A Trochee Christmas and its Several Anapests - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Trochee Christmas and its Several Interchangeable Anapests

 

Brought to You in some Desperation

By your Local Chamber of Commerce

(Second Trailer Past the Stoplight)

Christmas in the Park
Christmas on the Main
Christmas on the Lake
Christmas on the Strand
Christmas on the Square
Christmas on the Farm
Christmas on the Beach
Christmas on the Mall
Christmas in the Mall
Christmas on the Block
Christmas on the Coast
Christmas on the Gulf
Christmas on the Hill
Christmas in the Keys
Christmas on the Quay
Christmas on the Quad
Christmas on the Range
Christmas on the Ranch
Christmas in the Vale
And this year, Christmas at the 'Gras!

But no Christmas without anapests, ‘kay?

Gravitas in the White House Press Briefing Room - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gravitas in the White House Press Briefing Room

The wind that blows is all that anyone knows

-Thoreau

“She hit me!” “She did not!” “He hit her first!”
“You can ask anyone – I hit the mike!”
“No, no, she hit me!” “No, he is the worst!”
“No, not at all, that’s not what it was like!”

“The president’s a meany!” “The press is rude!”
“This is unprecedented!” “You’re a fake!”
“Take away his pass; I’m not in the mood!”
“It’s unacceptable!” “Well, you’re a snake!”

As the nation crumbles in violence and smoke
The press and president are one bad joke

Under the Shadow-Tree - a poem on Remembrance Day

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Under the Shadow-Tree

For David Jones, 1895-1974

Poet, Artist

Pte., Royal Welch Fusiliers

One can go back to one's own home…

and everything is so changed that one is a stranger.

― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

I went away, a young and foolish lad
Imagining I would go home someday
Made manly in the war, someone to respect
Admired by all in the old, familiar scenes

There was only exile. Echoes and screams
Fumbling through the flashbacks for charger clips
And stepping carefully lest the lawn explode
In dreams lit only by parachute flares

While waiting for the order for volley fire
And is the safety on? Or am I off?

Ecclesiastical Frequent Flyer Miles - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ecclesiastical Frequent Flyer Miles

1.

(Our bishops in synod in Rome respond to a crisis)

Ombudsman, ombudsperson, om, om, om
As pressing as that issue is enhanced
Mediation roles for the whistleblowers
Accountable to the norms of canon law

Refashion the role of a promoter
Of justice creating a climate of
Having legal tools available for a
Strategic partnership the bottom line

And somewhere yet again a line or two
About the ‘way cool spirit of Vatican II

2.

(A populist priest posts about his of-the-people-ness

as he stands up to rascally bishops)

There wasn’t Fox News in the first-class lounge
But only CNN my plane was late
The merlot in first class was mediocre
And here’s a picture of my first-class lunch

Oh, such a long flight all the way to Rome
Where I’m fighting for you and for the Faith
In the cutest little sidewalk cafes’
And here’s a picture of my cappuccino

Travelling for your prayers is such a slog
So send me money to support my ‘blog

3.

(In a poor parish scheduled by the bishop for closure)

Father is on perpetual holiday
The abandoned faithful are left to say
Introibo ad altare Dei
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam

And what is an ombudsperson?

The Geriatric Cosmic Casino Bus in a McDonald's Parking Lot - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Geriatric Cosmic Casino Bus in a McDonald’s Parking Lot

A space casino painted on its sides
Its airbrakes hissing and spitting against the wheels
The charter bus clanks to a potty stop
Its hatches open to discharge aliens

Optimistically rattling their walkers
And dragging their oxygen machines along
Spongy shoes challenged by the parking lot
Knobby white knees all rattling through the dawn

The moustache in his cool gas-station shades
Admires himself in his big West Coast mirror



(Casino gambling is illegal in Texas, thus the fleets of charter busses zooming to the Louisiana border.)

The Great American Dream Ballot - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Great American Dream Ballot

After our nation’s recent fratricidal dust-up, and in anticipation of the next, I propose that we consider a return to paper ballots for all elections.

Mr. Mueller’s investigation of purported hanky-panky-Pokemon™® between Mr. Trump and the pesky Russians has being going on for two years now. While Thanksgiving dinner with that uncle who insists on sharing over the turkey all the details of his latest gastrointestinal adventures might seem longer than two years, it only seems that way.

That Vladimir Putin was sitting at his glorious desk in the Moscow Kremlin and manipulating your auntie’s vote via his Official Danger Man®™ Snoopocontrolloscope (the collectible model comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the late Patrick McGoohan) seems unlikely, but the allegations of electronic tonkering have cost all of us millions of dollars in order to pay the alligator-shoe-boys to share tittle-tattle.

Further, the reports of hardware failures, computer failures, printout failures, power failures, and in at least one Houston location a shortage of extension cords – yes, extension cords – delayed last week’s voting in many locations.

How much do the various brands and models of gollygeewhizpinball voting machines cost us? How reliable are they? How much do the various brands and models of tabulating machines, printers, scanners cost us? How much do the legions of IT functionaries, electricians, operating crews, programmers, software developers, software sales people, and the bidding and acquisition processes cost us?

And, yeah, the extension cords – the glories of our mighty Republic had to be put on hold while someone found a hardware store still open late at night.

And, in the end, how many Americans trust a jumped-up video game to have been programmed honestly and to record accurately even one vote?

The honest, effective, rational, and cost-saving approach to fair elections is to vote on paper ballots, and then for each ballot in its turn counted, checked, and verified by small committees of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other. If a ballot is approved by all it is counted; if there are disagreements then the ballot is carried by a messenger to another room where another small committee of thoughtful people who don’t quite trust each other resolve the problem.

Make the ballots big. Make them clear. Make the choices obvious through plain language free of weak verbs, the passive voice, and euphemisms.

The useless pachinko voting machines could be broken up for scrap metal or sunk along the coast as artificial reefs for the little fishes.

Paper ballots – good for America, good for the little fishes, bad for the Chinese manufacturers of videogaming toys, and really bad for the comrades in Broward County, Florida.

-30-

Why Did He Shoot People He Did Not Know? - poem (speculation only)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Why Did He Shoot People He Did Not Know?

Why did he shoot people he did not know?
Maybe he did not know what else to do

He was told all his life he could do anything
But he couldn’t
He was told all his life how special he was
But he wasn’t

He was told all his life to follow his dreams
But what are dreams?
And the success and the money would follow
But they didn’t

He was told all his life to be himself
But what was he?
He was given noises all his life, but when
The silence fell…

He had no poetry, no prayer, no art
He looked inside himself, and nothing was there

Why did he shoot people he did not know?
Maybe he did not know what else to do

Simon and Schuster and the Construction Trades - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Simon and Schuster and the Construction Trades

“…you’ll love this riveting memoir.”

One longs to see a memoir riveting,
Setting in place with tongs the hot red steel,
Bucking the tail, and quickly pivoting
For another – a worker’s life is real

Election Day: Executive Inaction with Moderate Prejudice in Fits of Absent-Mindedness - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Election Day:

Executive Inaction with Moderate Prejudice

in Fits of Absent-Mindedness

The old order changeth, yielding place to new

-Tennyson, Idylls of the King

Like dinosaurs our institutions gasp
In spasms of existential death; they pass
At first unnoticed by the casual unobserver
Who trips over a covenant that isn’t there

If you vote they give you a sticker

The ephemeral Constitution changed
Like sweaty skivvies by each president
Law libraries catalogued for pulp
By obedient functionaries in tees

If you vote they give you a sticker

The faithful escorted out of the cathedral
By a bored security guard on overtime
The altar linens for sale at Goodwill
And the sanctuary repurposed on T.V.

If you vote they give you a sticker

Some of The Just Plain Folks cheer for the Reds
And the others cheer only for the Blues
As the reincarnation of Jack Chick
Blesses their four-wheelers and plastic caps

If you vote they give you a sticker

Election placards on abandoned buildings
Promise again prosperity for all
The meth lab cooks behind The Kute Kidz
Private Academy of the Dance and Math

If you vote they give you a sticker

An outreach of the Bright Light Free Will
Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ
Of the Lamb Sanctified 501C The Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy-Bob Hairdo PhD, DD a-brangin’ Messages and His Esteemed Lady Apostle Heather

If you vote they give you a sticker

And blessed be the Holy AR-15
God gave to His People to defend themselves
Here in the freest country in the world
Which you can find behind the barbed-wire fence

If you vote they give you a sticker

While fleets of luxury presidential jets
Arc high over our public housing projects
Reminding us of our prosperity
Here in the richest country in the world

If you vote they give you a sticker

And them Jews for Jesus I guess they’re all right
But them other Jews they just ain’t no good
Nor them Cath’lics nor them Mormons neither
And don’t you get me started on them Baptists

(We seem to have been otherwise engaged)

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new” –
(But neither cares at all for me or you)

But if you vote they give you a sticker

Guy Fawkes Forgot to Set His Smart Phone on Silent - not nearly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Guy Fawkes Forgot to Set His Smart Phone on Silent

Remember, remember the Fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason, and plot!
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason…
Wait – dude, is there an app for that?

Western Civilization and Radio Static - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Western Civilization and Radio Static

…These men are worth your tears:

You are not worth their merriment.

-Wilfred Owen, “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean? Paradise Lost? Probably not
Nor Saint Paul speaking on the Field of Mars

The Kalevala, Hagia Sophia
With its pendentives lifting up our prayers
Horatius fighting to defend his bridge
And Wilfred Owen dying bravely on his

Lord Tennyson and Idylls of the King
Chapultepec, Henry V, Becket
The paratroops at Arnhem, Saint Thomas More,
His King’s loyal servant, but God’s first

The Stray Dog poets of Saint Petersburg
The brave last stand of Roland at Roncesvalles
Lewis and Tolkien and glasses of beer
Montcalm and Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham

Hildegard von Bingen, Siegfried and the Rhine
Magna Carta, HMS Hood, the Thames
The Grove of Daphne, “The Old Rugged Cross”
Beatrix Potter and her little pet rabbit

El Cid, Anne Frank, John Keats, Saint Benedict
“I Have a Dream,” Dostoyevsky, and Greene
Viktor Frankl, Dag Hammarkskjold, and Proust
Good Chaucer’s naughty pilgrims telling tales

The Gettysburg Address, Willie and Joe
Stern Saint Augustine of North Africa
Wodehouse writing a jolly bit of fun
Saint Corbinian and Bavaria

The ancient glories of Byzantium
Pius XII contra the bombs and lies
The 602nd TD Battalion
Saint Joan, the Prado, and Robert Frost

And far, far more.

When that loudmouth on the wireless machine
Alludes to Western Civilization
What does he mean?



Of your mercy please pray for the repose of the soul of Wilfred Owen who was killed in action on 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice.

Clockery - a Practical Guide for Bending Time to One's Will - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Clockery – a Practical Guide for Bending Time to One’s Will

“I can buy a clock, sir!”

-Will Roper, obtuse as usual, to Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

Some vague authority for this and that
Advises us that now is the time for all
Good men to come to the aid of their clockery
And set each loyal clock an hour back

For after all, the old times were much better
When an American-made watch or clock
Required a good, strong man to wind it up –
None o’ yer godless Chinese ‘tronics, eh

And as the seasonal will must have it so
Upon my rounds to each house clock I go!

The First Day of Deer Season (a catchy and original title, eh!) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Day of Deer Season

The first shots slammed across the woods at dawn
Into my sleep, there taking down my dreams
Which can’t be slung into a pickup truck
And carried to the processors by noon

Venison is a bit gamey, of course:
That’s why they call it game, wild game, then food
Blended with pork and spices for Thanksgiving
And that’s a nice little dream in itself

Let’s not indulge sentimentality here
In forest glades or on china plates – it’s just a deer

An Earthworm in Flood-Time - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Earthworm in Flood-Time

If that poor worm remained in his earthy lair
He then would drown in mud and muck and mould
And if that worm crawled up to breathe the air
A robin would eat him as a luncheon cold

He had to make a choice…

And as he died the poor worm cried:
“Mid-term elections! Everybody lied!”

A Cafeteria Constitution? - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Cafeteria Constitution?

Will Roper: “So now you give the Devil benefit of law!?”

Thomas More: “Yes, what would you do, cut a great road to the law to get at the Devil?”

Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down…do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”

That some members of Congress and some American citizens want to regard the Constitution as a sort of salad bar and thus reject the bits they don’t want is disturbing. The Constitution is a foundation document, not a throwaway leaflet, and that some Americans regard it as nothing more than an obstacle to the acquisition of power both by individuals and by identity groups is a rebuke to their character.

Enjoying the freedom to vote for our leaders and for many laws and causes means, by definition, that we don’t always get what we want. An ill-mannered child who demands the biggest slice of chocolate cake does not understand that; an adult should

The utility of the electoral college (Article 1 and the 12th Amendment) is always questioned when a candidate for the presidency wins the popular vote but loses the electoral vote. Those of us who did not pay attention in civics (our name is Legion) fail to grasp that the Constitution requires that the president be chosen by the several states, not by a majority vote. This was designed as a hedge against the tyranny of large groups – without the electoral college and other calculated inefficiencies this nation would be ruled only by the populations of a New York / New Jersey / Chicago / Los Angeles / San Antonio / Houston / Dallas Borg. No candidate for president would ever campaign outside those jurisdictions nor would a president serve any interests but those of the Borg.

In 2016 Mr. Trump was outvoted by Mrs. Clinton by 2.9 million votes (https://www.thoughtco.com/why-keep-the-electoral-college-3322050), and in 2000 Mr. Bush won 543,800 few votes than Mr. Gore. Some maintain that this is unfair, but a stable government does not function according to moods and feelings, but according to the agreed-upon laws which govern us all.

This situation has been uncommon; only four other candidates have won the presidency without the popular vote: Mr. Harrison, Mr. Hayes, Mr. John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Lincoln, who won with only 40% of the popular vote.

Another Constitutional matter some wish to violate is the 14th Amendment, which begins with “All persons born or naturalized in the United State and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State where in they reside…”

Some have suggested that this Amendment is flawed because of the phrase “…and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…’ suggesting that a foreign national is subject to the laws of his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) own nation. Perhaps, but an immediate reality is that a visitor is subject to the laws of this nation too. A German is not exempted from the traffic laws of Wisconsin, and a Russian may not rob a bank with impunity because he is not an American.

Even granting the argument, a more urgent law is this: the Constitution can be amended only by a two thirds vote of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The matter is subject to debate; it always is. That a foreign national born in the USA is automatically a citizen is questionable. If we are going to change that, we must do so by the laws we claim to be the source of our freedom.

No president may presume to alter the Constitution; to attempt to do so is a violation of the Constitution, of the core document of federal law.

Our previous president also suffered from the I’ve-got-a-pen-and-a-telephone ego-thing, which was often accepted passively by our Merovingian Congress. It wasn’t right then, and it wouldn’t be right now.

The Constitution is based on wisdom, on the heritage of at least 6,000 years of human civilization and experience and learning, not on the numbers of individuals who upvote or downvote a game show on the Orwellian telescreen.

Remember what Thomas More said: if we tear down the law to get at those we don’t like, then the law will no longer exist to protect us.

-30-

In the Hospital Laboratory Waiting Area - a very short one-act play

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

In the Hospital Laboratory Waiting Area

A MePhone rattles and twanks and pings like Robby-the-Robot gone bad.

Woman: “Yeah?”

(silence)

Woman: “YEAH?”

(silence)

Woman: “I’m in the hospital.”

Noise from MePhone: (think Charlie Brown’s parents)

Woman: “I’m in the hospital!”

MePhone: (Charlie Brown’s parents)

Woman: “I’M IN THE HOSPITAL!”

MePhone: (a small child babbling)

Woman: “I’M IN THE HOSPITAL!”

MePhone: (a small child babbling)

Woman: “YEAH!”

MePhone: (a small child babbling)

Woman: “YEAH!”

MePhone: (incoherent noises – could be a murder)

Woman: “FOR MY COLONOSCOPY!”

MePhone: (the murder continues)

Woman: “FOR MY COLONOSCOPY!”

Offstage, a young woman in scrubbies: “Mr. Lawrence…?”

(Deo gratias)

Exit, pursued by Too Much Information.

The President Wants us to Come Together (slightly vulgar doggerel)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The President Wants us to Come Together

The president wants us to come together –
One imagines a sea-to-shining sea
Patriotic orgasm (with a touch of leather?)
And everyone moaning “MAGA!!!!” simultaneously

Simon and Schuster and a Carnivorous Book - mere doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Simon and Schuster and a Carnivorous Book

Simon and Schuster assure me that I
Will be consumed by J. R. Ward’s new book
But I am neither steak nor apple pie
And probably would be difficult to cook

Today's Special: Pot Roast with Two Sides - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Today’s Special: Pot Roast with Two Sides

For W.K. Kortas

In Response to his Sonnet for Wednesday’s Meatloaf

It’s an unusual pot roast, of course
Having only two dimensions, two sides
Incomplete on the space-time continuum
But free of fat, gristle, and growth horsemones

You can’t take a picture of it in 4-D
Because it appears only in 2-D
But how did you like the presentation
In a bed of herbivores all named Herb

It’s an unusual post roast discourse
In featuring only two sides of a horse

The Tree of Life has Many Branches - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Tree of Life has Many Branches

“Thy people shall be my people”

-Ruth 1:16

Smoke rises here from foul Gehenna’s fires
Fires set by souls twisted like cold barbed wire
Sole argument of ideologies
Strung geometrically from hate to hate

Smoke rises here; soft ashes fall as death
Torah, Mishnah, and Gemera – and us
For without the Word and the People Israel
We are but wraiths, and darkly blown about

O Israel!

You are the broom tree in the wilderness
The Tree of Life who shelters all with love
You are the tent of Sarah and Abraham
And we are blessed who find refuge in you

About that Prayer-Meeting Thing - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall461994@aol.com

About that Prayer-Meeting Thing

An Ulster Scot may come to disbelieve in God, but not to wear his week-day clothes on the Sabbath.

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

A body styling its collective self as the Freedom from Religion Foundation recently sent a hissy-fit letter to Newton County, Texas Sheriff Billy Rowles because of his eloquent use of a local metaphor. The words that the foundation found “alarming” were “prayer meeting” (cf. Beaumont Enterprise, KJAS Radio, and The Jasper Newsboy).

Eeeek.

So there we are for the next horror movie: a monster crashes through the woods devouring teenagers and bellowing “prayer meeting!”

A well-brought-up monster would not bellow with its mouth full, of course.

I think “prayer meeting” is one of Grendl’s Dane-ripping cries in Beowulf.

In local usage “prayer meeting” can mean:

1. Denotatively, an occasion on which people with a shared belief system gather informally over coffee or a nice glass of iced tea to discuss theological topics with reference to scripture and ecclesiastical authority, and to pray with and for each other.
2. Figuratively, an occasion when an authority figure sternly reminds someone of his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) responsibilities under the mutual obligations of civilized people.

Similarly, “a come-to-Jesus moment” can refer to a conversion experience, a sudden awareness of a bit of knowledge, or #2 as above.

These colorful and effective expressions are used and understood even by people belonging to other religious traditions or to no religion at all.

Well-read men and women of all cultures understand the concept of colloquialisms, even in Wisconsin where the Freedom from Religion Foundation is, well, foundated.

If one were to visit Israel he would no doubt find there lapsed Jews who still allude to Moses and the Prophets in conversation.

In India, the same for Hindus.

In East Texas the long-dominant Reformation tradition, waning but still significant, presents our common discourse with delightful usages which are celebrated by all.

C. S. Lewis, in his autobiography Surprised by Joy, remembers with great love and respect his old tutor, Mr. Kirk, a lapsed Presbyterian who, despite his professed atheism, put on his best suit to work in his yard on Sundays. Happily for Mr. Kirk, there was no Freedom from Religion Foundation to suffer the Aunt Pitty-Pat vapors about the association between divine services and one’s Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes.

I do not know what religion Sheriff Rowles professes (I’m reasonably sure he doesn’t worship trees, but I could be wrong). As St. Thomas More said, I have no window with which to look into another man’s soul. Furthermore, it is not my business, nor is it the business of the Freedom from Rational Thought Foundation. A civilized person’s only concern is that the sheriff is an honorable man.

And beyond all that, the Freedom from Growing Up Foundation is obviously ignorant (and I mean that in the worst possible use of the word) of Mr. Rowles’ service to this nation in Viet-Nam and to civilization in terrible times here twenty years ago.

The Miz Grundies of the Freedom from Religion Foundation appear to be much like Eustace Clarence Scrub in Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader, obsessed with their sour, parochial (so to speak) self-obsessions and perpetually hurt feelings, and ignoring the joyful sharing of cultures.

They are free to wallow in their fear; the rest of us are free to celebrate life.

-30-

On Refusing to MAGAbomb One's Self - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

On Refusing to MAGAbomb One’s Self

In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance,

he could find nothing more interesting to think of than his own prestige.

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

Just look into the mirror, and there you are
Could lose a little weight, but there - you are
You comb your hair, you brush your teeth, and then
You should always remember to make a face

And laugh

For you are not a sloganed comrade-hat
Nor yet a shadow in a marching mob
A noise, a post, a bumper-stickered oaf
An obedient tool being pushed about

Because

You are not a tagged and labeled identity
But a true child of God, brave, loving, and free

Idylls of a Servant - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Idylls of a Servant

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new” 1

On that cold night Sir Bedivere looked long
Into the dawnlight where three Queens gold-crowned 2
With Arthur passed at last into the West
And the sun rose, but not upon the King

Then in the silence of the raw new year
A masterless knight turned unto the hills
And after wanderings there took the cowl
And among new faces told the beads of worlds

For us – our old year too is someone’s new
With quiet grace and faith we pass from view


1 This line appears both in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur” in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, framing the arcing narrative.

2 The three Queens, too, appear in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur.” They are perhaps symbols of faith, hope, and charity from 1 Corinthians.

Marijuana in Newfoundland - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Marijuana in Newfoundland

It’s not marijuana in Newfoundland
In our fair Island we call it Product, b’ys
Son, have you been smokin’ Product again?
This is some ****in’ great Producttttttttt, ohhhhh, mannnnnnn

Mr. Speaker, why is there a shortage
Of Product in the province, Mr. Speaker,
Not worried about the stocks of cod if we
Can get stocks of Product, Mr. Speaker

And if the shipment from the mainland stalls
They’ll beam us some Product from Muskrat Falls



(Newfoundland is the most beautiful island in God's Creation, and the people
are a stew of languages and cultures who sometimes squabble, as happens in
happy families, but who are an inspiration to the world in their generosity,
class, character, and creativity.)

(Too bad about the recreational marijuana, though.)

An Oral Presentation in English Class - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Oral Presentation in English Class

So, like, like, so, like, so, you know, like, so,
Like, so, like, you know, it was like, you know,
Like, so, like, you know, like, so, like, like, so,
Like, so, you know, like, so, like, so, like, like,

You know, it was like, you know, like, so, like,
So, you know, like, so, like, like, so, like, so,
You know, like, so, like, so, like, like, you know,
It was like, you know, like, so, like, you know,

Like, so, like, like, so, like, so, you know,
So, like, so, like, like, you know, actually…

If You Don't Believe in Something - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If You Don’t Believe in Something

If you don’t believe in something you’ll fall
For anything – but what if that something
In which you believe was that anything
For which you fell in the first place?

And what if that anything for which you fell
Was the something you ought to have believed
Before you fell into the anything
That maybe wasn’t there at all?

If you don’t believe in something you’ll fall
So check out our site: www.thing.y’all

An Autumn Bee Ballet - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

An Autumn Bee Ballet

The garden out back needs mowing, but autumn bees
Good bees at work and play don’t see it that way
And spin about in the October breeze
Wind-spinning in the sun their bee ballet

The freshening winds have motivated them
To gather up and gather in the last
The last of summer goods from limb and stem -
Their easy harvests of spring have long since passed

They work, they know the winter winds will blow -
So I must find a different lawn to mow

Voting in my Primitive Village - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Voting in my Primitive Village

On Monday I will wear my uniform -
A blazer from Goodwill, old khaki slacks -
Knot my made-in-China patriotic tie
And verify that my papers are in order

On Monday I will sortie through the candidates -
I’m important to them on this one day -
Then work around their signs all slogan-trapped
And rush the doors through a hail of cliches’

And watched by comrades with their helmets blue
Vote for a Merovingian or two



Early voting begins in Texas on the 22nd of October.
Despite the many days and many opportunities and
many polling places only about 50% of the electorate
vote. The rest appear to be too busy complaining.

Murder in Constantinople - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Murder in Constantinople

As in an Agatha Christie mystery
A man - he ghosts into a consulate
As a flickering image upon a screen
The image, yes, but not the man is seen

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

As in an Eric Ambler mystery
Perhaps he is another Dimitrios
Another identity, and in the rain
Someone else slips aboard the Belgrade train

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

The inspectors inspect; the leaders lie:
We would not have it that Our subject should die

          (And softly flows the current through the Golden Horn)

Existential Despair in the Ohp...Opht...Eye Doctor's Waiting Room - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Existential Despair in the Ohp…Opht…Eye Doctor’s Waiting Room

Orderly rows of padded chairs among
Funeral home décor, fluorescent lights
HGTV eternally on TV
A really big and wide hi-def TV

On which attractive thirty-somethings yip
As they enter rooms: “OMYGOD! OMYGOD!”
What would they say if they encountered God –
OMYATTRACTIVELYFURNISHEDROOM!
OMYATTRACTIVELYFURNISHEDROOM!

And how many people with eye problems
Drive themselves to the ophthalmologist?

And did I spell “ophthalmologist” right?

Murder in Constantinople - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Murder in Constantinople

“When you come to the point, it does go against the grain to murder an Archbishop.”

-Second Knight in T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral

After murdering Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, the knights in Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral pause the action and address the audience in contemporary speech. Up to this point the play’s dialogue has been formal and in a broken sort of verse (apologies to Eliot-ans, but the man’s attempts at verse are obscure), but here the knights attempt to excuse their actions in prose. They are as evasive and as full of it as contemporary politicians covering their (tracks).

In real life King Henry, after his “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest!” moment, had the four knights disappeared, as fans of John Le Carre’ might say. Assassins are as disposable as archbishops and journalists who forget their places.

Last week Jamal Kashoggi, a Saudi subject on some business or other, entered the Saudi consulate in Constantinople (only the ill-taught refer to that ancient city on the Golden Horn as Istanbul). He has not been seen since.

Rumor Control & Gossip Central have said that Mr. Kashoggi was murdered and dismembered, maybe not in that order, by Saudi secret agents and that his screams were broadcast by his exercise watch to his cell ‘phone outside the Saudi consulate. Maybe. Can exercise watches broadcast audio?

If there was a murder there will be no witness, for the operatives, like Mr. Kashoggi, will never be seen again. The Saudi crown prince has made friends and functionaries disappear in the past.

Recep Erdogan, the Turkish president who has stuffed lots of Turkish news correspondents into his prisons, purports to be outraged at someone else’s apparent rough treatment of a news correspondent.

Some foreign news sources have suggested that Jamal Kashoggi was a spy. Americans maintain that he was merely a journalist working for amazon.com’s in-house sheet The Washington Post.

That Mr. Kashoggi lived as long as he did is a surprise. According to our own overseas propaganda service, The Voice of America (https://www.voanews.com/a/who-is-jamal-khashoggi/4610403.html), Mr. Kashoggi’s family and pals include arms dealers, Osama Bin Ladin, former directors of the Saudi secret service, and Dodi Fayed. He may also have been associated with something called The Muslim Brotherhood. He was hired and fired and re-hired and re-fired by numerous news outlets, and after the assumption of power (in a coup?) by Saudi Arabia’s latest crown prince Mr. Kashoggi escaped from Saudi Arabia and into the arms of Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post.

Who and what was Jamal Kashoggi? Whose side was he on? Was he on the side of the good, the true, and the beautiful, or was he playing nations against each other?

Though the arm of a tyrant is long, Mr. Kashoggi was relatively safe in the U.S. Why did he travel to Turkey? Why did he enter the Saudi consulate there? For divorce papers? Really?

Our own crown prince and international arms dealer (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/world/middleeast/jared-kushner-saudi-arabia-arms-deal-lockheed.html) (https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-crown-prince-jared-kushner-relationship-2018-3) is all palsy with the Saudi crown prince. Maybe those two bromance partners could get together over afternoon tea and sort out what happened to Mr. Kashoggi.

“So if we seemed a bit rowdy…”

-Second Knight

-30-

A Person of Interest - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

A Person of Interest

The smoking gun is interesting enough
As is the bloody knife dripping with guts
And his meth-headed beheading of his child
But otherwise – who would be interested in him?

The Cold is More Poetic than the Warm - (this poem is not nearly as drippy as it sounds)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Cold is More Poetic than the Warm

The cold is more poetic than the warm
A man coat-huddled against December’s winds
Evokes more sympathy in those dark days
Of stinging sleet and menacing blue clouds

The warm is less poetic than the cold
A man hat-shielded against September’s sun
Evokes no sympathy in those bright days
Of dripping sweat and dripping-too sun screen

And though McKuen sang “Listen to the warm”
There’s music in the cold while icicles form



(Your grandmother and I are the only two people who
will admit that they still love Rod McKuen.)

The Last Christmas for Sears and Roebuck - as a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Last Christmas for Sears and Roebuck

Where can one shop for Christmas if not at Sears:
J. C. Higgins sporting goods, Craftsman tools
Kenmore sewing machines, wonderful toys
The greatest candy counter in the world

And, oh! the best of all:

The little electric trains behind glass panes
Travelling across a cotton-snow Christmas land
From one tiny plastic village to another -
The Santa Fe Railway on tinplate tracks

A little boy’s dear dream for Christmas day
(But after an hour his parents drag him away)


Good-bye, Sears; thanks for the childhood memories.

If We Respected Work... - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If We Respected Work...

We would

Ask a receptionist for her autograph
Gather in thousands in awe of linemen
Practice the carpenter’s hammer at home
Invite a mechanic to the White House

We would

Order as a keepsake a plumber’s last pipe
Post pictures of teachers writing lesson plans
Make recordings of a wise plowman’s words
Publish biographies of waitresses

We would

Envy the garbageman aboard his yacht
And the workers’ lifestyle that we know not

"Human Eyeball Parts Grown in Lab" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Human Eyeball Parts Grown in Lab”

-Drudge

What do you look for in an eyeball lab-grown
While maybe it is looking back at you
And if you are looking for an eyeball
What are you looking for an eyeball with?

Will we have eyeballs grown for occasions -
A lovely blue for a day at the beach
And a stunning black for the opera
And Harris-tweed brown for a country weekend

But maybe lab eyeballs are just a rumor
A corn-ea attempt at vitreous humor!

When Robert Frost was Invited to the White House - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

When Robert Frost was Invited to the White House

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
They spoke of poetry and power, of man
Of greatness and of God, of man’s swagger
Of poetry saving power from itself

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
They spoke of the poet’s responsibility
The duties of good men to other men
Of magnanimity and liberation

When Robert Frost visited President Kennedy
We lived a golden age in those few hours

A Toe Fungus Good Morning - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Toe Fungus Good Morning

A yawning dawning clinging to the coffee cup
Dishwasher safe for your happy little home
You press the button for the magic screen
And the in-box presents - a toe fungus cure

Huh?

You opened the mail hoping for happiness
An existential why to the sleepless night
Matins and Lauds now electronical
And a note from a dear friend far away

But with your first sip of coffee, what did you see?
An ad for a toe fungus remedy!

The Final Christmas for Sears and Roebuck? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Final Christmas for Sears?

How sad to consider that this may be the last Christmas ever for the store most associated with Christmas, Sears, nee’ Sears and Roebuck.

The ultimate symbol of American mercantilism, Sears began in the 19th century as a catalogue outlet, and by 1969 was the world’s largest retailer. In the 1970s, in a burst of optimism, the company built the Sears Tower in Chicago, until recently the tallest building in the Americas.

Sears marketed especially brilliantly in rural America, and the Sears catalogue was the source of much of Christmas giving. If you lived in the woods or on the prairie you might not be able to visit a Sears store, but through the catalogues and the United State Post Office Sears visited you.

Brands created by Sears include Kenmore, Diehard, Craftsman, J.C. Higgins, Allstate Insurance, and, for a decade or so, the Vincent Price Gallery of Fine Art. In the 1920s Sears built its own radio station, WLS (World’s Largest Store), which still broadcasts from Chicago although no longer owned by Sears.

J. C. Higgins was Sears’ sporting goods brand, and their firearms, contracted out to various makers, were the poor relatives of Winchester, Remington, and the other high-toned boys. With their plain finish and cheaper wooden stocks J. C. Higgins firearms were not the darlings of the Abercrombie & Fitch set; all that Sears’ plain-Jane firearms could do was put dinner on the table, reliably and without a show, generation after generation.

For reasons best known to the alligator-shoe boys with their master’s degrees in marketing, Sears discontinued the J. C. Higgins line in 1962. Those modest firearms now command premium prices by collectors and are worth more than the company that orphaned them.

In another unexpected act of self-destruction Sears recently sold off perhaps its most famous brand, Craftsman. Craftsman tools were, like J.C. Higgins, outsourced to various American manufacturers, were consistently high-quality, and were guaranteed for life. Now that the name has been sold and re-sold, and one cannot be sure where Craftsman tools are now made, we’d better hit the garage sales for the old ones.

For one small boy in the long ago, the most glorious aspect of Sears was the annual Christmas electric train display, and with his nose pressed against the class he watched the little trains, with all their lights and noises and signals and accessories, travel from one cotton-ball-snowy town to another on pressed-steel rails until, finally, his parents dragged him away.

An adult of course understands that Christmas is not about electric trains at Sears, but the little boy who lives on in the man is not entirely persuaded of that.

Goodbye, Sears and Roebuck, and thank you for those happy childhood memories.

-30-

De-Colonization x 2 (with the usual "Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!") - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

De-Colonization x 2

1. De-Colonize This Space

Drum circle protests genderplop demands
Indigenous discount store camouflage
We demand persistent stereotypes
Solidarity initiative project

Take back the people’s cultural statues
Ethnographic curatorial practices
Red spray paint fire imperialism
Repatriate the Iphone Starbuck’s cups

And don’t forget the “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!’
Because we’re, like, artists and stuff, you know?

2. De-Colonize This Space Too

Guns and cholesterol made America great
Fat white boys in discount store camouflage
Duct-tape the Bible and the border wall
We won our freedom with our Kalashnikovs

Fake news back-stabber not a war hero
SecondAmendmentSecondAmendment
Lock her up get ‘em outta here yuge deal
You RINO losers can grab my MAGA

You snowflakes are sissies, you millennials too
But ouch! my heel spurs hurt, oh boo-hoo-hoo!

The School Board Wants to Know What's in Your Child's Urine

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The School Board Wants to Know What’s in Your Child’s Urine

In stately conclave met, each in his chair
The board of school trustees arrange their notes
And after an approved, appropriate prayer
They nod in their wisdom, then “aye” their votes

Entrusted with the dear, sweet children’s learning
With attendance down and the taxes up
The trustees feel a deep and mystical yearning
To make your child p*ss in a plastic cup

History, literature – what need of these?
(Make sure the valedictorian pees)

Catullus, Lesbia, and the Sparrow - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Catullus, Lesbia, and the Sparrow

Oh, foolish Catullus – have you not heard?
Your lover Lesbia gave you the bird!

Father Why's Glob - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Father Why’s Glob

And whan he rood, men myghte his brydel heere

Gynglen in a whistlynge wynd als cleere

And eek as loude as dooth the chapel belle

-Chaucer

A famous priest takes pictures of his meals
Writes detailed notes on how they were prepared
As he airplanes around the world attending meetings
To talk about people he doesn’t like

A famous priest takes pictures of more meals
Almost cellular closeups of bits of meat
While he is flying holy in first class
And praising his cabernet sauvignon

A famous priest promises prayers (and cookery tips)
If you will send him money for his many trips

The Workman's Aubade - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Workman’s Aubade

Awake at four, he rises, lights the fire
And puts the kettle on for a cup of tea
Pulls on the work-stained overalls he shed
Only a few exhausted hours before

Working a shutdown stretch of twelves and sevens
Maybe he’ll make enough for Christmas this year:
Wonderful gifts for his family still asleep
He slips out silently through the back door

His wife and children are disappointed in him
Because he doesn’t do enough for them

The Kent State Racially Right Drama Club - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Kent State Racially Right Drama Club

Studio UFA has faded away
MosFilm has blended into something new
Cinecitta filmed in Il Duce’s day

But

Kent State University adds their own “We, too!”

For they’re now using race to cast a play
Kent State obeys the old gauleiter’s cue:
Sure, you can act, but what’s your DNA?
They only hire Authentics as cast and crew

You have to be correct to play a part –
And we are expected to call it art

Torah and Talmud - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Torah and Talmud

To be submerged in world and Word, in Word
That is the world, in words that are the Word
Written in holy fire, the eternal Song
In which and through Whom the world is breathed into being

The Torah scroll unrolls the years of creation
The pages of the Talmud frame the law
As in the statute-structure of the ark
Or as a tabernacle of the soul

To read the words, to chant the Word, to sing -
To be the yad in the great Hand of God

Art as Obedience - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Art as Obedience

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca, known to all as Anthony Quinn, was born in 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico. During his long career this accomplished artist, writer, and actor played many characters of many national and ethnic backgrounds in the cinema and on stage, including: a Cheyenne (The Plainsman, 1936), an English king (Becket, 1961), a Hawaiian (Waikiki Wedding, 1937), a Portuguese (The World in His Arms, 1952), a Filipino (Back to Bataan, 1945, an Italian (La Strada, 1954 and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969), a Greek (The Guns of Navarone, 1961, and The Greek Tycoon, 1978), a Frenchman (Lust for Life, 1956 and The Lost Command, 1966), an Inuit (The Savage Innocents, 1956), an Arab (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), a Mongol (Marco the Magnificent, 1965), a Ukrainian (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968), a Jew (Jesus of Nazareth, 1977), an Afghan (Caravans, 1978), a Spaniard (Camino de Santiago, 1999, and The Last Train from Madrid, 1937), a Berber (Lion of the Desert, 1980), a Cuban (The Old Man and the Sea, 1990), and many others.

Mr. Quinn is said to have joked that he was never asked to play a Mexican on the screen or stage, though in fact there were a few of those roles, too.

To catch a late-night movie with Anthony Quinn is to be reminded of the greatness of this mostly self-educated man, tough, strong, smart, and professional, so unlike the knee-pantsied upspeakers of our time.

No one ever demanded that Mr. Quinn be forbidden to play Mayor Bombolini in The Secret of Santa Vittoria or a generic Anglo in Last Train from Gun Hill because he was born in Mexico and so could not be authentic in playing roles outside his DNA.

One wonders what sort of acting roles Mr. Quinn might now be forbidden to play in our increasingly DNA-obsessed era.

Two weeks ago the drama department of Kent State University was given the Article 58 (cf. The Gulag Archipelago) treatment because the casting of their proposed production of West Side Story was not DNA-correct.

Actors of Puerto Rican descent claimed that their story was being told by persons of unauthorized DNA

The reader may remember the gritty, mean-streets reality of the original play in which a Polish gang and a Puerto Rican gang combat each other at first through savage dance-offs. If that’s not authentic, then what is?

The play ends with the death of Tony / Romeo, though Maria / Juliet remains alive to give the “All are punished” speech at the end.

West Side Story is the plot from Romeo and Juliet, and thus a cultural appropriation from an English play. And that’s the point – Shakespeare’s plot is a gift to the world to be adapted and appreciated by all, not an ossified cultural artifact clutched jealously by a clique of Englishmen named Emma and Neville and Olivia and Trevor, still annoyed about the upstart Normans.

A tragedy of our time is that artistic endeavors in this nation, including theatre and cinema, are now subject to bullying, fear, and obedience to political and racial dictates. The theatre faculty at Kent State groveled their surrender to racist bullying instead of defying it.

The producers of drama in this nation once believed in artistic freedom and so scorned the racial and political policies of Goebbels’ UFA Studios, Stalin’s Mosfilm, and Mussolini’s Cinecitta; now they have themselves adopted those oppressive and DNA-ist approaches, sacrificing art to the obscenity of propaganda.

-30-

To a Bishop - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

To a Bishop

Your Grace, you cannot be a common man
There are no common men - but there are men
And in their service, wearily, alone
You now must bear their mitre and their ring

Your Grace, please do not dine with the regime
They’re only using you, laughing at you
Nor with the blessed poor – you’ll slurp your soup
And they deserve better company anyway

Your Grace, you must completely humble yourself
Submitting even to being addressed as “Your Grace”

"And Still to Their Goal the Rivers Go" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“And Still to Their Goal the Rivers Go”

-Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

That which is said to come already is
And was, and so will be again – the sun
Will rise tomorrow, perhaps not upon me
But still the sun will rise again tomorrow

And warm the waters in a little stream
That laughing play with fallen autumn leaves
And all of them swim past a rotting pier
Where little boys with their cane poles once fished

The river currents flow, and so do we
To find our sunlit dreams upon that sea

"Houston Mayor Reveals Plan to Block Robot Sex Shop" - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Houston Mayor Reveals Plan to Block Robot Sex Shop”

-Houston Chronicle, 10.1.2018

A robot wandered the mean streets alone
While lighting up and smoking his last transistor
Remembering an IBM long gone
“Buy me a WD-40, mister?”

A floozy thermostat took him to Radio Shack
And talked about some Texas Instruments she knew
A Compaq sent them to a room out back -
“Do ya wanna undo my phillips screw?”

He paid the thermostat some gigabytes

And then…

He was mugged by a relay who put out his lights

A Cold Front in October, Complete with a Merry Little Dachshund - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Cold Front in October, Complete with a Merry Little Dachshund

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

A Devout Sunday Morning Meditation Invoking a Firing Squad - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Devout Sunday Morning Meditation Invoking a Firing Squad

“I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.”

-Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons

And yet how schadenfreude to imagine
The purported Melvin from Mumbai
Tipping the executioner for good service
(To Melvin a concept previously unknown):

     “Be not I understand afraid of your office I need your
     major credit card and your date of birth you but send
     me I understand to that Limited Offer 30G in the Sky
     I understand.”

Or the executives of ISPs
Their eyes blindfolded with their own insolence
Standing before a new Customer Care Team
Drawn from a list of eager volunteers

Now look upon each techno-high-flyer

And

“Customer Care Team – Ready! Aim! Fire!”

And the Senator's Boy is a Harvard Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

And the Senator’s Boy is a Harvard Man

A corporal on his embarkation leave
Encounters a girl: “Tell me, what’s your name?”
She smiles and replies on that summer eve
“Tell me no lies and I’ll tell you the same.”

The congressman’s son is on the rowing team

They stroll along a San Diego pier
Where the old museum ships lie in repose
She has a coffee; he orders a beer
From a vendor he buys her a pretty rose

The President’s son is a UPenn man

They flirt over an order of burgers and fries
A soldier-boy so handsome and so young -
The women of the plains will gouge out his eyes
The lads from the hills will cut out his tongue

And the senator’s boy is a Harvard man

The Future of Texas is in Prison - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Future of Texas is in Prison

A class for correctional officers

at the local community college

Thirty-six-thousand a year to begin
No education or experience required
The recruiting posters are pretty, though:
Handsome young people uniformed in grey

But the poor sergeant can’t control his class
His students have their cell ‘phones and their ‘tudes -
“Tell Momma to pick me up like I said!” –
Slouched in their seats or wandering the halls

While dozing over her own telescreen
A fat corporal yawns by the soda machine

The Coming Blue Wave - or is it a Red Wave? - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Coming Blue Wave - or is it a Red Wave?

I can’t remember my color, can you?
One side is the bad side; the other is good -
Am I a red, or am I then a blue?
What’s the true color for my neighborhood?

It’s all confusing for this old fellow
They tell me I’m white, but I’m somewhat pink
(When I had the jaundice I was rather yellow)
What color is good – oh, what do you think?

Identification with color – says who?
I think I’ll just stick with the red, white, and blue

John Bolton Rattles his Moustache of War - Doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

John Bolton Rattles his Moustache of War

The National Security Advisor
In all his frumpery and trumpery
Waves his combat moustache menacingly
Backed up by each nuclear incisor

He threatens Iran with his “hell to pay”
Word missiles through his bristles - “We will come after you!”
Omitting to say (through his facial hairdo)
His child won’t go, but only yours – hooray!

For his own combat record is no joke:
He bravely fought the Cong around Fort Polk

The Teletype Machine in CASABLANCA - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Teletype Machine in Casablanca

To all officers: 504 ERROR
Two German couriers DIAGNOSED WITH AFIB
THIS HAND LOTION IS carrying official documents
murdered on train from LIKE US FOLLOW US

Screen freeze: restart

Oran. AN ERROR OCCURRED IN THE SCRIPT
Murderer ELIMINATES LAUNDRY ODORS
and possible JAW DROPPING accomplices
headed for NOT RESPONDING Casablanca.

Screen freeze: restart

WE’VE GOT AN UPGRADE FOR YOU round up all
suspicious characters TRY IT YOURSELF

Screen freeze: restart



Thanks to:
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=casablanca
for access to the script of Casablanca.

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, and of the May
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!

#TheNewSwastika# - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

#TheNewSwastika#

#iobey #meweak #isubmit #mefollow
#idon’tthink #pleasedon’tdisapproveofme
#itoo #allin #mecomrade #iobedient
#idesperate # mecabbage #Ilabelled

#ilicensedmerchandise #meclothingtag
#willyoubemyfriend? #mehatewhatyouhate
#idoasiamtold #mehavenocharacter
#ichantanddanceandwave#mesacrifice

           They’ll hate you, you know, if you walk away,
           Think for yourself, and refuse to obey

Harvest Time in the Fens: Saint Michael's Church, Chesterton

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Harvest Time in the Fens

St. Michael’s Church, Chesterton

A calendar knows little of a day,
Of any day; its arbitrary squares
Mark seasons as they amble on their way
From holy Advent ‘til the harvest fairs,

When summer’s crops, all red and gold and blue,
Along with piglets, ducks, some well-fed hens,
Are carted squeaking, squealing, creaking to
Saint Michael’s fields in the Anglian fens.

Old Father William lifts a pint (no less!)
With farmers selling cows and chicks and corn,
For he is merry too, and quick to bless
The laboring marsh-folk on this autumn morn.

Earth, sky, and air mark seasons as they fall,
And soon comes Martinmas, joyfully, for all.


Chesterton, in ancient Huntingdonshire (only those who know not God claim that Hunts is but a division of Cambridgeshire), is the home of my de Beauville / Beauville / Beville / Bevil ancestors.

St. Michael’s Church was built ca. 1295 and contains several memorials to the Bevilles and the tomb of William Beville, +1487. I do not know if there was ever any bit of land designated as “Saint Michael’s Fields”; I wrote that in for the sake of an autumn fair.

Dispatches from the Colonial Office - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches from the Colonial Office

Sometimes they are all Up the Down Staircase:
Please use the computer we never gave you
Respond to the directive we never sent
And send again the grades you sent last month

You have thirty students in your night class
The adjunct next to you has only six
Well, no, you don’t get any more pay than him
           I mean “than he”
We’re miffed that you even asked about that

Your roof is leaking only because it’s raining
And you’re overdue on your pervert training

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 this day’s slogans fresh upon their lips
At dawn advanced upon the remnant walls
So thinly held by so the last faithful few

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 of now obedient Rome
And to the Quirinal by a passage broad
And finally to the Ardeatine Caves

A Venus Flytrap Justifies its Diet of Flesh - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Venus Flytrap Justifies its Diet of Flesh

I mean, like, veg, you couldn’t expect me to eat
A fellow vegetable, a kindred soul
One in spirit with me, with woody cells
Made in the image of the Great Carrot

The animals don’t feel pain like we do
They have no sense of being, they have no soul
And humans need to be farm-raised in pens
And really, veg, they’re happier that way

I’m studied in all such matters agrarian
And, yum! I love me a tasty vegetarian!

I Lost a Major Credit Card, Apparently in Mumbai - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Lost a Major Credit Card, Apparently in Mumbai

For security and training purposes
this call may be monitored to access
your account by card number press 1
to access your account by social press 2
to access your balance press 1 to report
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
when was your last transaction on this card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
what is the number on the back of your card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
you should receive your new card in seven
to ten days how can I help you further today?

Well, I could do with a new brain, ha, ha

But Tiffany from Mumbai does not laugh

Life is an Unreliable Narrator - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Life is an Unreliable Narrator

The typewriter misses one of its keys
Every word is an orphan, and the lines
Wither away in an unfurnished room
Above a garage infested with ghosts

     Life is an unreliable narrator

The phone that isn’t connected doesn’t ring
While past-due notices fight among themselves
And on the hot plate macaroni boils
Sometimes you can see islands in the steam

      Life is an unreliable narrator

You’ve got a gift; that’s what everyone said

But

Your worn-thin sleeping bag is still your bed

     Life is an unreliable narrator

Everybody Comes to Rick's Pancake House Franchise - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody Comes to Rick’s Pancake House Franchise

Changing the channels in the middle of the night
Mixing old plots into a new program
Ugatti sells tickets to an illegal fight
Another quarter for the juke box, Sam

Patrick McGoohan strides angrily into Rick’s
But finds that he has lost his credit card
Vultures, vultures everywhere, Number Six
Ilsa falls for Major Strasser quite hard

Rick’s Place is purchased by Raymond Massey
And Leonard Cohen in his famous blue coat
Emails of transit from Kate Beckinsale, so classy -
‘Tis she who leaves poor Rick that rain-stained note

And Captain Reynaud?

He ends his days pushing each shopping cart
In from the parking lot down at Wal-Mart

"A Cave of Young Earth Dragons" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Poetry of John Keats is not Safe

You may find there “a cave of young earth dragons”
Or with a “sea-born goddess” fall in love
You might not escape “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Or finish reading all your “high-piled books”

Yet “tender is the night” when sings the nightingale
And you are shown that all “Beauty is truth”
Through your soul, “The wanderer by moonlight”
And there “like pious incense” the hours pass

Though in that “season of mists” one’s life must end
“Go not to Lethe,” but sail on with the wind

1 “Ben Nevis”
2 “Endymion”
3 “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
4 “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be”
5 “Ode to a Nightingale”
6 “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
7 “I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill”
8 “The Eve of Saint Agnes”
9 “To Autumn”
10 “Ode on Melancholy”

Crises Both Foreign and Domestic Reduced to Dogs and Cats - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Crises Both Foreign and Domestic Reduced to Dogs and Cats

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

         But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

         But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

         But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

And the cats are quite happy about that

We've Ridden Out Storms of Bad Reporting Before - a column about hurricane reporters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

We’ve Ridden Out Storms of Bad Reporting Before

There is nothing amusing about hurricanes; they are destructive and deadly. May God protect all who are menaced by them.

However, the babblings and posturings of some resume’-obsessed national reporters during hurricanes are indeed amusing. The detached observer wonders if these clevers might assume that petitions to God are addressed to them.

In reporting foul weather there are only so many ways one can say “wind,” “rain,” “tornado,” and “storm surge,” and so the keyboard commandos keep flooding (so to speak) readers and viewers with the same old metaphors and similes.

Here, then, is a catalogue of clichés to read and consider before abandoning Cyrus Heather-Shannon Trevor Neville Ponsonby of World Global Universal News Digital Cable Satellite Network to the dark waters and changing the channel to Flip this Senator off the Island:

Rain event. We’re not out of the woods. Dodged the bullet. A storm is brewing. Building up steam. Losing steam. Wreaking havoc. Left a swath of destruction it its wake. Changed my life forever. Mother Nature’s wrath. Mother Nature’s Fury. Mother Nature’s Vengeance. Decimated. Trees snapped like matchsticks. Mother of all hurricanes. Batten down the hatches. Hunker down (that always seems somewhat vulgar). Roofs peeled back like sardine cans. Cars tossed about like matchboxes. Boats tossed about like matchboxes. Boats smashed like match boxes. Boats bobbing about like corks. Rain coming down in sheets (never blankets or comforters). Calm before the storm, usually eerie. Calm in the eye of the hurricane, always eerie. Like a ghost town. Perfect storm. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. Storm of the century. Storm of a lifetime time. Looks like a warzone. Reduced to rubble. Debris field. Fish storm. Bearing down. Lashing. Roaring. Pounding. Swirling. Spinning. Barreling. Striking. Hitting. Storming ashore (well, yes, storming is what storms do).

Finally, any meaningful reporting is frequently interrupted for the visual cliché of some stupid man or woman doing stupid things for the camera. Wearing his Baron von Richthofen goggles and with his L.L. Bean hoodie flapping in harmony with just-the-right street sign the Dan Rather manqué clings to a palm tree and gasps into a microphone the obvious fact that he is an idiot who has gone outside in a hurricane.

All across this great land television viewers are laughing at this absurd figure and taking bets on whether he will be swept away.

No charitable man or woman would ever wish anyone harm, of course, except for motivational speakers, but there can be few people so insensitive and so hard-hearted and so lacking in charity that they would not weep tears of joy to see a national network drama-mama-papa and his cosmic microphone of existential doom pressured-washed down the street for a block or two.

We can dream.

-30-

The Hour of Our Lord 0945 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Hour of Our Lord 0945
 

I.

Few of us seek for any of those keys
Of which graduation orators speak
Nor would most bother with the battery
In that old lamp of which they’ve never heard

They do not push against a golden door
They expect all doors to be opened for them
They read no books, they do not read, they feel
They only feel, they do not write, they stare

So emptily away, then back again
An empty stare into, within the self
The empty chatter of the ceaseless self
Each self in pain from arrogant self-pity

Each centers himself in a universe
His universe of the eternal now
His universe of the eternal me
And thinks not of beyond himself at all

But, still –

II.

There are those few who seek for eternal Truth
Not for some shabby metaphorical keys;
They light the lamp, they lift the lamp, and look
Not at themselves but at the light, the Light

They shyly, slowly open the wardrobe door
They peek inside, they look, they see, they see
A world beyond their own; they step into
And through, and so they are given themselves

They seek for something else, and find themselves
A world of words and music and magic and light
And the Light is not them but upon them
The Light is the center, and gives them light

They give away themselves and so gain crowns
Unasked and so more happily received
They read and write and sing the happiness
Unasked and thus given, among the stars

III.

Forever

"Sounds, and Sweet Airs..." - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Sounds, and Sweet Airs…”

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

The Tempest III.ii.129-130

Be not
Afraid
Iambs
Are just
The way
We speak
They are
Our natch
Ural
Rhythm

Or:

Be not afraid; iambs are just the way
We speak; they are our natural rhythm 1

Sometimes they must be squashed a bit, and then
(Hear “natural” as two syllables, a pair

Othertimes “natural” is read as three) –
Be a skilled artist in your poetry!

1 “Rhythm” is a trochee, not an iamb
But let it stay, that poor, little lost lamb

"Then Grandpa Shot Billy" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Then Grandpa Shot Billy”

The merry banter of the waitress flirting
With her old men the negotiations
For a coffee refill the rattle of flatware
And the clatter-clat of the breakfast plates

The buzz of conversation and over there
A Bible verse and a head bowed in thanks
“Then Grandpa shot Billy” and too the hum
Of how’s-the-weather going to be later on

The usual beginning to another work day…
But wait…but what…what did that old man say?

"Beyond These Symbols" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46185@aol.com

“Beyond These Symbols”

How attractive he is, and how beset
By those stuffy boots on a Roman hill
How progressive, how forward, how brilliant
And how attached to the bubbly How Now

How fashionable with all his little books
So happenin’, so 1928
“Beyond these symbols” he writes the fashions
About some bones (so conveniently lost)

In the Gobi Desert he dug a tooth
And then upon this molar built his
                                                              truth?

Nature Study with Apple and Cherry and Oak - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Nature Study with Apple and Cherry and Oak

In the work cart I find a luna moth
And is it dead? With gentle hands I lift…
And off it flies! into the sunlit leaves
Breeze-wavy in the pale September sun

Among the apple and cherry and oak

I labor away at summer’s excess
And clear the paths and glades of weatherfall
Sorting out litter to a merry fire
And billets to store for the winter hearth

Sweet gifts of apple and cherry and oak

The bees seem to wonder what I’m about
Sitting awhile, and thinking the summer out

Beneath the apple and cherry and oak

The Obituary of a Rural Minister Gone to his Lord and Saviour - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@ol.com

The Obituary of a Rural Minister Gone to his Lord and Saviour

The evil that men do lives after them

-Julius Caesar III.iii.80-81

The eulogist speaks of the childhood roots
Of a preacher into poverty born
Amusing stories of the Good Ol’ Days
And of the hometown girl he came to love

The eulogist speaks of the ministry
To which the preacher and his wife were called
Their souls twinned in service to God and man
And of the catalogue of sinners saved

The eulogist speaks of the preacher’s soul -
But not of that dear family’s home he stole

An Earlier Catholic Scandal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“So Tell me, Judas;

Where do You See Yourself Ten Years from Now?”

Judas is an apostle on the go
Building his resume’, a better gig
Always part of his strategic focus
Going places, a young man on the move

Proactive for the Second Century
His paradigm shift of transparency
A next-generation strategy plan
In today’s competitive marketplace

Thirty Tyrian shekels; that’s the amount -
Laundered through a secret offshore account

Privileging the Narrative of Tea - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Privileging the Narrative of Tea

Whatever might a performance tea
                                                                   be?
Whatever are electrolytes to you
                                                                   and me?
No antioxidants will ruin our night
                                                                   all right?
And hydration is itself a fright
                                                                   Quite!

Blowing sleet rattles against the window pane
And the electrics have again winked adieu
But light the gas and brew up, black and plain
We’ll drink our tea by candles, with a biscuit
                                                                    or two

In nice China cups, or a mason jar

Because

The best tea of all is a cuppa char

(Upon reading a ‘vert for specialty teas)

The Land of L. L. Bean - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Land of L. L. Bean

How wonderful to live in Freeport, Maine
Where beautiful women and handsome men
In youth eternal rock their five-bar boots
And flannel shirts in happy, snowy scenes

Where laughter echoes through those forest glades
Forever free of electrical lines
Skunks burrowing under the cabin floor
And neighbors’ overflowing septic tanks

Oh, what a dreamy life for you and me
In Freeport, Zip Code 04033!


(Just having a little fun; everything I’ve bought from L.L. Bean’s catalogue is wonderful! I’d love to live in the perfect New England scenes depicted in the catalogue. If you squint your eyes carefully you can see Bob Newhart’s inn on page…)

Her Batlike Wings Pulsing Malignantly - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Her Batlike Wings Pulsing Malignantly

The nectar of youth from which the hummingbirds fed
In the joyful sweetness of their morning flights
Now sullies and sours the afternoon hours
Through bitter infestations and corruptions

Its former clarity corrupted now
Trapped in a tube of stagnation and rot
And scavenged by a malevolent wasp
Her batlike wings pulsing malignantly

But there is always hope: new songs, new words
In the morning’s return of sweet hummingbirds

A Child Curls up into a Little Ball - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Child Curls up into a Little Ball

In fear a child curls up into a ball
A very little ball, a little soul
Desperately seeking approval, and love
And given only disapproval, and blows

Hiding a favorite toy from a screaming purge
Childhood vaporized in an angry hour
Withdrawing into books and shining dreams
Withdrawing behind a fear-frozen face

Forever

Somewhere out there, discarded in the wild
Brave toy soldiers wait for a little child

A Letter from the Bishop - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Letter from the Bishop

Click to make a gift

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Click to make a gift

My sadness, anger, and shame concrete plan
I will travel to Rome third-party reporting
Mechanisms examining specific
Options advocate concrete proposals

Click to make a gift

Expertise relevant disciplines need
Such tools already exist our structures
Must preclude criterion zero tolerance
Outreach psychological development

Click to make a gift

This is the church house, this is the steeple
Where the Bishop dumps words upon the people

Click to make a gift

The Foul Stench of Summer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Foul Stench of Summer

From an idea by Jean Fisher

Six months of gasping, sere, soul-sucking heat
Blood-sucking mosquitoes, venomous snakes
And fetid, lung-drowning humidity

I loathe the summer, and I care not if
That wretched season goes away in silence
Or in noise -
                           only that it GOES AWAY