Wednesday, April 17, 2019

If There is a Rebound, There Must Have Been a Bound - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If There is a Rebound, There Must Have Been a Bound

Rebound!

I don’t understand basketball at all
Women and men run around in funny clothes
Yelling a lot while keeping a basketball
From each other in a shoe-slapping gym

Rebound!

And they yell “REBOUND!” more than anything else
And I hear each “REBOUND!” echoing about
And shoes slide-squeaking on the wooden floor
And I have no idea what any of it means

Rebound!

I only know that roundballers are tall

Beyond that

I don’t understand basketball at all

Rebound!

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

The Pragmatic Sanction of a Penny Candle - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Pragmatic Sanction of a Penny Candle

Nothing is more pragmatic than a votive light
A candlelight
A little light
A prayer light

Monday, April 15, 2019

Famous News Guy Live With the Burning of Notre Dame de Paris - not exactly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Famous News Guy Live With the Burning of Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame is much more than a place of worship
iconic Notre Dame is much more than
a church icon Notre Dame is much more
than a place of Worship icon Notre Dame

is much more than a church iconic
Notre Dame is much more than a place of worship
iconic Notre Dame is much more than
a church icon Notre Dame is much more

than a place of Worship icon Notre Dame
is much more than a church iconic

Sunday, April 14, 2019

The Elf-Girl, the Knight, and the Holy Grail - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Elf-Girl, the Knight, and the Holy Grail

She giggles, soft-hidden behind the green
And summer-teases, a shimmer in the air
She peeks at him and laughs, this fairy queen
With mischief in her eyes and flowers in her hair

While through the forest glades our young, fresh knight
Must keep his path as duty to his King
She dances by him, laughing, lithe, and light
What will he have - chapel, or fairy-ring?

And while he makes his vows, she all unseen -
She giggles, soft-hidden behind the green

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Seeking Sanctuary at the French Embassy - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184

Seeking Sanctuary at the French Embassy

“...and thence to a thing that peers in at…windows…”

-C. S. Lewis, p. 99, A Preface to Paradise Lost

Julian Assange, maybe a citizen of Australia and maybe of Ecuador, but mostly a resident of his own unhappy mind, spent seven years in his safe space in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Ecuador recently tired of Mr. Assange (as have we all), and ejected him into the waiting arms of a few sturdy young men in civvies, who may or may not be English bobbies, and who then gave him a courtesy ride to the nearest magistrate.

Ecuador must now hire some extra cleaners to take care of the filth and the feces (not all of it the cat’s, according the the ambassador). Yes, Mr. Assange has impressed a great many people in many ways.

Mr. Assange had forgotten the first rule of betrayal - when the country of the second part has no more use for the man who has sold out the country of the first part, the country of the second part discards him. Mr. Assange and his cat and his computer have been discarded.

Mr. Assange is no journalist and no hero; he is only a nasty little creep of the sort who peers in at other people’s windows.

We are all concerned for the cat, of course.

Mr. Assange, citizen of the world, is fortunate in having violated the laws and the trust only of the United States, Sweden, Ecuador, and Great Britain. Had he gotten crossways of the Russian KGB or of North Korea’s merry maids of mayhem, he’d be deader than Robert Francis O’Rourke’s chances of table-top dancing his way to the presidency in 2020.

One must admit that Mr. Assange’s sneaking and spying and finking paid him well, giving him the mob-funding to travel all over the world until seven years ago, when he promised to appear in an English court, and instead lied his way into the care and protection of Ecuador.

Perhaps you or I could work that gig, eh? We could betray, say, Monaco or Malta, selling all their gambling secrets to the highest bidders, and then fly to England and show up at the French embassy demanding sanctuary.

I have chosen the French embassy for your consideration because it’s much bigger and nicer than Ecuador’s, which is really just a large apartment. A schemer could live there for several years as the darling of the sort of people who watch The View, don’t vaccinate their children, and believe that the British royal family are really The Lizard People from Mars. A new parasite could inspire a new generation to be untrustworthy in every way, and pose with the Dolly Llama, some leftover 1970s actresses, and a few stray dictators-in-exile for photographs of saintly fellows who stick it to The Man.

But no.

In the end, Mr. Assange is a vulgar, self-absorbed little man who used the laws of civilized nations to avoid the consequences of his violations of the laws of those same civilized nations. He has probably caused the deaths of innocents because of his loathsome behavior, and he has certain deceived a great many foolish people and cost millions of Euros, pounds and dollars to support him in his indolence. However, the laws he and his toadies scorn mean that he will not be hanged or shot. He will live a long life in a prison or psychiatric unit, grow his beard and his resentments, write a big book in praise of himself, and someday die, perhaps convinced that the water faucet in his room is up to something.

We cannot hate such a man; we can only pity him.

-30-

The Little Bighorn Battlefield Across from the Gas Station - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Little Bighorn

A mist, but not of memories or ghosts,
And not a silent mist - a noisy one
Drifts darkly over this altar to the past
The docent pauses for each motor home

Gear-growling up the unexpected slope
Along the road from that point to this one
Well-paved and posted: fifteen miles per hour

For cell-‘phone shots where each historic death
Is marked with stones among the sunlit grass
The docent speaks of her peoples: Cheyenne,
Arapaho, Sioux, and soldier boys blue

With frequent and reflective pauses as
A Winnebago circles Last Stand Hill

Friday, April 12, 2019

How Dogs Domesticated Humans - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

How Dogs Domesticated Humans

For Riley and His Friend Bailey

In the beginning -
                              we humans were primitives
Existing as crude hunter-gatherers
Quite unaware of any higher thought
And curiously unaware of love

But then we were discovered by The Dog

Who taught us the glorious mystery of play
And how to laze throughout sweet summer days
To contemplate, to cuddle, and to care -
To care about beings beyond ourselves

Because we were accepted by The Dog

Through God’s intended, love-barked dialogue
We pray we may be worthy of The Dog

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Words Taking People Out of Context - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Words Taking People Out of Context

It’s not enough that words are taken wrong
Misused and misplaced where they should not be
Cut up and pasted down as thought-traps set
To stop poor pilgrims on their search for truth

But even worse: we push ourselves aside
To follow ephemeral bellowings
In passive obedience to the noises
Of settled senescence posing as youth

It’s not enough that words are taken wrong
But even worse: we push ourselves aside

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Advice to Young Men Contemplating Matrimony (with cautions about Supersonic Saucepans of Death) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Advice to Young Men Contemplating Matrimony

If you annoy a Sicilian woman
She will fling herself at you shrieking,
Her hair and eyes wild with rage; she’ll plunge a dagger
Into your heart three times before you fall

And then she’ll spit on your corpse and curse your memory

If you annoy a French woman
She will fling at you a stiletto heel
Or a saucepan (with sauce veloute’, oui!)
Either one will take you down, mon ami

And then she’ll dial a friend for company

If you annoy a Russian woman
She will make a discreet telephone call
And when in spring the ice of the Neva thaws
Your frozen body will at last pop up

And then she’ll write a poem in your memory

If you annoy an English woman
She will smile sweetly, and poison your tea
And as you collapse, gasping desperately for breath
She will smile again, and ask if anything’s wrong

And then she’ll ring for Jeeves to tidy up

Finally:

A Canadian woman (I’m telling no tales)
You mess with her, and you’re bait for the whales!

-fin- (so to speak)

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Lying is Forbidden Except When it is Mandatory - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lying is Forbidden Except When it is Mandatory

One reads that the dear departed was very
Holy; indeed, he was God’s emissary
Instant sainthood in the mortuary
(One longs to read an honest obituary)

Monday, April 8, 2019

Kevin Costner's THE HIGHWAYMEN - a review

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Kevin Costner’s The Highwaymen

The Highwaymen, directed by John Lee Hancock, is a rare movie - it respects the audience.

The story is a quest, with a hero and his loyal follower journeying through the wilds in search of truth. In this story the protagonists are searching for evil to destroy it, and along the way discover truth within themselves.

The wilds are the open spaces of Texas and Oklahoma, and the sad squalor of poverty. John Ford could have filmed it with the same awe and beauty of depth of meaning as John Schwartzman and his crew, but surely no other living cinematographer can match Schwartzman’s art.

The accuracy of the film is a mystery; the shock of the situation obscured the memories of those involved, and their narratives sometimes disagreed, but the makers certainly got two historical matters right: Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were pathological murderers, and the Rangers and other lawmen did the right thing in stopping them.

The film’s characterizations, as in all its other elements, are perfect. Kevin Costner as retired Ranger Frank Hamer is brilliant in his layers of intent, determination, introspection, and occasional but unspoken bewilderment.

Woody Harrelson is not as effective as Maney Gault, though good enough. Honestly, his Gault looks demented most of the time, as if he might want to devour a child, or just howl at a traffic light.

The relationship between Hamer and Gault is seldom harmonious except in action, when they coordinate perfectly through long association.

As Rangers Hamer and Gault remind us of the Byzantine Akritai, borderers loyal to the Empire but resistant to unrealistic controls attempted by the cynical emperor in far-off Constantinople. The borderers protect the people and the state, and the people and the state despise them. This was true in the 11th century, the 20th century, and now.

Kathy Bates as the odious, scheming, treacherous Governor “Ma” Ferguson, is perfect. She is the far-off emperor - in this instance, empress - who wants the state protected but does not like or trust the men who do so. As governor she is a sort of drawling Lady Macbeth - in one scene she viciously humiliates her staff and then instantly, as a door is opened for her, she grins and aw-shucks as she enters a room full of her supporters and money-men. One is reminded of the original Lady Macbeth’s dictum, “…Look like the innocent flower / But be the serpent under’t…” (Macbeth I.vi).

A conversation late in the film between Hamer and Barrow’s father is a gem of cinema thinkfulness - Mr. Barrow loves his son but is honest with himself in realizing that Clyde is no good and must be destroyed. This is Greek tragedy indeed.

Another good use of characterization, in this instance the lack of it, is that we are never close to Bonnie and Clyde. We see them only at distance, save for Bonnie murdering a downed man; we mostly only hear about them.  Like Grendel in Beowulf, who also is never seen, they are more frightening that way.  If we can see an evil, we can then figure out how to overcome it, but the unseen booger in the night is more frightening because we can’t see it and so don’t know have enough information to begin thinking logically about how to overcome it.

And the thoughtful viewer certainly appreciates the consideration of morals and ethics - the mandate about offering murderers and bandits a chance to surrender is clear, but so is the reality that murderers and bandits are not under any such mandate.  But then, if a citizen or police officer skates by a mandate, where does it end?  Who decides?  The film is philosophical in asking that question, developing it, and then not answering it.  The audience must consider how justice and ethics must be served. Part of the film’s excellence is that the characters do not preach at the audience, unlike so many films now that are little more than propaganda.

The ambush scene, filmed in Louisiana where the real one occurred, is tense and brilliant up to a point. The six lawmen who have come together to stop the murderers wait through the night and into the day, growing more stressed and impatient with each other as the hours pass.

The deaths of Barrow and Parker, replaying the absurdity of the worthless 1960s movie, come close to destroying the film. Dead people do not dance about in car seats because dead people don’t dance at all, and in this nonsense the horror of violent human death is reduced to unintentional comedy. This could have been avoided if, as with most of the movie, we are not shown Barrow and Parker, but only the lawmen, and then at a distance.

However, the denouement, the falling action, restores the integrity of the plot, with the Rangers and the local lawmen dealing silently with the emotional consequences of their necessary but violent resolution to the Barrow gang’s murders.

Further, the depiction of the citizens in the small town degenerating into a screaming mob grabbing at the corpses for ghastly souvenirs causes us to ask ourselves: are we worthy of the physical and psychological sacrifices law officers make in our defense, or are we ourselves as savage as the Barrow gang, shedding all decency so easily?

It must be said again: The Highwaymen, directed by John Lee Hancock, is a rare movie - it respects the audience.

A favorite quote, Maney Gault taking care of three Barrow toadies who have menaced him: “Clyde Barrow might be the king, but I’m a Texas Ranger, you little ****.”

Whoop!

-30-

Repudiate Deindividuation for Bipeds - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Repudiate Deindividuation for Bipeds

One should never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not now:
Their loving voices are raised in chants of hate
And their funny hats aren’t funny at all

Their ultimate freedom is the freedom to
Obey with love the loudest loving leader
Who twists their supplicant hands to fists of love
For beating harmony into us all

One will never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not today

Sunday, April 7, 2019

A Sunday Afternoon Dreaming-Rain for You - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Sunday Afternoon Dreaming-Rain for You

When streaming rain obscures your window pane
You want to be alone, among your thoughts
And no one knows exactly why that’s so
But yes, you are at peace this afternoon

They say the falling barometric pressure
Makes you sleepy, but the rain knows better
The drowsing rain, it wants to sing to you
And tuck you softly into a dream of love

So close your eyes, and as the little book slips
Onto your lap, the rain sighs with your lips

Saturday, April 6, 2019

"Do Not Touch This Cloud-Dweller" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Do Not Touch This Cloud-Dweller”

-attributed to Stalin
in a note forbidding the arrest of Boris Pasternak

Stalin and Caesar had no use for dreamers
Stern men of destiny prefer strong tools
To execute their leader’s will, and yet
They cry and beg when they are eventually shot

Cloud-dwellers camouflage themselves with words
And shift their sails but not their souls, and keep
Their little ships on course straight to the stars
Straight on until the dawn they help to light

Courage is in your dreams and words and works
May it please God that Stalin has no use

For you

Friday, April 5, 2019

I've Voof Woof to Thuf Dentigh, Muhkay? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I’ve Voof Woof to Thuf Dentith, Muhkay?

Ive been to the dentist

She gave ma a happy pill ME a happy pill, not Ma a happy pill

Tree frogs are my favotire amphibians there so cute ya wanna buy them an ice cream but there aint no bug ice scream

Yes I’m fine than k you

Gosh this is still fun

And they gave me a new toothbrush although I use the super-golly-gee-whiz-quadro-toothbrush-thing-that-lights-up-and-stuff

Yes the pill is wearing off sure wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Why do they all put their hands in my mouth at the same time

Lets see thats four hands

And then they yell at me to relax

But yeah I got a pill qnd I am sooooooooooooooooooo relaxed
My teeth are fine

My teeth are green no wait my teeth or clean because if they were green they wouldn’t be clean

Dr. Joyce is the best

There’s still something to be said for tree frogs

Yes I can walk to the car whoops

Yes I can opine the passenger door

Yes I can belt my seat fashion

Or somethingthis has been fun

Thank you yes six monyhsts…

Thursday, April 4, 2019

Decolonize This Label! - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Decolonize This Label 
 
Upon Reading a Patronizing Review of Ferlinghetti’s Little Boy

The only problem with the Proletariat
Is obeying the pretentious asses that
Insist on calling us the Proletariat -

Resist their Insist!

For I will not be labeled by some artsy-crat

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

For the Sonic Waitress Who Wish Me a Blessed Day and Stole My Change - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

For the Sonic Waitress Who Wished Me a Blessed Day
and Stole My Change

I was just passing through
You didn’t know me; I didn’t know you
But I should have known you’d steal from me
When you told me to Have a Blessed Day

You never came back with the change
And that is sad. We have come to accept the lies
Of praychurs, presidents, and prime ministers
But one expects better of Sonic waitresses

And you told me to have a blessed day

So you’re 40 cents to the bad, that’s true
But I’ve got the dollar I was going to tip you

And, hey, y’all have a blessed day, y’hear?

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

"I Know Where the Door Is, You Little Police Academy Dropout!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Secretary-Receptionist Faces the Future -
“I Know Where the Door Is, You Little Police Academy Dropout!”

The name on the building changed again today
I must apply for my own job, they say
A smarmer wants more work for much less pay
It’s time to reconstruct my resume’

I once was great with videotape and film
And could type fifty-five words a minute
On an IBM Selectric; my skills are dim
The boy-boss taps on a plastic box - what’s in it?

For forty years I ruled the company’s ground floor -
Security, with a sneer, shows me the door

Monday, April 1, 2019

Whisper Your Area 51 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Whisper Your Area 51

“Russian Aircraft Flies Over Area 51…”

-U.K. Daily Mail, 31 March 2019

Each of us is an Area 51
In hiding from a psychic bombing run
Behind the barbed-wire fences of our senses
Beneath the radar of our consequences

Our secrets are so secret that even we
Don’t know what they might be, could be, will be
Because the slide-rule calculating hearts
Can only slip between odd-numbered parts

Each of us is an Area 51
Playing hide-and-go-seek
                                                   but not for fun

Sunday, March 31, 2019

A Luddite and His Timex Watch - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Watch Out!

Some millionaire on the a.m. radio was pitying himself the other day: his expensive, high-tech, high-tone Fruit™ watch (or was it a vegetable watch?) wasn’t acting right, wouldn’t hold a charge, and had to be re-programmed every day until tech support (or Tech Support) worked their magic on it.

Mr. Millionaire, meet the $10 Timex. Oops - it’s up to $24 now. My Timex, which “takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” as John Cameron Swayze used to say, cost only $10 at Giganto-Mart, but that was years ago.

A Timex needs no programming; all you do is re-set it twice a year for the semi-annual fall-fully-forward-spring-latch-back-attack thing.

The basic Timex watch is soooooooooooooo uncool. A Timex will not impress your date. A Timex will not impress your beagle. A Timex is redolent of the pool room, not the board room. A discriminating mugger will sneer at a Timex with the same contempt he once demonstrated for the Ford Fiesta. A Timex does not speak of elegance, guess your height and weight, tell you the future, measure the deterioration of your liver, or calculate the decay of the planet’s orbit around the sun. All a Timex does is show you the time with two little pointers, also known as hands, although they aren’t really hands. We just call them hands, you see.

Clever people, those Chinese, to have invented such a cheap and reliable way of telling time. Not that time will listen to what you tell it.

A Timex comes in a variety of colors and straps, and some variations are named Expedition™ and Iron Man™ and such, plain little ol’ watches that have watched too many Rambo movies and have costumed themselves in dime-store camouflage and outfitted themselves with itty-bitty Russian Kalashnikovs.

When the battery in a Timex wears out, you can usually replace it yourself. Just unscrew the back, drop the battery, note the number, and go to the drug store for a replacement. This is needful only every two or three years, sometimes longer.

A watch should not need programming. Nor should a radio or a teevee set or a telephone, but the STEMinstas will not have it that when you buy something it should simply work. Oh, no; now you must read books and access sites and give strangers your credit card numbers and a snapshot of your passport in order to validate and start up a gadget for which you have already paid.

I suppose next we’ll have to program our pocket knives and fountain pens. A carpenter roofing in the hot sun might have to knock off work for an hour to access a spiderwebsite and purchase a yearly update for his hammer. Screwdrivers might need occasional re-programming. And don’t get me started on the complications of electronic 2 x 4s.

Young people might find adapting to a wristwatch of any kind a challenge. Instead of automatically reaching into a pocket or purse for the MePhone to check the time they would have to learn how to swing an arm out and up to read the little dial. And, yes, they’d have to figure out what “hands” are and how to work out the time from the hands’ positions.

But then, wearing a watch at all, even a Timex, might enhance a young man or woman’s coolness factor: “Hey, Heather-Misty-Dakota-Shane, what’s that neat-looking thing on your wrist? I’ve got to get me one!”

Well, as they say in that old movie in which James Arness plays a giant, carnivorous carrot, “Watch the skies!”

-30-

William Shakespeare Murdered Edward deVere in the Library with the Pipe Wrench - hardly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

William Shakespeare Murdered Edward deVere in
the Library with the Pipe Wrench

Of course one asks what was the library doing
With a pipe wrench.

-The End-

Saturday, March 30, 2019

I Lit a Candle for You at Mass, Only I Didn't - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Lit a Candle for You - Only I Didn’t


Before the Mass I went to light for you
A Penny Candle (it’s a Looney now)
And with it send a prayer up through the air
Throughout the liturgy, into the night

But, oh, how sad that it could not be so
For all the little paper matches were damp
And all I have to offer you today
Are heaps of cardboard strips in a little tray

But even so: within my heart, you know
There is for you forever a votive glow


(Looney - a Canadian dollar, but of course one needn’t put in a coin at all)

Friday, March 29, 2019

About Those University Admission Bribes... - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Temporary, Part-Time, Adjunct Faculty Instructor of No Significance Whatsoever at a Little Cinder-Block Community College Unknown to Anyone Beyond the Interstate Bypass Asks the Most Important Question About Admissions Bribery


Oh, please forgive this seeming diatribe
But I am one of the scrivening tribe
A poor Chaucerian scholar, a scribe

Who asks

Why doesn’t anyone offer me a bribe?

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big? - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big?

“Men Ditch Suits, and Retailers Struggle to Adapt”

-Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2019

We all must be good comrades now
We all must wear good comradewear
As if we worked with wrench and plough
Instead of cruising an office chair

We all must be good comrades, da!
And from one’s well-lit office space
Sneer at “the suits” - so long, Grandpa!
And so decolonise this place

We all must be good comrades now -
But have you ever milked a cow?

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

0400 at Denny's Along the Interstate - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

0400 at Denny’s Along the Interstate

A line cook at Denny’s (must have own pans)
Is an artist, accomplished in assemblage
Compositions of eggs (rather like Cezanne’s)
Toast, bacon, waffles for his decoupage

His gesso is the window layered in steam
Built of reflections and condensation
Hinting at the flowing Interstate stream
Beyond the No Smoking pumping station

The line cook has indeed his pans and plans -
Art, as the muse of cookery commands

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Morning Courage - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Morning Courage

Some have said that the bravest thing we do
Is to get up each morning and face the dawn
It may be so. The light is grey and cold
There seem to be no reasons to go on

And yet - the morning sun begins to kiss
The sensitive, delicate springtime leaves
Turning their own hopes to the morning sun
Stretching their chloroplasts awake to life

So even as sunlight embraces the tree
So maybe there will be kisses - we’ll see!

Monday, March 25, 2019

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report

“And art made tongue-tied by authority”

-Sonnet 66, often quoted by Pasternak

The Russian reports on my desk include:

Selected Poems, Yevtushenko
The Possessed, Dostoyevsky
The Zhivago Affair, Finn and Couvee
The Complete Poems of Anna Ahkmatova
August 1914, Solzhenitsyn


And some of them unread, some of them read
And better read than red, so someone said
Some of them shelved (We and The House of the Dead)
But now I’m going to work the flower bed

And what century is it outside? 1


1 Pasternak

Sunday, March 24, 2019

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were

“He is a dreamer; let us leave him – pass.” Julius Caesar I.ii.24

Strident philosophers at Hyde Park Corner
Poor buskers at Queen Victoria’s feet
Chalk artists remaking the pavement as Rome
A Seventh Sister with her folk guitar

These are not dreamers passive in their beds
Or supplicants awaiting permission:
They are the worker bees; they know of pain
And sweat, and sunstroke in the fields - and truth

When a sidewalk artist notes that the Ides
Have come, Caesar indeed should turn to hear

Saturday, March 23, 2019

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance - rhyming triplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance

Whether I am on the right side of history
Is a fantasy and an irrelevancy -
History had better be on the right side of me

Friday, March 22, 2019

Across the Cemetery Fence - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Across the Cemetery Fence

Hart-Bevil Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas


From service as Companions of the Conqueror
To the democracy of death and dust


This was family land in the long ago
Now alienated from the living
Accessible through permissions and locks
But we and the ghosts are okay with that

They say that only four of them were hanged
The dealer in false deeds died of old age
Some possibly were saints; hard to believe
For after all, we are de Beauville’s kin

From Normandy, and then green Chesterton
And then dispersed to the colonies
At the convenience of His Majesty
De Beauvilles and Bevilles and then Bevils

And some are buried on this lonely knoll
Dim mossy bones and stones among the pines
Across the fence a little heap of glass
Broken flower vases from the dime store


Now the democracy of dust and death
But once
                     Companions of the Conqueror

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Select Committee for Something or Other Meets in Market Basket #3 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Select Committee for Something or Other
Meets in Market Basket #3

We have no fine old paneling of oak
No ancient silver on a sideboard new
When Charles the First still wore his handsome head
We have no Latin, we may not smoke, but still -

Between the cinder blocks and coffee urn
Dining upon the finest plastic foam
We laugh at yarns that Saint Augustine thought
Well out of date when Africa lost Rome

We have no fine old paneling of oak
But every day we share a fine old joke

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

A Young Wasp in Spring - Appropriate Respect for Life Forms - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Young Wasp in Spring

The spring morning was chill when from its nest
A young wasp fell, helpless and young
Upon the ground, needing the warmth of the sun
To spread its tiny dragon’s wings into new life

A creature of God, needing only an hour
To gain its strength, and so to live the life
Destined for it, its appointed mission
In the unknowable Plan of Creation

It seemed to beg for mercy with each desperate breath
And so with great care I crushed it to death

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Saint Joseph's Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Saint Joseph the Just

Saint Joseph in a dreary winter night
Took to himself a newborn not his own,
Who yet is always his, the Child of Light
Whose crib Saint Joseph knew to be a throne

Saint Joseph shows men truth: each child is ours,
Adopted by each good man upon birth;
True fatherhood ordained in starlit hours
And ratified in Heaven and on earth.

Saint Joseph is the man who looked into
The eyes of Mary in her happy youth;
This strong man looked into her eyes and knew
She bore within her all eternal Truth.

Our witness is Saint Joseph, ever just:
God calls each man to take each child in trust.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini

Your grandmother and I are the only ones
Who listen still to Rod McKuen, and dream
Of Mission Beach ‘way back in ‘68
Or maybe not so far back after all

The sands still sing of sea and salt and seals
There are no watchful clocks to time our hopes
No calendars to tell us we are old
As we slow dance to a tiny transistor

But not with each other, not any more
For I had my orders, and she had hers

Sunday, March 17, 2019

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval

Sweet music on the Mustang’s radio
We’re sitting in her parents’ driveway

And sort of talking about the movie
And sort of talking about poetry and life

Frost is settling on the hood of the car
But all is warm in our bubble of love

Until

Our kiss is interrupted by the flickering
Of the parental, watchful front porch light

We sigh. We kiss. The censorial eye -
It orders me away - “That’s all! Bye-bye!”

(Oh, flick that porch light anyway!)

Saturday, March 16, 2019

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

Friday, March 15, 2019

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.)

Thursday, March 14, 2019

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

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

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

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

"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

Monday, March 11, 2019

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

Sunday, March 10, 2019

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.


Saturday, March 9, 2019

"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

Friday, March 8, 2019

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

Thursday, March 7, 2019

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
Yer Official Manly Catholic Man ™® Tee Shirt
Yer Major Credit Card Welcome
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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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Manly Catholic Man ™® Yeti ™® cup $39.99
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And somewhere there’s possibly a pizza,
A Manly Catholic Man ™® Combat™® Rosary™®,
and a manly group hug

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

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!

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

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

Monday, March 4, 2019

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

Sunday, March 3, 2019

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

Saturday, March 2, 2019

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

Friday, March 1, 2019

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.”

Thursday, February 28, 2019

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

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

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…

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

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

Monday, February 25, 2019

"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

Sunday, February 24, 2019

"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

Saturday, February 23, 2019

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

Friday, February 22, 2019

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.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

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

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

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.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

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

Monday, February 18, 2019

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!

Saturday, February 16, 2019

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/

Friday, February 15, 2019

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.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

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?

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

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

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

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

Monday, February 11, 2019

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

Sunday, February 10, 2019

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.

Saturday, February 9, 2019

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

Friday, February 8, 2019

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?

Thursday, February 7, 2019

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

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

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

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

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

Monday, February 4, 2019

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.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

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

Saturday, February 2, 2019

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.

Friday, February 1, 2019

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