A Contemporary Vocabulary fro Writers and Artists - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Contemporary Vocabulary for Writers and Artists

As culled from an art magazine, 13 March 2019

 

Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.

 

-Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry

collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted
members of the creative community
Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization

The 15th of March, 1917 - poem (from last year)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The 15th of March, 1917

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




(2 March 1917 O.S.)

Texas Standard Time - WHOOP! - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Texas Standard Time - Whoop!

Our Texas State Representative, James White, has proposed a constant Texas Standard Time independent of any other time ordered by any other state or by any federal agency. This is a fine idea.

Like Texans themselves (except for some of the in-laws over in Newton County), Texas Standard Time would be steady and dependable. People everywhere, when asked the time, would check their custom Texas A & M watches and say, “Well, I’m not sure about here, but in Texas it’s half-past Bevo…”

Texas Standard Time would be the standard for the world. In Greenwich the Royal Observatory would be shut down and a memorial plaque posted on the door as a remembrance of when Greenwich Mean Time meant something.

I know that Representative White is anxious to hear my suggestions in the matter of Texas Standard Time, and so I make the follow suggestions for designating Texas State Hours:



Midnight - As Mickey Gilley says, the girls get prettier at closing time.

0100 - Goodnight, Moon. Say, that would make a great book title.

0200 - All-night truckers and shift-workers reach for another cuppa coffee.

0300 - Reveille, reveille, reveille! Rise and shine! It’s a great day to serve the United States Navy! Or, better yet, the Texas Navy. Coffee.

0400 - Time for some to get up and go milk the cows. Coffee.

0500 - Time for others to get up and get ready for work at the shop or the office. Coffee.

0600 - Get the kidlets ready for school with a real breakfast. The naughtiest of the kidlets will, on the way out the door, present Mom with a teacher-note to be signed. Coffee.

0700 - The Belle-Jim on the courthouse square in Jasper serves breakfast and enlightening conversation that Plato and Socrates might envy. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0800 - The school-zone flashers switch off; however, beware the Mad Momma turning into elementary school driveway on two wheels without any lights or turn signals, with a cell ‘phone in one hand, a bottle of that Fuji water in the other, and yelling at the kids in the back seat. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1000 - the public library opens for the day. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1100 - Clients and customers are waiting impatiently. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea (pronounced “icetea”).

1200 - You’d like to go for lunch, but the boss says… There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1300 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1400 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Dang, this iced tea is old.

1500 - This is the hour you desperately need a cup of coffee but the guys and gals who seem to hang out by the coffee machine all day drank it all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

1600 - Time to milk the cows again. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Fresh iced tea.

1700 - “Junior, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1800 - “Missie, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1830. The Wheel. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

2000 - In a civilized world, Gunsmoke would air on CBS. Someone’s used all the hot water. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2100 - So the dog isn’t quite house-trained after all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2200 - “Mom! Would you help me with this homework I forgot?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2300 - What? Are you still up?

All funnin’ aside, we are blessed in our state representative, James White; our state senator, Robert Nichols; our U.S. Representative, Brian Babin; and our U.S. senator, John Cornyn. I’ll say something nice about Senator Cruz after he shaves. Dang, Ted, what are you thinking?

-30-

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man

To make the worship of a state the source
Of all the aspirations of a man
Of all his duties and of all his arts
Is not to be a man or artist at all

Penguins and Oxford Blues - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Penguins and Oxford Blues

Poor sailors and poor students parse the past
Between the paper covers of poor Penguins
Poor crumbling pages and crumbling civilizations
Held together with rubber bands and Scotch tape

And when in middle age The City of God
At last succumbs to the barbarians of time
A fresh one is built up in Oxford blue
By Vivian Ridler, who saved for us the words

And yet - the arguments of several Romes
Were somehow fresher at $3.75

"The F*g with the Bow Tie" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“The F*g with the Bow Tie” 1

“Only in Russia is poetry respected – it gets people killed.

Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”

-Osip Mandelstam 2

Spain. Poetry got people killed in Spain -
And still wherever tyrants of delicate nerves
And artistic sensitivities hear
Whispered rumors of whispered disapproval

And so an innocent, fearful and trembling
Must be motored away to a moonless death
Upon orders spoken, written, tweeted
Telephoned, telegraphed, or teletyped

One prays he has a moment to adjust his tie
Perfectly - as an honor to Poetry




1 The slur is attributed to Federico Garcia Lorca’s murderers:
https://lithub.com/dictators-kill-poets-on-federico-garcia-lorcas-last-days/

2 Quoted by Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 20th Century Russian Poetry

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598

There is perhaps a certain indignity
In grounding back on earth among some weeds
Your late balloon a fragment of itself
Your parachute all damp and limp and still

But, oh! what an adventure you have lived!
Scuffy the Tugboat might well envy you
Your day and night in scientific flight
With helium instead of pixie dust

Like Peter Pan you sailed along the wind
Straight on until morning, then home again

Billy Possum Destroys the Bird Feeder (again) - rhyming doggerel (or possumerrel)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Billy Possum Destroys the Bird Feeder in the Night

(Again)

That climbing ratitude
In nightly interlude
And moral turpitude
Eats all the birdy-food

(I haven’t thought up an appropriate amphimacer [yes, I had to look that up] “ude” rhyme for the destruction of a bird feeder, but if I do it will go here)

Thus shows his gratitude
Oh! What an attitude!
I speak with acritude
Thus ends this platitude


For the true adventures of Billy Possum, see Thornton W. Burgess’ wonderful Mother West Wind stories.

"Only the Solitary Seek the Truth" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Workers of the World, Untie

“Every herd is a refuge for giftlessness…Only the solitary seek the truth,

and they break with all those who don't love it sufficiently.”

― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

You cannot write with your fist clenched in hate
You cannot sing with a conscripted voice
You cannot dance if you are made to march
You cannot love if your heart is not free

You cannot think if they slogan your mind
You cannot play if they deny your joy
You cannot dream if they program your spirit
You cannot pray if they poison your soul

You are an artist, a seeker of truth:
And no one should finish this line for you

The Happy Killer Who Dug The Lovin' Spoonful - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Happy Killer Who Dug The Lovin’ Spoonful

Caught in the net of conscription, most of us
Some joining up before being press-ganged
Why wait to be pushed into your own death
When you can push yourself, and wonder why

An E-4 not yet thirty - we called him Pops
A curly-haired kid named Skip - his head blown off
That Army guy who let go of the boat and drowned
The happy killer who dug The Lovin’ Spoonful

Caught in the net of conscription, most of us
Along with Miss March, withering in the heat

My Weather Balloon - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

It Fell From the Skies!

But don’t worry - the “it” was an iMet-4 radiosonde, tethered to a nifty parachute, and at a few ounces it would hardly have disturbed a flower petal.

Early on Sunday morning I, y’r ‘umble rustic scrivener, found a little parachute alongside a country road. The parachute had a harness and a line dangling, and atop it a burst balloon. I followed the line into the weeds, expecting to find a weather service device, a little camera, or a science experiment.

In the event, it was two of the three, a little plastic box on which was lettered “IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL (XXX-XXX-XXXX).” On the other side the maker’s label read “iMet-4” and “InterMet Systems.” Alongside the label was a row of indicators marked “402MHz” to “405Mx,” and a button for setting the frequency. On top was a connector of some sort and the attachment for the lanyard. On the bottom protruded a six-inch flexible antenna.

The parachute was of a very tight weave; from it was suspended a blue plastic ring built to accept the attachment of various scientific instruments.

Finally, there was a burst balloon. When the balloon failed, everything floated gently down to the weeds along my road.

The concept of the radiosonde dates from the 1930s, and was invented simultaneously in the USA and in the unfortunate Soviet Union.

This particular model, from International Met Systems of Grand Rapids, Michigan, measures temperature, humidity, air pressure, geopotential height (I don’t know what that means), wind speed, and wind direction, and sends this information constantly to its receiving station.

And while we were asleep this particular I-Met 4 spent the night in the silences high above the ground, swinging from its balloon while sniffing the air and feeling the wind and thinking happy electronic thoughts.

Dr. Don Conlee of God’s University, Texas A & M, sent me an electrical note thanking me for its recovery, and added: “We are involved in an experiment to better understand tornadoes in the SE U.S., and have been launching quite frequently of late.”

Given the deadly nature of tornadoes, we can all be grateful to Dr. Conlee, his students, and his fellow scientists for launching this little gadget and all its little electronic classmates from Easterwood Field in College Station to acquire knowledge that will save lives.

Dr. Conlee continued: “If you have a convenient way to return it to us…at A & M…that would be great. If not, I would suggest that you see if a local middle school or high school science teacher would like to take it, along with my contact information, and we can see how they might use it in the classroom to talk about weather/physics/etc.”

And so it was agreed. I have a young friend who teaches science and will take charge of the radiosonde for her students, and Dr. Conlee will send her and her students “…information about the launch, pictures of the data it collected, and maps that will be interesting.” Thus, the radiosonde will have contributed to civilization twice, first in the acquisition of knowledge that will help save lives, and then again through the intellectual enrichment of the young.

And that is The Aggie Way. Whoop!

When I was a lad I enjoyed science (until in the higher grades teachers messed it up with mathematics), and I would have had that single, tempting phillips screw out as soon as I could open up my Swiss Army Knife to see if there were any tiny little Martians aboard.

As it was, in my responsible old age I did not take the machine apart, though I did put it to my ear to listen for any secrets being beamed back out to space. It was silent, and there were no Martians.

Sigh.

Despite the intrusion of mathematics (maths are not in the Bible, you know), science is both useful and fun.

In this instance the radiosonde, its rigging, the blue plastic ring, the poofy parachute, and the balloon were also quite pretty. I wish I had seen them floating down through the sky because, as Blaise Pascal says, “the heart has its reasons, which the mind knows not.”

-30-

Be a Manly Catholic Man (Your Major Credit Card Welcome)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ya Can’t be a Manly Catholic Man ™® Without

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“Church? It's a shop! Salvation by the shilling!”

-Will Roper to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

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And somewhere there’s possibly a pizza,
A Manly Catholic Man ™® Combat™® Rosary™®,
and a manly group hug

My School of Thought - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

My School of Thought

We’ve heard of schools of thought for ideas sought -
Philosophy, history, music, and art -
Where everyone agrees that they are all smart
So I would like to build my own school of thought:

In the mornings the children will raise my flag
And all will pledge true allegiance to me
And in class children will look up to see
My thoughtful image, and they will brag

How everyone now thinks as I say they ought:
And that, dear friends, is my own school of thought!

Diskos et Calyx - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Diskos et Calyx

The universe spirals through its starlit dance
Creation spins around, in, and down
Eternity circles the paten and cup

Miraculum

Eternity circles the paten and cup
Around and out and up, Creation spins
Through its starlit dance the universe spirals

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity - Limerick

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity

(and a book deal)

Dear Feds:

I wish to apply for immunity
Though I have done nothing with impunity
Show me how to conspire
So that I might acquire
Largess from the working community

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall

There Are Only Two Dreams - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

There Are Only Two Dreams

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
And if you wake exiled from Eden again
From a moment of exquisite happiness
Your dream was wonderfully, happily true

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
Any other topic is not a dream
But only the clamorings of others
Demanding always a piece of your soul

There are only two dreams: freedom and love -
Tears mean only that you must wait awhile

The Sorceress of Santarem - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Sorceress of Santarem

Whatever happened to the sorceress?
The narratives leave her story unresolved -
Upon the Altar reposes the sacred Host
Before the Altar kneel graced penitents

But did the sorceress find mercy too
Or does she still cringe in her crusted cave
In a gully before the rubbish fires
Whose incense is the writhing smoke of Hell

Whatever happened to her life of blight -
Was she too wakened by that same true Light?





Suggested by a thought in a letter from Fr. Raphael Barousse, OSB

Looking for Something in a Burning Street

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol

Looking for Something in a Burning Street

He was looking for something in a burning street
Among blown wreckage and necrotic smoke
Among the drifting ashes and debris
Alone among grey-morning-crumbling stones

He later could not remember much of it
Among the empty greyness - were there dead?
Among the silences where screams had flown
Alone among accusers who weren’t there

“Don’t look for it. Go into solitude.
Don’t look for it. It will be found for you.”

Emerging Writers - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Emerging Writers

One reads of emerging writers
But from what do they emerge?

Wombs?
Tombs?
Rooms?

Cells?
Wells?
Shells?

Sins?
Bins?
Tins?

Canada?

So go ahead; emerge away
Then tell us what you have to say

Intensifying the Dallas Charter - a poem and a cloud of unknowing

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Intensifying the Dallas Charter

The cultural filters are all in place
And truth, some say, is past its sell-by date
Weak hymns embalmed by hippies, and lost in space
Where time is always 1968

A poison-green tattoo on a fleshy back
No incense, but the Purell’s pretty strong
A ten-year-old gobbles his comfort snack
During Communion and a three-chord song

Our bishops quack and honk in flocks and herds -
We need a starets
                                      but all we get are words:


Intensify the Dallas Charter accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called intensify the Dallas Charter metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions Accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent intensify the Dallas Charter…

Theatrical Night at the Nudist Colony - a poem (of sorts)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Theatrical Night at the Nudist Colony

A beautiful girl

Pleasingly and teasingly
Naughtily and saucily
Wooingly and cooingly
Playfully and seductively

Puts her clothes back on

"All-Male Military Draft Ruled Unconstitutional" - intemperate doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“All-Male Military Draft Ruled Unconstitutional”

Because nothing says democracy more

Than sending off the daughters of the poor

To die for Raytheon and General Dynamics

And for the President, whose manly sons
Shoot animals dead with their great big guns

But when the the bullets, bombs, and shells are raining
Those brave lads won’t be found in basic training

Since when it comes to the generals’ slaughter
They’ll send to her death your little daughter

And when the generalissimos yell “Go!”
Our Merovingian Congress won’t say “No”

They fight the wars with perks and private jets
As do their beribboned flag-rank house pets

And so our daughters are the harvest yield
That must forever rot in some foreign field 1

As for our leaders’ daughters, don’t be so hard -
Someone’s got to sun-bathe in Harvard Yard







1 cf. “The Soldier,” Rupert Brooke

"Select Product and Begin Fueling" - Road Tripping Poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

“Select Product and Begin Fueling”

Gas, yes, but we need more products than that
For the Great American Road: check the water,
And check the oil, check the number of kids
Fighting with each other in the back seat

Select some Eagles tunes and fuel them too
Into the six-layer CD machine -
Let’s bust out of Texas and head for Horse Springs
Which isn’t there anymore, but Magdalena is

And they’ve got twenty-seven radio telescopes
Out on the plains to fuel our dreams and hopes

For John Keats, +23 February 1821 - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

For John Keats, +23 February 1821

Wanderer by moonlight, you never knew
That mellow autumn of elusive fame
Which you well-earned in your suffering youth
As you laboured in haste through hastening death

In haste to set in jeweled, sunlit lines
Each joyful day’s delight in nature and man
Before they faded into that long night -
You never knew what treasures you left to us

Then may your desperate pilgrimage to Rome
Lead you at last to more glorious Stairs

Pomona at Play - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Pomona at Play

Pomona dances among the apple trees
Light-footed through the glowing amber light;
At dusk, kissed by the last rain-drops, the breeze
Begins to sigh, and falls, to sleep the night.

And then pale Cynthia, in silver crowned,
Rises to breathe upon each leaf and flower
Her sacred mists, softly and softly around,
And blesses dreams through many a silent hour.

Bold Helios will wake the sleeping east
And laugh away the magic of the dark;
He sets out daylight as a merry feast
And measures out his work with compass and arc

But later, them, for sweet Pomona’s play
Now celebrates the golden end of day.

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