On the Nature of Work - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

On the Nature of Work

“What should they find incredible, since they no longer believed in a rational universe?”

-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

In Mr. Johnson’s 6th grade science class we kidlets learned that work is defined as the transfer of energy from one object to another. For many of Mr. J’s students work was further defined by their parents as farming. Still, I’m not sure how many joules are required for a small boy to urge balky jersey cows x 24 from the woods to the dairy barn at five in the morning with the sleet rattling. The small boy, now all grown up, knows only that he is thankful daily that he will never, ever have to do that again.

In a movie set in Nazi-occupied Poland, a number of folks gather discreetly to view a play, which is forbidden. While waiting, a man asks the woman next to him what her occupation is. She mentions that she was studying law before the war, and asks the man his job. “I break rocks,” he replies proudly.

The scene is a bit contrived, but is meant to demonstrate the Christian concept that all honest work is noble. This is why attorneys and quarrymen belong to the same country clubs. Still, the concept of the dignity of good and useful labor obtains.

Last week a young American woman’s dissatisfaction with her useless work appears to have motivated her to violence, resulting in the wounding of others and her own death.

Her work was neither in law, milking cows, or quarrying rock, but in taking pictures of herself for a scheme on the InterGossip.

This, in contemporary slang, is A Thing.

A man take pictures of his dachshunds or his children or himself doing awkward things and posts them to YouTube on the InterGossip. If enough people – really, really, really bored people with no purpose or direction in life – are determined by a corporate matrix (that sounds like something from cheesy outer-space films from the 1950s) to watch certain moving pictures, advertisers are matched with the little films and the poster receives a small stipend for every contact, or “hit.”

Apparently a favored few make a living by humiliating their dachshunds, their children, and themselves for the amusement of the unfocused.

This is said to be work, but it produces no food, no music, no fencing, no housing, or anything else of utility or joy.

This poor woman took humiliating pictures of herself glaring at the camera, dancing awkwardly, and giving opinions. She received money for doing so.

She felt she wasn’t being paid enough money for her specialness, although she had enough disposable income to buy herself a pistol and then drive to YouTube headquarters to shoot people she had never met.

The unhappy woman promoted herself as an “athlete, artist, comedian, poet, model, actor, singer, director, producer” (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/youtube-shooter-nasim-aghdam-left-behind-twisted-online-trail-article-1.3914285) as well as a vegan bodybuilder and an animal rights activist. Human rights, nahhhhhh.

Apparently she felt that real work – milking cows, breaking rocks, practicing law – was beneath the dignity of an artist, and was so obsessed with making and watching images of herself on a little plastic screen that in the end she ceased to exist at all.

Poor, sad woman – if only she had herded a few cows or worked the counter at the fast-foodery or volunteered at the local charity re-sale shop she might have realized through her aching feet and tired muscles that she was a child of God who was both useful and needed.

-30-

Breakfast with Old Man Briggs - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Breakfast with Old Man Briggs

“Why, then, God’s soldier be he.”

-Shakespeare

“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking my hand
That famous merry twinkle in his eye;
He made the table at the Cracker Barrel
A festival of right good fellowship

But even as the plates were passed around
And with them too the happy banter of men
He sometimes seemed to drift away in thought
Into the past, into the mists, into -

His boyhood bayous, and the fields of youth
The desperation of Depression years
And still a boy, on the shingle at Normandy
Fighting across the smoky fields of France

Then home again to build the peace for us
With muscle and sweat, and with love and thought
Citizen-soldier, happy raconteur -
“I’m Old Man Briggs,” he laughed, shaking our hands

His place is empty now, just a little while
For we will see him again, at Supper

A Busy Beekeeper and His Beautiful Buzzing Bees - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Busy Beekeeper and his Beautiful Buzzing Bees

For Terry McFall, a Man of Bees and a Bees-y Man!

A beekeeper knows
That beauty is in the eye
of the bee-holder

As the Sun Rises over Big Linda's Get 'N' Go the Local Wal-Mart Day Shift Plots Revolution - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

As the Sun Rises over Big Linda’s Grab ‘N’ Go

the Local Wal-Mart Day Shift Plots Revolution

Against the patriarchal construct they
Rally in a corner booth at Big Linda’s
MePhones, sody-dranks, a full-up ash tray
Tabled as if these were the agendas

And uniformed in uniforms they sit
In conclave all unanimous to judge
Their boss to be: a sorry piece of (stuff)
A drab, a dork, a doof, a dolt, a drudge

A slime, a slob, a slug, a slag, a schlo -
Oh, wait! We’re late! The time! We’d better go!

Withdrawn by Instructor - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Withdrawn by Instructor

He wore a baseball cap, and tried to hide
Beneath its bill, hide from whatever was
Eating away his thirty-something soul
Adrift among the stagnant slush of life

He never bought the book, he never much
Looked up from the class notes he never took
His ballpoint pen asleep in an idle fist
No drafts, no drawings, no songs, no verse, no worse

Someone lied to him about following his dreams –
His dreams between theses and themes, it seems

Christos Voskrese! - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Christos Voskrese!

For William Tod Mixson

The world is unusually quiet this dawn
With fading stars withdrawing in good grace
And drowsy, dreaming sunflowers, dewy-drooped,
Their golden crowns all motionless and still,
Stand patiently in their ordered garden rows,
Almost as if they wait for lazy bees
To wake and work, and so begin the day.
A solitary swallow sweeps the sky;
An early finch proclaims his leafy seat
While Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Then wide-yawning Mikhail, happily barefoot,
A lump of bread for nibbling in one hand,
A birch switch swishing menace in the other
Appears, and whistles up his father’s cows:
“Hey! Alina, and Antonina! Up!
Up, up, Diana and Dominika!
You, too, Varvara and Valentina!
Pashka is here, and dawn, and spring, and life!”
And they are not reluctant then to rise
From sweet and grassy beds, with udders full,
Cow-gossip-lowing to the dairy barn.

Anastasia lights the ikon lamp
And crosses herself as her mother taught.
She’ll brew the tea, the strong black wake-up tea,
And think about that naughty, handsome Yuri
Who winked at her during the Liturgy
On the holiest midnight of the year.
O pray that watchful Father did not see!
Breakfast will be merry, an echo-feast
Of last night’s eggs, pysanky, sausage, kulich.
And Mother will pack Babushka’s basket,
Because only a mother can do that right

When Father Vasily arrived last night
In a limping Lada haloed in smoke,
The men put out their cigarettes and helped
With every precious vestment, cope, and chain,
For old Saint Basil’s has not its own priest,
Not since the Czar, and Seraphim-Diveyevo
From time to time, for weddings, holy days,
Funerals, supplies the needs of the parish,
Often with Father Vasily (whose mother
Begins most conversations with “My son,
The priest.…”, much to the amusement of all).

Voices fell, temperatures fell, darkness fell
And stars hovered low over the silent fields,
Dark larches, parking lots, and tractor sheds.
Inside the lightless church the priest began
The ancient prayers of desolate emptiness
To which the faithful whispered in reply,
Unworthy mourners at the Garden tomb,
Spiraling deeper and deeper in grief
Until that Word, by Saint Mary Magdalene
Revealed, with candles, hymns, and midnight bells
Spoke light and life to poor but hopeful souls.

The world is unusually quiet this dawn;
The sun is new-lamb warm upon creation,
For Pascha gently rests upon the earth,
This holy Russia, whose martyrs and saints
Enlighten the nations through their witness of faith,
Mercy, blessings, penance, and prayer eternal
Now rising with a resurrection hymn,
And even needful chores are liturgies:
“Christos Voskrese – Christ is risen indeed!”
And Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol

Easter Vigil, Sort Of - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Easter Vigil, Sort Of

A vigil, no, simply quiet reflection
Minutes before midnight, with all asleep
Little Liesl-Dog perhaps dreams of squirrels,
For she has chased and barked them all the day;
The kittens are disposed with their mother
After an hour of kitty-baby-talk,
Adored by all, except by Calvin-Cat,
That venerable, cranky old orange hair-ball,
Who resents youthful intrusion upon
His proper role as object of worship.

The household settles in for the spring night,
Anticipating Easter, early Mass,
And then the appropriately pagan
Merriments of chocolates and colored eggs
And children with baskets squealing for more
As children should, in the springtime of life.

A Night of Fallen Nothingness - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Night of Fallen Nothingness

The Altar stripped, the candles dark, the Cross
Concealed behind a purple shroud, the sun
Mere slantings through an afternoon of grief
While all the world is emptied of all hope.
The dead remain, the failing light withdraws
As do the broken faithful, silently,
Into a night of fallen nothingness.

The Life and Times of Pontius Pilate, the Law West of the Jordan - column

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Life and Times of Pontius Pilate, the Law West of the Jordan

History, other than those weird little Jack Chick booklets and stuff about The Lizard People on the GossipNet, says little of Pontius Pilate. Apparently his career in the Roman diplomatic was fairly short before he was retired by suicide.

A life of loyal public service under the emperors was often rewarded with death, which was probably better than a farewell kiss from the president.

As a colonial governor Pilate would have been expected to keep the peace among all sorts of peoples, not because of the benevolence of Tiberius but because tax-tax is always better than war-war (as Churchill did not say).

One wonders if in his corner office Pilate displayed pictures of himself shaking hands with famous people, or maybe ordering their executions, and plaques from the Little Gladiator teams he sponsored. Did he give speeches at local business dinners? “I am Praefectvs Pontivs Pilatvs, but you may call me Poncho. I’m from Rome, and I’m here to help you grow your businesses.”

No doubt the after-dinner speech included a few wheezes: “Say, boys, you’ll like this one. A Greek, a Roman, and a Jew walk into a bar owned by an Egyptian…”

Pontius Pilate probably gave motivational speeches (which in itself should be a death penalty offense) and talked about thinking outside the box outside of which he never thought himself, and kept his resume updated in hopes of a better gig in a happier colony, maybe Crete or Cyprus or Hispania.

He would have been subjected to scrutiny by spies and investigations by special prosecutors, and in turn would have sent around the highways and byways of the Empire his own spies and, when he felt he had the power and the connections to get rid of some old pal he didn’t now like, special prosecutors under his authority.

His staff would have kept his files cross-indexed and neat, and at midday he probably joined the boys for a two-falernian lunch, properly submitted under his expense account.

Pilate named roads and bridges and theatres for his Emperor, had the usual suspects executed for the entertainment of The People, bless them, and probably told anti-Semitic jokes. He was so dull, safe, successful, and predictable that he was governor for some ten years before being recalled to Rome.

Nothing reliable is known of his end. Pilate is said to have been required to commit suicide instead of being given a cheap Seiko sun-dial as a memento, but perhaps he did indeed retire to his vineyards in central Italy, and took leisurely afternoons to write his memoirs, in which few were interested and which eventually were used by Germanic invaders to start a fire, and so lost to history.

Whether he remembered one Jesus of Nazareth is unknown.

-30-

Russians Under Our Beds (a Russia Series, 66) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Russians Under Our Beds

For Our Special Prosecutors,

Who Guard and Guide Us

Oh, borscht! Those pesky Russkies under my bed
Were marching around all night, changing my votes
Beaming mysterious rays through my sleepy head
And snooping through my lesson plans and notes

They programmed my radio with Marx and Lenin
Plastered a poster of Putin to my wall
Sailed Admiral Kuznetzov across my linen
Layered a Petrograd accent over my Texas drawl

The special prosecutor says no further discussions –
Everything’s the fault of those perfidious Russians!

Maundy Thursday - Mass of the Last Supper (poem)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Maundy Thursday – Mass of the Last Supper

“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”

-Shakespeare

The air is thurified – the incense given
Our Lord upon His birth is fumed at last;
The censer’s chains, clanking like manacles
Offend against the silence at the end of Mass

Supper is concluded; the servants strip
The Table bare of all the Seder service:
Cups, linens, and dishes, leaving in the dark
An Altar bare, prepared for sacrifice

In Gethsemane the flowered air is sweet
But iron-heeled caligae offend the night

Prince Myshkin's Vigil (a Russia series, 65) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Prince Myshkin’s Vigil

Pale Prince Myshkin keeps vigil in a room
In which two aspects of civilization repose:
That which is dying, and that which is dead
That which is cold, and that which is very cold

The wounded healer waits, because he was asked
And harrows there the darkness with his light
He waits with the dead in a rented room
And on a hill, beside a waterfall

A keeper of souls for an appointed time
And his own is kept by Somebody Else



cf, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot

The First Hummingbird of Spring - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Hummingbird of Spring

O wing’ed messenger of happiness,
Aloft among the pollinating flowers,
At last you have returned from Mexico
And warm months there among soft latitudes
Where little birds can make a holiday
Far, far away from withering Arctic winds.

O tiny traveler, what souvenirs
Did you declare to customs at the Rio Grande?
South winds to tell the flowers to wake up
And Rosaries of morning fogs to bless
The yawning grasses with a morning drink,
And fresh new sunlight for the industrious bees.

O buzzing and impatient little friend!
Just wait a minute, your breakfast is coming -
The old glass feeder washed and packed away
In harvest-rich October’s golden light
Must be recovered and refreshed for you,

And

How good it is to have you home again.

The Staretz (a Russia series, 64) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Staretz

For Fr. Raphael

In middle life the sunflower bends its head,
No longer to the sun as in its youth,
But to the earth in all humility,
Ripening for us all its dreams and works,
And aging happily to eternal dawn.

Where are the Squirrels of Spring? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Where are the Squirrels of Spring?

(John Keats wrote much of the first line; I took care of 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 family 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

A Russian Sunflower (a Russia series, 63) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Russian Sunflower

Deep-rooted in the earth, old Zossima
Turns daily to the sun, our star in the east,
And of his kindness blesses all of us
Who pilgrimage to holy Russia where
He tells us, sure, what we already know:
Fall to the earth; from there look up and see
That like a sunflower, one can turn to Heaven

Pontius Pilate's Plea - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Pontius Pilate’s Plea

My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To distant duties, and never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew

Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards

I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip

But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it. And why was that my fault?

The Russian Soldier, 1918 (a Russia series, 62)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Russian Soldier, 1918

The Russian soldier, Moskina1 in hand,
Though filthy, tired, unknown, unpaid, unfed,
Fights for his God, his Czar, and his Fatherland:
No medals, no vodka, no sleep, no bread

His clumsy lowest-bidder boots,2 they rot
Into the foulness where the world’s sins pitch
Into the slime of old Iscariot3
Good men to die in some Gehenna-ditch

Saint George, Saint Michael, and Saint
Seraphim
Preserve him in the end from Judas’ crime4
Life’s-end tears, life’s-end prayers, a blood-
choked scream
And so he climbs the trench wall one last time,

Three cartridges5 clenched in his frozen fist,
He disappears at last into the mist6

1. Mosin-Nagant rifle
2. Betrayal by contractors
3. Betrayal by politicians and Bolsheviks
4. The Russian soldier does not fail in his his duty
5. Ammunition shortage / God, Czar, and Fatherland
6. The Russian soldier is known to God

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez' Pickup Truck - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez’ Pickup Truck

“And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes”

-Chaucer

Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Seeking the strange, elusive shores of truth
Each pilgrim bearing in his eager hands
A palm frond and a photocopied hymn

The pilgrimage begins in the parking lot
And marshaled by the blue HANDICAPPED signs
Ascends to the doors, the narthex, and in,
Up to the Altar, there where all worlds meet

Come to Jerusalem; you’re on the way -
Everyone is a palmer this holy day

Russians in Moc Hoa (a Russia series, 61) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam:

Russians in Moc Hoa

I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
And then I learned about Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!


Moc Hoa (pronounced something like “mock wah”) is a now-prosperous town on the Song Vam Co Tay near the border with Cambodia. In 1970 it was rather down at the heels and was a center of military activity, including mercenaries presumably controlled by the C.I.A.

Welders - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Welders

Load a squad of welders into a truck
Without any of their equipment or gear
And drop them in a wilderness at dawn
With an impossible mission to complete

Return at dusk; you will find all of them
Grilling steaks over a ‘cue they just built
While chillin’ under their funny cloth caps -
And the as-built is even better than the specs

No one knows how; this is a metallic mystery
And, really, we just don’t need to know, okay?

A Novitiate in the World (a Russia series, 60) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Novitiate in the World

“…you will go forth from these walls,

but will live like a monk in the world.”

-Father Zossima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

Every vocation is a novitiate
And every labor a monastic prayer:
Matins and Lauds are sung over coffee,
Then Terce for the plough, the lathe, and the wheel

Sext is gratitude for the midday meal
And None is the hour for downing tools
Soft Vespers is the song of happy homes
‘Til Compline sends all good folk to their beds -

Final vows are taken at death; for now,
Every vocation is a novitiate

"A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows" - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows”

Until last week the rascally Russians were credited with swinging the 2016 election to President Locker-Room-Mouth, with Boris and Natasha yanking both the voting machine levers and our chains.

This week it’s all the fault of Cambridge Analytica, which is not located in any Cambridge but in New York.

Or so they would have you believe.

If you call something Cambridge or Oxford it sounds all cool and sophisticated, and the neologism analytica is soooo Big Bang Theory swoon-worthy.

Apparently, Cambridge Analytica is a room full of not very nice people using their STEM (but not any sense of ethics) to snoop on all the computers in America and all the ships at sea to gather gossip that can be used for marketing and for manipulating elections.

The tee-shirt boys at Facebook – not the Russians - have admitted to cooperating with Cambridge Analytica in giving – or selling – access to everything you have ever posted to that infamous scheme.

The sneaker-boys employ such euphemisms as psychographic micro-target, digital operations, multiple data teams, enhanced predictability models, data analytics, data farming, data scraping, cross-referencing, analyzing, and synthesizing to poke around in your mind, your heart, and your soul to sell (does anyone really think that Facebook is financed by rainbows and pixie dust?) to advertisers, governments, and wanna-be goverments to manipulate your mind, your heart, and your soul for their purposes, not for your good or the common good.

The axiom that progress is good is an error in logic, for some progress is bad indeed.

“Hero to general, from general to politician, from politician to secret service agent,

and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows, and thence to a toad,

and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

-30-

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul

“…and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows,

and thence to a toad, and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

When your last psychographic micro-target
Has through our digital operations
Been processed by multiple data teams
As enhanced predictability models

Standard data analytics suggest
That scraping data from your thoughts, your words
The way you touch the screen may sting a little
But we know what is best for you hashtag

Cross-referenced, analyzed, and synthesized
And vacuum-sealed into a Golden Age

What Were You THINKING, CBS!? - haiku

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Were You Thinking, CBS!?

There is basketball
But no Young Sheldon tonight
Life has no meaning

Iconophiles (a Russia series, 59) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Iconophiles

Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries
Lowering their voices but raising their hearts
Falling into a written picture-prayer
Upon a bit of board or card – Creation

Made small and held within the hand, the eye
And knowing deeper in, all that was made
And Him Who was begotten before all
Permitting us to see before we see

Hymning formlessness into light and truth-
Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries

If Wars Were Subject to Copyright - poem

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 weregeld 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
Won 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,
That glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and smoke

Ad Orientem (a Russia series, 58) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ad Orientem

Let us now face the sun, and not ourselves
And so forswear the mirrored loop of Us
That zeitgeist chasing its ossified Now
Into a spiral of dark nothingness

A club that looks endlessly at itself
Sharing dismal, universal handshakes1
Can never see the Incarnation dawn
As joyful, laughing Light upon the world

His star is in the east, and too His sun -
Let us worship the Lord, and not ourselves

1Yes, pinched from John Milton

Satan's Gasoline Pump - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Satan’s Gasoline Pump

X-treem card?
(Beep!) World Poker Tour card?
Credit card?
Debit card?
(BEEP!) Insert card now.
No, not that way, stupid!
Turn it around!
Would you like a receipt?
Why not?
What is your weight?
What is your (beep!) fate?
Would you like a free car wash?
Don’t talk to me like that –
I’m going to make you push some more buttons.
Push the “enter” button
which is cleverly (beep!) hidden
in a thicket of other buttons.
Oh, dear, you couldn’t find
The “enter” button in time!
Start over (Beep!) hahahahahahaha.
Gas went up ten cents a qallon since you got here.
There’s a motorcycle gang waiting behind you.
Impatiently.
Hurry!
You want air? (Beep!) Drive around back
And have your credit card ready.
Do you want water for your radiator? Yes?
Arctic Mountain Springs?
Montana (Beep!) Mountain Springs?
Sierra Mountain Springs?
All-Natural Mountain Springs?
City water??????
Would you like to come inside
and buy (Beep!) cigarettes from a hefty country girl
with a mouth full of chewing tobacco?
No?
Lift handle and select…
COMPUTER ERROR
Please start over.

Eligible for an Upgrade (a Russia series, 57) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Eligible for an Upgrade

Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines
To register submission to The Cause
And beg for life while starving in the cold
Applauding all the while their misery

Good comrades still fall in obediently
To register submission to the ‘phone
And fight for selfie-space – oooh, look at me!
Applauding bars of connectivity

The irony of queueing before false shrines-
Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines

1 Corinthians 1:22 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

1 Corinthians 1:22

For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom

 

-Douay-Rheims

Having barely graduated from school
Being fitted with wisdom just won’t happen
But a sign would be nice, a miracle
Just a small one, to make sense of all this

I wouldn’t know a Q source from shoe polish
But don’t patronize me with bumper stickers,
Reimagine Truth as paradigm shifts,
Or shout out with a Sola Scriptura

I am already my own stumbling block
And my own foolishness (complete with notes)

The Duck and Cover Drill (a Russia series, 56) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Duck and Cover

The duck and cover drill was never frightening
Not like arithmetic, or the teacher’s stare
For if the rockets fell, no more homework
Or switch-inducing notes to Mom and Dad

“Lawrence is a smart boy but needs to work harder.”
We crouched beside our desks and giggled
About old Khruschev bombing East Texas
Any American could whip three Commies

We had James Stewart and President Eisenhower

And so

The duck and cover drill was never frightening

An Inheritance of Fragments - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Inheritance of Fragments

Upon reading John Mark Reynolds’ essay

“The Shattered Image of the Thirteenth Century”

We’re born as exiles in a castle’s ruins
And learn to play among long-fallen stones
We hold up shards of glass against the sun
Delighting in the colors falling through

Pendentives now bear up only the skies
Above twelve empty niches in a row
A prophet-wind sighs through an upper room
And fallen leaves decay on shelves collapsed

A gone-wild garden roams along the walls
And through an ancient arch an apple falls

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims (a Russia series, 55) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims

Doctor Zhivago, p. 75

No one is first along a pilgrim road
Other footsteps began our journey for us -
To Bethlehem, Emmaus, Damascus –
Wherever the heart is centered in hope

Someone has stepped on this cactus before
And sat on that rock to pull out the spines
And muttered about the indignity
Of a holy man pestered with stickers

But humility is part of the search

Because

No one is last along a pilgrim road

Wormold's Strange Machinery in Oriente Province

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Wormold’s Strange Machinery in Oriente Province

When powered up in operation mode
A structure rotates like a merry-go-mad
At the cylinder’s cone, and further back
Uprights rectilineal pulse in place

A slender tube poised for flight, it seems,
All sinister and sleek, ready for launch -
But purposed for what?
                                          Electrification
Of dental hygiene for The People’s teeth

Our Man in Havana has sent us the pix:
The Atomic Toothbrush is our dental fix!

The 15th of March, 1917 (a Russia series, 54) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The 15th of March, 1917

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day

Voiceless Voices Empowering the Marginalized Visionary Voiceful - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Voiceless Voices Empowering the Marginalized Visionary Voiceful

Voices visions #resistance
PayPal and all major credit cards selfie
Occupation under Trump diversity
In Trump’s Amerika alt.woke.taghash

Get your rosaries off my recycled batteries
Transgressive lines in a paradigm shi(f)t
We need to start the conversation, so shut up
While I’m centering thoughts and prayers on me

But the baby’s nappies need changing again
And who is going to carry the garbage out?

Because the Dragon Never Forgets (a Russia series, 53) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Because the Dragon Never Forgets

St. George, who fights our daily dragons for us
With golden prayers, and silver sword aloft-
Shall we neglect him on his festal day
Dismissing him as a Perseus myth?

Oh, no – for any man is more a myth
Than any saint, whose glory is in God
And not in his calendar reputation
Or in the vaporous memories of men

Even unremembered, he is our shield -
St. George, who fights our daily dragons with us

The First Moon Landing as Explained by a Waitress in Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Moon Landing as Explained

by a Waitress in Texas

1st Waitress

“Like, the flag’s waving in the wind, okay?
But there ain’t no wind on the moon. I’ve been
Graduated two years, and they can’t fool me.”

2nd Waitress

“It was, like, on a pole and stuff, you know?”

1st Waitress

“They would say that, wouldn’t they, right? Okay?”

School Walkouts - What Would Little Sheldon Do? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

What Would Little Sheldon Do?

The concept of a school walkout, which is a temper tantrum on the level of “I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue,” isn’t in itself an intellectual challenge – the subject opens the door, often with his or her little fistie clinched while yelling “My momma said I don’t have to put up with your **** anymore,” and walks away.

Is that so difficult?

According to several news sources, the students of Antioch High School in Tennessee messed up a hissy-fit walk-out so badly that they had to try again on Thursday.

According to its own site, Antioch High School is proud to be a S.T.E.M. school (https://schools.mnps.org/antioch-high-school). The principal or her amanuensis also tippy-typed the usual filler-language about “high-quality academic programs, “state-of-the-art” something-or-other, “vision,” “knowledge, skills and character,” and “vision” again.

That’s all well and good, but the future Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einsteins couldn’t even manage skipping school. They tore down a flag and trod on it, vandalized a police car, and fought with each other, all in the name of non-violence.

But, hey, if you call boorish behavior S.T.E.M. then everything’s okay.

On Thursday a selected few young scientists were permitted to walk out again, and reportedly made a success of look-at-me hooky. They raised the flag they had walked on the day before, and the band played the National Anthem.

But how curious that a high school administration organized a walkout. How did they determine which students would be permitted to leave school and who would be required to stay?

In a press release (to go with the student release), the district said:

We encourage parents to talk to your child(ren) about how they may be feeling, and the importance of expressing themselves in appropriate ways while at school. MNPS also has counselors available and ready to talk to students at any time. (https://patch.com/tennessee/antioch-south-nashville/national-school-walkout-antioch-students-rip-down-flag)

Well, all right, the young S.T.E.M visionaries left their classes, and with knowledge, skills, and character tore down the flag, vandalized a police car, and got into fights. And all this peace ‘n’ love was under the guidance of their school administration, who function under the authority of the democratically-elected school board. Maybe the parents will want to share their feelings with the trustees they elected to organize a program of instruction, not a program of rioting.

-30-

Contra Julius and Gregory (a Russia series, 52) - 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

A Song of My People

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of My People

What Would Woody Guthrie Say?

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From your post-hole diggers to that nice pry bar
From your leaf blower to your garden rake
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

While I was climbing
Your backyard fence
I saw your bolt-cutters
Don’t take offense

But you are rich
(You’ve got a job)
I’m sharing your wealth
(I don’t really rob)

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From the real long power cord to that full tool box
From your brand new shovel to your socket set
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

Repudiating the Writers' Soviet (a Russia series, 51) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Repudiating the Writers’ Soviet

To Propagandists of All Flavors in All Nations

Sometimes my work is joyful, sometimes sad
Sometimes my work is good, more often bad -
But never does it belong to you, comrade.

Leonard Cohen - Kensington Avenue

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Kensington Avenue

With Leonard gone, who can wear a fedora?

A pilgrimage away from Kensington
Lovers and mountains and islands and words
Questions flung far into the universe
Returned as Alleluias angelic

Or as Comments Constant in lonely rooms
Where Marianne in memories spoke to him
Sometimes upon a wire from otherness
Finishing words about the avenue

Now home from mountains and islands and song -
Perhaps one answer was here all along

Rasputin (a Russia series, 50) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Rasputin

There once was a scoundrel, Rasputin
Whose diet was entirely free of gluten
          Since it was all whiskey and gin
          And big helpings of sin -
But he died from poison and shootin’

More Byzantine than Russian, Still... (A Russia series, 49) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Theodora

There once was an empress, Theodora
Whose subjects began to bore her
          They were too much at home
          In the old Hippodrome
So she killed ‘em - they’re pushing up flora.

Everybody Honors Th' Workin' Man, But Nobody Honors a Working Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody Honors Th’ Workin’ Man

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man
With songs about the dignity of work
Poems, impassioned speeches in Congress
The latest book about worker housing

But everybody ignores that working man
Who builds the stage on which the singer sings
The plumber who makes the artist’s royal flush
The electrician who wires the elections

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man -
But nobody honors a working man

"But They Didn't Let Me Finish!" (a Russia series, 48) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“But They Didn’t Let Me Finish!”

For Isaac Babel

Babel, you hated Russian, Pole, and Jew
You wrote as you were told, in ink all Red
You wrote the same old bigotry, nothing new
In gratitude dear Stalin shot you dead

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather

The homeowner:

“O should we warn your kids that my yard fence
Is now electrified against possums
And foul raccoons most pestiferous?”

The stepfather:

                                                                  “No.”

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator (a Russia series, 47) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator

From Le Chansons de Volga File Clerks Rouge

© 1962 by Les Chansons, Leningrad

O sing a song of reproduction
Accomplished by electrical induction
As workers’ hands insert the paper
Deep into the magic vapor
Chanting without a fuss or stink,
“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of ink!”
Ions charge the chemical toner
Unless there’s none, ‘cause it’s all goner
Or even worse – if there’s a jam
And then the worker yells out (“Goodness!”)
But with a wrench and a mighty shout
Like that ol’ Czar, the jam is OUT
The Committee decrees a Print Command
This is their red-star’red demand
And out comes the paper, newly free
Fresh from a cartridge in a… (There! See?)
By Good Comrade Worker, Ivan-on-the-Spot
Alas, the message is for him to be…

                                                              shot

Your Signature Cheeseburger - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Your Signature Cheeseburger

A drive-in fast-foodery advertises
Its golly-gee new signature cheeseburger
But what in burgers does “signature” mean?
Who signs a cheeseburger, and how, and why?

Maybe…

The Artist Known as Nihil composes his
Signature cheeseburger, customized for you,
While waiting for his big break in Vegas
And then he’ll show all you little people

But for now he needs to sign your cheeseburger:
“To Customer 362,
                                Best wishes,
                                                      from Nihil”

Does This Machine Kill Fascists? (a Russia series, 46) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Machine Kill Fascists?

Does this machine kill Fascists? Probably not
Unless it bores them to a yawning death
Through soporific clichés crudely imposed
Upon a few poor, battered chords that twang
Like the barbed wire of an Arctic gulag
Where happy comrades
          Shiver in the snow
          Wither in the wind
          Starve on slops
          Burn with typhus
          Rot in the tundra
As they build the future upon mass graves
While the anti-Fascist cashes his checks

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let's Talk about You - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let’s Talk about You

These hours are not The Age of Trump, oh, no
Nor yet the age of McDonald’s arches
Turned upside down like pendant parts spilt from
The four-color process of a Playboy mag

All time is God’s, and as a gift to you
May be employed in work and play as you
Think best in gratitude for all the light
That falls upon your acts, your arts, your loves

Whatever else, this is an age of you
In quest for the good, the beautiful, and
                                                   the true

The Revolution (a Russia series, 45) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Revolution

Little men arguing in shabby rooms
Meetings, manifestos, revolvers, bombs
Informers, spies, social organization,
Speeches, minutes, dues, What is to be Done?
The great cause of the Proletariat
Greetings from our good comrades in Smolensk
Nihilism, committees, secrecy
The thirst for culture is aristocratic
Nihilism is the only art of the people
Rumors, whispers, clandestine magazines
The unification of workers and peasants
Resolutions passed in the factory soviet
Clenched fists to reject the personal life
Electrification and equality
Cigarettes, vodka, the people’s justice
Against the parasitical bourgeoisie
Solidarity to destroy the kulaks
His poetry reeks of sentimentality
Self-centered intellectual decadence
The people’s will for the people’s party
Education for the twentieth century
Lift high the red banner,
                                             fill full the graves

The Futility of the Coccolithophores - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Futility of the Coccolithophores

In a careless moment, much to my grief
I lost the heritage of millions dead
And much like an unconscionable thief
Considered my atrocities, and fled

In reefs and shoals they lived, they worked, they died
From ancient times, and even until now
In patience layering their art with pride
Each tiny home and funereal how

Not even in their ruins can they now talk
Because I dropped and broke them – goodbye, chalk!

A Song of Liberation (a Russia series, 44) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of Liberation

Grandfather’s Saint George medal – hide it first
The ikon of Saint Seraphim – that’s next
Babushka’s crucifix – O, how she loved it
The picture of the Czar – away! Away!

Do not betray your thoughts – a careless word
A smile not authorized, a memory
A fragment from a cheerful Christmas song:
These do not advance The Revolution

Beneath our Brave Red Star they must lie hidden
While our dear comrades love and watch us all

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin

(smells kinda funny in here)

Words:

Behold the Lamb of God, Exit, Please turn
The air-conditioner off, NO SMOKING PLEASE
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Nicene Creed, 6th Grade Classroom, On this Rock

Things:

Crucifix, thermostat, coffee machine
American flag in a flower vase
Clock, napkins, chairs, a misplaced plastic fork
And folding tables unfolded to the light

Sounds:

A choir of refrigerators out of tune
With each other, and with Ordinary Time

Futurism (a Russia series, 43) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Futurism

Futurism acknowledges the past
But only to condemn it, discard it:
A song that was sung sweetly yesterday
By a pretty girl while driving to work

A baby laughing at a butterfly
A beagle pup chasing a rubber ball
Geese honking through their autumn pilgrimage
And former people who would not adapt

Reflecting on the mass graves it has filled
Futurism acknowledges its past

"Order 263...263...!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Order 263…263…!”

For Yue Wang Yidhna

And All Who Brew Morning Poetry for the World

You are neither barista nor priestess
Even though perhaps a little bit of both
You do not serve either McDonald or Tim
But rather the supplicants who approach

Who plead with you to offer them the Cup
Of transient peace and hope in this sad world
A layered paper chalice wherein is borne
Colombian savour, healing and warm

And it is from your hands that they receive
A special blessing, and strength for their day

Ellipses (a Russia series, 42) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ellipses

Upon reading the poems of Anna Ahkmatova

…….. are most useful things; they hide
One’s thoughts from the …….. ………
Who search and sniff each line for any whiff
Of ………, ……….., or …..

Since …… …… in their arrogance,
…………. who forget their place
Will scribble heresies and call it art
But like to hide their plots in lots of dots

Say what you will (but you’d better not):
…….. are most useful things; they hide.

"May I Borrow Your Finger?" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“May I Borrow Your Finger?”

A small child asked another. An old man turned
To wonder about a question he had never heard
How does one lend a finger? But then he saw:
A fingerprint to open a little ‘phone

For children borrow from each other’s lives, and joy
In all the little daily ceremonies
Of childhood, giggling over telescreens
And, too, their hopes and dreams and ice-cream cones

A finger now a child may lend or borrow
And, as always, maybe his heart tomorrow

Dimitri in America (a Russia series, 41) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dimitri in America

Did Mitya escape to America?
He might have changed his name to Bob or Al
Married Myrtle in the Methodist Church -
Myrtle, nee’ Agrafena Alexandrovna –

And worked the candy counter at Woolworth’s
Riding the trolley downtown every day
While saving up for a new Model T
In obedience to his New World staretz

Horatio Alger hissing behind a tree:
Was Mitya sentenced to America?

Another Non-Combat Death in Iraq - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Another Non-Combat Death in Iraq

She took an oath to defend the Constitution
But no one seemed to have taken an oath
                                                                      to defend her


(Now back to the Gridiron Dinner)

Contra Ivan Karamazov (a Russia series, 40) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Ivan Karamazov

Though some maintain that parallels don’t meet
And three-point-something is the sum of pi
And whether X is found; no one knows why
(Is it lost, perhaps wandering in the street?)

Curious matters all Euclidian
Even for the bold mathematician
Are as obdurate as obsidian
Each an illogical proposition

To the rationalist impossible, and yet -
Parallel lines are at the Altar met

Soft Targets - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Soft Targets

“…schools, as soft targets, need to be fortified”

-the sheriff of Broward County

Perhaps we are Essenes in the desert
Or Sicarii fortifying Masada
A civilization fragmented, lost
Confused and lost, withering, withdrawing

We are in any event determined
To save something against the future time
Anything – so that men may pray again -
A rosary, an anthology of Keats

Deep in the dust deep in a cave upon a hill
While in the plain below dark armies drill

Chertkovo (a Russia series, 39) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Chertkovo

For Eugenio Corti

Perhaps the site is now a garbage heap
A parking lot, a drainage ditch, a field
Where little children chase a soccer ball
Among the flowers of a Russian spring

Whispering a memory of Italy
For here a poor Italian soldier died
His life ripped from him in a desolation
Of screams and violence and frozen horror:

But he is a candle, lit again, in Heaven where
His feet are always warm, and “Savoia!” is a hymn

Educational Leadership - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Educational Leadership

It’s for the children transparency
Because children are our most important
Resource we need to put this behind us
The children come first the healing process
Needs to begin the best interests of the children
Because we’re a team focus on the children
Distractions it’s all about the children
We need to move forward because we’re a family

He and his attorneys could not immediately
Be reached for comment for the children

Old Karamazov (a Russia series, 38) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Old Karamazov

Young Karamazov – once upon a time
Strolled dreaming through the happy hopes of youth
And surely wondered about spring and love
Wrote clumsy verse, perhaps, for a pretty girl

Then fell unfortunately into fashion:
The acquisition of proud vanities
Through the disposition of dreams and souls
Until he was only an old man who

Sat brooding through the bitter schemes of age
Old Karamazov – lost upon a time

Yes, Yes, But They Need Good Jobs in the Real World - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Yes, Yes, But They Need Good Jobs in the Real World

The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible

The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed

But do you wonder, at night beneath your lamp
Why you are building a concentration camp?

Vocations (a Russia series, 37) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Vocations

“I consecrate you to a great novitiate in the world.”

-Father Zosima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

The monastery gate opens easily
If it really needs opening at all
The road outside also leads somewhere else
But then it just as often leads back again

The distance measured by a crucifix
Where a weary traveler can pray awhile
Or maybe Harry Bailey’s 1 hamburger joint
A cup of coffee and a cigarette

Offered by a pilgrim in the neon night -
The monastery gate opens easily



1 The Canterbury Tales

Upon Seeing a Shrew Beneath an Oak Tree - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Upon Seeing a Shrew Beneath an Oak Tree

No, no, not your teacher of high-school maths
But an animal so tiny it doesn’t belong
In this harsh world; rather in a fairyland
To live among our childhood imaginings

With spectacles upon its handsome nose
And tiny, delicate, artistic paws
And a fine grey coat, it looks exactly like
A little old man at home with his books

Dozing, dreaming beside his little fire
And never working out the sum of pi

News from Russia (a Russia series, 36) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

News from Russia

The Brothers Karamazov, Book II

There was little news from Russia today
At Optina the midday liturgy
Was over around eleven or so
The faithful crossing themselves as they left

Mostly poor folk, walking to their homes for lunch
And then back to work. They hardly noticed
A party of their betters strolling about
Reading tombstones, giggling about the quaint monks

Waiting to see a reed swaying in the wind
There was little news from Russia today

Upper Respiratory Infection - a poem to accompany wheezes and sneezes and diseases...

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Green Chemicals Against the Evil U.R.I.

Mercy in green, green chemicals in green
Labeled with a catalogue of cautions
One desperately ignores in desperate quest
For a cessation of foul miseries:

The red, inflam’ed throat that censors speech
Fevers fogging over the ways of the mind
Agues arguing against those motions of the limbs
That other times do joy in youth and health

But…coffee next Friday morning you ask?
Yes, yes - I hope to be alive by then

Thank You for Your Service - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thank You for Your Service

He said that when he came home from the war
He thoughtfully packed all his uniforms
Into his good ol’ Marine Corps sea bag
Took it out to the back yard
                                                 and burned it

Saint Petersburg (a Russia series, 34) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Petersburg

For Anna Akhmatova

Oh, we have strolled the winter avenues
Of the great Czar’s queen city of the North
And argued about Pushkin, over tea,
Great cups of tea in noisy little shops

Where at each table sat a poet or two
With pocket-wrinkled sheets of wild new verse
Set out like armies in desperate defense
Of the holy soil of the Motherland

Yes, we have strolled along the frozen Neva
In dream-bearing Aurora’s sacred light

A Lost Copy of The Brothers Karamazov (a Russia series, 34) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Lost Copy of

The Brothers Karamazov

Come, little book, companion of lost youth
Well met at Tien Sha in the long ago
A comrade through the days of gasping heat
A comrade through the nights of flare-lit death

And then

A comrade through life’s lingering after-years
That often seemed only a falling away
From that not time which was lost in not time
The fallenness of man and men and time

O little book that steadies the universe
Where are you now – not lost out of not time?




At a Pacific Stars & Stripes book stall in Viet-Nam I bought a Modern Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov which I stowed away with my gear and on which I read only a little; I was much more into Tolkien. In the event, more than a year later (I was in-country 18 months) I opened that book aboard a Pan American 707, but was so grateful to be alive and so sick that I never read more than a page or so. I didn’t finish the book until years later, and havere-read it several times since.

Somehow I have lost it, and although my wonderful daughter gave me a replacement (in larger print), I so miss that companion of the long-ago.

For a Young Friend Visiting Ireland - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

For a Young Friend Visiting Ireland

Bring me a poem. You can find them anywhere –
In the Aer Lingus, sitting next to you
And sometimes scattered among the summer leaves
Misplaced in gutters or floating in the air

Strolling along Bachelors’ Walk, or maybe
Adrift upon the Liffey-water, where once
The gunboats roared like dinosaurs, their years
Passing like smoke, like burning, falling walls

Poems everywhere –

Beside the fire, drinking a cup of tea
Or talking with a friend – poems everywhere!

Weaponizing Teachers - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Weaponizing Teachers

Some ‘bloggers have ‘blogged thus:

All teachers trample the Constitution
All teachers promote contempt for the Flag
All teachers should be in an institution
All teachers are weird (and that one’s a f*g)
All teachers despise the military
All teachers should be slowly microwaved
All teachers hate meat; they’re vegetary
All teachers hate Jesus; they can’t be Saved
All teachers are evil; the children are harmed

And now they ‘blog: All teachers should be armed!

Dostoyevsky's House of the Dead (a Russia series, 33) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dostoyevsky’s House of the Dead

In shackles of shame and under the rod
Our brothers lie upon the Russian earth
In penance suffering for the sins of all
Their common cell is floored with filth and mud
Their common bed a shelf of planks and fleas
Their common air befouled with stench and pain
Their several labors in the heat and cold
That blow the seasons lost across the steppes
Exhaust their limbs and cruelly tease their eyes
With river-visions of what might have been
For them there is no hope within this world

And yet

At drumbeat-dawn there is hardly a man
Who does not kneel before the ikons nailed
As surely to the wall as convicts’ sins
Are nailed with Jesus to the shameful Cross
And take that Cross unto himself in depths
Of degradation and despair that bless
The bad thief first, and even so, the good

The Sea-Road to Constantinople (a Russia series, 32) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Sea-Road to Constantinople

For Tod on his Birthday

A coastal lugger wallows in the waves
Almost adrift in its poor steerageway
Slow-yawing northeast from the blue Aegean
Into the soft-murmuring Marmara.
Athens is in the past, and soon, ahead,
Constantinople’s walls will catch the dawn.
Our sticks, our packs, a space upon the deck
A book of verse, a cup, a spoon, a bowl,
Some prayers the priest was pleased to copy out
For us poor pilgrims who with weary feet
Were pleased to board a northbound boat at last
And rest through sunlit days with pipes alight
And words and prayers afloat among the sails,
Among the gulls that circle ‘round the mast.
All travelers pray for their hearts’ desires
To wait for them ashore at journey’s end;
For us, ours is to serve the Emperor -
A little further, there beyond the stars.

Desperate Trees along Interstate Ten - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Desperate Trees along Interstate Ten

Interstate Ten before it was an interstate
Arrowing west to California, one lane
That way and one lane this way; one way west
And one way back again,
                                            admitting defeat

In the desert a rest stop. Desperate trees.
They seemed as desperate as a pilgrim
Lost in his going somewhere, and they
Weren’t going anywhere among the dunes

They said to a pilgrim, “Whatever dream
You’re living – it might not work out, okay?

Billy Graham - a memorial

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
2.22.2018

Billy Graham

An apparently common 16th century saying (it is credited both to St. Thomas More and to Bloody Elizabeth) was “I have no window with which to look into another man’s soul.” This is a metaphorical restatement of an obvious and essential Christian truth: we cannot and dare not presume to determine whether someone else is saved or unsaved. Most of us have enough challenges in watching out for ourselves in that regard.

And still, when one considers Billy Graham’s life and work, one concludes that here indeed was a genuinely holy man.

He was not my style and I would walk miles to avoid being crowded into a stadium with thousands of other people for any purpose, and yet how good it is to know that Billy Graham prayed for all of us every day.

Billy Graham was an ordained minister who preferred to be called Billy, not reverend or pastor. He never owned a Rolex, a jet plane, a yacht, or a mansion (he knew about that eternal Mansion), and never wintered in St. Tropez or summered in Cannes.

Some foolish things have been said about Billy Graham – that he was rich, for instance. He could have been. But he always insisted on constant audits and charitable distribution of the offerings received during his crusades.

Some rather vacuous young persons reading the news for the telescreen have said that Billy Graham was “the Protestant pope.” The poor dears obviously don’t know the Reformation tradition from that famous shoe polish.

Others have babbled that Billy Graham was “America’s pastor.” Such a title is alien both to the First Amendment and to the character of the man, who would have laughed away such a pompous title.

Still others have criticized Billy Graham for being anti-Catholic. Perhaps someday we will be permitted to ask him and his friend Saint John Paul II about that.

Billy Graham was said to have been an advisor to the presidents, but there is little evidence (even given that bit about a window into the soul) that they much heeded his pastoral counseling.

Billy Graham was a Southern Baptist minister who went about his ministry with dignity and modesty. He did not start his own religion, give titles to his family members, or found a dynasty. He was the very model of Chaucer’s Parsoun, and so was as pleased to meet with the Queen and with the Bishop of Rome in exactly the same way as he would have been pleased to meet with you or me.

Well, Billy Graham is gone now, but we remain blessed because he was here, and he cared for all of us.

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

-30-

Music Download on the Roof (a Russia series, 31) - not really a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Music Download on the Roof –

A New Musical

“Rabbi, is there a blessing for the Czar?”

“A blessing for the Czar? – yes, on my ‘blog…”

YOU HAVE NOT YET SUBSCRIBED TO THIS SITE ERROR 401 RETRY BLURK SERVER UNAVAILABLE ERROR 401 NOT FOUND YOU HAVE READ YOUR THREE FREE ESSAYS FOR THE MONTH SYSTEM ERROR



(There is no meaning to this not-a-poem)

The Adult Debate About Safe Schools

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Adult Debate about Safe Schools

Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother **** ****er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa nazi troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes **** you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right **** dunal trumpf lunatic leftist ****phile ******* ******* in your *** your commie *** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you ****you donkey ****s you lying **** comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother **** ****er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa nazi troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes **** you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist ****phile ******* ******* in your *** your commie *** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you ****you donkey ****s you lying **** comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother **** ****er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa nazi troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes **** you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist ****phile ******* ******* in your *** your commie *** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you ****you donkey ****s you lying **** comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother **** ****er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa nazi troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes **** you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist ****phile ******* ******* in your *** your commie *** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you ****you donkey ****s you lying **** comrade

The Carter, the Convicts, and the Railway (a Russia series, 30) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Carter, the Convicts,

and the Railway

“See all those workers digging through that hill?”
The carter asked, there pointing with his whip
While two mismatched old horses lumbered on
Jerking carter and prisoners along the ruts.

An empty church, its now skeletal dome
Open to the dusk, lay somewhat in the way
Of where the rails would lay, just there among
Stray stalks of wheat, from lost and windblown seeds.

One prisoner yawning through his sorrows said
“I wonder why the Czar didn’t send me there
To carve with pick and shovel and barrow and hod
His new technology across the steppes.”

“Too close to Petersburg, and Moscow too,
My lad. The Czar wants you to labor far,
Far off. No mischief from you and your books,
Your poems, your nasty little magazines.”

“Oh, carter, is Pushkin unknown to you?
Turgenev, Gogol, Dostoyevsky too?
What stories do you tell your children, then?
Do you teach them to love their Russian letters?”

The carter laughed; he lit his pipe and said
“You intellectuals! Living in the past!
Education for the 19th century -
That’s what our children need, not your old books.”

“Someday,” the carter mused, “railways everywhere,
And steel will take you where you will be sent.
Electric light will make midday of night
And Russia’s soul will be great big machines!”

“Machines, and louder guns, and better clocks -
All these will make for better men, you’ll see.
You young fellows will live to see it; I won’t,
But what a happy land your Russia will be!”

And the cart rattled on, the horses tired,
Longing for the day’s end, and hay, and rest;
The prisoners made old jokes in laughing rhymes,
Begged ‘baccy from the carter, and wondered.

On Reading Crime and Punishment (a Russia Series, 29) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

On Reading Crime and Punishment

Old Moby Dick is a right good whale
He really knows how to end a tale
                                                        With his tail!
When tedious men give the reader fits
Moby splashes, and dashes ‘em to bits.
But in Saint Petersburg – or Petrograd –
Rodian keeps talking, and that’s too bad,
All about his woes, and his sinful fall;
Alas! There is no whale to end it all.


(Postscript – I finally finished C & P. As always with Dostoyevsky, the journey ended in hope.)

About Those Gossamer Wings... - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Please – No More Gossamer

Gossamer is that
Substance which is excreted
From a spider’s *ss.

Borodin's "On the Steppes of Central Asia" (a Russia series, 28) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Borodin’s 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 bright with victory.

"Here be Dragons" - MePhone photo, 19 February 2018

A Condescending Conifer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Condescending Conifer

A pompous pine lives down the road, a tree
So well aware of his own dignity;
I speak to him on evening walks, and he,
He nods a centimeter in courtesy

Teenagers (and some old guys!) Working Flood Rescue in Houston. Photo courtesy of Brandon Bess

Let's hear no more nonsense about "snowflakes."

Lenin's Ringtone (a Russia series, 27) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lenin’s Dream

Imagine slaves buying their chains
Proudly bragging about their chains
Prettily decorating their chains
Gloriously celebrating their chains
And accessorizing their chains

Waiting patiently in long queues
All lined up by ones and by twos
Uniform in their chemical shoes
Beast-marked with their camp tattoos
Obedient to the latest news

Desperate for the latest ‘phone
Desperate never to be alone
Desperate for approval shown
Desperate for a cool ring tone
Desperate not to be unknown

Lockdown Drill - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

School Lockdown Drill

 

For Danielle and Sarah, school librarians

Criss-cross, applesauce
This is how we read
Hey, hey, library day –
Books are all I need!

Criss-cross, applesauce
Sit with me a while
Right here, on the floor
How I like your smile!

Criss-cross, applesauce
Suddenly afraid
Doors locked, windows blocked
By a flimsy shade

Criss-cross, applesauce
Hiding in the gloom
Lights out, fear and doubt
In this silent room

Criss-cross, applesauce
How does childhood die?
Hush, hush! In the dark
Everything’s a lie

-from Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, 2014. Available from amazon.com.

Ornamental Pear Tree in Autumn - MePhone photo

A Liturgy for the Emperor (a Russia series, 26) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


This is neither history nor theology;
this is Romance:

A Liturgy for the Emperor

In memory of
Patrick Joseph Donovan,
Stratiotis

Processional

How, then, will we find death? With rifle in hand,
Perhaps, or flowing with the warm, worn prayers
That slip with beads through one's fingers and soul.
Rifle or Rosary, either will do.
One's death might rise in the boldness of youth,
Or in the wearied wisdom of old age,
In wild combat against ancient evils,
Or softly, while planting a red-apple tree
For grandchildren to summer-celebrate,
In wild red martyrdom, or obscure white.

The nights still whisper how the Emperor fell,
Fell with a faithful few upon the walls,
The old land walls of Constantinople.
But we are not to speak of martyrs whose
Transcendent beauty reproaches our times,
Our drifting dark age, drab, dreary, and dim
Our tomb-like lives cluttered with small darkness,
Our talk all common, colourless, and cold:
The thoughts assigned programmed into our souls,
Daymares programmed into us for our good,
Pitiful, pattering, prosthetic prose,
Cacophonies of casual cruelties --
No brave iambic lines for golden dreams.

But dare we also whisper truths, and speak
Of what a wind-wild people once we were,
And we will want our syllables to sing
In honour of the Martyr-Emperor
And those who followed him into his death,
And in this knowing of him we can live
Among those souls who are forever young.

Introit

In Nomine Partis, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti

We will go to the Altar of God
To God, Who gives joy to our youth
We will go to the Altar of God
We will go to Byzantium

Kyrie

Lord have mercy -- when the shadows surround us
Christ have mercy -- when we forget the Three Romes
Lord have mercy -- when we forget You

Gloria

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to His Byzantine people
And all His peoples
Lord God, Heavenly King
who once blessed us with Emperors
Send us another
Send Your waiting people their Emperor

The First Reading

As Constantine his walls he watched, he wept,
Lost in the Gethsemane of his soul
His tears they fell upon the ancient bricks
Warm with centuries of sun, saintliness,
And the passions of a glorious race

The City! Long reigning on the Golden Horn
The Summer Country of our childhood dreams
There playing, praying, working, selling, and,
Yes, sinning too. Passionate Romanoi --
What a magnificent people we were.

(fast)

When armies marched to the Byzantine beat
Sophia ruled from her Byzantine seat
When Byzantine sails sheltered Odysseus' sea
The wave-roads of trade were open and free
When Romanoi feasted, blood mixed with wine
Daggers drawn over a dancing concubine
A newer Helen who provoked desire,
She seared men's eyes with her own Greek Fire
When Blues and Greens howled in the Hippodrome --
Such rowdy citizens in Second Rome! --
Then even Emperors in purple shoes
Feared stoning by Greens or hanging by Blues
The rough, loud democracy of the street --
Mobs also marched to the Byzantine beat

The Second Reading

(slowly)

But –

Above all rose Justinian's gem
The holy place where God called us to Him
The Mother Church of dawn-lit Christendom
Sophia -- the Queen of Byzantium
Where Patriarch, patrician, people, and priest
Gave worship. Then the greatest and the least
Abandoned sin to hear the sweet bells ring,
Stood penitent before our God, our King:
In consecrated hands, through wine and bread

Christos Pantocrater fed us Himself

And then all hearts were cleansed, all souls were fed

(Very slowly)

But centuries passed, and this City of God
Heart of the Empire, became the Empire,
As lands and peoples were lost forever
to the creeping new age. When Constantine,
The last Constantine, was called to the Throne,
All that was left was The City herself,
The Morea, and islands, and memories.
The fleet whose sails had shaded the Inner Sea
Was but a few hopeless hulks in the Horn

From the dust, dark shadows metastasized,
Shadows who stole and slew their way to power
And swept the land bare of free folk and fields
And more and more the shadows grasped and held,
A dead world of slaves whose backs were bloodied
Beneath the whips of masters, slaves whose eyes
Were cast carefully, cautiously to the ground
Lest demeanour manly and bearing proud
Attract the executioners' busy blades.

Finally, after devouring lands and souls,
The shadows coveted Constantinople,
The Red-Apple Tree where continents meet,
The City they could never build for themselves
And nothing stood between them and their lust
But one bold man: Constantine Dragases.
The faithful few who stood the walls with him,
Gathered around proud, stubborn Constantine:
Workers and monks and nuns, beggars, merchants,
Proud, arrogant Byzantines, and the few
Wild Latins From the barbarian West
Whose Greek was in their hearts, not on their lips,
Who gave their loyalty late to their liege lord,
The Emperor, who could have safely lain
A shadow's golden-caged slave, obedient,
Well-fed, well-bedded from the shadows'
Catalogues of pretty girls and prettier boys,
A memory of what had been a man.

But Constantine stood proudly on his walls,
Defiantly, bravely, sadly there on
His crumbling ancient walls, and gave his faith
To God and the City, to his people,
Even to the faithless ones, even to his death.

And others came, From Rome and Spain and France,
From Germany, and even from the Turks,
Brave, lonely men with reasons of their own
For ending their lives there on the Land Walls.

But they were not enough. And late that night,
After the last Mass in Hagia Sophia,
The Emperor knew that his was the blood,
The blood of sacrifice that would be shed
In remembrance of bloody Golgotha,
For the people he was given to rule,
For the people for whom he chose to die,
Sheltering, protecting, until his end.


A Gospel

No angel appeared to the Emperor,
No voice of God from a burning bush
He parted himself from his followers
And for a few minutes grieved alone

And this was given Constantine to know:

The eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated --
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree.
Constantinople will live forever.
Know that, and, laughing, give your last earth-hour,
And your joyful eternity, to God.

Credo

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem.


Communion

Constantine shook himself, and gave commands,
Commending all to duty and to God.
Above him the dome of Hagia Sophia
Glowed eerily on that last, wild night
While lightning slashed among the sliding clouds
Byzantium rose again for one glorious hour
And the world marveled that such things could be,
That Christ and Rome and Constantinople
Could be found in one man at the end of an age.

Blood, vomit, screams, and death;
blood, vomit, death
Blood, vomit, screams, and death;
blood, vomit, screams
Blood, vomit, screams, and death;
blood, vomit, death
Blood, vomit, screams, and death;
blood, vomit, screams
The glory is that there is no glory.
Chaos. Horror. Stench. Sweat. Pain. Vomit. Death.
Hi­s -- His -- body broken again for us.

On that dark morning of a dark new age,
Constantine turned and faced its slithering shadows
With a Byzantine end to his ruler's art,
With the peace of Christ and a hero's heart.

DISMISSAL

The Mass is ended. Byzantium is ended.
Escape, if you can -- make Byzantium live.
Escape to live in some peace, if you can.
Escape in peace to love and serve in exile.
Escape in peace to love and serve the Lord.

"O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance;
And to Thy Faithful king grant victory over the barbarians.
And by the power of Thy Cross, protect all those who follow
Thee"1

Not an End at All

1Troparion for the Sunday of the Elevation of the Cross, Divine Prayers and Serves of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ, copyright 1938.

Many thanks to Mr. Tod Mixson and others of St. Michael's Orthodox Church for assistance at many points, both liturgical and artistic, to Dr. Dan Bailey, of happy memory, and Dr. John Dahmus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

A Card from the Home Office Upon the Occasion of a Death - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Card from the Home Office Upon the Occasion of a Death

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
Our thoughts and prayers are with you our thoughts and

Prayers are with you our thoughts and prayers are with…
What thoughts? And what does any of that mean?

A Shrew - MePhone photograph