
Along the childhood lanes of Candyland
Next to a napkin from the senior prom
Some keys that don’t seem to fit anything
And an unlabeled videocassette
Of a cousin’s wedding in ‘89
Old pens, old plates, old dreams, old high-school jeans:
A cardboard U-Haul Box is a time machine

Lions and Dentists and Trumps, Oh, My!

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Lions and Dentists and Trumps, Oh, My!

The world remains outraged over the death of Trevor the Hairpiece. Trevor, beloved of everyone in the U.S.A., was slaughtered by a dentist from Zimbabwe who hired two local guides to help him in his search for a prize hairpiece to kill, kill, kill.

The alleged hair murderer is Dr. James Mbiriri, an orthodontist from Harare. Dr. Mbiriri is unavailable for comment, and his office is closed until further notice.

Reports from Iowa indicate that the guides, Megyn and Roger, lured Trevor the Hairpiece from Donald Trump’s head by bribing a disgruntled lone wolf rogue stylist taking secret orders from Chewbacca the Wookie through a secret radio transceiver in the basement of the Vatican barber shop. Once Mortimer was outside the otherwise empty crawlspace, Dr. Mbiriri cruelly dispatched the poor hairpiece with the little scissors of his Swiss Army Knife despite Trevor’s tearful rendition of the title song from Hair.

Trevor the Hairpiece died a slow, agonizing death, sort of like veterans waiting for the government to do right by them.

School children all over the world are crayoning tearstained pictures of their hero and inspiration, Saint Trevor the Hairpiece. Their parents are lining up outside stores to buy Trevor the Hairpiece backpacks and Trevor the Hairpiece pencils and crayons for the new school year.

In Paris the obedient sort of people who wear Che Guano tees are chanting “Je suis Trevor the Hairpiece!”

The Cackling Woman Cookery Show on The Gourmand Channel has gone dark in mourning, and its angel-hair spaghetti is being flown at half-mast for thirty minutes or until the rinse-and-set is complete.

In response to the hairpiece crisis the State of Texas has directed all appraisal districts to raise property taxes again.

Dr. Mbiriri’s selfie of himself and the trophy hairpiece has gone as viral as pouring buckets of ice water over secret Jade Helm ninjas skulking in the dark corridors of an abandoned Wal-Mart atop Bald Mountain.

Protestors have blockaded the Swiss embassy in Harare and are tying stuffed toy Trevors to the fence in that all-purpose response to anything, a makeshift shrine, which is of course a contradiction. When a reporter for the ZBC asked a demonstrator if she could define the term makeshift the demonstrator filed charges of insensitivity against ZBC. “We’re outraged that Switzerland promotes violence to free-range hairpieces all over the world through its obscene manufacture of itty-bitty pocket knives with ittier-bittier scissors, and the ZBC are interrupting my script with an appeal to rationality!” she shrieked.

According to Poncy Tworbst, BA, MA, Certified Grief Counselor, and Ordained Holistic Aromatherapist, consultant to The Times of Zimbabwe, “This is another example of a privileged supremacist hirsutest imposing his tonsorial appropriation occupation syncopation centrist views on a primitive culture, Iowa, through his psychologically dubious quest for trophy follicles.”

The Speaker of the Parliament of Zimbabwe has called for hearings, ‘net mobs have called for the extradition of a Zimbabwean citizen to the U.S.A. based on ‘net gossip, and the Minister of Defence has called for every commander to confiscate all scissored pocket knives from Zimbabwean soldiers and airmen.

In his morning minute Tim Brocaw said “I, I, I, me, me, me was once among hairpieces when I, I, I was a barefoot all-American lad in West Dakota. I am not a bad hairdo, but I, I, I am honored to have lived among them, and I, I, I am so special and aw-shucks cute.”

The Church of Elvis is re-naming itself The Church of Trevor the Hairpiece, and new streets will be named for Trevor. Every morning all really sensitive Zimbabweans will pledge allegiance to Trevor-ness, and statues of so-last-week Zimbabwean heroes will be pulled down and replaced with memorials to Trevor the Great. There will be Trevor the Hairpiece Editions of the Bible with commentaries by Trevor the Hairpiece in the margins. The peoples of the world will unite in perpetual adoration of Trevor the Hairpiece, and will forswear all food because rainbows, sunshine, and gluten-free air are all humanity needs for nutrition and for holistic dental care.

The relics of Saint Trevor will be enshrined in St. Ambrose’s Cathedral in Iowa City. A basilica will be built over the site of his martyrdom, and will be consecrated by Rosie O’Donnell with a Sacred Liturgical Twerking of the Salisbury Rite of Rebuke Against the Trumpness.

All hairpieces everywhere will be allowed to roam wild and free in their natural habitat, and will not be murdered by greedy humans looking for a hair-raising thrill.

Justice for Trevor the Hairpiece! The ‘Net Mob demands it!

And justice for murdered children? Still no word on that.

-30-

English and Celtic Poets - a Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


English and Celtic Poets

A Sassenach assembles words and lines
In order, disciplined, like hammer-falls
Upon reluctant steel in armories
The beat and off-beat in formation set

A Celt sings challenges carelessly into the eagle-skies
To soar among the storms in sorrow and in joy
Laughing among full cups of heathery vowels
Claidheamh-mor swinging against blank verse in English helmets

An Englishman sends words to fight and work
A Celt persuades wild words to fight and dream

Secret Stuff the Presidential Candidates Will Not Say

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Secret Stuff the Presidential Candidates Will Not Say

Governor Perry – “Every American should be free to conceal-carry a carton of Blue Bell in church or in a cinema.”

Senator Sanders – “Free love! Free Blue Bell for the masses! In Commie-Red flavors! Us old hippies rock.”

Donald “The Hair” Trump – “All the problems in America are caused by illegal Ben and Jerry’s ice cream swarming across our sacred borders! And Governor Perry looks professional in his new eyeglasses. And, okay, let the veterans have some Blue Bell. And the little cracker.”

Governor O’Malley – “Sure, faith ‘n’ begorrah, just what American needs, meself, another faux Irishperson who wouldn’t know Guinness from Pim’s Ale. Like, sure, I was in an Irish band, sure, only not in Ireland, sure. When I’m elected Taioseach the ice cream will be Green Bell, not Blue Bell, sure. But all ice cream matters! Wait…maybe not…”

Governor Christie – “We’re gonna make Blue Bell an offer it can’t refuse. Otherwise, I gotta bridge with Blue Bell’s name on it. But please tell me more; I want to listen to different points of view.”

Senator Webb – “Blue Bell and the Marines – Semper Fi all the way!”

Governor / Reverend Huckabee - “I’m a-pickin’ and I’m a-grinnin’ with my hillbilly band and my Blue Bell.”

Governor Thompson – “Blue Bell is on strike. I don’t like that.”

Senator Cruz – “Okay, I don’t know if I’m Catholic, Baptist, Cuban, American, or Canadian, but I know I’m a Blue Bell. Or whatever Daddy says this week.”

Senator Paul – “Me too.”

Senator / Secretary Clinton – “Blue Bell!? Ben and Jerry’s!? WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!?!?!?!?!?”

Senator Rubio – “You know, as a people of faith we can come together over Blue Bell, Hagen-Daz, or Ben and Jerry’s, because, really, it’s all pretty much the same. Just as long as we all like ice-cream.”

Governor Jindal – “I like the alligator-flavored Blue Bell.”

Shawna Sterling – “No GMOs in Blue Bell!”

Senator Rubio – “Blue Bell in Margaritaville!”

Governor Bush – “Open borders for Blue Bell!”

Senator Graham – “Blue Bell, y’all.”

Carly Fiorina – “In my spreadsheets Blue Bell adds up. Most of the time.”

Dr. Carson – “I prescribe Blue Bell for all my patients.”

Governor Kasich – “If you like your Blue Bell, you can keep your Blue Bell. Maybe. Kinda. Sorta.”

Y’know, we don’t have any Blue Bell ice cream in this country just now but we sure have a stockyard full of mooing presidential candidates. Things’ll be better when Blue Bell is back.

-30-

A New Shirt - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A New Shirt

Shirts are nice. They cover your funniness
Almost no one looks good without a shirt
Especially when you’re old and parts don’t fit
Quite like they did (listen to your looking-glass)
A store-new shirt is one of life’s little joys
You pull away the plastic clips and floof
The fabric out among its new-shirt smell
And praise yourself for your excellent taste
The cuffs and collar fold exactly right
And you look good today in your new shirt

The Death of Mortimer the Tomato

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Death of Mortimer the Tomato

The world remains outraged over the death of Mortimer the Tomato. Mortimer, beloved of everyone in England’s fens country, was slaughtered by an American vegan who hired two local guides to help him in his search for a prize tomato to kill, kill, kill.

The alleged murderer is Neville (Rockin’ Nev) Thistletwit, an inspirational singer-songwriter from New Orleans. Rockin’ Nev is unavailable for comment, and his former space on Jackson Square is currently occupied by Madame Zumba Sees All Knows All Astrologer to the Stars.

Reports from Peterborough indicate that the guides, Bert and Alf, lured Mortimer the Tomato from his sheltered bin by paying off a greengrocer with two pounds and ten pence. Once Mortimer was outside the shop, Rockin’ Nev cruelly dispatched the poor veggie (yes, yes, technically a tomato is a berry) with his Swiss Army Knife despite Mortimer’s erudite existential arguments about the circle of vegetative art.

Mortimer the Tomato died a slow, agonizing death, sort of like television network news.

School children all over the world are crayoning tearstained pictures of their hero and inspiration, Saint Mortimer the Martyred Tomato.

In Paris the sort of people who wear Che Guano tees are chanting “Je suis Mortimer the Tomato!”

The Cackling Woman Cookery Show on The Gourmand Channel has gone dark in mourning, and its quiches are being flown at half-mast for thirty minutes or until the crust is a delicious flakey brown.

In response to the tomato crisis the State of Texas directed all appraisal districts to raise property taxes again.

Rockin’ Nev’s selfie of himself and his lunch has gone as viral as junior high hallway gossip.

Protestors have blocked the Swiss embassy in London and are tying stuffed toy Mortimers to the fence in that all-purpose response to anything, a makeshift shrine, which is of course a contradiction. When one reporter asked a demonstrator if she could define the term shrine she filed charges of insensitivity against him. “We’re outraged that Switzerland promotes violence all over the world through its obscene manufacture of itty-bitty pocket knives, and you are interrupting my script with an appeal to rationality!” she shrieked.

According to Poncy Tworbst, BA, MA, Certified Grief Counselor, and Ordained Holistic Aromatherapist, consultant to Ferret News, “This is another example of a privileged supremacist vegan imposing his horticultural appropriation occupation syncopation vegicentrist views on a poor part of the world through his psychologically dubious quest for a trophy lunch.”

The Speaker of the House of Merovingians has called for hearings, ‘net mobs have called for the extradition of an American citizen based on ‘net gossip, and the Secretary of Defense has called for every commander to confiscate all provocative pocket knives from American sailors and soldiers.

That’s how we Americans roll – in every crisis we call for stuff.

In his morning minute Tim Brocaw said “I, I, I, me, me, me was once among tomatoes when I, I, I was a barefoot all-American lad in West Dakota and I, I, I am so special and aw-shucks cute.”

The Church of Elvis is re-naming itself The Church of Mortimer Tomato, and new streets will be named for Mortimer. Every morning all really sensitive Americans will pledge allegiance to Mortimer-ness, and statues of so-last-week American heroes will be pulled down and replaced with memorials to Mortimer the Great. There will be Mortimer the Tomato Editions of the Bible with commentaries by Mortimer the Tomato in the margins. The peoples of the world will unite in perpetual adoration of Mortimer the Tomato, and will forswear all food because rainbows, sunshine, and gluten-free air are all we really need for nutrition.

The relics of Saint Mortimer will be enshrined in Peterborough Cathedral. A basilica will be built over the site of his martyrdom, and will be consecrated by Kim Lohan with a sacred twerking.

All tomatoes everywhere will be allowed to roam wild and free in their natural habitat, and will not be murdered by filthy humans looking for an ego-boosting salad.

Justice for Mortimer the Tomato! The ‘Net Mob demands it!

And justice for murdered children? Nahhh.

-30-

Heat Stress

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Heat Stress

Now summer is a song without any words
Though midday silence in the dancing heat
Is music enough in this stasis time
When nothing moves across the face of noon
Not even an errant breeze to whisper hope
In the sun-blown desolation of July
Thus silence descants restless rests among
Notes fallen from a hymnal that was lost
Among the weeds and dust where once were dreams
But summer is a song without any words

Heat Inversion

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Heat Inversion

Summer collapses in upon itself
Inversions of thought wandering in the heat
Beaten into confusion’s minorpiece
As the planet orbits, wobbles, and spins
Like Icarus saucily taunting the sun
With importunities and insolence
Until a solar roar of outrage sends
Frail featherings of imagination
Falling into dizzying nothingness as
Summer collapses in upon itself

Back-to-School Shopping

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Back-to-School Shopping

Electronics and ear-buds on display
New jeans and tees, and the most-happening shoes
Tennis rackets and shorts for every day
Maybe even academic tattoos
Jewelry, sunglasses, feathers for one’s hair
Che Guano’s mug shot on a size small shirt
Cool Mickey ‘n’ Minnie themed underwear
A Class Of XX nose ring (that’s gotta hurt!

And that’s the latest faculty look

But no one ever dreams of buying a book

Dresscrossing - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Dresscrossing

When asked if s/he were a transvestite
S/he replied, “Oh, no, that’s not right;
I’m English, and so a transwaistcoatite.”

Fete de la Raison

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Fete de la Raison

Personhood is the measure of a Lamborghini
Along with self-identification
The authentic voice of the marginalized
Because science can now work wonders these days
Only not with your crackers and grape juice
If you are told the sun rises in the west
Follow the sensitive conversation
Body parts. Who will buy my body parts
Freshly sexed-up pancreas for sale
Stuff is now the measure of personhood

A Frivolous Reflection on Power Cords

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Frivolous Reflection on Power Cords

Electrical cords are marvelous things
They slither voltaically without wings
To drag resistant ohms out of the walls
Then digest them along to light the halls
Make radios talk and tellys light up
And heat the coffee for a coffee cup
And make refrigerators thermodyme
AC in rhythmic Isaac Newton time
Lights all alight and a doorbell that rings:
Electrical cords are marvelous things

Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, and Donald Trump

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Politics According to Clue™

Even more than Wheel of 60 Minutes Fortune and Flip the Dancing Stars off this Island, the USA’s most popular and longest-running unreality show is politics. Back-to-school shopping begins in June, and football in August, but electioneering never ends. A presidential election is in itself little more than a brief pause between presidential election campaigns.

Baseball? Hot dogs? Apple strudel? Nope. What defines The Ye Olde Folksy New England Republic is a catalogue of people asking other people for money so that the first set of people can make more video ads.

This season is unusually loopy, lending itself to a new board game to help the players sort out politics, policy, and politics foreign and domestic. As a service to America, the auctor presents to a confused electorate (not that many of them ever vote anyway) a new board game, Campaign Clue™. Each game set contains:

10 character cards

President Obama
Donald Trump
Senator McCain
El Chapo
Vladimir Putin
Bernie Sanders
Senator Clinton
Edward Snowden
Hillary Clinton
Kim Jong Un


10 location cards

The White House Rose Garden
The Spratly Islands
St. Petersburg (Russia or Florida)
A Bridge in New Jersey
A Blue Bell factory
The dumpsters behind the Kremlin
The secret Jade Helm dungeons of doom beneath an abandoned Wal-Mart
A truck stopped for a traffic light in Calais
The Socorro Desert
A dimly lit Tim Horton’s down the street from the Toronto city hall



10 plastic weapons tokens

A pinata
Silly String
A stern editorial in The New York Times
A Confederate flag
A supercilious sneer
An indictment
Gender reassignment surgery
A Greek promissory note
A New Jersey Department of Transportation Traffic Cone
The Cosmic Hairpiece of Clinging Death


Each player takes a divvy of character cards, location cards, and plastic weapons tokens, dumps them into a foam cup from Captain Queeg’s, shakes them up, and pours them out in a meaningless pile. The players then talk about how much they miss Colonel Mustard, Miss Scarlett, the Professor, Ginger, Mary Ann, and the rest of the old gang.

-30-

The Joyful Mysteries - Meditations for a Young Man

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com




The Joyful Mysteries -
Meditations for a Young Man

I. The Annunciation

When Romans ruled, tetrarchs obeyed, the nights
Were given over to wonderings and dreams
An angel whispered to a girl “Fear not”
She made her choice, and history turned away
From failing, flailing, falling into mists
And looked again upon the morning sun
Beneath whose light the Jordan flowed, and days
Were given over to waiting and to work
For carpenters and fishermen who knew
Little of Rome, but much of suffering

II. The Visitation

In loving service to humanity
A girl, a woman now, another choice -
To leave her home to help, to love, to work
Her sweet Magnificat a hymn to us
A song of sweeping floors and making beds
And bringing in the goats for milking time
And laughter to the home of Elizabeth
A leap for joy expressed through busy hands
For maidens and mothers (and even men!) who knew
Little of Rome, but much of work and love

III. The Nativity

Now in reluctant service to the state
To render unto Caesar obedience
A little family once again leaves home
Following orders, not a star, and yet
There is a star. What is it telling them?
Suddenly – no thoughts for Caesars or stars
But only for a Child in exile born
Among the poor and humble of the earth
There to a weary young mother who knew
Too much of Rome, too much of doing without

IV. The Presentation

Now happily, in service to the Law
A going up, up to Jerusalem
A joyful journey to present the Child
Unto the Lord, and there two prophets spoke:
In holy Anna’s fasting, prayers, and words
And Simeon’s rejoicing “Nunc dimittis”
Of risings, fallings, swords, deliverance
The former world passing into the new
And for His Mother at the temple gate
No thought of Rome – but only of Her Son

V. Finding the Lord in the Temple

When Romans ruled, tetrarchs obeyed; the young
In faith and hope gave all their dreams to God
And listened for angelic whisperings
Not only in the night, but in their hearts
And Jesus grew to hear, to know, to teach
To search the hearts of young and old and find
Within them there the heartbeat of Himself
Our Lady kept these things within Her heart -
And, finally, even Romans kept them too

And so it was
And so it is
For you

Cigar Boxes

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


History Lessons on a Cigar Box

Mark Antony preens in his Class-A best
Cleopatra is somewhat underdressed
The servant girl is not at all impressed



Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


A Child’s First Safety-Deposit Box

A dime-store pocket watch that doesn’t run
A tiny magnifier for aiming the sun
A bit of chalk, glass marbles, crayon stubs
A pencil or two worn down to the nubs
A pair of dice gained in a school-yard trade
A cheap pocket knife with a broken blade
A pocket calendar from just last year
A bottle-opener that says “JAX BEER”
A shotgun hull, and little toy cars -
A box is for treasures, not Dad’s cigars!

Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Field Medical Service School

Shivering in the rain, up in the hills
Of Sunny Southern California
Kerosene cookers and their gust-blown smoke
Squid-wet Corpsmen in flying wet slickers
Mess kits held out to sullen, cursing cooks
Slam-glopping glops of sausages and eggs
Cold coffee in aluminum canteen cups
No cover, no shelter for floating food
Or for sergeants bellowing in the dark –
And laughing through it all, for we were young

Mad Dogs and Mourning Doves

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


Mad Dogs and Mourning Doves
go out in the Midday Sun

When nearly noon the old lawnmower is stilled
The unexpected silence is a pause
While an unseen conductor turns a page:
Morning cicadas yield the program to
The responsorial midday mourning doves
Who descant songs across the lonely fields
Whence midday heat has driven all but them
Exchanging love-notes through the drowsy hours
All unaware that when October comes
They’ll have to pack away their amphibrachs

A Course of Study

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Course of Study

Life is itself our university:
A table for study at a window
A book whose pages are bright autumn leaves
A laboratory of unexpectations
A hymn sung while stacking ammunition
A smile remembered while the coffee brews
A Christmas pocket knife lost long ago
A remembrance, a pain, a thought, a fear
And in the end a graduation hymn -
Life is itself is our university

A Working Knowledge of Bed Frames

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Working Knowledge of Bed Frames

For assembling bed frames a craftsman needs
A hammer (because a mallet won’t do)
And a vocabulary of bad words
Bad you-go-rinse-your-mouth-out-with-soap words
For disassembling bed frames, well, the same:
A hammer (because a mallet won’t do)
And a vocabulary of bad words
Badder rinsing-your-mouth-out-with-soap words
Because cosmic conflict against metal frames
Requires a catalogue of soap-choking names!

Life Begins at 111

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Life Begins at 111

Open a page, and dream into that world
Songs and merriment from the inn at Bree
The scent of flowers from far Lothlorien
And smoke rising from The Last Lonely House
A pack, a walking stick, a friend or two
Then step into the night, into the road
That does indeed go on and on

THE Calculus

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

THE Calculus

Why is there a math called THE calculus
Could there be a second one? Dubious
And there are so many maths to cuss
Algebra, for instance – what is the fuss?
To solve for X does not serve any purpuss
And one arithmetic, minus or plus
Geometry – useful but tedious
Each math is one, so nothing to discuss
So
Why is there a math call THE calculus?