Borodin: On the Steppes of Central Asia - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Borodin: On the Steppes of Central Asia

Lost in a remote province of the mind
A youth attends to the cheap gramophone
Again: On the Steppes of Central Asia,
A recording by a mill town orchestra
Of no repute. But it is magic still:

While washing his face and dressing for work
In a clean, pressed uniform of defeat,
For ten glorious minutes he is not
A function, a shop-soiled proletarian
Of no repute. Beyond the landlord’s window,

Beyond the power lines and the pot-holed street,
He searches dawn’s horizons with wary eyes
For wild and wily Tartars, horsemen out
To blood the caravans for glory and gold.
A youth greets the day as he truly is:

A cavalryman, a soldier of the Czar,
Whose uniform is glorious with victory.

Happy Merry Hallothanksmas - column

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Happy Merry Hallothanksmas

Halloween, an occasion of insanity for which no honest pagan would ever take credit, is long over, and we are now in a season not quite as bizarre.

Having suffered weeks of debates about who offered the first thanksgiving, and where, our attention is now turned (whether or not we wish it to be turned) to the next debate, The True Meaning of Christmas.

The four weeks prior to Christmas are the Christian season of Advent. Christmas properly begins on midnight on the 24th of December and ends with the Feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January.

But perhaps we should mention Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany only in the past tense.

These Christian seasons, along with All Saints and All Souls, have long been culturally censored by the Macy’s-Amazon Continuum, and organically recycled into one long distraction, Hallothanksmas. Some call it The Christmas Season, but this is the one thing it categorically is not. Hallothanksmas begins around the first of September and concludes with the beginning of Mardi Gras on December 26.

This cobbled-together season is honored in television shows about the Proletariat camping on the concrete outside Mega-Much-Big-Box stores the size of the Colosseum in Rome. At the appointed hour the electric bells ring out and an official opens the Gates of Consumer Heaven so that The People can crash against them and each other in a blood-sacrifice combining elements of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and a jolly good riot between the Greens and the Blues in Constantinople.

The modern Proletariat compete not for a crown of laurel or of gold, which moths and rust consumeth, but for the everlasting honor and street cred of purchasing a made-in-China television set (in the vernacular, a “flatscreen”) much like the ones they already have, no matter how many of their fellow worshippers must be wounded and killed for it.

The old Christian seasons were predicated on the salvation story, gratitude, and good, healthy merriment; Hallothanksmas is ornamented with casualty lists.

Although Hallothanksmas is mostly about consumption, theft, and violence, it is also marked with ritual meals for the survivors during which the liturgy of the word is to share gory narratives about past and anticipated surgeries and illnesses. Turkey and dressing are just not complete without a look at everyone’s laparotomy, appendectomy, and open-heart-surgery scars and detailed accounts of the children’s latest bowel movements.

But soon all this must end with the beginning of Mardi Gras and its joyful excesses and proud public exhibitions of projectile emesis.

And let The People say “Woo! Woo!” as they bow their heads reverently before their MePhones.

-30-

Black Friday - Human Lives at Deep Discounts - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Black Friday: Because Humanity was Created

for the Buy-One-Get-Two Sale

When the last American has exhausted
The last extension on the last credit card
The last order is dropped by the last drone:
The last electronic talking flashlight

The last Your Team’s Name Goes Here baseball cap
With the patented adjust-o-matic
Sizing strap that will be the envy of
All the ‘way cool guys in the neighborhood -

Will then the drones be ordered far away
To search for credit on other planets?

A Sentimental and Heartfelt Thanksgiving Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thanksgiving – It’s All About Family

Relatives are why
There are dead-bolts fitted to
All the inside doors

Gone to Glory Wearing a Beer Advert - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gone to Glory Wearing a Beer Advert

Found by a walker wandering through the woods:
Fragments of flesh, and bitten bits of bones
An ankle joint still jammed into a shoe
Sporting a checkmark, a fashionable sneak

And his tee-shirt, boasting a famous beer,
Unread in those months among the leaf-mold
As lonely winds and seasons passed over him
And the name brands abandoned to the mists

He’s gone to glory wearing a beer advert
And no one knows what any of that means

A Processional with MePhones - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Processional with MePhones

From an idea suggested by Anthony Germain,

The Duke of Suffix after the Order of Scrabble©™

In greeting students on their way to class
One speaks only to the tops of their heads
As they process in ‘tudes of ‘umble prayer
In silence each bowing to her small god

(Or “his” as the gendered pronoun might be)
Speaking to no one, detached from the world
Navigating as does the sightless bat
By strange sensations known only to them

One ‘phone, one soul – that is the ratio
And each dull brain stilled ever in statio

"We Use Cookies to Track Usage and Preferences" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“We Use Cookies to Track Usage and Preferences”

About Clever Us, the Magazine of Poetry and Thinky-ness

We print free verse about revolution
And deconstructing colonialism
The power and urgency of the story
Post-masculine dystopia redeemed

Visit our online submission system
Against the occupation resistance
As activist performance artisans
Who shape our unconventions for ourselves

Fists of ink against oppressionism
And that is why we track your usage

In a Wheelchair - His Body Mostly Broken

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Finest Health Care System in the World

In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken:
“I wish I could go fishing. I was a welder.
How long’s that doctor going to be? I’m tired.
I just don’t know how I can pay for this.

“I was doing okay ‘til I fell and broke my back.
Thirty-seven surgeries, would you believe it?
And my arm too. This catheter’s infected.
The last doctor just wouldn’t take it out.

“My Workman’s Comp’s all gone. I just don’t know.”
In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken




Culled from a waiting-room conversation (mostly a monologue)

A Ritual is Never Hollow - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Ritual is Never Hollow

A ritual is never hollow; sweet words,
Happy ancient words from the dawn of time,
Sung through the air, refreshing as a waterfall
Discovered at dusk on a marching day:

A ploughman bidding his beads to Jerusalem
A child who’d rather not sit still during Mass
A holy sister hymning along the Rhine
A wise man seeking still that elusive Star

Heal chaos through their living in the Hours -
Oh, no – a ritual is never hollow

The Super-Golly-Gee-Whiz Dog Food as Advertised on the Radio - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Super-Golly-Gee-Whiz Dog Food as Advertised on the Radio

O Alpha and Omega 3 Fish Oil
Now leach into Pup’s liver with great lust
Bring Old Blue’s lycopene to a steamy boil
Resurrect my beagle, O, yes, you must!

O fatty magnesiumed manganese
Seep into Fluffy’s geriatric joints
Pureed from a genuine Portuguese
(Lusitanian flesh never disappoints)

Heart arrhythmia, rashes, and lumbag-eeh-oh -
Trust your pet’s health to an ad on the radio!

A Rosary from Jasna Gora - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Rosary from Jasna Gora

For, as always, Our Lady of Czestochowa

and for Kirk Briggs

A little string of wooden gift shop beads
Each bead a hymn along the pilgrimage
From Nazareth to Bethlehem to - to us
Praying again the Angel’s greeting-song

A hymn of the universe sung and told,
And written 1 by Saint Luke upon a board
From the Table where all have come to share
Both feast and Feast, until the world shall end

O Lady of the Mountain Bright, please bless
Us through these humble wooden gift shop beads

1 In Orthodoxy an ikon is said to be written

Moonlight Saving Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Moonlight Saving Time

Oh, let the moonlight
Fall upon the leaves, and through
The leaves, upon…you

After The Soviet Revolution - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

More Former People

You see them, sometimes, lurking in the shadows
Slipping away furtively, trying not to be seen
They’d rather clutch a volume of Dostoyevsky
Than try to act like good, plain, honest folks

They always thought they were something special
Always thinking about stuff, reading books
Not chanting the day’s slogans when they’re told
Not joining in, still thinking the old thoughts

We don’t need them. Our Leader will provide
You see us, sometimes, dying for ration cards

A Visitor from Canada - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Visitor from Canada

Across the border she discreetly slipped
Not bothering the ICE with paperwork
They’ve got enough to do in their little booths:
“And is this visit for business or for pleasure?”

So here she is, on a bright five-pence piece
All elegant in profile, crowned and just,
Mistaken for a democratic dime
In a handful of republican change

What really is the reason for her visit?
To ‘mind us of our own nobility

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day, 2017 - The Library of Alexandria in Our Seabags

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Library of Alexandria in Our Seabags

…in the army…(e)very few days one seemed to meet a scholar, an original,

 a poet, a cheery buffoon, a raconteur, or at the very least a man of good will”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

The barracks was our university
So too the march, the camp, the line for chow
McKuen shared our ham and lima beans
John Steinbeck helped with cleaning guns and gear

(You’re not supposed to call your rifle a gun)

The Muses Nine were usually given a miss
But not Max Brand or Herman Wouk
Cowboys and hobbits and hippie poets
And a suspicious Russian or two

Tattered paperbacks jammed into our pockets:
All the world was our university

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 8, If Wars were Subject to Copyright

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If Wars were Subject to Copyright

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then candidates would have to pay a fee
Each time they appeal to the glorious past
When standing for the election, the proceeds
To fall like bloody manna on the dead
Who can never cash the checks anyway

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then Hollywood movies should pay their dues
Whenever a bold-scripted commando,
Body-waxed muscles glistening with makeup,
Advances up Hamburger-Helper Hill
With a patriotic song on his lipstick

If wars were subject to a copyright –
The generals’ memoirs, the admirals’, too,
Would pay to lighten the blighted young lives
Of soul-fragmented lads whose pain and blood
Gave the air-conditioned another star
And unctuous applause at the officers’ club

If wars were subject to a copyright -
The President would have to pay his bill
Each time he banged the lectern for a war,
The glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and dreams

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 7, Something About Life

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 7

 

Something About Life

Strelnikov: “What will you do in Varykino?”

Yuri: “Live. Just live.”

-Doctor Zhivago

The plane lifted, and the cheering was wild
And at that happy moment the pilot said
“We are now clear of Vietnamese
Territorial waters.” There was joy,
Even wilder cheering for most, and quiet
Joy for a few. For one, Karamazov
To hand, peace, and infinite gratitude.
“I’m alive,” he said to himself and to God,
“Alive. I will live, after all.” To read, to write,
Simply to live. Not for revolution,
Whose smoke poisons the air, not for the war,
Not to withdraw into that crippling self-pity
Which is the most evil lotus of all,
But to live. To read, to write.
                                                 But death comes,
Then up the Vam Co Tay, or now in bed,
Or bleeding in a frozen February ditch;
Death comes, scorning our frail, feeble, failing flesh,
But silent then at the edge of the grave,
For all graves will be empty, not in the end,
But in the very beginning of all.

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 6, Ever England

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ever England

Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb
Far up into the English summer sky
At the lingering end of a golden time
As wild young lads and aging empires die

The Hood and Rodney still the Channel guard
Against the strident Men of Destiny
Then shellfire falls; the helm is over hard
But the brave old ships keep the Narrow Sea

Dear Grandpa and the boys sport thin tin hats
In Sunday afternoon’s invasion drill
Gram says he’s too damned old for all of that
But she too smells the smoke of Abbeville

Faith does not pass with ephemeral time:
Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb

Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day - 5, For the War Correspondents Who Get it Right

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ash Wednesday in Libya

For Anthony Germain of the CBC

The wisdom of the desert is dispersed
Among the industrial monuments
To mechanized murder, wireless chaos,
And war-porn for touch-screen degenerates

On this Ash Wednesday night while smoky flares
Obscure, with false, flickering fumes, the stars
God sent to dance above those ancient lands,
You choke and weep among the ashes of

More victims of pale Herod’s shopping trips.
So of your kindness grant that we, your friends,
May wear your ashes for you on this night,
For you, a truth-teller among the liars,

And for the weary innocents who flee
The ashes of their burnt and blasted world

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 4, Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O! Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

I need no kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight...

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 3, Bad Morning,Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 3

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.

There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie;

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.


(Note re news from Texas and California: How bitterly ironic that attending religious services in the USA is now as dangerous as combat.)

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 2 - Would You Like a Downgrade? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 2

Would You Like a Downgrade?

I.
“Everything I own I’m carrying on my back,”
A shipmate said wonderingly that last day
In the recruit barracks. And it was so:
Two sets of dungarees, one pair of shoes,
Two sets of Undress Blue and then one set
Of Dress Blue B, one pair of sneaks, one pair
Of this, more sets of that, a ditty bag
Of Personal Hygiene Articles,
Officially and carefully approved,
All in a new seabag.
                                      It was enough.
How much does a man need in order to die?

II.
And now we carry mortgages, jobs, books,
Televisions, cars, hunting rifles, clocks,
Lawnmowers, bills, Sunday suits,
Monday shoes,
Plastic boxes that light up and make noise,
Fences that need repair, cats to the vet,
Air conditioners, chainsaws, queen-sized beds,
Closets that need sorting out, chests of drawers
Of things we never needed anyway,
Cameras, clawhammers, pens, reading lamps,
Scissors, and writing paper.
                                               It is too much.
How much does a man need in order to live?

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 1

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 1

 

Midwatch and Matins - Recruit Training, San Diego

In youth

Awakened by another sailor, one stands
A sleepy watch, leggings and dungarees,
A Springfield rifle at right-shoulder arms,
A-yawn, awash in midnight fog to guard
A clothesline of national importance

In age

Brought now to sudden weary wakefulness
By those eternal mysteries we muse,
Bereft by noisy day’s false comforts, we
Begin the nocturnal lessons of truth
Because some nights we must stand watch again.

The Russians are Burying Secret Spy Underwear all over America - column (a weak one, I'm afraid)

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Russians are Burying Secret Spy Underwear all over America

England’s Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/02/farmers-urged-bury-underpants-improve-quality-beef/) advises us that if you want to know how good your soil is for farming and ranching, bury your undies.

Presumably the farmer owns a spare pair.

Okay, this all sounds wholly Texas A & M-ish, but in England and Scotland farmers bury their cotton unmentionables about the place and then dig them up two months later. If the garment is bio-degraded then the soil is full of bacteria and worms and bugs and sophomores, and so healthy for crops.

If the short-shorts are intact, that bit of land is not the best place for disposing of the body.

The object for soil-testing must be cotton, and none of yer laboratory Frankenstein materials.

This agricultural news comes to you from England, Scotland, and California. The California variant is that they bury a World Series pennant and dig it up after a year.

+ + +

Canada has a new Governor General, and when you observe her mannerisms and hear her speech (http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/julie-payette-takes-on-junk-science-and-tests-the-limits-of-her-job-title/?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=mme_daily), you will be grateful that governors general no longer enjoy any real power.

The new Governor General and our President will probably be twooter Space Invaders combatants pretty soon: “Stand by photon torpedoes, Mr. Scott!”

By the way, the new GG is an astronaut. For real. She has some super accomplishments on her resume’, but this loopy, chiding, Ms. Grundy-ish first speech is awkward.

+ + +

This week I have concluded that “fake news” means any information that makes me unhappy, “Fascist” is anyone who disagrees with me, “Communist” is anyone who disagrees with me more, anything that is wrong in this nation is the fault of the Russians and / or the Ukrainians, and that for our executive and legislative branches of government name-calling and twooting abuse at each other on the InterGossip like 12-year-olds is what passes for civic discourse.

Given this crisis of confidence in the Republic, I, like any good American, have this 501C question to ask of the world: where do I sign up to be bribed by the Russians and / or Ukrainians?

-30-

A Bourgeois Committee Admiring Itself - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Bourgeois Committee Admiring Itself

A Cautionary Tale for Secessionists

The way of republics is to fall apart
Because without history, Altar, and Throne
A government is but a little boy’s blocks
Kicked over and aside upon a mood

A culture is poetry, and melodies that live
And flow with the waters, stories of kings,
Farmers and workers proud upon the land
Their heads bowed nobly when the Angelus rings

These truths make a people royal, not subject to
A bourgeois committee admiring itself

"It Could Have Been Worse" / New York City, 31 October 2017 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“It Could Have Been Worse”

New York City, 31 October 2017

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families
copycat we are Something Strong we are
not afraid plow into mowed down it could
have been worse the new normal lone wolf we

will not change the way we live our thoughts
and prayers are with the families copycat
we are Something Strong we are not afraid
plow into mowed down: “it could have been worse…”

Oh, newsman, how could it could have been worse
For the eight innocents murdered in the street?

Last Sunday after Pentecost - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Last Sunday after Pentecost

A calling-crow-cold sky ceilings the world,
Lowering the horizon to itself
All silvery and grey upon the fields
Of pale, exhausted, dry-corn-stalk summer

The earth is tired, the air is cold, the dawn
False-promises nothing but an early dusk
As calling-cold-crows crowd the world with noise,
Loud-gossiping from tree to ground to sky

Soon falling frosts and fields of ice will fold
Even those fell, foolish fowls into the depths
Of dark creek bottoms where dim ancient oaks
Hide darkling birds from wild blue northern winds

Crows squawk of Advent disapprovingly,
For Advent-autumn drifts to Christmastide
When all the good of the seasonal year
Then warms and charms the house, the hearth, the heart.

Poetry of the Occupation - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Poetry of the Occupation

“…trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new system

invented by a genius so great that they never bothered to verify its results.”

-John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Political poetry occupies the streets
Brakes squealing to a stop before an idyll
Squads of inclusive wordtroopers disembark
Into our souls to force submission and love

Armed with warrants and inquisitions
The bills of indictment already drawn
Needing only a tap upon a screen
To serve in the office of a signature

And sensitive to death the personal life -
Political poetry occupies the streets

Vaches Sans Frontieres - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Vaches Sans Frontières

An American
Cow goes “Moo.” A Canadian
Cow goes “Eh.”    Merci.

That Happy Little Dachshund Dance - poem

Lawrence Hall
mall46184@aol.com

That Happy Little Dachshund Dance

All dachshunds dance their days in happiness
And shake their bodies, tails, and ears about
And thank their humans every doggie day
With puppy kisses and yappings of joy:

     For cats to chase, for beds to muss
     For grassy lawns on which to play
     Hoovers to bark – oh, what a fuss!
     And your pillow at the end of day

For dogs still live in Eden, and that is why
All dachshunds dance their days in happiness

Dry Well - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dry Well

A Gift from Fort Apache Energy, Inc.

“We will be drilling with a fresh water mud system

which has no environmental impact.”

- Allan P. Bloxsom III, President

As woodland creatures shy until the dark
Drift as a silent blessing through the trees
At dusk some sad folk gather ‘round the wounds
Gored geometrically into the ground
A palisade of wood and water and earth
Now guarding nothing but pale desolation:
A pond of death whose hydrocarbon sheen
In corpselike stillness entertains no life
A sewerage ditch bedecked with human turds
A dumpster skip piled high with promises
Piles of unidentified white powder
An unattended garbage fire, a shirt
Some bolts, planks, screws, sandwich wraps, cigarette butts
A cargo cult of curiosities
Liturgically in statio around The Hole
That venerable new hole, that hole of hope
That fabled argosy laden with dreams
That fell into the depths, and never returned
At dawn a tower stood, adorned with lights
By dusk it was folded, and stolen away
Like the long-storied tents of Araby
Or a Roman camp in the Teutoburg
Abandoned among the darkening woods
For the curious primitives to poke
And prod about, chattering in their tongue
About the marvels of a superior race
Who make no environmental impact.

Have You Seen my Browning? - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Have You Seen my Browning?

…in the army…(e)very few days one seemed to meet a scholar, an original,

 a poet, a cheery buffoon, a raconteur, or at the very least a man of good will”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

Field Marshal Viscount Wavell G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E, C.M.G, M.C. was a remarkable man. He lost an eye in the First World War…let us amend that: young Major Wavell did not carelessly misplace his eye; it was blown away by German mischief in the 2nd Battle of Ypres in 1915.

Wavell remained in the army and served as a liaison officer in Russia (he was fluent in Russian as well as Urdu, Pashtun, and Persian), and then in combat against the Turks in Palestine. During the Second World War, with inadequate forces and supplies, he led brilliant campaigns against the Italians in East Africa and against the Italians and Germans in North Africa. Posted to lead the Allied defense against the triumphant Japanese in the Far East, he was given the blame for an impossible situation, and sent to India as Governor-General.

In India, toward the end of his life, Wavell was persuaded by friends to collect and edit his favorite poems into a book.

Wavell loved poetry and could recite hundreds of poems from memory like many people raised without the curse of glowing screens (your scrivener heard Robert T. Holmes of Kirbyville, Texas, a farmer and a practical man, well into his seventies, recite John Milton’s “When I Consider How my Life is Spent” over coffee one morning).

As Wavell quotes from an obscure play, The Story of Hassan of Bagdan, and How He Came to Make the Journey to Samarkand:

      Caliph: Ah, if there shall ever arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets   
      have forgotten the people, though they send their ships around Taprobane and their armies across
      the hills of Hindustan, though their city be greater than Babylon of old, though they mine a league
      into earth or mount to the stars on wings–what of them?

      Hassan: They will be a dark patch upon the world.


Wavell’s anthology, with the unfortunate title Other Men’s Flowers, was published in 1944, and continues to be available. A better title might be Manly Poetry for Manly Men, for that is mostly what it is. Modern critics savage Other Men’s Flowers, which in itself is a good reason for reading it, for here one will not find the pallid, self-pitying, free verse, me-me-me, I, I, I wallowings that (for now) have supplanted poetry.

Other Men’s Flowers is divided into nine sections containing hundreds of poems, mostly English, Irish, Scots, Canadian, and Empire, with a few token Americans and a very few women, so we can’t have that, eh. But then Wavell was putting together what was important to himself and to brave men he knew, not for the ovine credential harvesters of seventy years later. Wavell gives us Belloc, Kipling, Shakespeare, Wilde, Browning, Chesterton, Masefield, Kipling, McCrae, Buchan, Emerson, Fitzgerald, Burns, Macauley, Sassoon, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Housman, Stevenson, Scott, Yeats, Milton, and dozens of others whose work proudly occupied bookshelves and kitchen tables and backpacks before the sorrows of 1968 vetoed civilization.

And about Browning. The phrase “When someone speaks to me of culture, I want to de-cock my Browning” appears in a German play of the early 1930s, but is often credited to Hermann Goering or some other Nazi oaf. In 1942, when the Japanese were expected to invade India from Burma at any moment, Wavell is said to have asked someone to help him find his Browning. The aide looked everywhere for the field marshal’s pistol, and couldn’t find it. But the field Marshal was wearing his pistol; what he wanted was his copy of the poems of Robert Browning.

Now there was a soldier. Does one consider that any member of the current British or U.S. governments would understand any of that?

Not that every man appreciates poetry. Wavell says of his boyhood:

     Horatius…was the earliest poem I got by heart. Admiring aunts used to give me threepence for
     reciting it from beginning to end; a wiser uncle gave me sixpence for a promise to do nothing of
     the kind.

-30-

The First Blast of a Metaphorical Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of the Culture of IPhonery - sort of a poem not really maybe kinda

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Blast of a Metaphorical Trumpet Against

the Monstrous Regiment of the Culture of IPhonery

A Statement Solo and a Response Choral in Existential Whine Mode

Solo: Before we end for today – do begin thinking about a topic for your research paper due in December.

Chorus: I don’t understand…but you said...are you talking about the persuasive essay…what does “expository” mean…oh, this is not expository…but we’ve never written a persuasive paper…is this the persuasive research paper you’re talking about…what is the difference between “expository” and “persuasive”…but what are we going to write about…I mean like why don’t you give us a topic…I don’t understand…when is this due…but that’s the pro and con, right…it’s not…but you said…what does “bibliography” mean…so when is this due…but how many pages…so you just want the bibliography and the first page…I don’t know what you mean by a thesis that can be argued either way…I don’t understand why you don’t give us a topic…I’m confused…what do you want us to write about…but when is this due… I don’t understand…but you said...are you talking about the persuasive essay…what does “expository” mean…but we’ve never written a persuasive paper…is this the persuasive research paper you’re talking about…but what are we going to write about…I mean like why don’t you give us a topic…I don’t understand when is this due…but that’s the pro and con, right…it’s not…but you said…we’ve never written a research paper before…what does “bibliography” mean…so when is this due…but how many pages…so you just want the bibliography and the first page…I don’t know what you mean by a thesis that can be argued either way…I don’t understand why you don’t give us a topic…I’m confused…what do you want us to write about…but when is this due… I don’t understand…we’ve never written papers like this before…but you said...are you talking about the persuasive essay…what does “expository” mean…but we’ve never written a persuasive paper…is this the persuasive research paper you’re talking about…but what are we going to write about…I mean like why don’t you give us a topic…I don’t understand when is this due…but that’s the pro and con, right…it’s not…but you said…what does “bibliography” mean…so when is this due…but how many pages…so you just want the bibliography and the first page…I don’t know what you mean by a thesis that can be supported with authoritative sources and logic…I don’t understand why you don’t give us a topic…I’m confused…what do you want us to write about…but when is this due…!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????

The Dreariness of Dusk - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

(This poem may be considered as a dyptich / diptych / dipstick with "The Dreariness of Dawn")

The Dreariness of Dusk

Anticipated no victories today
Expected no letters to be answered
Or packages of life to be delivered
Not given even the hope of a hope

But…

But, no, the weary hours were unrelieved
The weary, dreary hours of near-despair
Plodding like a mule harnessed to the past
And given only the ghost of a ghost

As was expected, the teapot was warm -
“Yes, but there ain’t going to be no tea” 1

1 Katherine Mansfield

The Dreariness of Dawn - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Dreariness of Dawn

“Carpe Diem.” Dawn, and all its cliches’
But what would one now seize? Unrequited dreams
That slouch in the corner filing their fingernails?
A cup of coffee at the kitchen door?

Dawn is the illusion that this day might
Be different from those that came before
Like advertisements promising happiness
And delivering failures postage-due

Well, you might as well get up, and get dressed
Dawn.  Because, maybe, this time, just maybe…

"Render unto Caesar..." - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Render unto Caesar…”

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Let us render unto the Caesars
Our sons and daughters for undeclared wars
Each death excused with a telephone call
Each death another medal for a general

Let us render unto the Caesars
Our children for the pleasures of the rich
Each death and shattered heart excused as art
Each death a tribute to some rich man’s lust

Each leader, each Somebody, takes and takes –
They then dismiss their victims as snowflakes

Porching on a Saturday in October - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Porching on a Saturday in October

But where are the little children? Well, here,
But they are tall, lanky teenagers now
With car keys and cutoffs and muscle shirts
Whispering, giggling, heavy-lifting

(Stop tormenting your sister!)

Dad wants the outdoor grill moved? Sure – watch this!
Pans and food from the kitchen to the grill
And back again? We’re well on top of it
Something from town? We’re on our way right now

(Stop hitting your brother!)

Children, like spring, must grow into summer
And their springs and summers are forever our joys

(And never stop loving each other.)

The Death Penalty and a New Computer Printer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Death Penalty and a New Computer Printer

If we consider our culture to be
An ongoing affirmation of life
Consistently in favor of redemption
We cannot then presume to kill a man

A death penalty for any one of us
Is a death penalty for all of us
A submission to the darkness of evil
A yielding again to original sin

From execution, then, may God preserve us –
(Except for
That 1-800 wretch in customer service)

Autism - A Boy and His Dinosaur -poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Boy and His Dinosaur

In another world, a silent world within,
The dominant species are dinosaurs.
Never having fallen, no evil obtains,
And beneficent reptiles live there as -

As innocently as butterflies.
In his quiet world of gentle reptilians
A little boy is never without a friend,
A Saurian with an unpronounceable name,

To share a cave, a thought, a book, a toy,
And so that world with a best-friend dinosaur
Is the child’s real world, the only one
Where he knows love.

Pedal-Pushers of the Undead - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Pedal-Pushers of the Undead

These crisp autumn days mean that soon college administrators will be telling students what they must not wear for Halloween lest they hurt the feelings of other young grownups.

No one ever asks why college students are thinking about Halloween, that non-holiday, at all. They’re beyond trick-or-treating, don’cha think? College students should be doing college-student-thinky-things, like solving for x or writing about the influence of Fannie Brawne on John Keats’ existential vision of something-or-other.

And, besides, if folks on college campuses (or is that campi?) were to wear costumes, how would anyone know? To visit a college campus now is to wonder why so many people dress as if they looted their garments from hurricane debris – tee-shirts with pictures of that bearded mass murderer, knee-pants (yes, those 1950s pedal-pushers have risen from the sartorial dead), clown shoes, and desperately goofy hats.

That’s the faculty, of course; students usually manage to dress more appropriately.

As for the hurt feelings, well, I know of at least one college that last year greeted its incoming students with coloring-book sessions. If anyone suffers the Aunt Pittypat vapours from seeing someone costumed as capitalist oppressor Thurston Howell III the faculty can hand him a coloring book and a box of crayons in approved colors: “Look, honeykins. Here’s Mickey Mouse. See? Let’s color his house environmentalist green, okay? Then you’ll feel allllllllllll better.”

Oh, yeah, coloring books for college students will advance the arts and sciences of this great nation.

In Texas, college students who meet the legal requirements are permitted to carry firearms on campus, but are forbidden to dress up as Christopher Columbus, Pocahontas, or Zorro. A distressed 21-year-old princeling whose emotions have been triggered – yes - by being asked to, oh, read a book or solve some engineering problems may lawfully carry a pistol while on his way to his coloring-book sensitivity therapy to express his existential outrage.

And citizens are arguing about Halloween.

-30-

The University Drama Club Presents... poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Look Back in Petulance

A Kitchen Microwave Drama

Featuring Angry Young Persons

Dramatis Personae:

Rainblossom – an existential performance artist

Skydream – a self-authenticating air-vegan

The stage is set as the world of our dreams, peopled with only the good who dream dreams and vision visions and, like, you know, and don’t eat our forest friends, and stuff. The actors are dressed in hand-dyed Colombian ruanas to represent The True.

Rainblossom –

I demand that you validate our soul!

Skydream –

As a cosmic sunbeam of otherness

I must not.

Rainblossom –
                             O where are my comic books?

Skydream –

They have been cleansed, just as my soul has sung
Unto the Cosmic Dissonance of love

Rainblossom –

Oh, Oh, Oh

Skydream –

                      Look, Look, Look

In unison –

                                                       A vision of…Truth

Rainblossom –

But our truth, not some other bogus truth

Skydream –

                                                                       Woke, Woke

fin

The writers, cast, and crew of The Green Street Meadows Collective of Artists and Workers with Fists and Dreams and Words United Against the Occupation (Your Major Credit Card Welcome) neither need nor desire your cheap, shallow, bourgeois, sexist, racist applause to validate our existential worth. Be in awe, and then slink away in your individualist privileged guilt.

The Mirror Heal'd from Side to Side poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Mirror Heal'd from Side to Side

When a mirror looks
Into you, deep inside you
Does it see itself?


(An allusion to Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott”)

This is NOT the Age of Weinstein - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Blah-Blah-ing in the Age of Blah-Blah-Blah

No, this is not The Age of: Hefner, Clinton,
Obama, Trump, Harvey, Putin, Kim, Xi
Trolls, polls, super bowls, or cinnamon rolls
Kurz, Kaepernick, Ginger, or Mary Ann

Nor yet again an Age of: Gold or lead
Bronze, pewter, silver, nickel, aluminum
Chrome, nichrome, copper, brass, titanium
Thallium, thorium, thulium, tin 1

This is the age of You, unless you insist
On claiming this the age of something else


1 Yes, I had to look all that up

Mother of Exiles - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mother of Exiles

Saint Mary’s Church of Frydek, San Felipe, and Sealy

The grasses of the coastal plain are still;
Across the road a summer field plowed under
Waits through October’s lingering heat for frosts
While the distant Interstate chants to itself

Our Lady of Frydek, Mother of Exiles!

First Nations, Spaniards, Mexicans, Czechs, Poles
Italians, Germans, English, Vietnamese

Have ended their pilgrimages here, with You
Where God has led them for His purposes

And here, dear brother, God has led you too
To wait with them, with Her, for history’s end

Which will be
The Beginning

You Russian Poets - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

You Russian Poets

You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1

Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands

And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of Russian spring



1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

"Mild Suburban Christianity from 30,000 Feet" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Mild Suburban Christianity”

A famous religion writer jets about
The world, from holy site to holy site
And being holy here and there, he writes
About his being holy here and there

And in his profitable scorn dismisses
“Mild suburban Christianity,” as if
Labor and thrift are somehow unworthy
Of a holy writer seated in first class

Editor-in-chief of This, President of That

(And free to be a non-profit 501C)

He asks for gifts from those suburbans mild

Viet-Nam Service Medal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Viet-Nam Service Medal

A dragon lurks among the bamboo trees
And if sometimes half-hidden, still, always there
Sometimes half-forgotten, but always there
Is he a glorious dragon? Sometimes, yes

But then some nights he stirs the leaves awake
His eyes – they seem to flicker through the dark
His claws – they tear into the freighted soul
His blood – like Duncan’s, will not wash away

But dragons are good – what is it that one sees
If not a dragon lurking among the trees?

Sorting Out Russian Poetry - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Sorting Out Russian Poetry

Avant-garde post-modernism ego
Futurism symbolism acme
Ism constructivism cosmopol
Itanism formalism neo

Formalism futurism imag
Inism proletarian real
Ism absurdism maximalism

Socialist realism, nothingism -
Poetic beauty, in spite of the Isms

The Dreaded Microsoft 10 Security Alert Popup of Doom That Won't Go Away - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Dreaded Microsoft 10 Security Alert Popup of Doom

That Won’t Go Away

 

(In order to receive the best support, we request all users initially download and run the Genuine Diagnostics tool (MGADiag.exe) at this link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52012. Click "Continue", click the "Copy" button then “Paste” the report into a reply message in this thread.)

I took a miner's lantern and a pouch
Of vampire-bane and crawled into the dark,
Dark tunnels of Security Updates.
I may have slain the beast, but it was dark

(Microsoft Genuine Advantage > Closed - Office Genuine Advantage Validation Issues (Office) Read-Only)

So dark in there. I lunged with vague commands
All printed in translation from the Orc
And strange lights flickered, flickered, flick…off
Restart reboot alt control shift…huh?

(Post this question in the "Suggestions and Feedback for the Forums" Forum at the following address http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-us/suggest/threads.)

Silence. A stench of death…it’s dead, it’s gone…
But wait…no…NO! I hear a popup coming…!

(Marking as Answered. Your feedback is important. Bye.)

Penny Wise and Penny Foolish - column

Mack Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Penny Wise and Penny Foolish

Emptying one’s pockets at the end of a busy day of bringing home that metaphorical bacon reminds us of how useless is all that pot-metal we take as change and then carry around almost to no purpose.

In Ye Olden Days a pocket full of coins was a good thing: a cup of coffee cost a nickel, as did the daily paper and a Hershey bar, a Coca-Cola was six cents, a telephone call was a dime, and a hamburger was a quarter. These things weren’t cheaper; it’s that the money was worth more.

Around 1983 some alligator-shoe boy ruled that the copper penny should no longer be made of copper, but rather copper-clad, whatever that means. A penny now appears to be made of painted floor-sweepings, and is worthless. Dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, once made of silver, are as substantial as Monopoly® money. Purchasing power now begins only with the dollar, and a bouquet of dollars at that.

Why, then, does the government still manufacture play money, and why do we carry it around?

For adults the penny is probably a matter of sentiment. Although there is no longer any such thing as a piece of penny candy, we remember those childhood days and so remain attached to pennies that really aren’t even pennies. A penny is rather like Prince Albert in a can, which no longer exists even as the wheezy telephone joke: “Have you got Prince Albert in a can? Well, you better let him out before he suffocates!”

Canada rid itself of the penny in 2013, saving $11 million a year in bothering with them. The Dominion does not seem to have suffered thereby. Since Canadian pennies are the same size as U.S. pennies they show up in circulation south of the 49th fairly often. If you save your Canadian pennies then in a few years they will be worth, well, nothing. But the Maple Leaf is pretty.

Spanish escudos and reales have not circulated hereabouts since 1821 or so, and the English pound has not purchased any tea on the east coast since the tiff beginning in 1776. However, the old saying “penny wise and pound foolish,” meaning thrift in small matters but wastage in greater ones, lingers, much like the penny.

One wonders if, two hundred years ago, moms and dads in Nacogdoches, Anahuac, and San Augustine cautioned their children about being reale wise and escudo foolish.

-30-

Ite ad Joseph - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ite ad Joseph

For Joseph Thaddeus Petty

Sunday, 8 October 2017

Then let us go in to Joseph this day,
His day, soft-cradled in his mother’s arms;
He does not rule Egypt, but rather, our hearts
In the ordained hierarchy of love

His sisters in their turns nestle him too -
“Be sure to support his head – yes, that’s right” –
Their playmate new in the garden of life,
Their brother in the cloisters of Creation

He sleeps, so, shhhhhh – now let us slip away
For we have greeted Joseph on this happy day

The Big Kids - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Big Kids

For Claude Bevil Blanchette Hall,

Of Happy Memory

1954

Sprinkled by the janitor from a coffee can
The oily smell of the green sawdust sown
Along the old school hallway’s green tile floors
And pushed along with a long-handled broom

My brother’s at the door with my lunch money
He’s one of The Big Kids, 5th grade, y’know
High up on the third floor, where we can’t go

Not yet

What’s it like to be one of The Big Kids?

2017

My brother’s on a higher floor again
And what’s it like up there, where we can’t go?

Not yet


Claude Bevil Blanchette Hall was the son of Claude Duval Blanchette and Katherine Mattie Bevil Blanchette.

Claude Duval Blanchette was an officer on the tanker SS Muskogee, which was torpedoed off the Carolinas on 28 March 1942 with the loss of all hands. His son, Claude, was born on 12 October 1942, and died on 6 October 2017.

After the war Katherine married Hebo Ogden Hall.

All happy, happy memories.

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

Houston Man Accused of Decapitating Mother - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Houston Man Accused of Decapitating Mother

He was a quiet man who always kept
His lawn neat would give you the shirt off his back
Was on his way to Bible study wouldn’t
Harm a flea that’s not the (name) that I know

Seemed like a normal everyday guy to me
Never saw this coming just can’t believe it
Let us come together and stand as one
Because that’s not the kind of people we are

We just won’t let them change the way we live
He just snapped so GoFundMe tee-shirt give

Truck Stop Restroom Cologne - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Truck Stop Restroom Cologne

Denny’s / Flying J, Orange, Texas

Check out the boom-chick in the parking lot -
Love and diesel fumes are in the air.
Tattoos and cigarettes, oh, man, she’s hot!
Industrial peroxide tints her hair
Like rainbows in a toxic fuel-oil spill.
Her waist is a rockin’ forty-four,
A pavement Venus posed before the grill
Of a Peterbilt outside the truckers’ store.
How can the lovestruck swain lure her to his cab?
Persuade her to give him her innocent all?
A ripped-shirt display of a manly ab?
Wait - what’s that machine on the restroom wall?

Cool dude, you’ll never have to truck alone
If you scent yourself with restroom cologne.

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Play - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Play

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day,
They count and verify their MeBook friends –

They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.

Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play

Having withdrawn from the existential struggle,
Surrendering their arms and protest signs,
They muster in Denny’s for the Senior Special
Uniformed in knee-pants and baseball caps
And Chinese tees that read “World’s Greatest Grandpa,”
Hearing aids and trifocals at parade rest,
And quadrupedal aluminum sticks
Raging against the oxygen machine.
Not trusting anyone over ninety,
They rattle their coffee cups and dentures
Instead of suspicious Nixonians,
And demand pensions, not revolution.
They mourn classmates dead, not The Grateful Dead.
They do not burn their Medicare cards
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With their flaming conscription notices.
They no longer read McKuen or Tolkien
Or groove to ‘way-cool Peter, Paul, and Mary;
Their beads and flowers are forever filed
In books of antique curiosities
Beside a butterfly collection shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where manifestos go to be eaten
By busy mice and slow-pulsing fungi.
As darkness falls they make the Wheel, not love

They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor Siddhartha, but only cable t.v.

Saint Garden Gnome - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Garden Gnome

An obscure barefoot friar in Italy
Long labored in the Perugian sun,
Heaped rocks upon rocks, and then other rocks,
Up to a wavery roof of broken tiles,
Repairing with his bleeding hands God’s church

Then, better known – it wasn’t his fault – this friar,
With others in love with Lady Poverty,
In hope and penance trudged to far-off Rome
To offer there his modest Rule of life,
Repairing with his mindful words God’s Church

Along the delta of the steaming Nile
He waved away the worried pickets, crossed
Into the camp of the Saracens
Preaching Christ to merciful Al-Kamil,
Offering with a martyr’s heart God’s Faith

Saint Francis is depicted in fine art
In great museums and in modest homes -
And you can find him too, down at Wal-Mart,
Between the plastic frogs and concrete gnomes.

A Lady and Her Two Knights - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Lady and Her Two Knights

For their Nona and Papaw

Three young adults walking along to Mass
Pals from childhood, arms around each other,
Laughing, and pausing briefly for a mama-picture -
For them, even October is their spring

And in this springtime of their lives they offer
All of their happiness to Our Lord Himself,
All together Ad Altare Dei,
To God who giveth joy to their youth1

Three friends laughing, taking the morning air:
Two knights honored to escort their lady fair

1paraphrased from the Missale Romanum of 1962

A Dachshund Among the Leaves - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Dachshund Among the Leaves

For Liesl-the-Wonder-Dachshund, of Happy Memory

A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-strewn across the still-green summer grass
As Autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when soon
Diana dances across November’s skies.

Old and Unselected Poems - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Old and Unselected Poems

Pale, penciled scribblings, old bits, old notes
Forgotten drafts in old books shelved away
And lines painfully worked out during lectures
About Napoleon’s painful hemorrhoids

And the declensions of those Latin nouns
Which with their verbs Omnis Gallia divisit
Or something like that, forgotten long ago -
But not
             her hair
                          her voice
                                         her smile
                                                         her eyes

Others cannot write to her happy theme -
She writes herself as iambs in a dream

About Windows Creator Update - a caution

Apologies, but about Windows Creator Update...

My two-year-old laptop was NOT happy with Windows Creator Update with regard to functionality and the clarity of the screen images.  I was able to uninstall, but there are residual buttons that won't go away.  You might want to check with your I.T. person before accepting Windows Creator Update into your machine.

Again, apologies for being off-task.

Hitler's Panties - column

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Hitler’s Panties

Someone has purchased Adolf Hitler’s undies for $6,700.  And let the people say, “Eeyewwwww.”

The buyer’s name has been kept unmentionable, and one understands why: a collector of fanboy unmentionables is a candidate for a room next to the fellow who is convinced he is Napoleon.

Dear Leader’s bvds apparently were misplaced in the laundry in an Austrian hotel in 1938.  Imagine being the room service guy who had to explain how he misplaced Der Fuhrer’s drawers.  Someone kept them as a souvenir of good times, and they were recently sold at an auction in Maryland.  This classy ‘n’ sassy delicate (gentle cycle only) is usually not the sort of thing that appears on Ebay.

Importing Hitler’s you-know-whats into the USA must have been amusing – how would the customs label read?

Boxers? Or briefs?

Boxers.  There is an “AH” embossed on the garment, but no little swastikas, fasces, double lightning bolts, or Winnie-the-Pooh characters.

One imagines those quiet evenings at home with Wolfie and Eva Braun, roasting civilizations in the fireplace and whispering sweet Nazi-ings to each other while accoutered in their loungewear.

There was that awkward occasion when AH discovered that EB kept a poster of a topless Josef Stalin in her boudoir, but they made it up when EB giggled that AH’s ‘stache was much ticklier than JS’s.

Did Stalin lounge about the Kremlin in his longIvans ‘way into the wee hours listening to The Andrews Sisters records and autographing death warrants?

But maybe the old boy was a bit more risqué, something in sync with “The Volga Boatmen’s Thong.”

One wonders if there is a market for General Tojo’s no-nos.

Or a Mussolini bikini.

Mao Tse Dung’s Long March Xuans.

Ah, well, we’d better keep this shorts…uh, short.

-30-

The Saunter of the Penguins - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Saunter of the Penguins

Across our lives the Penguins saunter along:
The Odyssey, The Ministry of Fear
Parade’s End, Penrod, To a God Unknown
Ragged with study, stained with tea and beer

Saint Augustine’s Confessions, Whitman’s Leaves
Tennyson, Wordsworth, The Alexiad
Monsignor Quixote, Wooster and Jeeves
And Yevtushenko – he was quite the lad!

Dog-eared and all crinkly, Scotch-taped with age -
Each Penguin is a wise, eternal sage

"Have You Seen Ken Burns' Latest Television Show?" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"Have You Seen Ken Burns’ Latest Television Show?"

No, I was in the play. I didn’t like it.
The plot, setting, and characterization
Were all wrong, and the clumsy denouement
Was poorly written and acted.
                                                   “Macbeth.”

War profiteers from John Wayne to Ken Burns
Have claimed my illegal war for their own
"Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant"
Beyond that, the VA is ashamed of me

So, thanks, but no. I'm good. Bitter, but good
For I was in the play. I didn’t like it.

Alexander Pushkin and the Poker-Playing Dogs - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Alexander Pushkin and the Poker-Playing Dogs

We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And our poker-playing pups, cheating at cards
Ruslan and Ludmylla dancing on ice
At the Houston airport Holiday Inn

Did Pushkin paint the poker-playing pups
Or carve tetrameters while in his cups?
That green baize poker table, a samovar
And the Big Giant Head, who needs an ace

We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And too those kitschy dogs, being real bad!

Decorating a Mansion - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Decorating a Mansion

Let be set out a wooden crucifix
Of indifferent and artless workmanship
Upon a table where the lamplight falls
In yellow circles on a book or two,
And sheets of paper and a quirky pen.

Let be set up a surplus Navy bunk
With mattress and blanket, and pillow too,
If Brother Guestmaster has them to hand,
Luxury enough for merciful sleep,
Or combat desperate against fearful dreams.

Let be set into the wall a hook or nail
To serve the office of a wardrobe there,
Burdened with little but perhaps too much:
A decent habit for the liturgies,
A worn-out coat, a hat against the sun.

Let be set into the cell an exile,
A man of no reputation at all,
Unnoticed in the streets, unseen, unknown,
But who delights in anonymity,
Here in this palace in Jerusalem.

Fragments in a Fragmented Season - weak and stupid not-really-a-poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Fragments in a Fragmented Season

Neither a cyber-warrior nor a cyber-worrier be

But is this flower a patriotic flower?

The nation that never had much use for me
Except to send me to an undeclared war
Is suddenly broken

Was I playing with the puppies when the revolution began
        And so didn’t notice?

“Take It Down!” someone scrawled on a statue in New Orleans
        Dear New Orleans: Saint Joan of Arc was never a Confederate

Dear Canada: Do you really want to be a republic?

The vice-president takes shelter within his armored hair, and is silent

The Real Knees of Irving, Texas

Think about a Wal-Mart employee taking a knee during the morning Wal-Mart chant

It’s the Russians, no doubt

Chess ratings are up

Everything’s an Orwellian Two-Minutes’ Hate now. Even the hours and seconds are outraged

“Your attitude’s been noticed, comrade.” - House Warden to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago

Maybe the Republic will be in better shape next season.

Waiting for our Masters to Grow Up - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Waiting for our Masters to Grow Up

The barbarians who lord it over us
Thunder denunciations at each other
On whether they should kneel or stand to flags or balls
And with whom they should be photographed

Some swagger in government, in suits and ties
Some swagger with buckles binding their foreheads;
Like schoolboys they compare the size of their…purchases
And bubble themselves with fawning courtiers

As ever, we workers, savers, writers, readers
Must be the grownups - unlike our leaders

Our Lady of Walsingham - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Our Lady of Walsingham

O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!
Queen of our hearts and hopes, to her we pray,
Sweet Empress over forest, down, and dene ,
And happy Sunrise over the pilgrim’s way

O let us crown Our Queen with leaf and flower
Gathered this morning in the dawnlit dew
For we in this island are Her true dower
Pledging our faith with thorn and rose and yew

She gives us Her feast day, cool and quiet and green -
O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!

There is No Such Thing as an Unloaded Gun - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

There is No Such Thing as an Unloaded Gun

Recently the news spoke of a little child searching through her grandmother’s purse for candy. Ordinary this would be an “awwwwwwww…” moment, reminding of us how our grandmothers spoiled us over the protests of our parents.

Instead of candy, the child found her mee-maw’s pistol. It discharged. The child is dead.

Many questions follow: since the grandmother carried a firearm, why did she violate every teaching on gun safety? And further, why did she feel the need to carry a firearm at all? Was she afraid of other women?

No, almost surely she was afraid of males (one cannot call them men) who violate every teaching of scripture and civilization in menacing women.

We can all do better.

My old daddy (he visited France, Belgium, and Germany 1944-1945) taught that the first rule of gun safety is that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun. And then a series of Navy and Marine Corps instructors taught me the same.

Now of course a gun sometimes is loaded; otherwise, there would be no Bambi for supper. But when there is no Bambi about, unload the gun. Then fear that it is loaded.

In Viet-Nam one of the most common causes of GSW (gun shot wounds) was the mishandling of weapons. Although every Marine and sailor was taught / coached / urged / re-taught firearms safety, after a few months of carrying and cleaning firearms daily, many of the lads became careless.

We didn’t need the VC; Yankee-Doodle carelessness killed a lot of the lads.

The teaching that there is no such thing as an unloaded gun is a psychological truth necessary for our survival. Even the sharpest of us misplace our car keys, forget hair appointments, and fail to notice that the date on the inspection sticker has expired. No one is perfect.

When transporting a gun, unload it, and then fear that it is loaded.

When crossing a fence, unload the gun, and then fear that it is loaded.

When storing a gun, unload it, and then fear that it is loaded.

When climbing the Bambi-stand, unload the gun, and then fear that it is loaded.

Fit a lock to the trigger of a gun, and then fear that it might fire anyway – because it can.

A six-shooter is a five-shooter, no matter how much the manufacturer brags about the safety features. Never, never, never, never, never leave the hammer resting on all those clever safety gates, because beneath all that gim-crackery is a bullet that can kill.

Never, never, never, never, never leave a round up the spout of a semi-auto, no matter how often John Wayne did it. You ain’t John Wayne. Heck, not even John Wayne was John Wayne. Marion Michael Morrison was a cinema actor, okay? He never made the first day of military or police training.

Respect the firearm, because the firearm doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about you.

There is no such thing as an unloaded gun.

There is no such thing as an unloaded gun.

There is no such thing as an unloaded gun.

-30-

A Rocket from the Colonial Office - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Rocket from the Colonial Office

Colleagues,

If you are receiving this email, your
Syllabus for your course(s) is not showing
On the )/ webpage under House Bill
2504. This is a state law with

Which we must be in compliance. If you have
Not uploaded your syllabus for each
Course that you teach, you need to get that task
Completed now. The task was supposed to

Have been completed by September 5,
According to a previous email
Reminder – this is actually your third
Reminder. If you need help completing

This aspect of your responsibilities,
Please let me know if you have uploaded
Your syllabus already, but if it
Is not showing, we may need to contact

IT for assistance. Thank you for your
Dedication to /)/) College.

And Just How Did the Cow Eat the Cabbage? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

And Just How Did the Cow Eat the Cabbage?

The question was answered in a cafe at noon:
The cow ate the cabbage with an ordinary spoon

Thank you for your kind attention.

20 September 1870 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

20 September 1870

Like vultures hovering over the faithful dead
The rank red rags of base repression hung
Upon the blast-breeched walls of captive Rome;
The smoke of conquest fouled the ancient streets
While mocking conquerors marched their betters
At the point of enlightened bayonets
To the scientific future, murdering those
Who bore themselves with quiet dignity.

False, sinister Savoy sneered in disdain
At ancient truths, this costumed reprobate
Who played at soldier once the firing ceased,
And claimed Saint Peter’s patrimony on
The corpses of the merely useful who
With today’s slogans fresh upon their lips
At dawn advanced upon the remnant walls
So thinly held by the last legionaries

And thus befeathered fat Vittorio
Was given his victory by better men
On both sides there, their corpses looted by
The pallid inheritors of Progress.
The son of a Sardinian spurred his horse
Along the streets to take enforced salutes,
And to the Quirinal by a passage broad,
And finally to the Ardeatine Caves.

"Maccabees, and all that Mess" - poem (from a disputation overheard in a cafe)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Maccabees, and all that Mess”

Antiochus declared himself to be
Epiphanes – a god unto himself
And persecuted suffering Israel
With pagan images and fire and death

The blood of martyrs Mattathias moved
And all his sons, hammers chosen by God
To cleanse the Temple of all perfidy
And through eight days rededicate the world

But now

Dismissed by the café theologian
As merely “Maccabees, and all that mess”

Paterfamilias - on the Death of a Friend's Father - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Paterfamilias

For Eldon Edge

An empty chair beside the fireplace waits,
And lamplight falls upon an open book,
Pen, pocketknife, keys for the pasture gates,
Dad’s barn coat hanging from its accustomed hook.

But he will not return; his duties now
Transcend the mists of the pale world we know,
And you in grief must carry on, somehow;
Your duty is here, for God will have it so

The good man takes that chair reluctantly;
It is a throne of sorts, and one imposed,
Not taken as a prize, triumphantly,
But in love’s service, and in love disposed.

An empty chair beside the fireplace waits
For you, whom doleful duty consecrates.

Reptilian Whisperings - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Reptilian Whisperings

Ipse cum caro sit reservat iram, et propitiationem petit a Deo: quis exorabit pro delictis illius?

He that is but flesh, nourisheth anger, and doth he ask forgiveness of God? who shall obtain pardon for his sins?

-Ecclesiasticus 28:5

Like Cleopatra’s asp they want to cuddle
Against one’s heart: resentments slithering
About, indignities, enormities
Demanding incessant indulgences

Their reptilian whisperings hissering
Self-pity, inverted self-spiraling,
In closing, falling, dying loops until
Nothing is left even to pity itself

They are writhing about us even now -
Like Cleopatra’s asp they want to cuddle

Civilization Requires a Little Effort - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Civilization Requires a Little Effort

Upon reading Amon Towles’

A Gentleman in Moscow

Civilization requires a little effort
Ties must be knotted correctly, shoes must be polished
Cuffs must be linked, but not at all gaudily -
Elegant understatement at all times

On every occasion say “Thank you” and “please”
When addressing a lady one’s hat is off
And if tomorrow they are going to shoot you
Or beat you to death in a re-named street

Do comb your hair, and try to stand up straight -
Civilization requires a little effort

The Richest Country in the World - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Richest Country in the World

A concrete sidewalk for skipping to school:
A busy flower shop, the picture show
Post office, the hole-in-the-wall café
The general mercantile, the old feed store

The school is gone; the sidewalk hasn’t changed
Except that no one walks it any more -
Just archaeology, weeds and bricks that tell
Of once-upon-a-time along Main Street

No townsfolk now, only unroofed walls and sky
Not far from where the four-lane passes by

Three Generations in the Student Commons - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Three Generations in the Student Commons

I. Berets, Coffee, and Cigarette Smoke

Much merriment and argument, and songs
Of love or revolution sung around
An old piano or a new guitar,
With poetic verses falling like leaves

II. Ball Caps, Diet Sodas, and Purity of Thought

All turn and tune to a cinder-block wall
Upholding the Orwellian telescreen
Cartoons and Vanna White, and then at noon
With Gilligan, the Skipper too, still lost

III. Pink Hair, Bottled Water, and Fear

No merriment, no argument, only silence
As paling shadows, unaware of each other
Bow down, like Eve before that Eden-tree,
And worship the little boxes in their hands

A Fish on Ice at Mixson's Grocery - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Fish on Ice at Mixson’s Grocery

As with my teacher’s disapproving eyes
A poor iced fish glared out upon the world -
Without her sanction everything had changed
And silent on the ice she watched life pass

Holding my mother’s hand, I was passing too
From baby food to breakfast cereal
Somehow the fish appeared to feel that this
Was an affront to her cold dignity

And thus her eyes – they seemed to follow me
And since the fish was dead, what could she see?

Now That We All Know What a Plinth Is... - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Now That We All Know What a Plinth Is…

What will we establish upon our bare, ruined plinths
Where late the stern-visaged generals stood? 1
Guitarists, perhaps, or free-verse poets
Or refugees from Harvard’s sophomore class

We could erect erections to erections
As advertised on the family radio
With brazen legends reading “Hey-Hey! Ho-Ho”
Honoring the noble eloquence of our age

Or, with roses for remembrance, leave them bare
Amid shrill protestations of despair


1 Cf. Sonnet 73, Shakespeare

Inquisition of a Waitress by the Morals Police - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Inquisition of a Waitress by the Morals Police

V: “So where did you say you went to church yesterday?”

R: “I went to the Cowboy Church. I try to get
To church, you know, as often as I can
But my boyfriend and me we don’t often work
The same shifts and he’s my ride so I don’t

“Get to go as often as I’d like, you know,
But I like to go and it’s good for me
But sometimes I just can’t; you know how it is
I went yesterday and I sure feel good.”

V: “Well, now, then, that’s all right, darlin’; good for you.”

The Man Born Blind - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Man Born Blind

We are all born blind, and stumble through our lives
In darkness lost along the River Styx
While clinging to our long-accustomed fear
As if it were a rule to be obeyed

The light is offered, then usually denied
As if it were yet another cruel joke
Long promised and then suddenly yanked away
More lost hopes rotting among the mouldering leaves

For some the obscure is more comfortable
Than promised light that never seems to shine

A Saturday in September - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Saturday in September

Sweet autumn is the year healing itself
The sun sleeps later, and feels better for it
His early rays tentatively touching the trees
As if seeking his wristwatch to tell the time

A sweet day off is a healing time, too
The linens all rumpled with dreaming dreams
Forgotten at first light, but lingering
A happiness just out of reach, of thought

But happy all the same; now yawn, and stretch -
Another day of possibilities




(But I fear there is a lawnmower involved)

Forestry for Romantics - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Forestry for Romantics

Silence obtains in the forest clearing
The leaves all seem to be holding their breath
Little rabbit pellets on a pine tree stump
Cut only yesterday, still oozing sap

Fresh raccoon paw-prints in the muddy spots
But nothing moves – we are intruders here
Suddenly a silent shadow – a hooded hawk
Over there – a woodpecker drilling for bugs

If we hold still, stand still, not whisper a word
The forest will return to her appointed works

The Hurricane and Those Awful Millennials, column, 9.7.17

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Hurricane and Those Awful Millennials

Roadside couches – couches, couches, everywhere. Each is a piece of furniture someone long ago chose for its appearance and service. It was the comfort zone for a family cuddling for the movies, the study carrel of choice for students, home turf to the family dog, paid for on the installment plan, and now cast out. Soaked and sour, irredeemable, couches wait for disposal. After the memories, a thought remains – did anyone check under the cushions for coins?

One is aware of some unhappy GossipNet postings regarding Jasper-Newton Electric Cooperative. The posters should remove those unjust emotions from their hearts, their lips, their fingertips, and their telescreens. JNEC, as is its tradition, performed brilliantly in the recent crisis. JNEC purchases power from numerous sources because there is no power plant here. This electric power is shipped over different lines from different places, and a power line belonging to a third party in another state failed. You cannot distribute that which you do not have.

We enjoy electricity because of the work of many people, including those smart, tough buys who roll out in the middle of stormy nights to keep it going. Anyone who does not appreciate them just needs to disconnect the meter and live in a tent like a smelly old hippie.

I wish there were a power plant here. But if it were proposed, there would be a protest that it threatens rainbow field mice, cosmic toad frogs, the feng shui, or whatever. Ya can’t have it both ways. Electricity is nice. The air-conditioner, the water pump, the lights, and the kitchen can’t be powered by clamping jumper cables to an endangered species of vegetarian umpire bats.

Finally, about those awful millennials: one of the loudmouths on midday a.m. radio yakked from his air-conditioned studio far, far away about the poor conduct of millennials during the hurricane.

“Millennial” is predicated upon “millennium,” meaning a thousand years, which in its turn is predicated on the Latin work “mille,” meaning a thousand. Around 1980 someone anticipating the turn of the century referred to the children who would come of age in the year 2000 as millennials. The term carried no pejorative; it simply referred to an age group.

Millennial, a perfectly useful word, has been poisoned by the name-callers, the know-nothings who label people they don’t understand or like as “libtards,” “fascists,” “liberals,” “reactionaries,” “snowflakes,” and so many other noises that carry no meaning except within a closed loop of babbling ignorance.

“Millennial” is often used – that is, misused – as a negative stereotype for any young person who does something stupid. As with all stereotypes, it is inaccurate and unethical. To dismiss everyone born in, say, 1983 as a delicate flower calling for his smelling salts at the sight of a discarded banana peel is an ugliness in direct descent from historic slurs about Those People Who Are Not Exactly Like Me, Me, Me, and exploited to justify irrational fears.

Millennials came of age in 2000 (or 2001, if you are a math teacher). A millennial now is in early middle age, maybe a little younger, but definitely not a child or a teenager or even a twenty-something.

Millennials are our Army, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and reserve and guard units.

Millennials are our many law enforcement and emergency services.

Millennials are Louisiana’s famous Cajun Navy.

Those delicate, fragile millennials sure pulled a lot of people out of the water the last two weeks, patched a lot of people, fed a lot of people, sheltered a lot of people, cleaned a lot of houses for people, and kept civilization going.

Be thankful for millennials. Unlike the loudmouth on the radio, they are here for us.

-30-

Five Ashtrays Along the Bar - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Five Ashtrays Along the Bar

A bartender named Blue, old hound-dog face
Cigarettes in ashtrays along the bar
One for the man who didn’t get that raise
Another for the man whose wife has gone

A third for the McKuen who scribbles free verse
A fourth for the silent philosopher
A fifth for the girl waiting for her call
To the tiny stage to show ‘em what’s she’s got

Leather jackets at the billiards table
A neon beer sign as the sanctuary lamp

How Peaceful this Morning to Drive a Desk - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

How Peaceful this Morning to Drive a Desk

How peaceful this morning to drive a desk
The culturally-despised desk, that cliché
The flat surface littered with papers and screens
And a telephone with buttons that light up

How lovely - fluorescents flickering over files
And not a yellow sun over shimmering muck
Lines for gas and water, rot and decay
And cast-off couches reeking in the heat

How peaceful - the ordinary all about -
Even though the men’s room is all wrecked out