Hey, Hey, We're the Monkees and not Wagner! - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees and Not Wagner!

Last week a 77-year-old man named Peter Dork died. 77-year-old men have been known to die from time to time, but this man was quite famous in his youth as a member of the musical group The Monkees (sic) and continued to work until his death.

The Monkees were cobbled together in the 1960s by television producers as a weekly series to profit from the popularity of The Beatles (sic). A popular nickname for The Beatles was the fab four, and so a snarky nickname for The Monkees was the pre-fab four. And that was true enough, but the scheme became more popular than anyone imagined it would be, and The Monkees, through their popular television series, records, screaming-teenie tours, movies, and reunions, made themselves a significant cultural artifact.

Through a series of casting calls and tryouts four young men - Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Davy Jones - were hired to grow bowl haircuts and play the monkees in the weekly series broadcast from 1965 - 1968. The producers employed the quick cuts, jerky movements, and minimal plotting of the Beatles’ movies with great success. The WannaBeatles were harmless good fun with the assembly-line teenie-bop music put upon them, and for a while the world sang along to “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees!”

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener remembers an occasion in the middle of the night when the jolly Viet-Cong treated us to their own special music, and among the racket (as with Wagner, the V.C. liked it LOUD), a friend’s voice sang in a somewhat quavering but decidedly defiant counterpoint: “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees…”

Back in the U.S.A. the sometimes Fractious Four were musically ambitious and wanted to make more serious music that the programmatic tinkerty-tonk promoted for the show. They often did not get along with each other and they certainly did not get along with the men who made them stars. Apparently none of their songs at that time featured gratitude as a topic.

Due to squabbles the show was canceled in 1968, and the lads continue to squabble as a group until 1971 when they pulled the metaphorical plug and pursued their own musical interests.

In the 1990s re-runs of the show on cable and satellite channels made The Monkees popular again, and for decades they made a number of reunion shows and fresh albums.

Y’r ‘umble scrivener was vaguely aware of popular music only because he couldn’t escape it in the a.m. radio subculture of the times, but could not distinguish The Monkees from The Beatles from The Eagles (let the reader react with shock and then disdain). Indeed, in his declining and / or golden years he has developed a fondness for German opera, and is happy to drive along to the tune of bellowing Wagnerians. His family is not happy about that, but his dachshunds, being good Germans, are cool with all the sturm und drang.

However, success must be applauded, and musical people advise me that The Monkees aren’t bad at all, and occasionally pretty good.

In sum, The Monkees were fun, and in a world where there is too much sadness, a bit of fun is good enough.

It is a truism that for those of a certain generation “I’m a Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and “Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkees!” are essentials for the American road trip. For their grandchildren, nah, that’s MeeMaw and PawPaw music, and they retreat behind the cultural safety of their ear buds listening to God alone knows what beatnik-hippie stuff, eh?

-30-

A Penny Catechism Kind of Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Penny Catechism Kind of Man

Simple enough, big print but no big words
Simple enough for me, few words in me
I love the silences, they speak to me
In the ridges and fens among my crops

Simple enough, a pipe down at the pub
Simple enough for me - Guinness or Pimms
I love a pint in the evenings with the lads
In the corner, well armed with pints and darts

Simple enough, big print but no big words
For a penny catechism kind of man

No Students Were Ever in Danger at Any Time - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

No Students Were Ever in Danger at Any Time

This letter, is to inform you, about a
bomb threat
that we received this, morning. Name of a Name
Unified Consolidated ISD,
a State-Recognized School of Somethingness,
Where Kids Come First under the theme of
All The Kids All The Curriculum All The Time
is committed, to the safety and education
of all our students and We Are Number One,
Go #Thundercatbears!, ‘Cause We are #All-Hashtagged
in Unity and Oneness. We also, want
to clearly communicate with split infinitives
And crazy commas all over the place
to parents about safety issues when they
get found out arise.

This morning, a phone call, was received,
by the receptionist at

The-Latest-Name-Held-in-Place-with-Velcro-Until-the-Next-Name-Change
Elementary School and Essential Spirit
Dreams New Dawn Progress Learning and
Technology Center of the Future

stating a

bomb

was present, on the campus.
After conferring with the Threat Assessment Team,
The Standard Response Protocol team,
the Chinkypin-Lizard Lick Police Department parked in the handicapped spaces at Tia Jolene’s Goremay Eats ‘n’ Bokays out next to the Interstate,
the cheerleader sponsors,
Facebook,
Twitter,
our attorneys,
and Superintendent Dr. Hamestus Goodoleboy “Spike” Ponsonby III,
the students were rapidly, and efficiently evacuated
to a safe area up in the football bleachers
where they would be more obvious targets
and the school was professionally and thoroughly
swept for anything suspicious and untoward.
During this time,

when no students were in danger,

another call was received stating that gunshots
were fired in the school. There were no gunshots,
fired in the school and

no children were in danger at any time.

Currently, we’re are is allowing students,

who were never in any danger,

to return to school as usual

where there was never any danger at any time.

We will have extra counselors and therapists available
if students or parents needs supports are
counsolining in spelling ‘n’ sentence structure.

The students were never in any danger at any time.

All threats to our school where

their was never any danger

and students who were never in any danger

will be taken seriously immediately
and thoroughly and investigated
thoroughly and fully except for that call
last week that we managed to keep covered up.
We wanted to inform you of the correct facts
because our correct facts are the only facts
so you can discuss them with your child/ren
Of any race, sex, color, creed, religion,
or gender identification or not
and emphasize the seriousness of our facts,
which are the only facts. If you discover
Any facts untoward or out of place please contact us
At the district office at
xxx xxx xxxx ext xxx
or the Chinkypin - Lizard Lick Police Department
immediately and thoroughly.

No children were in, danger at any time.

I Miss my Northern Exposure Tee Shirt - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

I Miss my Northern Exposure Tee Shirt

We could drive into town for a beer at The Brick
Listening to the radio as Chris-in-the-Morning
Reads a chapter from Doctor Zhivago
Connects Yuri with Uncle Roy Bauer

We could drive into town for gas at Ruth-Anne’s
Marilyn and Ed will talk about movies; Maggie and Joel
Will argue some more on the sidewalk outside
While Maurice preens before his reflection in the glass

And then to The Brick: Shelley behind the bar
Holling and Dave-the-Cook wrestling the grease trap -
I think I left my Northern Exposure tee shirt
In the laundromat in Cicely, Alaska

We could drive into town and look for it

Polysyllable va Exclamation Marks and Bellowing All-Caps and Ball-Cap - ripped (only metaphorically) from the InterGossip

Lawrence Hall, HSG, LT, P,M & S
mhall46184@aol.com

Polysyllables

vs

Exclamation Marks and Bellowing All-Caps and Ball-Caps

Genderqueer contesting histories climate apocalypse social activist make a tax-deductible donation today starting at the advocate level inextricably to reexamine his legacy linked black gender-ambiguous social and political struggles behavioral economics Afro-futurist vision of decolonize this text white boy spear-heading queerphobic witch-hunt singular surrealities queer Shabbat dinners dialogue this trope diversity Rawlsian diagnosis basic earth cooperative existential Marxism for our times starting at the advocate level inextricably to reexamine his legacy linked black gender-ambiguous social and political struggles behavioral economics Afro-futurist vision of decolonize this text white boy spear-heading queerphobic witch-hunt singular surrealities queer Shabbat dinners dialogue this trope diversity

BAM! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! BOOM! THUD!

Enlighten Me, O Brave Little Princeling - a rebuke to Young Mr. Trump

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Enlighten Me, O Brave Little Princeling

“...you don’t have to be indoctrinated by these loser teachers

that are trying to sell you on socialism from birth.”

- Donald Trump, Junior

Have at it, little prince - I was called worse
When I came home from Viet-Nam; I’m sure
Your father could tell you about the pain

And now

A usage lesson follows my poor verse:


The relative pronoun following “teachers” should be “who,” not “that.”




I am at your service, your highness.

Writing in Our Stray Dog Cafes' - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Writing in Our Stray Dog Cafes

The

Authorities will shut them down again
Each in its turn: The Brick, the Stray Dog Cafe,
Foxy John’s (Beer Wine Good Food Low Prices),
Cafe’ Zanzibar, Joe’s Eats down by the piers

And Denny’s past, before the blood-crazed purge
Exiled us scribbling hippies to the street
To search again and build again a space
Where verbs and nouns and smoke are flung about

Because we are colonialists of the heart
Who build up empires of beauty and truth



http://www.visit-petersburg.ru/en/restaurant/196278/

When my Father was a Police Officer in Marseilles - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

When my Father was a Police Officer in Marseilles

In 1945 The War was over
The survivors were trying to make life work
And occupation forces here and there were set
To guard the roads, the rails, the city streets

And so it was that Master Sergeant Hall -
Normandy, the Moselle, Belgium and the Bulge,
Munich, Dachau, Thuringen, and Zwickau -
Was sent to old Marseilles to be a cop

A watch commander, assigning patrols
And sending men to their various posts
Even to directing traffic in the streets
There was a complaint from a traffic hub:

The American soldier in charge there -
Sometimes he chose to block all traffic there
And swagger about and cuss ‘em out
Then laugh, and all at once turn ‘em loose again

And then one day there came an alarm:
Machine guns shooting at that intersection
A soldier from the colonies gone wild
And murdering people in the street

They sped to the scene, the scene of horror
And helped - but they could not find their soldier
Posted there at the beginning of the watch
Was he among the dead? The wounded? Where?

And they didn’t know until the end of the day
After the soldier returned, alive and well:
“When the shooting started, I ran down the street,
Found another spot, and directed traffic there.”




Note: As remembered, which makes this a secondary source, and adapted loosely to iambs.  The quote from the soldier on traffic control, whose name I don't remember, was something like, "Well, Sergeant, when all that shooting started I ran like H*** down the street a few blocks, found me another intersection, and started directing traffic there."

I do not know if this soldier was the one whom on another occasion my father found blocking all the traffic at an intersection (I infer that it was a hub and possibly a traffic roundabout, with five or more streets meeting), striding around cussing everyone, then standing off out of the way and blowing his whistle for ALL the traffic to resume, and laughing at the chaos.

Squeaking Truth to Glower - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Squeaking Truth to Glower

Her stern eyes gaze a four years’ distance
But let this fact be duly noted
She claims to be of The Resistance -
But has she ever, ever voted?

Black Rifle I'm a Real Man Testosterone Compensation Fantasy for Studly Studs Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Black Rifle I'm a Real Man Testosterone Compensation Fantasy
for Studly Studs Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training 

Not worth a d**n
In Viet-Nam -
Fire once and jam

But now

They’ve fixed that mother
It’s like no other -
Go shoot your brother

A Baton, But No Orchestra - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Baton, But No Orchestra

Majestic in their yellow-painted shields
Imperious trumping traffic lights command
Through glares of green and red, and garish orange
Obedience in all the traffic below

How sad - there is no traffic to command
Though once there was, before the lordly lights
Were lifted up: a little town was here
With pharmacies, feed stores, hardware, and cafes

And a movin’-picture show. All gone now.
And then the state put up the traffic lights

Be Strong in Your Pixies - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Be Strong in Your Pixies

For a Young Artist, Musician, Scientist, Poet, and Philosopher

Be strong in your Pixies, for some will say
That you are wasting your time on fantasy
When you should be laboring hard all day
As servant to some old master’s machinery

Be strong in your Pixies, yes, even when
You are all grown up, and have a great career
Dream still again each magic forest and glen
And keep your Pixie-knowledge close and clear

Be strong in your Pixies, and sometimes glance
Back to that moonlit realm, where Pixies dance

Singing a Poem into Being - well, a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Singing a Poem into Being

          The cold told a tale to me
          the rain suggested poems
                    another tale the winds brought
                    the sea’s billows drove;
                    the birds added words
                    the treetops phrases

-The Kalevala, I, “In the Beginning” 1

We’re born to light and water and earth and air
Yet most of my life I cared little for verse,
But somehow words have become wonderful,
Even beloved because poetry -

- Poetry takes the chaos (or apparent chaos?)
Of life, and gently sings it into meaning
Through line, stanza, meter, and metaphor,
Shapes it, loves it, and makes it beautiful.

Poetry is like baptism, perhaps,
Or painting, sculpting, drawing, making music,
Or digging and setting a post-hole just right,
Helping set one’s perceptions of reality just right

And it is beautiful




1 The Kalevala. Elias Lonnrot. Trans. Keith Bosley. An Oxford World’s Classics Paperback. OUP. New York. 1989.

Impaired Walking in the Turning Lane - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Impaired Walking in the Turning Lane

A tall old woman, still vigorous and strong
Striding along in the center lane at dawn
Talking to some people who weren’t there
And they who were not there were talking to her

And the police came; they talked to her too
While gently and politely seating her
In the most comfortable chair they could offer
“Please mind your hands and feet, ma’am,” they said

Upon us all she smiled, a lady that day,
Who commanded those young men to drive her away

Capturing Your Authentic Voice - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Capturing Your Authentic Voice

I tried to capture my authentic voice
My inner voice, my true-something-me-ness
But the little booger is elusive
And free it remains, wild and free, to this night

So I deploy an inauthentic voice
An outer voice, only maybe it’s not;
Perhaps it’s an Hegelian dialectic
A voice cobbled together from castoffs

On a sale-table down at Goodwill, I found
A gently-used voice – so how do I sound?

This Little Town, Where Nothin' Ever Happens - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

This Little Town, Where Nothin’ Ever Happens

So Bubby said that on graduation night
He and Jamby was gonna leave the gym
Toss their rented caps and gowns to some friends
Rev up their Harleys, and leave forever

This little town, where nothin’ ever happens

They had made their plans, you see, real good plans
They’d pack what they needed in their saddle bags
And thunder night and day to Florida
Because there was good jobs waitin’ in Florida

Away from this town, where nothin’ ever happens

They wasn’t gonna stop except for gas
Gas and eats and beer and the American road!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

They wasn’t gonna really stop until
Their front wheels touched the cold Atlantic

Not like in this town, where nothin’ ever happens

                                                     But they didn’t.

And next year Bubba rolled
His pickup on that curve next to the school

This little town, where nothin’ ever happens

O Kaypro II, Where Have You Gone? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

O Kaypro II, Where Have You Gone?

Articles on how to write always feature
Pictures of old Underwoods, and maybe
A cup of pencils to the side, and some flowers
In a vase, wilting symbolically

One longs to sees images of an Apple II
Or maybe a TI994A
A battered Radio Shack TRS80
Cursors flickering in defiance

A Magnavox Videowriter, loading slow -
The 80s had their Nobel dreams too, you know

Dear Famous Name Brand Software: - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Dear Famous Name Brand Software:

I regret to inform you that I am terminating
Your employment with my computer.
Several months ago you began failing
In your duties; your performance was poor
And sometimes you left work without notice.
Last week you didn’t show up at all.
You refused to be repaired and you refused
To be re-installed, and so I am letting you go.

This week you have taken to sending me notes
That you are the default program and wish
To resume your duties. I must tell you
That I have hired a Mr. Freeware, who
Shows up every day and does the work well.
Not only does he work, he works for free.
I would not have met him had you not failed,
And so, you see, it’s really your own fault.

You need not ask for a reference.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Our Catholic Soup Kitchen - poem (of sorts) (With an Explanatory Note)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Our Catholic Soup Kitchen

a HOME credible THE BISHOP accusation ADMINISTRATION is PARISHES one MINISTRIES that, SCHOOLS after RESOURCES review SAFE ENVIRONMENT of EMPLOYEES reasonably CAREERS available, CONTACT US relevant MAKE A GIFT information BISHOP’S FAITH APPEAL in LOVE AND JUSTICE consultation AFRICAN AMERICAN MINISTRY with CATHOLIC CHARITIES the PLANNED GIVING Diocesan CHANCELLOR Review OFFICE OF CONSTRUCTION Board HISPANIC MINISTRY or CAMPUS MINISTRY other CRIMINAL JUSTICE MINISTRY professionals, STEWARDSHIP AND COMMUNICATIONS there YOUTH MINISTRY is FINANCIAL SERVICES reason MODERATOR OF THE CURIA to MAKE A GIFT TO THE CAPITAL CAMPAIGN believe SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY is FAMILY LIFE MINISTRY true VOCATIONS

The soup today is not what it could be;
We’d better search out the old recipe



An Explanatory Note:

The poem as written fails, which is my fault (perhaps I have lapsed into fuzziness from reading too much Leonard Cohen), so here is a bit of exposition:

The words in small print are a quote from the Bishops of Texas (long may they wave), generated by some in-house scrivener, about what constitutes a "credible accusation." "Credible accusation" is not a title in civil, criminal, or canon law, and it appears to be some sort of Article 58 (cf. Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago), a means whereby anyone is guilty because he has been accused. It stinks.

Also stinky is the behavior of some few priests and religious.

Anyway, I pulled the quote from a diocesan web site, and scattered among it in LARGE TYPE categories from that site. I stirred 'em all up in a soup because the matter of paedophilia and the bishops' responses seem to be a soup, making it difficult for a "good simpleton" (cf A Canticle for Leibowitz) like me to understand

May God have mercy on us all.

Super-Servile Sunday - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Super-Servile Sunday

O sink not down in that corrosive couch,
Docile before the Orwellian screen
That regulates the lives of the servile,
Dictating dress and drink, demeanor, dreams

Declare your independence from the sludge
Of vague obedientiaries who drowse
Away their empty lives in submission
To harsh, diagonal inches of rule

Poor weaklings chanting tainted tribal songs
In chorus hamsterable, huddled, heaped,
While costumed in their masters’ liveries,
And feeling little while thinking even less,
The very model of the State’s non-men

Predictable and dull, submissive ghosts
Crowded, herded in cosmic cattle chutes,
Reflected in dim, noisy nothingness

But you, O you, be not of them, but be
A wanderer in the moonlight, one known
To God, there in His holy solitude

Little Schlomo and His Life Jacket - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Little Schlomo and His Life Jacket

No one ever figured out how Schlomo
Got off the ship with his life jacket

But there he was on the pier among the crowd
Sitting sadly on his little brown suitcase

And wearing a life jacket from the ship
With "Orinoco" stenciled across it

A sailor in a white uniform wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off

A policeman in a blue uniform wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off

Schlomo's father told him he wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off

And on the bus ride through the city
Schlomo would not let go of it

And for weeks Schlomo wore his life jacket

In the park
In the dark

In his schule
In his school

Until one day in the park on the little river's bank
He took it off
He threw it in
It promptly sank

Then said to himself, our little Schlomo,
"I knew some how - it was time to let go."



Note: I disapprove of exposition, but I will violate my own rule in the matter: 1. I am not Jewish. 2. I have not recently thought about the tragedies of the refugee ships in the 1930s. 3. Little Schlomo, with his paperboy's cap, his dark coat, his shorts, his scuffed shoes, and his lifejacket appeared in a dream last night and I don't know why, but here he is. I hope he will return.

A Famous Cleaning Lady Will Retire at the End of the Month - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Breaking News:

A Famous Cleaning Lady Will Retire at the End of the Month

I hope I have been an inspiration
To the masses, to the humble people
Who go each day from their humble condos
To their humble jobs on the ski slopes of America

The humble artisans who humbly toil
On the balance beams and the practice fields
The humble laborers in the swimming pools
Who sacrifice so much for the rest of us

The humble commons who want my autograph
And little girls who want to be like me, me, me

Old People Yelling into Their MePhones at the Book Store - lines ripped from life

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Old People Yelling into Their MePhones at the Book Store

“YEAH!...YEAH!...I’M AT TH’ BARNES AND NOBLE…YEAH?...
I SAID I’M AT TH’ BARNES AND NOBLE!!!!...YEAH!…
THE SHADES!…YEAH, THE SHADES!…I MEASURED THE SHADES!…
YEAH!...OH, YEAH, HE’S A DARLING!...I SAID HE’S A DARLING!!!...

YEAH!...A DARLING!...SO LEVERAGE THE PRICE!...YEAH!...
LEVERAGE THE PRICE THEY AIN’T GOT NOTHIN’ YOU DON’T
SO YEAH LEVERAGE THE PRICE!...SO THEN SHE SAID
THAT HE SAID THAT SHE SAID!...I SAID THAT SHE SAID

THAT SHE SAID THAT...I’M AT BARNES AND NOBLE!..
YEAH!...BARNES AND NOBLE…SO LIKE I SAID THAT…!!!!

Creation and an Alarm Clock - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Creation and an Alarm Clock

Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.

-Genesis 1:3

We call this hour pre-dawn; but it is not;
Just as we do not call this hour post-night
It is not pre-anything; it is itself
With not-yet-light that is given in peace

The creatures of the night have gone to bed
The creatures of the day are not yet up
And so there is mist and silence and you
As prayers of beingness offered at dawn

As prayers on the morning of Creation -
Before the alarms alarm and the buzzers buzz

Amelia Earhart Has Been Found (Again) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Amelia Earhart Has Been Found (Again)

Amelia Earhart has been found again
Steve Jobs is locked away in a hidden vault
There’s gold aboard Der Fuhrer’s secret train
Which is buried beneath an earthquake fault

Albino monks inspire Trump’s every plan
The Queen is one of The Lizard People
The Pope belongs to the Ku Klux Klan
(His 666 is on every steeple)

Satan is aboard an unmarked U.N. jet -
It must be true; it’s on the GossipNet!

For a Friend Who Died in the Night - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Like an Autumn Leaf

O may her life close like a leaf that falls
And laughs in falling at its happy end
Air-dancing through a sky of Dresden blue
Sun-sliding sideways in a blithesome breeze

Soft-singing in a sweet sinopian sun
Who smiles grandfatherly on each blest leaf
Remembering its spring, and summer too
Pushed from the wood after the last fell frost

To grow from mother-tree and taste the air
In that Apollonian sun of youth
To work and play in Saturnian summer
And then to glow in ripe Pomona’s dusk

In celebration of all life, and then
At last to leap into eternity




Of your mercy please pray for the repose of Beverly Jean.

"Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon her."

The Lovers of Cherbourg - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

The Lovers of Cherbourg

In memory of Michel Legrand

Young lovers have from time to time made promises
On midnight docks before the troopships sailed
On dripping railway platforms censed in steam
At bus stops and on glassed-in airport ramps

Young lovers have from time to time made promises
And pledged them in their letters with kisses sealed
And cancelled politicians upside down
Then posted to a world that is not yet

Young lovers have from time to time made promises -
If it takes forever, we will wait for them

Monastery Over the Garage: A Canticle for a Rented Room - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Monastery Over the Garage: A Canticle for a Rented Room

You fling your hurting soul against old walls
Those peeling walls presume to fling it back
A wood-roach scuttles across your hopeless hopes
Through cigarette-ashes of eternity

The wreckage of the past a pile of books
The bleakness of the now a cheap tv
Unheard in the humming of electric strips
Unholy unpostolic poverty

There is no insulation against tomorrow
But the Poly-Perk blesses your cup of sorrow

Just Before Dawn, So Technically It's Not a Midnight Knock - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Just Before Dawn, So Technically It’s Not a Midnight Knock

We are the F.B.I.; we beat and yell and roar

But it’s okay –

We are not SMERSH pounding upon your door

Our Demographic Issues - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Our Demographic Issues

Someday our mouldering bones will grace the walls
Of a museum’s scientific display
And little Martians will play through the halls
Ignoring us on their school’s field-trip day

Our zygomatic bones in exasperation
Attempt to roll (but, sure, cannot) because
We are extinct, a disappeared nation
Your skull and mine won’t even have jaws

And so the Beothuk on the opposite shelf

Will ask

“Well, European, are you finally over yourself?”

Satan Witnesses His Own Exorcism and is Outraged - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Satan Witnesses His Own Exorcism

Suggested by a Thought from Eldon

“Whatever Power or powers there might be,
The rules can’t possibly apply to ME.”

Humans to Download Their Souls onto Microchips - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Humans to Download Their Souls onto Microchips

So They Can Live Forever

-Headline

And so all hopes and dreams and fears and loves:
That beautiful girl who kissed you one night
Your after-school job, your first little car
Recruit training, your Navy buddies, the sea

Your wedding day, your children at their play
Your coffee pals at the Old Men’s Café
The songs you wrote, the dreams you dreamed, your - self
Light-beamed and streamed into a little pill

The chip was lost; in someone else’s drive it sits -
He replaced your soul with Elvis’ greatest hits

The Super Wolf Blood Moon Eclipse - Rhyming Doggerel

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

The Super Wolf Blood Moon Eclipse – Rhyming Doggerel

The Super Wolf Blood Moon Eclipse
Into its orbit quietly slips

Eclipse the Super Wolf Blood Moon
The fork drives away with the spoon

Moon Eclipse The Super Wolf Blood
It trips and falls into the mud

Blood Moon Eclipse The Super Wolf
Growls “Ha!” ‘cause nothing rhymes with “wolf”

Wolf Blood Moon Eclipse The Super
Cleans up the mud with a little scooper

Super Wolf Blood Moon Eclipse The
Shines bravely over my favourite tree -

The moon always gives us delight
Especially on this frosty night!

Jesuit Bob Stylin' to the Rhythms of 1968 - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Jesuit Bob Stylin’ to the Rhythms of 1968

And Lord we just wanna

Upon my folk guitar I plang three chords
I place the book of Psalms upon a stand
And I can sort of mix them for the Lord
And twankle-twank clichés throughout the land

And Lord we just wanna

Now with her tambourine comes Sister Jean
To help me score MY song (MY name comes first)
She’ll rhythm that machine to our happenin’ scene
And wrap our Jesus in a tune chain-versed

And Lord we just wanna
And Lord we just wanna
And Lord we just wanna

“And Lord we just wanna” is our sugary tone
But the holy copyright is mine alone

And Lord we just wanna

Neo-Colonialist Intersectionalism at an Intersection - limerick

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Neo-Colonialist Intersectionalism

Two wideawake birds bumped into each other
On the distant island of Ascension
Said one to the other, “Excuse me, dear brother!”
And the other replied, “Don’t mention
                                                                        it.”

Lovers Disappoint Each Other in Time - a sappy poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lovers Disappoint Each Other in Time

Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal love
Those breathless kisses on a summer night -
They leave no lipstick on a shopping list

Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal youth
When even the sell-by dates have faded away
From the shopping lists of our yesterday

We mourn the lips we’ve kissed, the lips we’ve missed

But still…

Would you leave lipstick on my shopping list?

Toxic Mooseculinity and that Gillette Commercial - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Toxic Stereotypeinity

           “A soldier should know the difference between words
            And deeds, and keep that knowledge clear
            In his brain. I believe your words, I trust in
            Your friendship.”

-Danish Coast Guard to Beowulf

-Beowulf, trans. Burton Raffel, Glencoe Literature: British Literature

These few lines from Beowulf reveal many of the values properly attributed to manliness: martial discipline, honorable language, honorable behavior, logic, clarity in speech, trust, personal and national loyalty, and friendship.

No man can live up to all that, but the point is that all men are supposed to try.

As the narrative develops, the reader understands that other manly virtues include protecting the weak, including women and children.

At this point we might want to consider that many women are in the military, and in combat have accomplished for real what John Wayne did only in the movies.

The matter of masculinity, of manly behavior, now inaccurately and unjustly chained to the pejorative adjective “toxic,” is much criticized just now.

I submit that there is no such thing as toxic masculinity.

I submit that this is a categorical imperative: since “toxic” means “poisonous” (and by extension any sort of evil), and since the attributes of manliness obtain as categories of good, “toxic masculinity” is an inherent contradiction, and, like the figure of a snake swallowing its tail until it disappears, cannot be.

There appears to be an ideological fashion in associating evil actions with masculinity. If the village idiot (One is not supposed to say “village idiot,” but how not? And there are so many of them now!). But as I say, if the village idiot drives along a street discharging a weapon because his mum hurt his feelings, some say that this is an example of toxic masculinity. The behavior is toxic, all right, but it is not manly; it is a failure to be manly.

If a man spends his days flaked out on the couch with video war games while his wife or momma goes to work and supports his sorry ***, that is not toxic masculinity; it is not masculinity at all.

If a man is crooked, lazy, lecherous, creepy, predatory, violent, and stupid he is not demonstrating anything but a complete lack of masculinity.

There are a great many men like that, and often The People (bless their hearts) elect to high office candidates like that, both men and women, who never made the first day of recruit training, made an ambulance run to a flaming wreck, did time with the fire department, patrolled the streets, built fence, herded cows, framed a house, or busted a sweat except on the golf course.

And I don’t get it. But we should still call things as they are, and not mock the manly virtues.

About that Gillette ad – I haven’t seen it, though I shaved with a good, American-made Gillette and the fetid water of the Vam Co Tay along the Cambodian border. I hope that’s okay with the Gillette people.

-30-

Oklahoma in the Spring of 2013 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Oklahoma in the Spring of 2013

A young mother cradles her broken child
Amid the fragments of her world, her soul.
Blood drips. Rain-sodden insulation drips.
Stillness between storms. The trees are all gone.
A dark Sargasso Sea of shattered wood,
Bricks, clothes, books, toys, rags, glass, papers, bodies.
In the gasping heat the rot begins now.
No houses. No lights. A helicopter
Floating valley boys with plastic boxes
Taking cruel pictures and O-My-Godding
For the telescreen (between soda ads).
And in their fortresses of personal affronts

( Safely far away)

Keyboard commandos leap into inaction:

People who choose to live there deserve it.
We told you that global warming is true.
We didn’t have these things ‘til they kicked Jesus
Out of these here schools. And paddling, by God.
It’s Obama’s fault. Or is it George Bush?
It’s the Republicans. Public schools. Gaia.
British Petroleum. Coal. SUVs.
Suburbs. Not reading the Bible. Comets.
You’re stupid. Well eff you back. Eff you more.

While in the second lowering line of storms
A young mother cradles her broken child.

Saint Francis of the Garden Center - a frivolous four-line poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Francis of the Garden Center

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

Chaucer and the Lightendyten - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Chaucer and the Lightendyten 1

“The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
Grinds from the photocopying machine
And thus the casual observer, he wails
That technology produces the scene

And yet good Chaucer wrote in the long ago
Rhymed rhythms to instruct and to delight
The copier came later, as you know -
Our pilgrim was the first these tales to write

Or was he?

So here is a problem, which I you begge:
Of which came first, the cicen or the egge?



1 There was of course no Middle English word for “photocopier” so I cobbled one together from “lighte,” to give light, and “endyte,” to write. Chaucer said it was okay.

Tears, BUSY Tears - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Tears, BUSY Tears

These are not tears of sorrow or joy;
These are tears from allergens, m’boy.


(As Tennyson did not say)

If Robert Frost Slep with a CPAP Machine - a pastiche

Lawrence Hall
mhall4618@aol.com

If Robert Frost Slept with a CPAP Machine

Whose breaths these are, oh, yes, I know
And on the laptop they will show
With lines and graphs so all can cheer
Each breath of mine I huff and blow

My little dog must think it queer
To sleep with a machine so near
Sighing all night without a break
Every evening throughout the year

She gives her collar bell a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the beep
Of mechanical air intake

Breathing is lovely, counting sheep
And I have life to love and keep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
And hours and hours of healing sleep



All honor to Robert Frost, to the scientists and medicos who invented CPAP and BIPAP machines, to the makers of those little life savers, and to all medical workers.

In cartoons and in family lore snoring is amusing; in reality snoring indicates a lack of oxygen to the brain and the body’s struggle to make it good. Snoring = oxygen deprivation, which leads to stroke and / or mental issues, and a too-soon death.

A sleep study involves no needles or indignities, only a night’s sleep with some flat little electrodes taped to one’s chest and extremities. Early in the morning the nice technician brings you a cup of fresh coffee. Now that’s my kind of medical care!

Weaponizing Weaponization - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Weaponizing Weaponization

“Weaponization” has been weaponized
So that a shutting down may be shut down
By weaponizing a shutdown’s downside -
And let The People shout “Absolutely!”

By weaponizing one’s feelings and whims
There is projected a transparency
That calls for a personal comfort snake -
And let The People shout “Actually!”

So please shut down the shutdown; that’s the tonic -
And let The People shout “Iconic!”


A consideration made after reading Alan Glyn’s thoughtful essay, “Conspiracy Fiction Once Helped Us Tell the Truth. Now It’s a Weapon for Liars,” in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/can-conspiracy-thrillers-work-under-a-conspiracy-presidency.html. The title is preachy and too long, reflecting the heavy hand of an editor, but the essay is most interesting.

Antihistamine Dreams with a Little Touch of Grendel in the Night - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Antihistamine Dreams with a Little Touch of Grendel in the Night

Silence is here

I shine a light             into the night
I see an eye                an eye sees me
It seems to see           inside of me
It seems to see           what I might be
It sees in me               a recipe
A single eye               it seems to blink
It’s not a deer             I dream, I fear
And now a mist          I dream, I think
Slips from the wood   across the field
In silence slips            it flows, it dips
It comes this way        I must not stay
I see the eye                the eye sees me
I feel its breath            I feel its death
I cannot move             I cannot wake
I cannot walk              I cannot take
A step, a step               a saving step
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end



The caesura divisions might not have survived the transfer.

“A little touch of Grendel in the night” is a takeoff of “a little touch of Harry in the night” in Henry V.

Camping on the Edge of Forever: a Memorial to Youth - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

from 2103

Michael Dean Marconett of Minnesota was a Navy buddy in 1967-1968 through recruit training, Hospital Corpsman ‘A’ School, and Field Medical Service School. One weekend Mike, Bill, and another friend rented an old car, loaded up our Marine Corps sleeping bags, and went camping in the snow:

Camping on the Edge of Forever

For Mike Marconett

of happy memory

Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.

Tudors to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Kendra Scott - weekly column

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Tudors to Saxe-Coburg-Gothas to Kendra Scott

During the Second World War the royal family changed their surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, and one can understand why. First of all, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was just too many letters for the mailbox (Thames Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1NJ). And then there was the matter of their German cousins of the same catalogue of names being a spot of bother from 1914-1918.

Windsor sounds more comfortably English, like the names developers give their pop-up subdivisions. Who would buy a house on “SaxeCoburgGothabahn” or “Hohenzollernstrasse” when “Windsor Way” is so much easier to pronounce and spell?

The American obsession with kings and queens continues after 200 years of professing red republicanism. Each autumn students in every school elect a homecoming queen, not a chairwoman of the Students’, Workers’, and Soldiers’ Soviet, and in the spring a prom king and prom queen, not a prom good comrade of the month and another prom good comrade of the month. Video productions – or product – featuring the love lives of kings, queens, and czars are consistently profitable.

Thus, that an exhibition of British (English, mostly, but let it stand) royal portraits should be a big hit in Texas is not a surprise.

Through the 27th of January The Houston Museum of Fine Arts (https://www.mfah.org/) features, among many other galleries and offerings and films and lectures, Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol. Most of the pictures are on loan from London’s National Portrait Gallery, displayed only in Houston and then in Australia before being returned to England. The Houston museum staff have combined the visiting pictures with some of their permanent collection for a brilliant, accessible, and well-documented display of paintings, a few artifacts, and photographs among three capacious galleries.

One passes by Warhol’s stains and smears, of course.

There were many delights and surprises, but the picture y’r obedient ‘umble scrivener most wanted to see, Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More, now Saint Thomas More, was a surprise only in its beauty and excellence. The cliché that a reproduction is never as good as the original is a cliché because it is true, and this is especially true with this portrait.

Many of Holbein’s portraits are highly stylized because those who commissioned the pictures wanted the conventions of the time. However, Holbein’s Sir Thomas More is wonderfully true to the man.

More does sit in a formal pose, but looking away to the viewer’s right, perhaps in some sense perceiving his martyrdom, or perhaps seeing beyond his martyrdom.

He wears his Chain (and it proved to be a chain indeed) of Office as Chancellor of England, and its Tudor rose is place directly over More’s heart, indicating his love for and loyalty to King Henry in spite of all.

In More’s hands there is a bit of paper, and anyone familiar with Robert Bolt’s play will associate it with the fictional Averil Manchin’s petition and her attempted bribe.

In sum, the picture is in one way a standard portrait of a successful attorney, judge, and government official, but in other ways we see something of the man Holbein came to know. As More’s daughter Margaret says in A Man for All Seasons, there is a difference between the man’s office and the man himself.

The wonderful protective glass is so unobtrusive that it seems not to be there at all, and so one can see even the brush strokes of individual bristles, and the layerings that build up almost a glowing iridescence even in the drab fabric (More was no peacock).

I spent some time before this picture, while all around me shoals of beeping rental earphones were coming and going like the tide. Thomas More deserves it. Holbein’s painting deserves it.

You can see poor representations of Holbein’s More, including (http://visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/thomas-more-holbein.htm), but, no, it’s just not the same.

A young person of our acquaintance took the spouse-person and me to see the pictures, and was rewarded afterward with a new pair of Kendra Scott ® earrings. In them, too, art can be found. Perhaps in 500 years they will be seen and admired in some wonderful painting.

-30-

Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary

Those who have never bagged corpses
After a night of flarelit horror
Confused, concussed, their souls awash
With blood and smeary shards of flesh

Those who have never smelt the night
Incensed in the obscene stench of death
Where screaming conscripts’ lives were ripped
Are calling for armed revolution

Let us call instead for a cigar
And a quiet evening with Keats



This is a variant on a poem I wrote in 2013 and published in Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, available on amazon.com.

The Week Before Term Begins - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Week Before Term Begins

The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Among administrative whisperings
And teachers sneak out of in-service
For an electronic moment in the head

The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Computers in their wireless conclave met 1
Exchange that hushed arcana passed through PEIMS 2
And sticky notes – they seem to reproduce

Youth is reduced to a computer printout

And

The cleaning lady pushes her cart about



1 cf. G. K. Chesterton’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”

2 The Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) encompasses all data requested and received by TEA about public education, including student demographic and academic performance, personnel, financial, and organizational information. (https://tea.texas.gov/.../Data_Submission/PEIMS/PEIMS_-_Overview)

Plough Monday - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Plough Monday

In my boyhood the fields were real indeed:
The winter soil to be awakened and turned
The manure, mulch, and mould lifted and turned
Wise husbandry’s anticipation of spring

My fields are all metaphorical now:
The winter files to be updated and turned
The documentation lifted and turned
Clerkly, accessibly, from A to Z

The files, the plough, to the long seasons fit
Papers or poop, it’s still long rows of (stuff)

The Know-it-All in the Ticket Line (we all know him well) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Man and a Woman in the Ticket Line

for the Tudors to Windsors Exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art

“SO LIKE SHE SAID THAT HE SAID THAT SHE SAID
I SAID THAT REDNECKS WERE LIKE THAT YOU KNOW
CAN YOU IMAGINE PEOPLE LIKE THAT HERE
I LIKE TRY TO PERSUADE THEM BUT YOU KNOW

“SO LIKE I SAID THAT AXLE WAS BROKEN
SO LIKE I SAID THAT THE BEST COFFEE IS
SO LIKE I SAID THAT WE LIVED TOGETHER
SO LIKE WE WERE JUST FRIENDS YOU KNOW...”

The man speaks loudly, up and down the hall
The woman, well, she hardly speaks at all

Holbein's Portrait of Saint Thomas More in an Aural Halo of Electronic Pings from Rental Earphones - poem (with pings)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Holbein’s Portrait of Saint Thomas More

in an Aural Halo of Electronic Pings from Rental Earphones

The (beep) painting (beep) dates (beep, beep) from (beep)
Holbein’s (beep) first (beep) visit (beep) to (beep)
England (beep) oil on oak (beep) a (beep) golden
Tudor (beep) rose (beep) over his heart (beep)

The chain of office his aurea catena
Of faith in God and in his king (beep, beep)
Is (beep) the (beep) paper (beep) in (beep) his
Hands (beep) Averil (beep) Manchin’s (beep) petition?

Saint Thomas seems to look so far away –
Perhaps he sees beyond his martyrdom day



Except for the rhyming couplet I’m having a bit of fun here. The Holbein painting of St. Thomas More is beautiful (beep) in every way, and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend some time before it. The Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol exhibition is brilliant as is everything the Houston Museum of Fine Arts does: https://www.mfah.org/

Saint Thomas More, ora pro nos

Acadiana in January, and Lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Acadiana in January

And lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby

Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace

Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs

They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2


1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals. The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.

2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).

"Jose was Dead. So was His Fitness Watch" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Moleskine is Chinese Now

The Moleskine™© is Chinese now, has been for years
And anyway Hemingway would probably type
Into his electronic personal device:
“Jose was dead. So was his fitness watch.”

Still

There’s rhythm in a pen as in a key
One flows, the other taps, syllables dance
Your thoughts into an opera of life
Performed in a theatre of silent stars

The Moleskine is in your hands now, will be for years
So choreograph your thoughts onto that page

Keep Calm and Field Guide a Field Guide to Field Guides about Field Guides, Only They Aren't - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Keep Calm and Field Guide a Field Guide to Field Guides

about Field Guides, Only They Aren’t

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings
A Field Guide to Secure Wi-Fi
A Field Guide to Asset Forfeiture
A Field Guide to “Fake News”
A Field Guide to Lies
A Field Guide to Antibiotic Stewardship in Outpatient Settings
A Field Guide to the Italian New Right
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A Field Guide to Ripple Effects Mapping
A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing
A Field Guide to Jerks at Work
A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments

And so it field guides, and so it field guides
As dear old Kurt Vonnegut did not say
And what field is the writer talking about?
About the farmer outstanding in his field?

Alas there is no field guide to writing
A title blessedly free of field guide
Which would be a feel-good fieldless guideless
For which humanity would be grateful

About as original as Keep Calm
Keep Calm and Say Something Original
Let the last field guide be Keep Calm about
A Field Guide to Burying Tired Cliches’

Nonessential Canadian and American Poets - a poem about poems, which is seldom a good idea

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Nonessential Canadian and American Poets

The words still flow, even though the grants do not
And an old scribbler’s name can never appear
On a shortlist of emerging young poets
Or on a shortcake from the Wal-Mart bakery

Unless it’s his birthday. No candles, though
“Good ink,” they say, never “Good electrons”
And so the words don’t flow, they just – emerge?
And, anyway, emerging from what, eh?

But still –

We are poets: we work, we serve, we write;
We pray that we help and heal and give delight

Pictures on Your Map of Time - a poem for the new year

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Pictures on Your Map of Time

A new calendar is a map of time
Showing you spaces in which you might live
And setting off the seasons and solemnities
The penances and feasts in order just

Beneath pictures of cafes’ in Water Street
Arctic-wind hiking trails in Ikkarumiklua
A pint of Quidi Vidi in The Gut
And Peter Pan’s statue in Bowring Park

Or maybe

Our Lady of Walsingham
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
Notre Dame de La Salette

Or some puppies and kittens!

And may you find your heart’s desires this year

Is Taos Burning? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Is Taos Burning?

“…inspired by the pinon nut native to the Southwest.”

- label on a coffee packet

Inspired

Apparently real pinon is not to be had,
Not anymore; the coffee is lesser now
Its taste inspired by a chemistry lab
Although the packet looks the same

Inspired

Instead of coffee flavored with pinon
The bean is only – inspired – and what is that?
It pretends that a chemical is from
The mountain pines of far New Mexico

Inspired

I want to go away to old Taos today
Where they make the best coffee at Michael’s Café

Art in Pursuit of Man - Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Art in Pursuit of Man

Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine

Art cannot be but in pursuit of man
Whether or not man is in pursuit of art
For men are shifting shoals of shiftlessness
Artistic absolutes that calendar-clique

But art is not defined, not locked in time
Art does not yield her crown in obedience
To yet another Decree 349
To yet another Order of the Day

Art is herself; her names are Sapientia
And Sophia; she creates; she does not obey

The Ikon Corner - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Ikon Corner

“…and looking at a picture on the opposite wall.”

-C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Ikons are windows to another World
Of Theos and Theotokos, of our saints
Some as merry as yet are others stern
While forming from the prayerful writer’s 1 hand

And in the saints the Light of God shines through
True witnesses to that transcendental Truth
And so we pause and with a candle catch
The prayer-light of their eternity

(As does the bedes-spider 2 who lives there)
Ikons are windows to that truer World


1 In Orthodoxy an ikon is said to be written rather than drawn or painted, but y’r ‘umble scrivener is no authority; the reader might begin a study of ikons / icons with:

http://www.pravmir.com/how-to-sep-up-an-icon-corner-at-home/

2 An Orthodox friend discovered that a spider had made its home among his ikons, and so in peace and hierarchical obedience the little creature served God as a sort of canon, or perhaps a bedes-spider, until its death.

The Smart Cave (but with nice curtains) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Smart Cave

This house is silent now, this new smart house
The storm has downed the power lines; wild rains
Against the windows beat like hungry wolves
And all house gadgetry is silent and still

And just as still: the Barnes & Noble Nook™®
The Ipod™® unsupported, the dead FitBit™®
That failed before its third Christmas day
The La Crosse(tm)® that failed before its second

And dead are all the promises that they gave:
Our silent gadgets in this cold, dark cave

Ramandu's Island - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ramandu’s Island 1

Long-fallen stars and quarrelling lords must wait
For seasons upon seasons to pass in flight
Seasons, and Feasts upon a Table set
Untasted by sleepers, and winged away

But, exiles, you may taste of mercy here
And you may taste forever of that Feast
If you are not afraid to hear the silence
Where out of time all healing will be given

If you can trust that which you cannot know -
Long-fallen stars and quarrelling lords will wait


1 C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Window Frog - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Window Frog

The human and the tree frog say good night
The human inside and the tree frog out
Sharing a pane of glass but little else
For frogs maintain their standards, don’cha know

And sticky pads and frontal lobes don’t mix
Not in polite reptilian society
Since humans, you know, they’re not really green
Nice enough in their place, of course, but still…

Good frogs dismiss the human as a lazy jerk -
For sleeping while all honest creatures work

The Robin's Christmas Dinner - a merriment (a bit rough on the worms, though)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Robin’s Christmas Dinner

(ripped from the pages of the Middle Ages – “Sumer is icumen in”)

Merrily he eats the worms
Pull them from the ground!
Their heads pop up
On them he sups
As they squirm around
Chirp, robin!

The squirrels are eating all the seeds
The cardinal’s head’s a-bobbin’
The doves are cooing
The cows are mooing
Chirp merrily, robin!

Robin, robin
How well you chirp
Now eat the worms and burp!

Burp, burp, burp!


On seeing dozens of robins, a squirrel, a woodpecker, a cardinal, and a dove outside my window on Christmas morning.

But the Animals were First - Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

But the Animals were First

“We read in Isaiah: ‘The ox knows its owner,

and the ass the master’s crib….’”

-Papa Benedict, The Blessings of Christmas

The ox and ass are in the Stable set
In service divine, as good Isaiah writes
A congregation of God’s creatures met
In honor of their King this Night of nights

And there they wait for us, for we are late
Breathless in the narthex of eternity
A star, a road, a town, an inn, a gate
Have led us to this holy liturgy

Long centuries and seasons pass, and yet
The ox and ass are in the Stable set

For Our Mothers on Christmasd Eve - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

For our Mothers on Christmas Eve

For Katherine Mattie Bevil Blanchette Hall, 1922 – 2010

and all our mothers

Beyond all other nights, on this strange Night,
A strangers’ Star, a silent, seeking Star,
Helps set the wreckage of our souls aright:
It leads us to a stable door ajar

And we are not alone in peeking in:
An ox, an ass, a lamb, some shepherds, too -
Bright Star without; a brighter Light within
We children see the Truth those Wise Men knew

For we are children there in Bethlehem
Soft-shivering in that winter long ago
We watch and listen there, in star-light dim,
In cold Judea, in a soft, soft snow

An Annotated Study in December's Leaf Litter - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Annotated Study in December's Leaf Litter

Leaves fallen are summer’s tabernacle
Upon earth as altar, bearing life within
And life without: children, a protesting squirrel
And that storied grasshopper, unprepared

Neither blanket nor carpet, but a studio
Of life, in which cellular structure frames
The secrets of green chloroplastic life
And graphs the sweet, wind-chorused songs of summer

They fall asleep for a time, to awaken in spring:
Leaves fallen are summer’s tabernacle

Sale - Communion Cups, Recyclable, 1000/box, $9.99 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Sale – Communion Cups, Recyclable, 1000/box, $9.99

The Holy Grail, the Chalice of Our Lord
Borne to Glastonbury, the Isle of Avalon
By the holy man of Arimathea
Then lost, and quested for by noble knights

The Holy Grail is present still, each day
In vessels blessed for sharing Eucharist
Whose Elevation in the Upper Room
Was then, is now, and forever will be

In setting fit, in prayerful accord:
The Holy Grail, the Chalice of Our Lord

Winter Solstice - The Year's Compline - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Winter Solstice – The Year’s Compline

The winter solstice is the year withdrawing
From all the busy-ness of being-ness,
And life in all its transfigurations
Seems lost beyond this cold, mist-haunted world

Time almost stops. Low-orbiting, the sun
Drifts dimly, drably through Orion’s realm
Morning becomes deep dusk; there is no noon
Four candles are the guardians of failing light

Until that Night when they too disappear
Beneath a Star, before a greater Light


Lawrence Hall
Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go
Available from amazon.com on Kindle and as bits of dead trees

We Have Built for Ourselves a Faraday Cage - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

We Have Built for Ourselves a Faraday Cage

We have built for ourselves a Faraday cage
And locked ourselves inside; no rays can touch
Our souls codified in magnetic strips
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful in chips

No ray, no beam, no pulse can penetrate
The protection racket of secret codes
(Except when they bloody well can and do)
While we posture behind scientific wires

Passive self-destruction is all the rage

For this

We have built for ourselves a Faraday cage

Gotterdammerung of Lesser Gods - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gotterdammerung of Lesser Gods

Expect no pity as you fall and fall
Weighed down by the medals you gave yourselves
Through your closed loops of self-congratulation
In your officers’ clubs and private planes

You led us from the sky and from the rear
Secure in air-conditioned bunkers sealed
Against pollution by heat and dust and rot
And the uncollected bodies of the dead

Expect no pity as you fall and fall
Weighed down by your accumulated wealth
Through your closed loops of self-congratulation
In boardrooms and governments and private planes

You sacrificed us for your resumes -
You’re out of single-malt; now go away

A Polar Vortex Nightmare - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

A Polar Vortex Nightmare

I saw a polar vortex in my dream
Drinking his coffee with sugar and cream
Then water skiing on the warm gulf stream –
He seemed to plan, he seemed to plot, to scheme

I tried to wake, I tried to warn, to scream
But wait – now just what is this wild dream’s theme?
Why was my sleep all night a mental steam?
My dream was confused, for this was the meme:

My gutter ball alienated my team

And so

I saw a bowler vortex in my dream

Churchill and Christmas, 1941 - a very brief weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“Let the Children Have Their Night of Fun and Laughter”

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener can add nothing to the Christmas narratives in St. Matthew and St. Luke, and will refrain from any attempt to babble about “the true meaning of Christmas” (all major credit cards accepted), and so for this week yields this space to the words of Churchill on the first Christmas of the Second World War for the USA, but the third Christmas of the war for his nation. His words address a specific situation in 1941, but for every Christmas they still apply:

          Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight    

          their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again

          to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and

          daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live

          in a free and decent world.

          And so, in God's mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.

          Winston Churchill

          December 24, 1941

          Washington, D.C.

(https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/christmas-message.html)

-30-

Apocalyptic Clothing and the Goddess of Doom - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Apocalyptic Clothing and the Goddess of Doom

The one-off bag is by Louis Vouitton
The sheath dress by Dolce & Gabbana
The low-top shoes by Christian Louboutin
The vaporisation is by Sukhoi

Evening wear goes with biologicals
Retro pantsuits with a casual bomb
Alice Archer jeans for a weekend massacre
Jonathan Simkhai swimwear for an ocean boil

Ohhhhh, yeahhhhhhhh…

She turns every head when she enters the room
But The People’s Army delivers the BOOM

Gaudete Sunday with Young Genghis Khans in Training - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gaudete Sunday with Young Genghis Khans in Training

How difficult to rejoice when one hears
That those relatives against whose predations
Dead-bolts have been fitted on every door
Are visiting for Christmas after all

Let us rejoice that the nephews who pick locks
And break the windows in the garden shed
And ride the patio doors off their hinges
And pocket pewter chessmen for their play

Will be with us merrily once more
With their mothers – ‘tis the season to abhor

Playing Hide-and-Go-Seek in Eden - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Playing Hide-and-Go-Seek in Eden

In a deep summer dusk that seems forever
A twilight of fireflies and magic found
Small children barefoot ‘round the universe
Happily pursued by a mysterious It

Home base is the foot of the old porch steps
Beneath a pantheon of elders wise:
Mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts
And in their Old Gold cigarette incense we

Tumble like puppies on those old porch steps
In a deep summer dusk that is forever





My vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree: The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.

The A.M. Radio Station Lets Us Down - a really bad rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The A.M. Radio Station Lets Us Down

Their revenue stream must be falling bad -
Yet another erectile dysfunction ad

Drunks and Screamers and Louts - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Drunks and Screamers and Louts (oh, my)

If there are any stockings hung by the chimney with care in the Oval Office, they were surely blown askew last week by the circular temper-tantrums of the President, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. A life-like statue of harmless Vice-President Michael Pence was also present.

If junior high school students were to misbehave as badly as the leaders of the Republic they would be sent to the assistant principal’s office for a reprimand.

The statue of the vice-president, however, would be taken for the new mascot and draped with a toboggan cap and scarf in school colors.

The cranky old people who reign and rule over us can also nyah-nyah at each other while high in the sky:

The presidential aircraft fleet includes (but is not limited to) two BUFF modified Boeing 747s. There is also a number of helicopters crewed and served by some 800 – yes, 800 – Marines (https://www.airplanesofthepast.com/united-states-presidential-aircraft.htm).

The vice-president has access to two modified Boeing 757s so that the president can say that his is bigger.

The Speaker of the House enjoys, by presidential fiat after 9.11.2001, access to military jets for himself or herself, staff, and family. The once and future Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is well known for her sense of aviation privilege.

The Speaker of the House does not rate a government aircraft, only free rides on commercial aircraft. The current speaker once indulged in the house privilege of calling a flight attendance a b**** (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/plane-rude-sen-charles-schumer-refers-female-flight-attendant-b-word-article-1.436069) for asking him to turn his me-phone off as if he were one of (harrumph) The People.

Officials of the Justice Department and other functionaries also enjoy access to luxury aircraft at your expense (https://www.thoughtco.com/who-flies-on-the-taxpayers-dime-3321451).

Generals and admirals, too, can snap their fingers (or at least their office phones) and summon planes and helicopters for themselves, their families, and their special friends (https://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/06/25/generals-not-disciplined-in-misuse-of-aircraft.html), (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-generals-demotion-idUSBRE8AD06620121114), and (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/petraeus-wife-holly-furious-affair-article-1.1200586).

When commercial flying became popular in the 1950s and 1960s air travel long remained an occasion of decorum – men wore coats and ties, women wore dresses, gloves, and hats, and courtesy was a given.

Flying now is like being shoved into an old bus crowded with drunks and louts and screaming children. Given that Proletarian reality, government officials ought to give up the luxury aircraft and join us in cattle class – they’d fit right in with the other drunks and louts and screamers, and it would help the national budget.

-30-

Every Real American Boy Needs (That Rifle) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Every Real American Boy Needs (That Rifle)

“You Can Tell It’s Mattel It’s Swell (tm)” 1

-A toymaker’s slogan applied to (That Rifle) in the 1960s

(That Rifle) often fires when it should not
Its chosen function is usually to jam
But, da®n, it’s black and sexy and hot -
Blows off testosterone when it goes Bam-Bam

And when it discharges, so does its owner
A little bullet from a little spout
With his stud piece, no longer a loner -
True love from each basement dweller and lout

Maybe it makes guys feel all hunky-hunk -
Well, they are welcome to that piece of junk

1 Mattel has never had any connection with the manufacture of weapons.

Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, Alcoholics Anonymous, and the American Legion - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe,

Alcoholics Anonymous, and the American Legion

The American Legion meets in the parish hall
Third Tuesday every month (missed you last time)
Old men in funny hats saluting the flag
And then again re-living AIT

Their perimeter shrinks as children rehearse
Their songs and dances for tomorrow night
In honor of Nuestra Senora -
With Juan Diego’s tilma She blesses the Americas

In a classroom across the way the AA
Are fighting their dragons as manfully
As good Saint George, and so in very truth
They are fighting dragons for all of us

This is Our Lady’s cocina, open to all:
Everybody meets in the parish hall

The Last Day - And Now, Unemployment

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Last Day - And Now, Unemployment

Not much longer now before we and Keats
Must pack up all our impedimenta
Into a photocopier paper box
And after a Wal-Mart-cake reception – leave

No one will notice us, and that’s okay
Thomas and Frost will meet us with the car
Greene will suggest that we go for a drink
The designated driver might be Shakespeare

With Fermor beside him reading the map
Guareschi and Wodehouse laughing in the back
Lewis and Chesterton will bring the beer
And Leonard Cohen will adjust his hat

In God’s name we will sit under the apple trees
And tell merry tales of the lives of kings


     And whether we shall meet again I know not.
     Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
     For ever, and for ever, farewell…
     If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
     If not, why, then, this parting was well made.

       -Julius Caesar V.1.115-119

 

 

After a year of rumors and contradictory bits of information, the once-busy satellite campus of my community college surrendered the buildings today.

 

A commitment among several institutions requires me to haunt the mostly empty halls (like Marley's Ghost) for the spring to finish teaching classes, but for the staff, a casual dismissal into unemployment now.

 

The Psalmist tells us not to put our trust in princes; I would add "...or in elected bodies."



Harney & Sons Logo Teacup $9.95 - rhyming Couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Harney & Sons Logo Teacup $9.95

I love few things better than a cup of tea
But with that advert – shouldn’t they pay me?

"We Are Pregnant!" - a rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"We Are Pregnant!"

“We are pregnant!” the husband happily cried
“No, we are not,” the tired wife knowingly sighed

Autumn Night Across the Border Wire - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Autumn Night Across the Border Wire

I.

How wonderful to sleep in a soft, warm bed
Beneath a roof against the blowing night
Of wind and rain rattling each window pane
As winter falls upon this weary world

The busy-ness of day is all complete
I wind the clock and so unwind myself
My little dog burrows toward my feet
Contented with her life, with warmth, with me

And now a few more pages to be read -
How wonderful to sleep in a soft, warm bed

V: Deo gratias

II.

But good enough to sleep in an old, worn bag
Beneath a tarp against the blowing night
Of wind and rain rattling the plastic flaps
As winter falls upon the weary world

The emptiness of day is incomplete
And bigger guys stole my cheap Timex watch
Now slithering rats burrow toward my feet
And bite to see if they can feast on me

Another night to be drained and bled
I remember - long ago – sleeping in a bed

R: Your Deo gratias ain’t much help

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

A Conversion Experience... - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Conversion Experience at the Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple Outreach of the Lord Jesus Christ 501C3 of the Lamb Ministries the Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Apostle Brother Billy-Bob Hairdo and His Honored First Lady Disciple Irma-Mae a-Brangin’ Messages and a-Suckin’ in Government Grant Money

Here is a list of the thangs we is aginner
If you do any of this stuff, yew air a sinner


(Th’ Lord accepts all major credit cards for His work)

Yes, But I Don't Own a Motorcycle - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Yes, But I Don’t Own a Motorcycle

Are you a Viet-Nam veteran, old man?

          Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle

And do you really love America?

          Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle

And are you saved?

          Beats the H*** outta me

Annoyme.com - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Annoyme.com

An Advertising Monologue in Upspeak

So I just went on annoyme.com
And like I found my ring you know like on
Annoyme.com where you will find
Those unique designs that you just can’t find

And those really famous great big name brands
AND YOU KNOW WHICH ONES I’M TALKING ABOUT
Annoyme.com has the selections and styles
You want to see at annoyme.com

I’m going back on annoyme.com
Today, right now, while I should be at work

(Repeat many times each day for weeks and weeks until the listener changes radio stations.)

Christmas Music and the Fire Alarm in McDonald's Share the Loudspeakers - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Christmas Music and the Fire Alarm in McDonald’s Share the Loudspeakers

What Child is this WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!
WHEEP!...
In Mary’s lap is sleeping…

“It’s okay, folks; it was just the muffins.”

Whom angels greet…
                                       “I don’t want a muffin, thanks.”
With anthems sweet…

An Advent Rosary - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Advent Rosary

Dark Advent is a silent waiting time
When autumn chills into pale, year-end days
And joy seems smothered by hard-frosting rime:
Cold is the debt that spring to winter pays

The seasons link to seasons in a chain,
The chain of being that links, also, our souls,
Seasons and souls, not always without pain:
Summer’s wild lightning falls and thunder rolls.

Linked to us too, rose by mystical rose,
This holy Advent is Our Lady’s Grace
To us who wait in exile sad; she knows
Where souls and seasons sing, the Night, the Place.

Seasons and souls, linked to days dreary-dim:
Follow them with roses to Bethlehem

The Last Week after Pentecost - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Last Week after Pentecost

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

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

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

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