Attack of the Killer Cocktail Sombreros - op-ed

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Attack of the Killer Cocktail Sombreros

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is one of the most admirable people in history. As a 34-year-old professor at Maine’s Bowdoin College he was beyond military age in 1862 but decided to enlist in the 20th Maine Infantry because of his profound belief in freedom for all.

Chamberlain is best known for his leadership in the Battle of Gettysburg. Surrounded and almost defeated by the 15th Alabama during a fierce battle among rocks and trees, with few remaining men still able to fight and out of ammunition, Chamberlain did something quite illogical – he ordered a bayonet charge, which saved the Union position. Unlike Viet-Nam era generals, who led from radios in air-conditioned bunkers, or modern generals, armed with pearl-handled resumes’, who lead from luxurious executive jets, Chamberlain led from the front.

In an era of theatrical facial hair sculpturing, Chamberlain adorned himself with a death-or-glory moustache that Asterix the Gaul might find a bit too much. General Chamberlain’s ‘stache all by itself could have frightened some of the Confederates on Round Top into surrendering.

Chamberlain fought in numerous battles, and was awarded the Medal of Honor, small compensation for the pain, infections, and operations he suffered all his life from multiple wounds.

After the war, Chamberlain served as governor of Maine and then as president of Bowdoin College. Chamberlain was not a backslapping fund-raiser; he also taught, at different times, every subject in the curriculum except science and mathematics.

In 1880, as commander of the militia, Chamberlain was called upon to resolve violence in the state capital of Augusta due to a contested election. He and his men ejected armed occupiers from the capitol and kept the peace for twelve days until the Maine supreme court made a ruling. On one occasion during this near-rebellion he faced down a mob that was determined to reoccupy the state house and kill him. He turned down bribes offered by both sides, being a man of honor instead of a deal-maker, and that was the end of his political career.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain died in 1914, honored for his courage, gallantry, and love of freedom.

Bowdoin College, another of Chamberlain’s great loves, does not at present appear to love freedom as much as he did. Students are being punished, and might be expelled, over sombreros.

Sombreros.

The putative objects of cultural appropriation and hurt-feelingness are not even real sombreros, but rather 2-3” party decorations, surely made in China, which a couple of giddy lads balanced on top of their heads after an encounter with a few glasses of merriment several weeks ago.

Perhaps the decorations should have been little homburgs, derbys, top hats, Prussian picklehauben, berets, trilbys, busbys, fedoras, fezes, kepis, kippahs, tams, tarbooshes, turbans, Mao caps, hoodies, cowboy hats, Irish walking hats, or workers’ hard hats. But wait – possibly neither the administration nor the students at progressive Bowdoin have any familiarity with workers’ hard hats.

Bowdoin’s administration collapsed tearfully into full Aunt Pittypat smelling-salts mode while accusations of cultural bias and the We Want Answers thing flew through the clean Maine air like General Pendleton’s cannon fire over the wheat fields at Gettysburg.

Yet the college did not cancel its annual Cold War party (that Stalin – what a fun guy) the same night of the attack of the cocktail sombreros, nor did the cafeteria modify its Mexican day menu the same week.

As a teenager applying to Bowdoin, Chamberlain needed help in prepping his knowledge of Greek and Latin, since the mastery of both was required for admission. Now, one supposes, young Chamberlain would have to demonstrate proficiency

Not a Good Comrade - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Not a Good Comrade

No man is free if he gives up himself
And disappears into sad howlingness
Subsumed in sinking, shrieking subservience
Thrall-teed in the overseer’s livery

A label on a shabby baseball cap
A programmed pixel smeared across a screen
A rusty caltrop cast into the road
A shifted pea under a shuffled thimble

As crowd, as mass, as demographic noise -
No man is free if he yields up himself

The Eye of Sauron is Upon Us - op-ed

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Eye of Sauron is Upon Us

There are frightened little men who in their feverish brains see conspiracies in everything: your license plate number is a secret code imposed by the Masonic-Vatican-IRS Continuum so that unmarked Canadian helicopters can track you, Queen Elizabeth is a diabolic lizard warrior in disguise, fluoride is a Communist mind-control drug, traffic signals beam your image and DNA to the Martian outpost on the dark side of the moon, and algebra is the language of Satan.

Well, okay, that bit about algebra being satanic is true.

But that Solomon’s Temple was a cleverly disguised alien spaceship, well, no. Sorry.

After Justice Scalia died several weeks ago, the mansies who live in their allotted gigabytes cluttered the planet’s microwave signals with fantasies about Justice Scalia being a member of a golly-gee-super-secret-girl-haters-blood-cult called The International Order of Saint Hubert.

Well, the International Order of Saint Hubert really exists, and it is so secret that it has a web site: http://www.iosh-usa.com/.

Justice Scalia was not a member of the International Order of Saint Hubert, which is no more significant than the fact that he was not a member of the Rotary Club and did not have a Barnes & Noble discount card.

The IOSH is indeed a hunting fraternity, one with a long and remarkable history, including the fact that its Grand Whatever was murdered by the Nazis because he wouldn’t let Hermann Goering join.

Here are the conspiracies carried out by the Order of Saint Hubert:

To promote sportsmanlike conduct in hunting and fishing

To foster good fellowship among sportsmen from all over the world

To teach and preserve sound traditional hunting and fishing customs

To encourage wildlife conservation and to help protect endangered species from extinction

To promote the concept of hunting and fishing as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity

To endeavor to ensure that the economic benefits derived from sports hunting and fishing support the regions where these activities are carried out

To strive to enhance respect for responsible hunters and fishermen

Wow. Scary stuff, huh?

The values of the International Order of Saint Hubert are not at all different from Justice Scalia’s equally exclusive club to which many of us belong, the Hunting Brotherhood of Grandpa’s Old J.C. Higgins Shotgun.

There is a Saint Hubert, whose conversion story is worth reading. He is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians, and metalworkers.

Not a bad fellowship, that.

And, after all, mathematicians are in special need of our prayers.

-30-

How Lovely Not to be in Jail Tonight - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

How Lovely Not to be in Jail Tonight

How lovely not to be in jail tonight
And have to share a small and smelly space
Under an eternal fluorescent light
With a dude who don’t like yer race or yer face

How grand to have a bed that’s long enough
With sheets and pillows and blankets all clean
And not a bare mattress sour-stained and rough
Against a wall of cinder blocks in green

And howlings from a soul who has lost life’s fight -
How thankful not to be in jail tonight

Snakes are on the Move - op-ed

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Snakes are on the Move

Snakes are on the move. I saw my first snake of the spring in my yard the other day. He was a white male of medium height, bald or shaven-headed, aged 50-60, and hadn’t missed any meals lately. He slithered onto the property in a really primo, perhaps new Dodge Ram double-cab pickup, light-colored, with no signs or markings on the side. The security camera was a little fuzzy about the numbers.

And, yes, he, he began with that decades-old script of “We just finished a project over there, and…”

“No.”

“…leftover asphalt…”

“No.”

“I gather you’ve had a bad experience with…”

“No.”

You just can’t get into a conversation with fast-talking snakes; they know all sorts of forked-tongue-in-the-door responses and dodges and come-ons.

You probably know his cousin, that electronic attorney in Nigeria who is handling the estate of a distant relative you didn’t know you had who died and left you all his money if you will only give your bank numbers and…

No.

As the weather grows warmer more reptiles will infest the yard at the front door with their magazine subscriptions (“I’m working my way through college”), the man or woman looking at you through your window in the night and asking to use your phone, the carloads of committees with their strange little booklets decorated with crude drawings of the saved and unsaved, with poorly-written theses only a few brain synapse misfires away from those of the strange little men who assure you that the Second Temple was really an alien spaceship based on a technology that the lizard-something federal government doesn’t want you to know about, and the miscellaneous peddlers who begin with abject pleas of assistant which morph quickly into implied threats as their eyes dart about looking for whatever objects might be quickly picked up on a later visit when you’re not home.

And when you don’t buy their magazines or firewood or ideologies they sometimes tell you that you don’t love Jesus, and that Jesus wouldn’t turn away a poor man down on his luck, so down on his luck that he owns a better car than you do.

All this is only an annoyance for most of us, but for the more vulnerable the cold-blooded can be a real threat, both physical and emotional. Remembering those who are vulnerable helps you say no, and remembering those who have suffered tough times and sought out honest work helps you say no to the wandering opportunists looking for a victim.

Yup, the weather is warming up, and the snakes are beginning to move.

-30-

Murus Durus - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Someone asked if I could write a poem about a classroom wall:

Murus Durus

It’s hard to snuggle up to concrete blocks
Even when they’re layered in pastel paint
And fitted with a door (though no one knocks)
And high, thin windows rather cute and quaint

They make four walls that wrap us all around
To keep the warmth within, the cold without
And hold the roof up there, far off the ground
So all is cozy in our cool hangout

But though this space is nice, and even rocks -
It’s hard to snuggle up to concrete blocks

And Would You Hand Me My Cigarettes? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

And Would You Hand Me My Cigarettes?

Idleness should be an honored vocation
Practiced by layabouts and slugabeds
For whom Bertie Wooster is perfection
And merry old Sergeant Schultz a hero

For good folk, dawn is only a rumor
And the concept of work an obscenity
No gentleman ever takes exercise
The only weight he lifts is his coffee cup

In amused salute to passing joggers:
Idleness should be an honored vocation

What Are You Giving Up For Lent? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What are you giving up for Lent?

What are you giving up for Lent?
Well?
What?
Catholics. Maybe we should give up Catholics:

The me-me-support-me Catholics
More Catholic than we can ever be
Catholics more Catholic than anyone
Those clever keyboard commando Catholics

What are you giving up for Lent?
Adjectives, sure, but nothing Catholic

"World Economy in Death Spiral" - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

“World Economy in Death Spiral”

In cold and slanting February light
A poor tenacious leaf gives up at last
And spirals down in the northering wind
Around and down onto the sorrowing earth

Where backyard cats in their thick winter coats
Fence-sit and catch a few dignified rays
While Astrid-the-Dachshund in circles yaps
In ground-bound outrage

In cold and slanting February light
The world still spirals as it always has

Unconnected Mutterings in Search of a Thesis - op-ed maybe

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Unconnected Mutterings in Search of a Thesis

Meryl Streep, who has won three Academy Awards ™, complains that that the Academy Awards™ are unfairly dominated by white males. Apparently not winning four Academy Awards™ makes her a victim.

+++

The New York Post says that hundreds of army dogs who served in combat were dumped when they were no longer useful. Well, that’s pretty much what the federal government does with human veterans.

+++

Whole Foods (are there Incomplete Foods?) is / are rumored to be considering adding tattoo parlors to help make buying cereal for the kids a more Bucket ‘O’ Blood Saloon experience. Where would a grocery store site the disfigurement kiosk? Next to the vegetables?

+++

The arcana of caucuses / cauci, delegates, pledged delegates, superdelegates, hissy-fits falsely labelled as debates, electors, and the electoral college suggests that maybe our democracy is no more evolved than a riot among paleolithic cave clans. Or English soccer fans.

+++

We read on the little plastic box that lights up and makes noises that the late Justice Antonin Scalia was pronounced deceased via the telephone. Over the telephone? Really? Over the telephone? One hopes this report is an error.

Determination of death by telephone – so there’s an ap for that?

Given that the passing of a supreme court justice was verified and adjudicated so casually, one can only wonder how lesser folk in Presidio County are disposed of at the end of their earthly pilgrimage.

Reverend Mike Alcuino of the parish church Santa Teresa de Jesus administered the last rites to Judge Scalia. Not over the telephone.

+++

What’s with all the geriatric candidates at the top of the trash heap this election cycle? All those old people kvetching at each other sound as if they should be down at the local Denny’s complaining about everything over their senior specials. Just like me.

+++

Finally, in a month of continued wars, hunger, violence, economic collapse, refugee disasters, and the existential agony of Kanye and Taylor, this cri de coeur must be heard as a cri-without-borders cri for the cri-less: what cruel, villainous wretch thought up the spelling for “February?”

-30-

I and II Casseroles - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

I and II Casseroles

Mrs. Cohen and Mrs. Ionas
Slipped quietly out of the women’s side
Of the old Corinthian synagogue
To set out casseroles and pita bread

And left Saint Paul speaking mostly to men
And to those silly young women who might
Have lifted a finger to help, but no
I just don’t know what’s wrong with girls these days

But then - that’s what my mother said about me
It’ll be okay. And do we have enough cups?

The Chinese Groundhog Flips its Shadow - op-ed kinda /sorta

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Chinese Groundhog Flips its Shadow

Americans are a people of faith. We believe that if a bunch of old drunks wearing frock coats and shabby top hats roust a rodent out of its sleep the Cincinnati Patriots will win the SuperDooperBowl. Or something.

If a presidential candidate sees his shadow he or she wins the Iowa caucus, whether or not he wants a caucus, and then there are four more weeks of winter because the Chinese bought the groundhog and all rights, copyrights, and patents appertaining thereunto, and, like, stuff.

Groundhogs from China crumble in the sunlight, you know. They just don’t make groundhogs like they used to, nossirree Bob and Chang.

No one is quite sure what a caucus is. Is it one of those spacecraft-looking coffee makers, or is it some sort of prize that can be pinned to a corkboard next the children’s 4H awards?

In Iowa delegates to the summer political conventions are chosen by people moving about in groups, possibly a Hegelian melding of chess and dodgeball (please note that Ford and Chevy people never play dodgeball). This confusion is said to constitute a caucus, just like it says in the Constitution.

Some six Iowa precincts were declared to have tied results, which is remarkable, and the ties were broken and delegates chosen by tossing coins, which is even more remarkable.

More remarkable still is that six different coins in six different precincts chose delegates for the same candidate. Maybe the coins were texting each other via unsecured servers.

The Grassy Knollistas were quick to challenge the coins’ citizenship. Were they natural-minted coins? Were any of them from, say, Canada? Is our next president being chose by a perfidious foreign Looney or Tooney and not by a God-fearing, Yankee-Doodle Susan B. Anthony?

Who would have thought that coins were permitted to vote?

If coins can decide the results of elections, then they can determine the outcome of football games. After the playing of the National Anthem, the referees, coaches, team captains, and other members of the 1% meet in the multi-million-dollar stadium paid for by working people with proper jobs, and the anointed flamen flips the sacred coin into the air, asking the gods of earth, water, fire, air, and four bars of connectivity to pick a winner.

And so it comes to pass, but not with a pass.

One team sulks and demands an instant replay, the other team sprays fizzy-water from Flint, Michigan about wastefully, and everyone goes home with his neuromuscular systems intact.

Everyone takes away a Chinese tee reading “I Survived SuperDooperBowl L” and featuring a graphic of a groundhog voting because, after all, this is what the lads suffered and died for at Valley Forge.

-30-

Christmas Lights in February - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

(Of indolence I have not taken down the lights on the back porch. Louisiana ‘Cajun acquaintances advise me that adding a few purple and gold ribbons transforms Christmas lights into Mardi Gras lights.)

Christmas Lights in February

Lingering lights, bright Christmas lights, aglow
In merry defiance of the darkness
As winter closes in for the chill
Tiny colored lights in repudiation
Of the joyless censorship of place and time
A triumph of kitsch over criticism
A charming waste of non-renewables
A celebration of the ephemeral
Since celebration is itself eternal -
Lingering lights, bright Christmas lights, aglow

Descent - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Descent

The moon has not yet risen above the trees
Nor has the frost yet fallen upon the fields
January stars, blue, brilliant, and cold
Halo an aircraft marked in flickering lights
Every seat-back standing at attention
Lap straps fastened, tray tables locked away
Attendants making a last litter patrol
“The temperature in Houston tonight is…”
An old canvas bag on the carousel
And who will be waiting at the exit?

Cleopatra's Royal Barge - op-ed

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Queen Cleopatra’s Royal Barge

Palace courtiers are even now ensuring that their next master will be presented with yet another Imperial Death Star upon his or her earthly apotheosis. There are already some seven or eight cars (“limousine” is a low-prole usage) in the presidential harem, but court functionaries know how important it is to keep the Grandissimus Supreme Sultan, Republican or Democrat, entertained with newer and more expensive toys and luxuries.

Just why any president should swan about in a Wal-Mart-size sled that even the sleaziest drug dealer would dismiss for its vulgarity eludes the thoughtful citizen of this republic.

The answer, known to office-gnomes throughout history, is that without expensive diversions the sultan-aspirant might have time to remember that he was elected to be the servant of the people, not their all-knowing, all-wise, all-this-and-that autocrat, and begin to wonder why he is obscured by a cloud of unctuous briefcase carriers and door openers.

The recent history of the presidency indicates clearly what a psychological god-emperor temptation the White House is. Early in every election cycle each candidate drifts into referring to himself in that pompous first-person-plural – “we” instead of “I.” Already he is / they are anticipating sitting in the big chair behind the big desk, playing with the little buttons that light up and summon the servants.

A true queen, king, bishop, prince, emperor, or other noble personage employs the first-person-plural only when speaking officially, not otherwise. The Queen says “we” when giving a speech from the throne, but at all other times remembers the “I.” The distinction is lost on the not-so-humble successors to the humble rail-splitter, Honest Abe.

No recent president has seemed to avoid confusing self with state, and none has cried “Away with this bauble!” (Oliver Cromwell was a regicide, a mass-murderer, and a genocidal maniac, but this one quotation from him is useful) when presented with fleets of giant flying palaces and show-off automobiles, and battalions of Praetorians and Streltsy (some of them sober).

No presidential candidate has promised abstinence from courtiers and palaces and toys and the arrogance of power. Not even the Socialist candidate has said he will forswear the presidential fripperies paid for by the sweat of the workers he purports to love.

In Ye Olden Days a Roman emperor on his inauguration was said to have been assigned a functionary to whisper constantly a repeated caution during the procession. The phrase might be loosely translated as “Man, you ain’t no thing; you’re just a guy who’s going to die like everyone else, so don’t get the big head.”

If that is not true, it ought to be, and it ought to be true now.

And the first thing the new president should do is get rid of all the Queen Cleopatra-ish royal barges as part of his first duty – to remain connected with humanity.

-30-

For Otto Rene Castillo - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

For Otto Rene Castillo

“…and there burned away in them…tenderness and life”

From “Intelectuales Apoliticos”
Translated by Rev. Raphael Barousse, OSB

Cloud-castles swirl among the mountain peaks
While lower down the jaguar rules and roars
And lower still, along a dusty road
A benevolence of United Fruit

The army burns a broken man to death
His final scream a hymn of victory
Ascending with the sacred smoke and ash
As incense over the altars of the poor

A blessing on the land of eternal spring
Hope swirling down like clouds from the mountain peaks

A Proletarian Fellowship of Death - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Proletarian Fellowship of Death

To have been lost in Indo-China is
A core, a center asymmetrical
Perhaps a hinge, or some other weary
Metaphor for one’s life, a series of
Experiences in no time without time
Frivolous merriment and satanic horrors
Which have led or misled, influenced, moved,
Inspired, infected, focused, fuzzed
Almost every thought, intent, act, motion
That can be credited or discredited
To those of us who were in confusion there
And who have come to realize or been made
To realize this late in life that all -
All - is predicated on murders and lies
And wearing Sauron’s ring has compromised
Any claim of “Gott Mit Uns” or "S nami Bog."
Thus, given that much of one’s life is an exile -
A village shunning, an embarrassment
A stumbling memento mori denied
A former person who should go away -
One question now remains:
What’s for breakfast?

For Ngo Dinh Diem - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

For Ngo Dinh Diem

No flame eternal burns over your lost grave
Unknown beneath an hourly parking lot
Or maybe out back among the garbage cans
No guards of honor pace in mirrored boots
Forth and back in mummery choreographed
Along a field of honor’s concrete walk
No busloads of tourists leave gift-shop wreaths
No bands or speeches mark your martyrdom
Nor would you need them
Nor would you want them
For your small flame is on an Altar set

Unfinished Lines - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Unfinished Lines

January is an unfinished line
An incomplete cover judged by its book
A door ajar, a mislaid fountain pen
Unanswered letters bound with rubber bands
Or stacked and listed on a little screen
A chessboard king still menaced and in check
Wandering iambics not yet sorted out
Unfinished business from Porlock Parva -
January is but a fragment of
A life still littered with unfinished lines

Axioma Vulgare - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Axioma Vulgare

The stars benignly shine upon the earth
And earth is not alien to itself
Yu-Kiang cannot deny his purpose
Flora cannot do other than follow the sun
That which is true cannot be nothingness
And emptiness tapping upon dim planes
In a closed autophagous loop of lies
Celebrates only hollow inversions
Truth, beauty, and goodness are eternal
And stars benignly shine upon the earth

Because the Queen is More Powerful than the King? - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Because the Queen is More Powerful than the King?

“I want no more thinking!”

-Henry V in Jean Anouilh’s Becket

A grand mufti in Saudi Arabia has banned chess as antithetical to purity of thought and good order in the family-owned tyranny – hardly a true kingdom – that has spent the last eighty years suppressing numerous ancient nations and tribal groups all over the Arabian peninsula.

But one can understand his point. The idolatrous spectacle of millions of people all over the world obsessing on chess matches is an embarrassment to the right-minded. Fans have been known to riot over chess team identification and send seriously rude twoots and tweets to others for wearing the wrong chess team ball caps and tees. Chess championships often end with supporters of the winning team sneering at two-cylinder Fiats and torching Starbucks coffee cups in designated campfire areas.

Disreputable young people who play chess often lurk in well-lit libraries and try to intimidate other pawn-slingers by wearing those menacing hipster hats and speaking in complete sentences. Scary.

And then there’s the foul language common to chess thugs – saying “en passant” is not acceptable behavior in public, and “queen to queen’s pawn four” might qualify as hate speech.

America pretty much shuts down for the National Chess League’s Superboard Sunday. Friends and families gather over garden salads and gluten-free 10% whole-rice croissants to whisper enthusiastically for their favorite teams.

During advertising breaks the high demand for beverages has been known to collapse cappuccino machines.

This year’s half-time show will feature the cast of Big Bang Theory performing the provocative Dance of the Seven Slide Rules. Let’s just hope Bob Newhart doesn’t suffer a wardrobe malfunction.

Thank goodness the world has the super-civilized Family Saud to stop the blood-crazed madness of chess and guide humanity in the paths of righteousness and clean living through arbitrary edicts and mass executions.

Now that chess has been banned, no doubt the grand mufti will next investigate Candyland and Scrabble for treasonable sentiments.

One can only imagine the mentality of an old dude with a beard that looks like it was culled from Donald Trump’s hairpiece sitting around and finding evil and dirty-mindness in board games.

We have people like that here, of course, but Old Ms. Grundy can’t have anyone’s head chopped off.

And what, really, is a mufti, grand or otherwise? Is there a baby grand mufti that you could stand in a bay window for impressing the neighbors?

Yes, chess offends the grand mufti; indeed, it frightens him because chess requires thinking. Once people start thinking, tyrants start trembling on their stolen thrones.

-30-

Humility Unbidden - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Humility Unbidden

Humility comes upon us when it will
Bidding us rise from ill-remembered dreams
To pace the darkness in a Tenebrae
Of guttering candles in irregular sequence
Those false expectations now burning low
That only punctuate a forlorn night
And give humanity neither warmth nor light
In the clock-ticking hours of nothingness
When even the pillows seem exhausted -
Humility comes upon us when it will

Road Breakfast - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Road Breakfast

Greasy spoons are a little too clean these days
After the sweet incense of cigarette smoke
Was purged by a Vatican II of health
Along with the morning paper. It’s all
Plastic tablets and gourmet coffees now
Multi-colored packets of chemicals
Flatware in little cellophane envelopes
Bright cartoon tees instead of stained work shirts
Cross-trainers where muddy boots used to rest -
Greasy spoons are just too d****d clean these days

Ella's Unicorns - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Ella’s Unicorns

There is no reason why pale unicorns
Should not cavort in frosty fields at night
Or dragons play around the moonlit pond
Annoying the naughty naiads bathing there
For startime is the magic dreamy time
When flowers and leaves are given whispering speech
And laughing faeries flit from tree to tree
In games of hide-and-seek until the dawn
The world would be strange without unicorns
Cavorting in the frosty fields at night

Nancy Drew, Multi-Cultural Young Person Detective - essay

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Nancy Drew, Multi-Cultural Young Person Detective

CBS Entertainment president Glenn Geller, channeling Sir Roderick Spode and the Black Shorts, has decreed that the new Nancy Drew, girl detective, must meet specific racial criteria in adherence to the zeitgeist.

Geller-Spode’s thesis is that Nancy Drew can be of any ethnicity except Caucasian, whatever Caucasian is. And who decides? On what basis? Is one drop of inferior franco-russo-italo-hispano-anglo-and-stuff blood toxic enough to taint out of existence the possibility of a young actress with the wrong genetic coding being banned from ever dashing about in Nancy’s little blue roadster?

A photograph of Mr. Geller, a seriously white dude, indicates that by the standards he imposes on others he is not racially qualified for his job. And that he needs to shave. Really. It’s like he’s trying to be Leonardo’s bear.

Just what the world needs, another white man giving everyone else orders about gender and culture. Maybe like the Oscars™ nominating committee.

Hollywood auditions may now demand DNA tests and the scientific measurement of knees.

And must Nancy Drew be, well, a girl at all? Couldn’t a transgendered Bill Cosby qualify?

CBS has not yet said whether a birth certificate from a government hospital in Calgary will be a disqualifier. A fear greater than the peril of Caucasiananityness is that someone’s blood might be irreparably contaminated by a soupcon (that’s, like, French, y’know) of Tim Horton’s coffee.

Be on the alert for any signs of The Northern Peril, citizens! Nancy might seem like a good Yankee Doodle American teenager, but has she ever been heard to end a sentence with that imperialist “eh,” eh? Does she sometimes whisper “Je me souviens” when she think’s no one’s listening? If so, confiscate her junior detective notebook immediately and escort her to the nearest block warden post of The Black Shorts. The Ottawa-Dawson Axis must be contained. They can see Alaska from The Yukon, you know.

Word on that metaphorical street is that a Texas attorney will demand that the Supreme Court rule on whether Nancy Drew is really a Hardy Boy in denial.

Nancy Drew’s next adventure is to discover just what that thing lurking on Donald Trump’s head is.

The Clinton campaign underestimated Nancy Drew.

The President is said to have said “If you like your Nancy Drew, you can keep your Nancy Drew.”

Donald Trump proclaimed “I’ll make Nancy Drew great again!” Senator Cruz rebutted him with “My opponent represents Nancy Drew values, while I represent Trixie Belden values!”

And if ya think all that’s weird – though not as weird as this election cycle – wait until CBS transforms Hank the Cow Dog into Fluffy the Vegetarian Persian Kitty.

And let the people say “Icon.”

-30-

The Yet-Again Catholic Literary Revival That's Really, Really Going to Take Off This Year - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Yet-Again Catholic Literary Revival
That’s Really, Really Going to Take off This Year

There’s more to Catholic poetry than
Nailing an adverb to a crucifix
Repeatedly troping from the Inklings
And claiming a circlet of preciousness

There’s more to Catholic prose than me-ness
Setting one’s self in a My Middle-Earth
Clutching a rosary of first-person pronouns
And What I Learned From shallow allusions

The revival will begin when Catholics
Write about others, not about themselves

Romantic Arctic Frogs - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Romantic Arctic Frogs

Are frogs cold-blooded? Or merely stupid?
A freeze tonight – and they’re playing Cupid!

Coins and Raindrops - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Coins and Raindrops

There is much to be said for January:
The barn coat in whose pockets you find coins
Left over from a coffee run last year
Spare change from the last chilly day of spring
Dark-webbing trees framing rain-heavy clouds
As fragments of a painting never finished
By an artist of the mind dreaming through
His afternoon walk among expectations
That need not be fulfilled this side of dusk -
There is much to be said for January

Closing the Air France Loophole

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Closing the Air France Loophole

“We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.”

- Henry V

Should Air France be required to apply for a federal firearms license?

In 2014 Air France delivered an American He(ck)fire missile to those merry mass murderers the Castro brothers in Cuba.

One imagines the cabin attendant on the speaker: “Mesdames et messieurs, welcome aboard Air France Flight 13 to a retrograde Communist state with a human rights record superior to that of North Korea. For those of you in Euphemism Class we have complimentary champagne since in the cargo hold directly below you we’re carrying an American missile, and, gosh, we don’t know how it got there or what it might do. For those of you in Paid-for-by-Your-Corporation-or-Government Class, continue your accustomed denial of proletarian reality.”

The sloppy, ahistorical sentimentality of old comrades has folks wanting to visit Cuba “before it’s ruined.” A He(ck)fire missile could ruin a1956 DeSoto, that’s for sure.

Beyond the creaking old Yank-tank automobiles, Cuba has much to offer the sightseer: Spanish colonial architecture, tobacco and sugar plantations, rum, nightclubs, music, seafood, beaches, and mass graves.

Although Air France delivered the lost or stolen American missile to Cuba two years ago, the most transparent American government in history is only now letting the American people know about it.

But then, a number of people around the world think several American governments have been a bit careless with missiles the past few decades.

Perhaps the empty seat at the State of the Union address will be taken from an Air France plane.

The alligator-shoe boys assure the American people that the missile was not loaded. Coming from the same clever fellows who sacrificed hundreds of innocent Mexican and American lives by giving combat weapons to international drug warlords, this assurance might not be as reliable as one would hope.

There could be another empty seat representing the victims of gangsters armed by the American government.

And maybe another empty chair for those Americans abandoned to their deaths at Benghazi.

When the President appears before the Castro brothers later this year, perhaps he will ask them pretty-please to give the missile back now that the Russians and North Koreans have taken their pictures, measurements, and souvenirs. The Castro brothers might agree, but only if Americans promise to be more careful with their toys because that missile could have shot somebody’s eye out.

And, hey, was anyone with Air France charged under Cuban law for bringing an unregistered weapon into the country?

-30-

Liturgical Dance - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Liturgical Dance

The liturgy has always served as dance
Timed to the courteis of the universe
Choreographed with planets, moons, and stars
To celebrate and sing and taste the Truth

Thus every gesture, every careful step
Leaps wildly across the sacred arc of time
And circling ‘round, and ‘round again all meet
In elevation silent within a Cup

But pause and kneel now at the sacring bell:
The liturgy has always been a dance

The Feast of the Epiphany This Year - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Feast of the Epiphany This Year

If the Three Kings were to visit today
They’d need the proper paperwork
Passports and visas, and what is the purpose
Of your visit? A check through INTERPOL
A cavity search by rubbery hands
An escort armed with bribes and Kalashnikovs
Through tourists armed with me-phones, selfie sticks
And cardboard chalices, following a Starbuck’s
Searching the East for a wondrous ATM
If the Three Kings were to visit today

Sunlight Falling Upon a Cinder Block Wall - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Sunlight Falling Upon a Cinder Block Wall

Each sunrise falls like blessings, slowly down
A wall of lowest-bidder cinder blocks
All pin-striped by long streaks from seasons and storms
And splash-back eaves of indifferent design
Night’s dampness steams away, warmed by the sun
Or drip-drip-drips into the summer grass
There welcomed warm by leaf and stem and earth
As they begin their office of the day
In offering work and praise unto the light -
Each sunrise flows like blessings, softly down

Bishops on Monastic Retreat - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Bishops on Monastic Retreat

A few spiky mitres among the cowls -
One hopes holy bishops don’t pinch the towels

Octave Sunday - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Octave Sunday

The bishops say this is Epiphany
This silvery-grey Sunday in the Octave
With church ladies clucking over the schedules
Of lectors and servers and commentators
Eucharistic ministers who aren’t here
Are you first cup? Well, I can be. Would you?
And does the Christmas tree come down today?
And monthly luncheon in the hall after Mass
This is all very Ordinary Time but
The bishops say this is Epiphany

The Coyotes Have Taken the Night Off - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Coyotes Have Taken the Night Off

Winter at last - the night is silent and cold
The moon and stars obscured by clouds all week
Even the coyotes have taken the night off
There is no symbolism; it’s just nice

Contra Julius and Gregory - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Julius and Gregory

A year does not fail, because there are no years
There are only seasons dancing through being
The choreography of Creation
Written with meteors dreamed out of stars
And so the first day of January
Is the thirty-second of December
And neither is either or even itself
But only a mark that says left foot forward
Continuing a step from beyond forever
The year does not fail, because there are no years

The Aesthetic Joys of a Calendar with Pictures

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Aesthetic Joys of a Calendar with Pictures

Picture calendars are nice. Facing the new day is easier if the first thing you see is a picture of puppies or sailboats. Otherwise you might be alarmed by looking into the mirror and having to ask yourself “Who is that old man?” A cold, grey dawn is not the time for introspection.

At the bookstores calendars are discounted after the beginning of the new year, and while the dachshunds are all gone you might find some kittens or airplanes or icebergs off Newfoundland. Italian scenes are always popular, although trying to sort out The Leaning Tower of Pisa while waking up could lead to a skewed perception of reality.

Imagine living in Pisa and seeing the leaning tower most every day. You’d be asking yourself if it’s going to fall today, or maybe tomorrow. Maybe you could petition the city council to go ahead and knock it down so no one would have to worry about it ever again. But what would visitors then do for photographs? They’d have to take gag pictures of each other holding up a coffee shop or something.

Beagle puppies are fun. You cannot look at a calendar picture of beagle puppies and not feel optimistic about the coming day at work.

Cats, well, maybe. Cats are decorative, but, really, how much fun are room accessories that might choose to hiss and spit at any time? Soooo Harry Pottery.

In Ye Olden Days the calendars in barracks, fire stations, cop shops, and dorm rooms tended to be of a somewhat, um, frivolous nature. Given the Comrade Grundy grimness of popular culture just now one supposes that Miss April has been taken out and shot, and her amusing image replaced by a collective photograph of diverse assemblies of DNA sternly examining an algebra book for insensitivity and cultural occupation.

The English word “calendar” comes from the Latin word “calends” or “kalends,” originally referring to the first day of the week. It has come to mean the measurement of the solar year for the inconvenience of humans. Really smart people who do thinky-stuff tell us that humans have always constructed calendars – Sumerians, Akkadian, Chinese, Hebrew, Roman, Julian, and Gregorian, among others.

The calendar makes it possible for the left-brained among us to discuss the meteorological significance of the 21st of September as the autumn equinox and the first day of autumn, while the more practical individual simply opens the door to determine whether he will need a coat.

Just before Christmas funeral homes begin giving away Christian calendars marked with all the usual dates and lunar indications as well as religious observances. Thus, beneath “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” you can write “Men’s Bible Class Barbecue,” and on the occasion of the beheading of St. Thomas More pencil in “Haircut – maybe closer this time.”

A calendar can note a full moon, but it cannot anticipate that the children will run barefoot around the backyard and chase lightnin’ bugs through a long summer dusk while waiting for it to rise. A calendar cannot replicate the hypnotic humming of cicadas under the noonday sun on a still, gaspingly hot day in July, nor can it communicate the joy one feels when, on a 90-degree afternoon in October, the wind suddenly shifts north and blesses the hot, tired earth with the first cool breezes since May.

In old movies a narrative technique to indicate the passing of time was to have an offscreen fan turn the pages of a desk calendar. Life doesn’t really pass that fast, though sometimes it seems that way.

But a calendar of happy pictures will help begin the day. That’s better than staring into a grumpy old face in the mirror.

-30-

Now There Are Four - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Now There Are Four

For Violet Maria Petty

Born on the Commemoration of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, 2015

The sweetest gift under the Christmas tree -
Saint Thomas now bless you, dear fourth little V!

Bonfire Deferred - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Bonfire Deferred

If there is no Christmas bonfire this year
And Epiphany drifts into January
Lit only by the silent dance of stars
Serving in the office of votive lights
In peaceful solitude while through the trees
Coyote sings for his elusive supper
We’ll plan the children’s bonfire for next year
Sparklers and firecrackers and merry laughter
Built from the happy glow of memories
If there is no Christmas bonfire this year

Contra Julius and Gregory - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Julius and Gregory

A year does not fail, because there are no years
There are only seasons dancing through being
The choreography of Creation
Written with meteors dreamed out of stars
And so the first day of January
Is the thirty-second of December
And neither is either or even itself
But only a mark that says left foot forward
Continuing a step from beyond forever -
The year does not fail, because there are no years

Why We Love James Bond - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Why We Love James Bond

He drives too fast, he drinks, he bets,
He smokes too many cigarettes!

Peter's Pence - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Peter’s Pence

After Belloc, The Path to Rome

What capital did Saint Peter possess?
A pair of shoes, perhaps, a coat, a stick
A bitter memory of a dead-cold night
And happier memories of sails and ships
Of sunrise over the sea, and fish-heavy nets
And not so many words to burden a man
But only the Word - the Word and then the Cup
And a Chair which he found uncomfortable
His final inventory was written in red
What capital did Saint Peter possess?

Bread of the Presence - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Bread of the Presence

For Victoria,
In thanks for a gift of challah

For the people of the Word, and of bread:
Manna and matzo are the breads of flight
Of exile and wandering, Passover,
Diaspora, the Pale of Settlement,
And always “next year in Jerusalem…”
But challah is the bread of victory
A double portion of the kindness of G-d
The Temple built again in every home
Where the kitchen table is the Altar
And the blessing begins “Baruch atah…”

We Are One Debris - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

We Are One Debris

A paper napkin with a turkey on it
Discarded outside by an errant child
Culturally appropriates among the leaves
It seems to want to join its fallen brothers
Raw and natural in their native state
In multicultural deconstructions
Like, you know, all spiritual and stuff
Becoming one existential leaf-mold
Filtered through November’s hipster glasses
A paper napkin with a turkey on it

Welding and Philosophy

Lawrence Hall Hall, HSG
Mhal46184@aol.com

Welding and Philosophy

Recently a candidate for public office stated that America needs fewer philosophers and more welders.

Someone countered this allegation, and then someone else counter-countered, and then I turned the page and read the funnies.

One concludes that those promoting this artificial quarrel are neither welders nor philosophers, for while not all philosophers are welders, all welders are philosophers.

“Philosophy” (I’m told the word is Greek; I don’t know any Greek beyond “Kyrie Eleison.”) means, quite simply, love of wisdom. By extension, philosophy applies to rational thought.

Roget’s International Thesaurus, 3rd Edition, 1962 lists 68 elementary metals, 101 alloy metals, and eight leaf metals. This fifty-year-old book, an ordinary desk reference for any reader, mentions 177 different metals. A welder would respond with “Only 177? What a quaint old book. This must be for children, for there are many more metals than that.” The welder knows this because he is a philosopher, a lover of wisdom.

Welding is the science of applied metallurgy. A welder accomplishes a lifetime of study and a whole lot of rational thinking in order to cut, bend, blend, and shape those 177+ metals or any combination thereof in the ways he (or she) wants. The welder does not cut, bend, blend, or shape those metals without a plan. He cannot plan to cut, bend, blend, or shape metals without a deep knowledge of metallurgy, electricity, chemistry, physics, geometry, gasses, health, safety, and goodness knows what else. A welder might cut, bend, blend, and shape metals on a high building on a high mountain, where the changing air means he must adjust his chemistry, or far beneath the waves, where he must adjust his chemistry, know all about deep-water diving, and watch out for sharks.

A welder must also ask himself if he may with good conscience cut, bend, blend, and shape metals for specific purposes. If he is part of a team maintaining an oil field his conscience is clear, for despite the facile opinions – hardly rational thoughts - of the shallow-minded, drilling for oil is a very good thing. Without oil we don’t exist. If, however, a welder is asked to help construct a gallows, a bomb, a warship, or some other engine for the destruction of his fellow humans he will want to search his soul in the matter. Sergeant Kalashnikov may have developed his rifle with only the safety of the Soviet state in mind, but in the end neither he nor the Soviet State could control his invention, which has since been used against the Soviet State, its successor state, and lots of other folks.

To infer, then, that a welder is not a philosopher is a failure in philosophy, a failure to think, a failure to love wisdom. One might as well (or unwell) say that a woman cannot be a mother because she is also a daughter and a doctor, that a pilot cannot also be a cowboy and a merchant, or that Saint Paul could not be an Apostle because he was also a tentmaker and a Roman citizen. All humans, as Plato is said to have said (I’ll ask him the next time I see him), by nature want to know things. Knowledge does not come packaged in discrete categories. Thus, a farmer is by nature a biologist, chemist, geologist, and lots of other things, and to put all this knowledge together, that is, to synthesize it, he must also be a philosopher. Dreams and wishes and hopes and ideologies do not make the corn grow.

A politician who makes a public statement suggesting that philosophers and welders are discrete categories of being is either not thinking or is thinking malevolently. Perhaps the politician does not want philosophers – that is, ordinary thinkers – because they might examine his finances, his writings and speeches, his ideologies, and his actions with and against others, and determine for themselves whether or not he is worthy to represent them.

Roman legend speaks of Cincinnatus, a farmer and a wise man (for they are the same thing), who was plowing his field when a deputation of citizens came to ask him to lead Rome and save the City from invaders and from its factions. So Cincinnatus left his plow, took his cloak from the fence post where he had laid it, and went to rule Rome for a year. When the year was over, and Rome was saved, Cincinnatus returned to his farm, flung his old cloak over the same fence post, and continued his plowing.

That’s the stuff – not a philosopher-king, but a philosopher-worker.

Tyrannies cannot exist if there are philosophers; republics cannot exist without them.

-30-

When Walls Suffer a Mussolini-as-a-Hippie Complex

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

When Walls Suffer a Mussolini Complex

Can you remember the last time you visited someone’s house and it didn’t have all those hippie commandments posted all over the walls? You know, those pretend-antique signs telling you to do stuff, like “DANCE AS IF NO ONE IS LOOKING.”

The logical rejoinder would be “Why the (Newark) should I?” but then you’d be talking back to a sign.

And then there is “EAT. LOVE. PRAY.”

Really, does anyone need a made-in-China sign tacked to the wall in order to remember to eat? One longs to see a sign that says “STARVE. HATE. INDULGE IN VAGUE, FUZZY THOUGHTS.”

People’s walls are beginning to look like jail reception areas, or maybe a cosmic boot camp, only with crystals and some groovy Peter, Paul, and Mary sounds instead of “NO SMOKING,” “REMAIN SEATED,” “NO TALKING,” and “STAND ON THE YELLOW FOOTPRINTS.”

Here’s another Miz Bossy Beatnik life instruction: “LIFE ISN’T ABOUT WAITING FOR THE STORM TO PASS. IT’S ABOUT LEARNING TO DANCE IN THE RAIN.” Well, just as you wish, but if you dance in the rain around here you’re likely to get struck by lightning.

“LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED.” Oh, I dunno, something to eat, clothes, shelter – these are needful too

“DO NOT FOLLOW WHERE THE PATH MAY LEAD. GO INSTEAD WHERE THERE IS NO PATH AND LEAVE A TRAIL.” The problem here is that the National Park Service posts their own signs telling you not to do any such thing.

“FOLLOW YOUR HEART.” Aw, now, couldn’t you follow your pancreas instead?

‘THINK DEEPLY, SPEAK GENTLY, LOVE MUCH, LAUGH A LOT, WORK HARD, GIVE FREELY, AND BE KIND.” Wait, wait, don’t tell me – that’s from the Bible. Or Shakespeare. Or NCIS.

“BREATHE BELIEVE EMBRACE SHARE SMILE LOVE LIVE LAUGH CREATE TRUST CARE BREATHE CARE SING.” Yes, I believe those sentiments come from the Internal Revenue Service. Or maybe that was a comforting little something Sergeant Schneider sang as a lullaby to us lads at Camp Pendleton.

Even Christmas candies now tell us what to do. The foil wrapper around a chocolate ordered me to “HIT SNOOZE X 5.” The sequel to that would be my boss advising me that my services are no longer required.

Another wrapper instructed me to “GET LOST ON PURPOSE.” Happily, I’m not a truck driver.

And another: “BECAUSE YOU CAN.” Because you can what? Is there a cause that goes with that because? Is there a moral or ethical sanction functioning here?

Only one bossy sign would sound just right: “TAKE DOWN THE BOSSY SIGNS TELLING PEOPLE WHAT TO DO.”

Let us return to decorating our walls with lovely pictures instead of with edicts. Something classy, like dogs playing poker.

-30-

Santa Claus Hijacks a Helicopter

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Santa Claus Being Bad

Santa Claus began Advent by hijacking a helicopter in Brazil.

A man dressed as the larcenous old elf hired a helicopter at a Sao Paulo airfield for a flight. Santa then forced the pilot to set the aircraft down in a rural area where he and that girl from Ipanema tied up the pilot, abandoned him, and flew away singing “And to all a good night!”

Suspicion immediately fell upon the USA’s jolly Secret Service, those merry pranksters loaded with booze and automatic weapons. If an undocumented helicopter appears in the presidential fleet, questions might be asked in Whoopsie’s Adult Night Club just off K Street in the Magic Kingdom of D.C.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump immediately blew to the occasion: “We’ve, got, y’see, these mobs of alien Santa Clauses flying over our borders and no one but I can stop ‘em.”

President-Elect Hillary Clinton denied receiving any campaign contributions from Santa Claus.

The president of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, threatened to shoot down the helicopter if it violated Turkish air space, Turkish air space being whatever Mr. Erdogan says it is.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia took off his shirt and punched out a shopping mall Santa in St. Petersburg.

Students at the University of Missouri demanded that reporters stop talking about Santa Claus pinching a helicopter since this takes attention away from them and their specialness.

The Dalai Lama said “Let us be one with the crystals of helicopterness so that the healing sands of peace and harmony may sift through the holistic sunrise of the optimal oversoul and actuate the full potential of my 501C.”

The United Nations voted a resolution blaming the helicopter theft on global warming, and sent Americans workers the bill.

Fox News demanded boots on the ground for nation-building at the North Pole. Fox News says boots on the ground because boots on the ground sounds ever so much nicer than saying young Americans are to be killed in yet another undeclared war.

Local television outlets all over the world labeled the helicopter hijacking iconic because the FCC requires them to use the term several times during every broadcast. They don’t know what it means; they just say it.

In response to the Santa helicopter threat, West Point armed all its cadets with semi-secret M24 Flying Pillows of Death.

Westboro (who don’t know how to spell “borough”) Not-Really-Baptist Church blamed Starbuck’s.

China declared the helicopter to be sovereign Chinese territory.

In the Hallmark Christmas movie version the helicopter hijacker is a newly-widowed father and stockbroker named Ridge whose adorable little daughter Chloe-Zoe is conflicted about why Santa Claus allowed her mother to die. Ridge didn’t really hijack a helicopter; he only rented it to make some plot-gap point to Chloe-Zoe. The helicopter pilot is Brooke, a spunky, independent, thirty-something single woman who doesn’t believe in Santa Claus. Ridge and Brooke meet-cute and then they hear jingle bells and fall in love and get married while snowflakes fall and Chloe-Zoe gives a thumbs-up to the generic central-casting clergyman whom she knows to be Santa Claus in disguise.

Santa Claus stealing a helicopter - that makes no more sense than people beating up each other for discount vegetable steamers for Christmas.

-30-

Christmas - It's All About Stealing Other People's Exploding Stuff

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Christmas – It’s All About Stealing Other People’s Exploding Stuff

Most people, the sort who have jobs and lives, first learned of the existence of they-don’t-really-hover-boards through news reports of house fires and robberies.

They-don’t-really-hover-boards are battery-powered toys upon which the operator stands while the gadget wheels him or her about until its batteries perish. Then the operator charges the batteries until they explode and set fire to everything around them. They’re sort of like a certain American-made electric car, only with two wheels instead of four.

They-don’t-really-hover-boards are expensive, flimsy, prone to self-arson, and useless. Naturally they are very desirable to those for whom Star Wars is their religion and Che Guevera is their prophet.

Doubtless there are deputations of the cartoon-tee-shirted appealing to city councils everywhere to commit millions of tax dollars to build they-don’t-really-hover-board parks so that, following the success of midnight basketball, the Republic might be saved from cultural and moral decay.

The theft of they-don’t-really-hover-boards has become as common as fist-fights in the Ukrainian parliament. In Wisconsin a man (so to speak) put a gun to a seven-year-old girl’s head in order to rob her of her it-doesn’t-really-hover-board. Thus the poor girl was endangered twice, first by a lemming parent who gave her an explosive device and then by a worm with a firearm.

There’s nothing that says “man” like stealing a toy from a child at gunpoint.

When that he-man takes the stolen it-doesn’t-really-hover-board to his room and its batteries start a fire that destroys all his Will Ferrell posters, will he sue the kid for microaggression?

Donald Trump will promise to stop all they-don’t-really-hover-boards at the borders, Marco Rubio will ask for the child’s credit card number, Bernie Sanders will demand free they-don’t-really-hover-boards for all the unemployed, Hillary Clinton will deny taking illegal campaign contributions from the little girl, Ted Cruz will blame Canada, Sinead O’Connor will blame the Pope, the President will blame the renegade culture of assault batteries, Moustache Guy on Fox News will blame public schools, Turkey will blame Russia, and Vladimir Putin will rip off his shirt and take down a Toys ‘R’ Us with one punch, maybe two.

Isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

-30-

Prince Albert's Christmas

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Prince Albert’s Christmas

Even the best prepared among us cannot anticipate everything contingency, and so everyone finds himself (the pronoun is gender-neutral) in a series of traffic jams and shopping lines just before Christmas, feeling that perhaps Scrooge was right.

Advent, after all, is intended to be a season of quiet reflection, not a descent into the serial cruelties of a Secret Santa gift exchange. Cue Scrooge stealing Tiny Tim’s crutch.

And then there is the annual cycle of What Christmas is Really All About selfies on the telescreen, as if that topic weren’t covered far more accurately in the Gospels.

One cannot get through Advent without being told yet again that the happy little nonsense song about the twelve days of Christmas is a secret Catholic catechism. Sure, and each candy cane is poisoned by cackling vampire Jesuit Templar Masonic spies who are guardians of Jesus’ earthly DNA which they have concealed for centuries in a mysterious glowing brussels sprout buried in a Prince Albert can behind a convenience store directly across from Oak Island in Nova Scotia in a direct solar-lunar-astral line with Jerusalem which must be true because it was on tellyvision.

Heaven knows what dark mysteries silly men who ought to know better might find in “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

Since your ‘umble scrivener has not been vouchsafed any new revelations about Christmas, he submits instead a few family-friendly, non-Scrooge, no-shopping-required wheezes suitable for Twelfth-Night merriment around a merry bonfire:

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “Why, yes, son, we do.”
Small boy: “Then you’d better let him out before he suffocates!”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “Why, no, son, we don’t.”
Small boy: “Uhhh…”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “Prince Albert is, like, you know, so yesterday. However, we do have a festive selection of cigars rolled from Cuban-seed tobacco by barefoot maidens who breathe clean mountain air and think pure thoughts. Now this cigar, the Hoya de Bulgaria, is a bargain at only $25 plus applicable taxes.”
Small boy: “I sure miss Prince Albert.”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “Yes, and he needs to get out; people are waiting in line.”
Small boy: “Uhhh…”

Small boy making a prank call: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Receptionist: “You dialed the wrong number; this is the No Puffin hotline.”
Small boy: “Uhhh…”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “A can of what?”
Small boy: “Uhhh…”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “I say, young chap, this is England. You should ask if we have Prince Albert in a tin.”
Small boy: “Uhhh…”

Small boy to store clerk: “Mister, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
Clerk: “This is Newfoundland, lad. You should ask if we have Prince Albert in a tin, eh.”
Small boy: “Eh?”

Whenever we hear a good joke, a real groaner, we think of those who would enjoy it. But sometimes we realize that a dear friend is no longer with us. This is as true during Advent or Christmas as any other time as we remember with sadness someone who was at the Christmas Eve liturgy last year is not here this year. And so the joke remains unsaid, or perhaps sent only in silence, as the candles are lit in the darkness. The universe is said to have no limits at all, so merry laughter too must a part of the eternal merry Christmas.

-30-

Thanksgiving - Places for Everyone

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Thanksgiving – Places for Everyone

Somehow there are places enough for everyone
A tectonic shifting of tableware
A tsunami of saucers, plates, and bowls
The good Thanksgiving and Christmas settings
A rare bottle of Chateau du Supermarket
Gallons of iced tea, and soda for the kids
So many at the children’s table this year
And who will now sit in Grandfather’s place?
This year he dines at that Table in Paradise
Where there are always places enough for everyone

Aves Lost and Found - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Aves Lost and Found

Like years one’s Aves softly slip away
Across the lips and heart as songs of love
Unlike lost years, one’s Aves come again

The Chestnut Street Cafe - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Chestnut Tree Café

Another glass or two of Victory gin
A drag on a Victory cigarette
A game of chess, idle conversation
Nothing to do now, and no place to go
A corner table just for them
Ungoods confessed and shriven by the State
Cautionary examples doing penance
Beneath the ever-busy telescreen
Purging themselves of ambiguities
Awaiting only the bullet of love

Old Robes - Poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Old Robes

“Lest our old robes sit easier than our new”
-Macbeth II.iiii

A re-sale blazer is liturgical
The appointed vestment for ordinary time
Dignified, yet humble and comfortable
Vested in the sacristy at Goodwill
Five dollars’ worth of human dignity
Free of ornaments and advertisements
A good old coat, blessed in its past owner
Now tried before the looking glass, approved
Then out onto the altar of the world
To celebrate again the mass of life

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!