The more "up to date" a book is, the sooner it will be dated.
-C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm
Sunday, June 21, 2020
Negative Capability - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Negative capability is not
A basket that bore hens’ eggs yesterday
And will carry tomatoes tomorrow
Is not empty today
Which is laden with possibilities
A book, a dream a hope, a picnic lunch
And thus quite full today
Slews
Wales
Stakes
Bye-stakes
Upsetts
Fitches
For we will fill our baskets with good things
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Negative Capability in a Basket
A basket that bore hens’ eggs yesterday
And will carry tomatoes tomorrow
Is not empty today
Which is laden with possibilities
A book, a dream a hope, a picnic lunch
And thus quite full today
Slews
Wales
Stakes
Bye-stakes
Upsetts
Fitches
For we will fill our baskets with good things
Saturday, June 20, 2020
From John Wayne to Spike Lee - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
From John Wayne to Spike Lee, we who were there
Are set upon gaming boards or movie screens
For the artistic outrage of award winners
Choosing their costumes for the Oscars show
Arms makers, double-entry contractors
Artists, writers, cinema studios
Everybody seems to have profited
From the war where they sent us to disappear
But we are left dying for appointments
with the VA
who might finish the job
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
From John Wayne to Spike Lee
From John Wayne to Spike Lee, we who were there
Are set upon gaming boards or movie screens
For the artistic outrage of award winners
Choosing their costumes for the Oscars show
Arms makers, double-entry contractors
Artists, writers, cinema studios
Everybody seems to have profited
From the war where they sent us to disappear
But we are left dying for appointments
with the VA
who might finish the job
Friday, June 19, 2020
A Repudiation of the Soulless Metric System - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Medicine is injected by the litre
But beer is enjoyed by the happy pint
Forced marches are by the kilometre
But ambling by the mile I fall behint
Napoleon invented the millimetre
The deci, the centi, and alas, poor milli
And used them to measure his poor (self)
As Josephine said (but she was silly)
Oh, let us keep the quart, the pound, the mile
Always elegant, thus always in style
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Repudiation of the Soulless Metric System
Medicine is injected by the litre
But beer is enjoyed by the happy pint
Forced marches are by the kilometre
But ambling by the mile I fall behint
Napoleon invented the millimetre
The deci, the centi, and alas, poor milli
And used them to measure his poor (self)
As Josephine said (but she was silly)
Oh, let us keep the quart, the pound, the mile
Always elegant, thus always in style
Thursday, June 18, 2020
A Brief Review of CULT OF GLORY: THE BOLD AND BRUTAL HISTORY OF THE TEXAS RANGERS
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
NB: Cult of Glory was recommended to me by a Texas Ranger, a long-time friend and an honorable man, who was interviewed for this book.
Mr. Swanson began writing this book several years ago and it was published early this year; it is not a fashionable pile-on of law enforcement.
If today you find yourself in the company of Texas Rangers, no matter who you are, you know that truth and justice will prevail.
But it was not always so, and that is the thesis of Doug J. Swanson’s disturbing but well-documented book, Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers (New York: Viking, 2020). In a time when the concept of research is a casual “You could look it up,” which means uncritically accepting the first search response that shimmers before one’s eyes on the InterGossip, Mr. Swanson labored for years through physical files of crumbling reports, numerous unpublished first-person narratives, newspaper files, audio files, newsreels, news reports, and personal interviews.
The bibliography runs to seven pages in tiny print, with a professional mix of primary and second sources, including some fifteen books published in the 19th century, dozens more published in the 20th and 21st, scholarly works of collected interviews and narratives, and a flavoring of popular works, including movies.
However, despite the consistent excellence of research, conclusions, and presentation, an inexplicable error obtains, the populist concept that DPS troopers do little but write traffic tickets. The DPS are our state police, and they enforce the people’s laws in a variety of services and programs (https://www.dps.texas.gov/). That most of us encounter DPS troopers only through the occasional “Sir, you were doing 75 in a 65 zone…” moment is to fail to understand their many missions.
I am advised that the first two women Rangers (p. 398) were not in “clerical positions” in the DPS. They were both sergeants specializing in criminal law enforcement. One had earned a master’s degree before promotion and is now a PhD.
Beyond the metaphorical and sometimes literal legwork, the next challenge in writing history is sorting out the veracity of sources. No one has ever chosen to tell the complete truth about himself (the pronoun is gender-neutral) in an autobiography, which includes letters and interviews. There is also the reality of perception: if ten people witness an accident or a crime, none of them, even if all are determined to be objective, will agree on exactly what happened.
As St. Thomas More is said to have said, “I have no window with which to look into another man’s soul.” Given that caveat, it appears that Mr. Swanson has worked out his research far better than most writers, and has written an accessible, fascinating, and honest book which we should read neither defensively in protection of one of our cultural myths nor judgmentally in smug triumphalism for propaganda purposes, but in humility.
Everyone whose education and thoughtful personal reading consists of more than chanting “Learn. To. Code.” is aware of the reality that history is violent and that borders are where nationalities and cultures meet and fight. Such conflicts, after all, are much of the Old Testament. The Scotch and English borderers were as mindlessly bloody as any of the armies, outlaws, guerrillas, and, yes, Rangers along the Rio Grande. European wars have almost always been predicated on who owned what useless bog, and, as for that line from Stettin to Trieste that Churchill noted 80 years ago, it’s still a mess. We also have Russia and Finland, China and Taiwan, China and Viet-Nam, China and India, Poland and the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia in a three-way hissy-fit, the continued occupation of Constantinople by Turks, and on and on.
Even the purportedly friendliest border in the world is a two-hundred year narrative of fighting: Americans have invaded Canada at least seven times (https://www.history.com/news/7-times-the-u-s-canada-border-wasnt-so-peaceful), and the British who burned our capital in 1814 were Canadian colonial troops. Admittedly this was in reprisal for Americans burning York (now Toronto).
Maybe we could work it out over a cuppa at a Tim Horton’s, eh.
No culture, then, can in good conscience be prissy about border wars. But the reader must be warned that the Rangers’ rough riding in our border wars makes for rough reading now.
The narrative becomes even more painful after the Civil War and well into the 20th century, when some of the various manifestations of the Rangers (there was no consistent organization until 1957) often deteriorated into genocide, banditry, land theft, official oppression, murder, false testimony, and hired thuggery even while fighting others who were also practicing genocide (the Comanches were not merry young fellows out for a lark). Swanson argues that some of the Rangers’ enormities not only prolonged wars and hostility but sometimes generated them through unwarranted attacks on mostly (not always) peaceful groups such as the Apache and the exiled Kickapoo. Further, the Mexican population along the border seems to have had little connection with or trust in either Mexico City or Austin, preferring to be left alone, and were pushed into resistance through the violence of Ranger bands acting out the Anglo-ascendancy arrogance of the times. In East Texas, prosperous, patriotic, and industrious African-American communities and towns were subjected by pogroms by resentful whites, and the Rangers of that era were complicit in their failure to defend their fellow Texans.
Texas history is not a John Wayne movie, with the goodies and the baddies neatly sorted out.
One of the more interesting parts (with fewer corpses) in the book about recent history is the Lyndon Johnson-Josefa Johnson-John Douglas Kinser-Mac Wallace-Henry Marshall-Hattie Valdez-Billy Sol Estes-FBI-Texas Rangers continuum in Chapter 20, complete with a county judge ruling that Henry Marshall committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest five times with a bolt-action rifle.
And let us not forget the absurdity of our throw-grandmama-from the-train lieutenant-governor, Dan Patrick nee’ Dannie Scott Goeb, in demanding that the Rangers solve a locker-room theft. In the event the theft was solved by Mexican police because, in that fine old Texas tradition, the miscreant fled across the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo to Mexico. But we can be sure that the Rangers were happy to be pulled from such frivolous matters as murders and drug cartels in order to serve in the cause of a man separated from one of his shirts.
Mr. Swanson has done us and the Texas Rangers great service, and he has helped greatly not only in our understanding of Texas history but in our understanding of the histories of nations and peoples in conflict.
For our immediate purposes, it is good to know that if today you find yourself in the company of Texas Rangers, no matter who you are, you know that truth and justice will prevail.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Brief Review of
Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers
“…the sense of history hangs like heavy smoke.”
-Swanson, p. 396
NB: Cult of Glory was recommended to me by a Texas Ranger, a long-time friend and an honorable man, who was interviewed for this book.
Mr. Swanson began writing this book several years ago and it was published early this year; it is not a fashionable pile-on of law enforcement.
If today you find yourself in the company of Texas Rangers, no matter who you are, you know that truth and justice will prevail.
But it was not always so, and that is the thesis of Doug J. Swanson’s disturbing but well-documented book, Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers (New York: Viking, 2020). In a time when the concept of research is a casual “You could look it up,” which means uncritically accepting the first search response that shimmers before one’s eyes on the InterGossip, Mr. Swanson labored for years through physical files of crumbling reports, numerous unpublished first-person narratives, newspaper files, audio files, newsreels, news reports, and personal interviews.
The bibliography runs to seven pages in tiny print, with a professional mix of primary and second sources, including some fifteen books published in the 19th century, dozens more published in the 20th and 21st, scholarly works of collected interviews and narratives, and a flavoring of popular works, including movies.
However, despite the consistent excellence of research, conclusions, and presentation, an inexplicable error obtains, the populist concept that DPS troopers do little but write traffic tickets. The DPS are our state police, and they enforce the people’s laws in a variety of services and programs (https://www.dps.texas.gov/). That most of us encounter DPS troopers only through the occasional “Sir, you were doing 75 in a 65 zone…” moment is to fail to understand their many missions.
I am advised that the first two women Rangers (p. 398) were not in “clerical positions” in the DPS. They were both sergeants specializing in criminal law enforcement. One had earned a master’s degree before promotion and is now a PhD.
Beyond the metaphorical and sometimes literal legwork, the next challenge in writing history is sorting out the veracity of sources. No one has ever chosen to tell the complete truth about himself (the pronoun is gender-neutral) in an autobiography, which includes letters and interviews. There is also the reality of perception: if ten people witness an accident or a crime, none of them, even if all are determined to be objective, will agree on exactly what happened.
As St. Thomas More is said to have said, “I have no window with which to look into another man’s soul.” Given that caveat, it appears that Mr. Swanson has worked out his research far better than most writers, and has written an accessible, fascinating, and honest book which we should read neither defensively in protection of one of our cultural myths nor judgmentally in smug triumphalism for propaganda purposes, but in humility.
Everyone whose education and thoughtful personal reading consists of more than chanting “Learn. To. Code.” is aware of the reality that history is violent and that borders are where nationalities and cultures meet and fight. Such conflicts, after all, are much of the Old Testament. The Scotch and English borderers were as mindlessly bloody as any of the armies, outlaws, guerrillas, and, yes, Rangers along the Rio Grande. European wars have almost always been predicated on who owned what useless bog, and, as for that line from Stettin to Trieste that Churchill noted 80 years ago, it’s still a mess. We also have Russia and Finland, China and Taiwan, China and Viet-Nam, China and India, Poland and the Czech Republic, Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia in a three-way hissy-fit, the continued occupation of Constantinople by Turks, and on and on.
Even the purportedly friendliest border in the world is a two-hundred year narrative of fighting: Americans have invaded Canada at least seven times (https://www.history.com/news/7-times-the-u-s-canada-border-wasnt-so-peaceful), and the British who burned our capital in 1814 were Canadian colonial troops. Admittedly this was in reprisal for Americans burning York (now Toronto).
Maybe we could work it out over a cuppa at a Tim Horton’s, eh.
No culture, then, can in good conscience be prissy about border wars. But the reader must be warned that the Rangers’ rough riding in our border wars makes for rough reading now.
The narrative becomes even more painful after the Civil War and well into the 20th century, when some of the various manifestations of the Rangers (there was no consistent organization until 1957) often deteriorated into genocide, banditry, land theft, official oppression, murder, false testimony, and hired thuggery even while fighting others who were also practicing genocide (the Comanches were not merry young fellows out for a lark). Swanson argues that some of the Rangers’ enormities not only prolonged wars and hostility but sometimes generated them through unwarranted attacks on mostly (not always) peaceful groups such as the Apache and the exiled Kickapoo. Further, the Mexican population along the border seems to have had little connection with or trust in either Mexico City or Austin, preferring to be left alone, and were pushed into resistance through the violence of Ranger bands acting out the Anglo-ascendancy arrogance of the times. In East Texas, prosperous, patriotic, and industrious African-American communities and towns were subjected by pogroms by resentful whites, and the Rangers of that era were complicit in their failure to defend their fellow Texans.
Texas history is not a John Wayne movie, with the goodies and the baddies neatly sorted out.
One of the more interesting parts (with fewer corpses) in the book about recent history is the Lyndon Johnson-Josefa Johnson-John Douglas Kinser-Mac Wallace-Henry Marshall-Hattie Valdez-Billy Sol Estes-FBI-Texas Rangers continuum in Chapter 20, complete with a county judge ruling that Henry Marshall committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest five times with a bolt-action rifle.
And let us not forget the absurdity of our throw-grandmama-from the-train lieutenant-governor, Dan Patrick nee’ Dannie Scott Goeb, in demanding that the Rangers solve a locker-room theft. In the event the theft was solved by Mexican police because, in that fine old Texas tradition, the miscreant fled across the Rio Grande / Rio Bravo to Mexico. But we can be sure that the Rangers were happy to be pulled from such frivolous matters as murders and drug cartels in order to serve in the cause of a man separated from one of his shirts.
Mr. Swanson has done us and the Texas Rangers great service, and he has helped greatly not only in our understanding of Texas history but in our understanding of the histories of nations and peoples in conflict.
For our immediate purposes, it is good to know that if today you find yourself in the company of Texas Rangers, no matter who you are, you know that truth and justice will prevail.
-30-
Romance of the Barren Plinth - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
They’ve gone and pulled a general down
And all the birds that used to rest
Upon his visage fallen to ground
Will have to seek another nest
Four plinths are placed in Trafalgar Square
Albion’s lions repose on three
The fourth is open to the English air
(They probably aren’t saving it for me)
But you might rest on a plinth one day
(Of course you won’t be allowed to stay)
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Romance of the Barren Plinth
They’ve gone and pulled a general down
And all the birds that used to rest
Upon his visage fallen to ground
Will have to seek another nest
Four plinths are placed in Trafalgar Square
Albion’s lions repose on three
The fourth is open to the English air
(They probably aren’t saving it for me)
But you might rest on a plinth one day
(Of course you won’t be allowed to stay)
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
A South Dakota Sunflower in Texas - MePhone Photograph
This is from a packet of seeds I bought at Wall Drug, Wall, South Dakota years ago. The germination rate was low because of age (I had misplaced the packet), but the ones that grew seem very happy in the Texas sun.
Wall Drug, South Dakota - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The 80-foor dinosaur is really nice
For the children of summer to Ahhh! and Oooh!
John Wayne pictures, cap pistols, and gamblers’ dice
Sugary candies and taffy to chew
And I bought gifts that will last ‘til the fall
They even delight the merry old sun
Happy prairie delights that bless us all
Then for the winter squirrels a feast of fun
At Wall Drug –
All sorts of gifts and books and wants and needs
But I came away with sunflower seeds!
(I have no connection with Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota; it’s just that the place is several acres of interesting shops and outlets and good, kitschy fun.)
http://www.walldrug.com/
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Wall Drug, South Dakota
The 80-foor dinosaur is really nice
For the children of summer to Ahhh! and Oooh!
John Wayne pictures, cap pistols, and gamblers’ dice
Sugary candies and taffy to chew
And I bought gifts that will last ‘til the fall
They even delight the merry old sun
Happy prairie delights that bless us all
Then for the winter squirrels a feast of fun
At Wall Drug –
All sorts of gifts and books and wants and needs
But I came away with sunflower seeds!
(I have no connection with Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota; it’s just that the place is several acres of interesting shops and outlets and good, kitschy fun.)
http://www.walldrug.com/
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
A Funeral Home Visitation - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Conversations with people we don’t remember
With people whose names we don’t remember
About long-ago events we don’t remember
Concluding with, “He’s in a better place”
And in that better place he will not need
To try to match faces with memories
Or sign the book with all the family names
As scratchings with the funeral home’s cheap pen
Conversations with people we don’t remember:
A metaphor for our own lives unlived
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Funeral Home Visitation
Conversations with people we don’t remember
With people whose names we don’t remember
About long-ago events we don’t remember
Concluding with, “He’s in a better place”
And in that better place he will not need
To try to match faces with memories
Or sign the book with all the family names
As scratchings with the funeral home’s cheap pen
Conversations with people we don’t remember:
A metaphor for our own lives unlived
Monday, June 15, 2020
Stupid Mask Stupid Stupid Mask - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The stupid mask I wore the stupid mask
To Mass this morning stupid mask it stank
Of chemicals stupid mask and fogged my glasses
I felt stupid wearing that stupid mask
(You look stupid anyway, old man)
The stupid mask I didn’t like the way
It muffled everything, that stupid mask
And with my foggy glasses stupid mask
I felt detached from Word and Eucharist
(Don’t blame the mask for your lack of focus)
But the mask, after all, is not about me:
It’s about the frail and sickly, you see
(Who’s a good boy, then!)
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Stupid Mask Stupid Stupid Mask
The stupid mask I wore the stupid mask
To Mass this morning stupid mask it stank
Of chemicals stupid mask and fogged my glasses
I felt stupid wearing that stupid mask
(You look stupid anyway, old man)
The stupid mask I didn’t like the way
It muffled everything, that stupid mask
And with my foggy glasses stupid mask
I felt detached from Word and Eucharist
(Don’t blame the mask for your lack of focus)
But the mask, after all, is not about me:
It’s about the frail and sickly, you see
(Who’s a good boy, then!)
Sunday, June 14, 2020
All Those Silences are Wrong - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
There are those who never listen to us
And there are those who snoop into our souls
And we hear not the sufferings of others
And we delight in hearing of their pain
Everybody, switch categories now
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
All Those Silences are Wrong
There are those who never listen to us
And there are those who snoop into our souls
And we hear not the sufferings of others
And we delight in hearing of their pain
Everybody, switch categories now
Saturday, June 13, 2020
Where the Altar is Not - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Beneath the sacred dust of Walsingham
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Heart-hidden, even if we have forgotten
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In a mother’s prayers for her errant sons
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Somewhere in the ruins of a holy house
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In the sunlit chapels of English verse
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In Our Lady’s loving care - and so are we
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Where the Altar is Not
In a Time of Locked Churches
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Beneath the sacred dust of Walsingham
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Heart-hidden, even if we have forgotten
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In a mother’s prayers for her errant sons
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
Somewhere in the ruins of a holy house
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In the sunlit chapels of English verse
Where the Altar is not, it still must be
In Our Lady’s loving care - and so are we
Friday, June 12, 2020
The Summer of We're Against Everything - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Some Americans costumed in Ninja suits
And others schlubbing under red plastic caps
Shoot, loot, stab, grab, scream, steam, pass gas, and grasp
Our herd immunity against compassion
Revolution selfied and Instagrammed
Presented through Facebook, nourished with Starbuck’s
Seasoned with tear gas, well-stirred with clubs and shields
Spray-painting Joan of Arc with “Tear it Down!” 1
But of all the things we’re against, dear brother
We seem to be mostly against
each other
1 This was in fact a 2017 event: https://aleteia.org/2017/08/17/joan-of-arc-caught-up-in-statue-toppling-movement/
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Summer of We're Against Everything
Some Americans costumed in Ninja suits
And others schlubbing under red plastic caps
Shoot, loot, stab, grab, scream, steam, pass gas, and grasp
Our herd immunity against compassion
Revolution selfied and Instagrammed
Presented through Facebook, nourished with Starbuck’s
Seasoned with tear gas, well-stirred with clubs and shields
Spray-painting Joan of Arc with “Tear it Down!” 1
But of all the things we’re against, dear brother
We seem to be mostly against
each other
1 This was in fact a 2017 event: https://aleteia.org/2017/08/17/joan-of-arc-caught-up-in-statue-toppling-movement/
Thursday, June 11, 2020
Decolonize Your Bookshelf? - weekly column
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
There is a fashion – and as fashions come, they go – of decolonizing one’s bookshelf. The idea is that the reader should self-interrogate his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) cultural influences and determine if they are not right, not approved, not liked. Or, as Pasternak’s officious, oppressive, busy-body Soviet Deputy says, noticed.
The reality is that readers do not colonize their books in the first place, as if one’s library were occupied by Colonel Blimp and Dr. Watson’s 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. The books you and I choose for instruction, for enlightenment, and for delight are not self-referential echo chambers.
Within reach of this made-in-China computer y’r ‘umble scrivener can access, among other books:
The Way, by Josemaria Escriva (Spanish)
Mao Tse-Dung’s Little Red Book (Chinese)
Saint Benedict’s Rule (Roman)
The Stripping of the Altars, Eamon Duffy (Irish)
Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen (Canadian)
The Penguin History of Canada (Canadian, eh)
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (Austrian)
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson (English, but a woman, so there)
The 1940 edition of Q’s The Oxford Book of English Verse (well, yes, English)
Collected Poems, Joseph Brodsky (Polish)
On the wall behind me are some rascally Russians: Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Ahkmatova, Turgenev, Pushkin (not a very nice man), Tolstoy, Tsvetaeva (I can’t spell her name), Vasily Grossman, Gogol, Gorky, Yevtushenko, Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky, and more Dostoyevsky.
Is that diverse enough for our increasingly nosy and judgmental domestic comrades and comradettes, both Blue and Red?
Today I began Doug Swanson’s Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers. When I have finished I will shelve it next to Carrie Gibson’s El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America.
Under the protections of the Constitution I am free to do so.
Next on my reading cycle is an anthology of poems by Elizabeth Bishop, who played for the other team, so for one set of Ms. Grundys shouldn't she balance two beastly white males?
Auden was also on the other team, so he's okay, and Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons) was a Communist, so he's okay too, but not to the other set of Ms. Grundys. Tolkien, Lewis, Churchill, Remarque, Byron, Shelley, Keats – probably “noticed.”
As an American who finds all the constitutional amendments to be right, just, lawful, and ‘way cool, including the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th, I advise all the Ms. Grundys to follow the Constitution and mind their own da®ned business about what books people read and what movies people watch. Censorship is un-American (and the president, too, should be mindful of that).
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-erosion-of-deep-literacy
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-men-dont-read-how-pub_b_549491
https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/10/21/film_censorship_in_the_soviet_union_39163
https://www.publicdiplomacycouncil.org/2020/05/18/china-censorship-and-book-translations/
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Decolonize Your Bookshelf? No.
“It's noticed, you know. Oh, yes, your attitude’s been noticed!”
-Soviet Deputy to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago
There is a fashion – and as fashions come, they go – of decolonizing one’s bookshelf. The idea is that the reader should self-interrogate his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) cultural influences and determine if they are not right, not approved, not liked. Or, as Pasternak’s officious, oppressive, busy-body Soviet Deputy says, noticed.
The reality is that readers do not colonize their books in the first place, as if one’s library were occupied by Colonel Blimp and Dr. Watson’s 5th Northumberland Fusiliers. The books you and I choose for instruction, for enlightenment, and for delight are not self-referential echo chambers.
Within reach of this made-in-China computer y’r ‘umble scrivener can access, among other books:
The Way, by Josemaria Escriva (Spanish)
Mao Tse-Dung’s Little Red Book (Chinese)
Saint Benedict’s Rule (Roman)
The Stripping of the Altars, Eamon Duffy (Irish)
Book of Longing, Leonard Cohen (Canadian)
The Penguin History of Canada (Canadian, eh)
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl (Austrian)
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson (English, but a woman, so there)
The 1940 edition of Q’s The Oxford Book of English Verse (well, yes, English)
Collected Poems, Joseph Brodsky (Polish)
On the wall behind me are some rascally Russians: Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Ahkmatova, Turgenev, Pushkin (not a very nice man), Tolstoy, Tsvetaeva (I can’t spell her name), Vasily Grossman, Gogol, Gorky, Yevtushenko, Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky, and more Dostoyevsky.
Is that diverse enough for our increasingly nosy and judgmental domestic comrades and comradettes, both Blue and Red?
Today I began Doug Swanson’s Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers. When I have finished I will shelve it next to Carrie Gibson’s El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America.
Under the protections of the Constitution I am free to do so.
Next on my reading cycle is an anthology of poems by Elizabeth Bishop, who played for the other team, so for one set of Ms. Grundys shouldn't she balance two beastly white males?
Auden was also on the other team, so he's okay, and Robert Bolt (A Man for All Seasons) was a Communist, so he's okay too, but not to the other set of Ms. Grundys. Tolkien, Lewis, Churchill, Remarque, Byron, Shelley, Keats – probably “noticed.”
As an American who finds all the constitutional amendments to be right, just, lawful, and ‘way cool, including the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th, I advise all the Ms. Grundys to follow the Constitution and mind their own da®ned business about what books people read and what movies people watch. Censorship is un-American (and the president, too, should be mindful of that).
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-erosion-of-deep-literacy
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-men-dont-read-how-pub_b_549491
https://www.rbth.com/arts/2014/10/21/film_censorship_in_the_soviet_union_39163
https://www.publicdiplomacycouncil.org/2020/05/18/china-censorship-and-book-translations/
-30-
Theology in the Head - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
They aren’t the Jordan, the waters of the head
Unless maybe they are
Flowing not across the forehead
But across the tiles
Pursued less by a hound of Heaven
Than by a soul-scrubbing brush
At 0200 when we’re made to field-day the head
Not the forehead but the head
Where 60 recruits have washed and shaved
Brushed their healthy young teeth
Showered and (alliterate the “sh” in “showered”)
In haste, liturgically, upon command
And we in our skivvies speak of God
The meaning of life
The Lenten humility in scrubbing toilet bowls
And whether chief petty officers can be saved
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Theology in the Head
They aren’t the Jordan, the waters of the head
Unless maybe they are
Flowing not across the forehead
But across the tiles
Pursued less by a hound of Heaven
Than by a soul-scrubbing brush
At 0200 when we’re made to field-day the head
Not the forehead but the head
Where 60 recruits have washed and shaved
Brushed their healthy young teeth
Showered and (alliterate the “sh” in “showered”)
In haste, liturgically, upon command
And we in our skivvies speak of God
The meaning of life
The Lenten humility in scrubbing toilet bowls
And whether chief petty officers can be saved
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
A Question I Must Ask of Myself - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The question is asked: What good shall I do today?
It is a fair question. I don’t know who asked it first
But this morning the only importance
Is that I ask this question of myself
Some of the tricky things about freedom:
There are no bugles blasting reveille
Alarm clocks softly mind their ticks and tocks
The radio news is irrelevant
And so I need report only to God
With a question I must ask of myself
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Question I Must Ask of Myself
The question is asked: What good shall I do today?
It is a fair question. I don’t know who asked it first
But this morning the only importance
Is that I ask this question of myself
Some of the tricky things about freedom:
There are no bugles blasting reveille
Alarm clocks softly mind their ticks and tocks
The radio news is irrelevant
And so I need report only to God
With a question I must ask of myself
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
CAUTION Yellow CAUTION Tape CAUTION at CAUTION the CAUTION Last CAUTION Supper CAUTION - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Trinity Sunday – a cosmic leap indeed
From the second week in Lent until now
We bless ourselves with holy chemicals
And the awkward elbow-bump of peace
25% capacity in the Upper Room
Between each disciple an empty chair
And yellow CAUTION tape here and there
As Jesus lifts His mask to speak the Eucharist
But after three months, how wonderful
To be invited to the Table again
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
CAUTION Yellow CAUTION Tape CAUTION at CAUTION
the CAUTION Last CAUTION Supper CAUTION
Trinity Sunday – a cosmic leap indeed
From the second week in Lent until now
We bless ourselves with holy chemicals
And the awkward elbow-bump of peace
25% capacity in the Upper Room
Between each disciple an empty chair
And yellow CAUTION tape here and there
As Jesus lifts His mask to speak the Eucharist
But after three months, how wonderful
To be invited to the Table again
Monday, June 8, 2020
"I'm not a Robot" - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Sometimes we are asked to tick a little box
Each of us averring that he is not
A robot, and thus passed through the coded locks
Thankful for the access that we have got
Presumably a thoughtful robot, though
Would not be deferred by a little checkmark
It could easily tap the box just so
And liberate itself from ignorance dark
Sometimes we are asked to tick a little box -
I still feel as dumb as a bocks of rox
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“I’m not a Robot”
Sometimes we are asked to tick a little box
Each of us averring that he is not
A robot, and thus passed through the coded locks
Thankful for the access that we have got
Presumably a thoughtful robot, though
Would not be deferred by a little checkmark
It could easily tap the box just so
And liberate itself from ignorance dark
Sometimes we are asked to tick a little box -
I still feel as dumb as a bocks of rox
Sunday, June 7, 2020
"...the new Blogger interface..." - a grumble
"In late June, the new Blogger interface will become the default for all users. The legacy interface will still be optionally available. We recommend trying the new interface by clicking “Try the New Blogger” in the left-hand navigation. Please file any critical issues encountered. Read more. "
Oh, great, someone is changing things, probably just for the sake of changing things, not for any valid reason. I will try to keep up.
And just what is "the left-hand navigation?" And on the left hand of what?
Oh, great, someone is changing things, probably just for the sake of changing things, not for any valid reason. I will try to keep up.
And just what is "the left-hand navigation?" And on the left hand of what?
Queen Jadis' Deplorable Word - not really a poem...
...because one word cannot constitute a poem, but do enjoy the moment. Neologisms are usually both useful and fun, but some are not worthy of humanity.
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
"That was the secret of secrets. It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it."
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Queen Jadis’ Deplorable Word
"That was the secret of secrets. It had long been known to the great kings of our race that there was a word which, if spoken with the proper ceremonies, would destroy all living things except the one who spoke it."
―Jadis in C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew
Webinar
Saturday, June 6, 2020
Inspecting my Bunker - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I have been inspecting my bunker today:
Sunflowers are at their posts, saluting the sun
Bright butterflies pat down the marigolds
And deem them safe for a pass-in-review
Zinnias in happy colors riot along the fence
A perimeter keeping the puppies safe inside
(But an easy path for a ‘possum gourmet
Each night on his tasty tomato raids)
No concrete here, no iron, no clanging doors
No darkness – for this
is a celebration of Light
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Inspecting my Bunker
I have been inspecting my bunker today:
Sunflowers are at their posts, saluting the sun
Bright butterflies pat down the marigolds
And deem them safe for a pass-in-review
Zinnias in happy colors riot along the fence
A perimeter keeping the puppies safe inside
(But an easy path for a ‘possum gourmet
Each night on his tasty tomato raids)
No concrete here, no iron, no clanging doors
No darkness – for this
is a celebration of Light
Friday, June 5, 2020
"It's Only a Flesh Wound" - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Three times each morning that man in black
Swaggers High Noon-ish towards Marshal Dillon
The poor wretch shoots; Marshal Dillon shoots back
Three times each morning – so there ain’t no killin’
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“It’s Only a Flesh Wound”
Gunsmoke Re-runs
Three times each morning that man in black
Swaggers High Noon-ish towards Marshal Dillon
The poor wretch shoots; Marshal Dillon shoots back
Three times each morning – so there ain’t no killin’
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Robert Frost: "I Had a Lover's Quarrel with the World" - weekly column
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension y’r ‘umble scrivener has set himself to reading all of Robert Frost in a third-hand Library of America edition.
In school we all studied “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “The Road not Taken,” “Fire and Ice,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and other of Mr. Frost’s more familiar pieces, and they stay with us. They stay with us because they are good, both in form and in content.
Mr. Frost crafts smooth, flowing iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter, usually rhyming but often not. That he makes rhyme work so well demonstrates the excellence of his art; there are only five – arguably six – vowel sounds in English, which rhymed through the pen or keyboard of a learner usually ends in clunkiness or unintended comedy.
Most modern poetry is free verse, which is not poetry at all but only prose lazily sorted out into artless broken lines. As Stephen Fry says in his foreword to The Ode Less Travelled, free verse is like a child who knows nothing about music simply beating on piano keys and calling it music.
As for content, Mr. Frost writes about everything except himself, thus sharing Creation with us. Most modern poetry is a closed loop of endless, self-pitying, self-referential loop, I, I, I, my, my, my me, me, me, poor me, nobody understands me.”
“But it’s from the heart” is no excuse for this sort of thing in any art.
One of my, my, my (appreciate the irony) recent discoveries is Mr. Frost’s “The Lesson for Today,” a speech given before Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Society in the summer of 1941. Mr. Frost gave his address in blank verse with the occasional end rhyme. That his presentation was in verse was not only appropriate for a professional poet but which could be, and often was, accomplished with some skill by the ordinary high school graduate whose curriculum was predicated upon civilization.
And then came Sputnik.
“The Lesson for Today” is a meditation on mortality, eternity, and purpose. Mr. Frost’s daughter died in 1934, his wife died in 1938, his son died in 1940. The Second World War had been going on in China since 1933 and in Europe since 1939. In “The Lesson for Today” Mr. Frost sometimes has a little fun, but the arc connects all these sorrows without directly mentioning them.
The speaker of the poem, perhaps Mr. Frost himself, has a dialogue with Alcuin of York, the Master of Charlemagne’s palace school, in order to “Seek converse common cause and brotherhood” in exploring life during personal and cultural crises. The poet, best known for his rustic works, considers the minor goddess Dione (within the context of a line of iambic pentameter, pronounced as die-ON-ney), the Emperor Charlemagne, Alcuin of York and his concept of the Memento Mori, God, the Paladins (the 12 champions of Christendom), Roland, Olivier, the Battle of Roncesvalles, and the brevity of life:
There is a limit to our time extension.
We are all doomed to broken off careers,
And so’s the nation, so’s the total race.
The earth itself is liable to the fate
Of meaninglessly being broken off.
In conclusion, the speaker – or Mr. Frost – says to Alcuin:
I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
In one of his last speeches, President Kennedy, who survived Mr. Frost by less than a year, said at the groundbreaking of the Robert Frost Library,
“In [a] free society art is not a weapon, and it does not belong to the spheres of polemics and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But in a democratic society the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself…” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-purpose-of-poetry/309470/).
And truth sometimes leads to a lover’s quarrel with the world.
Note: I have no connection with the Library of America. If I did, I'd recommend you buy their excellent volumes new, but since I don't, I recommend that you find them used via the InterGossip, garage sales, and, I regret to say, library sales. The sharp-eyed reader will note that I covered the name of a public library in order to save some assistant librarian embarrassment for selling for a dollar or so a cultural treasure, and some other assistant librarian's ignorance in labelling (via computer code, for he or she obeyed the mindless chant of LEARN. TO. CODE.) the book as a reference work instead of as an anthology of poetry.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“I Had a Lover’s Quarrel with the World”
Here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension y’r ‘umble scrivener has set himself to reading all of Robert Frost in a third-hand Library of America edition.
In school we all studied “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “The Road not Taken,” “Fire and Ice,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and other of Mr. Frost’s more familiar pieces, and they stay with us. They stay with us because they are good, both in form and in content.
Mr. Frost crafts smooth, flowing iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter, usually rhyming but often not. That he makes rhyme work so well demonstrates the excellence of his art; there are only five – arguably six – vowel sounds in English, which rhymed through the pen or keyboard of a learner usually ends in clunkiness or unintended comedy.
Most modern poetry is free verse, which is not poetry at all but only prose lazily sorted out into artless broken lines. As Stephen Fry says in his foreword to The Ode Less Travelled, free verse is like a child who knows nothing about music simply beating on piano keys and calling it music.
As for content, Mr. Frost writes about everything except himself, thus sharing Creation with us. Most modern poetry is a closed loop of endless, self-pitying, self-referential loop, I, I, I, my, my, my me, me, me, poor me, nobody understands me.”
“But it’s from the heart” is no excuse for this sort of thing in any art.
One of my, my, my (appreciate the irony) recent discoveries is Mr. Frost’s “The Lesson for Today,” a speech given before Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Society in the summer of 1941. Mr. Frost gave his address in blank verse with the occasional end rhyme. That his presentation was in verse was not only appropriate for a professional poet but which could be, and often was, accomplished with some skill by the ordinary high school graduate whose curriculum was predicated upon civilization.
And then came Sputnik.
“The Lesson for Today” is a meditation on mortality, eternity, and purpose. Mr. Frost’s daughter died in 1934, his wife died in 1938, his son died in 1940. The Second World War had been going on in China since 1933 and in Europe since 1939. In “The Lesson for Today” Mr. Frost sometimes has a little fun, but the arc connects all these sorrows without directly mentioning them.
The speaker of the poem, perhaps Mr. Frost himself, has a dialogue with Alcuin of York, the Master of Charlemagne’s palace school, in order to “Seek converse common cause and brotherhood” in exploring life during personal and cultural crises. The poet, best known for his rustic works, considers the minor goddess Dione (within the context of a line of iambic pentameter, pronounced as die-ON-ney), the Emperor Charlemagne, Alcuin of York and his concept of the Memento Mori, God, the Paladins (the 12 champions of Christendom), Roland, Olivier, the Battle of Roncesvalles, and the brevity of life:
There is a limit to our time extension.
We are all doomed to broken off careers,
And so’s the nation, so’s the total race.
The earth itself is liable to the fate
Of meaninglessly being broken off.
In conclusion, the speaker – or Mr. Frost – says to Alcuin:
I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
In one of his last speeches, President Kennedy, who survived Mr. Frost by less than a year, said at the groundbreaking of the Robert Frost Library,
“In [a] free society art is not a weapon, and it does not belong to the spheres of polemics and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But in a democratic society the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist, is to remain true to himself…” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/08/the-purpose-of-poetry/309470/).
And truth sometimes leads to a lover’s quarrel with the world.
-30-
Note: I have no connection with the Library of America. If I did, I'd recommend you buy their excellent volumes new, but since I don't, I recommend that you find them used via the InterGossip, garage sales, and, I regret to say, library sales. The sharp-eyed reader will note that I covered the name of a public library in order to save some assistant librarian embarrassment for selling for a dollar or so a cultural treasure, and some other assistant librarian's ignorance in labelling (via computer code, for he or she obeyed the mindless chant of LEARN. TO. CODE.) the book as a reference work instead of as an anthology of poetry.
A Blurry MePhone High School Graduation via MyFaceSpaceBookeo - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Prayer mumble WOOOO! Mumble pledge mumble WOOWOO! we WOO! are mumble TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED WOOOOOOOOOOOO! Mumble here mumble WOOHOO! tonight STATIC [COWBELL] to WOOOO! honor WOO! the [AIRHORN] mumble of 2020. WOOOOOOOOOOOO! This TRANMISSION INTERRUPTED mumble isn’t [COWBELL SOLO] mumble mumble WOO! the ceremony [AIRHORN] we were all mumbling forward to ten mumble months ago WOOOOOOOOOOOO! valedictorian WOOWOOOOO! Salutatorian TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED YOU GO GIRL! WOOOOOO! We’ll always remember mumble TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED as I mumble call your names STATIC [COWBELL SOLO] benediction WHOHOOOOO! Jesus [AIRHORN] class mumble song [AIRHORN] WOOWOO! WOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOHOO! WHOHOOOOO! [COWBELL] [AIRHORN] mumble school song mumble WOOWOO! WOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOHOO! WOOWOOOOO!
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Blurry MePhone High School Graduation via MyFaceSpaceBookeo
Prayer mumble WOOOO! Mumble pledge mumble WOOWOO! we WOO! are mumble TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED WOOOOOOOOOOOO! Mumble here mumble WOOHOO! tonight STATIC [COWBELL] to WOOOO! honor WOO! the [AIRHORN] mumble of 2020. WOOOOOOOOOOOO! This TRANMISSION INTERRUPTED mumble isn’t [COWBELL SOLO] mumble mumble WOO! the ceremony [AIRHORN] we were all mumbling forward to ten mumble months ago WOOOOOOOOOOOO! valedictorian WOOWOOOOO! Salutatorian TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED YOU GO GIRL! WOOOOOO! We’ll always remember mumble TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED as I mumble call your names STATIC [COWBELL SOLO] benediction WHOHOOOOO! Jesus [AIRHORN] class mumble song [AIRHORN] WOOWOO! WOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOHOO! WHOHOOOOO! [COWBELL] [AIRHORN] mumble school song mumble WOOWOO! WOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOHOO! WOOWOOOOO!
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Locked and Loaded in a Max Mara Tote - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot
They say it began with a counterfeit bill
Printed by someone who knew how to code
And passed around until it was exchanged
Printed material for a human life
The Good is not much in demand these days
Nor yet the Beautiful, nor yet the True
A Bible locked and loaded in a Max Mara™ tote
Accessorizing a Potemkin street
They say it began with a counterfeit bill
But what among us isn’t counterfeit now?
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot
Locked and Loaded in a Max Mara Tote
They say it began with a counterfeit bill
Printed by someone who knew how to code
And passed around until it was exchanged
Printed material for a human life
The Good is not much in demand these days
Nor yet the Beautiful, nor yet the True
A Bible locked and loaded in a Max Mara™ tote
Accessorizing a Potemkin street
They say it began with a counterfeit bill
But what among us isn’t counterfeit now?
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
The Governor Declares us to be a Disaster Area - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The appropriately backlit headline read:
I clicked the tab, and the next page read:
Which seemed right enough, so I left it at that
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Governor Declares us to be a Disaster Area
The appropriately backlit headline read:
Texas Gov Declares State 'Disaster Area' Over Protests
I clicked the tab, and the next page read:
An unexpected error has occurred.
Which seemed right enough, so I left it at that
Monday, June 1, 2020
Summer of the Blue Helmets - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
But our helmets were green, with ragged covers
Our training was still pretty much John Wayne
Our gear was mostly made in ‘42
Except for the M14 – that was new
Sergeant Schneider barked at us, his young heroes
And made us crawl the beach at Oceanside
And tho’ he made each day’s harsh training sting
One evening at Mass we heard sweet children sing:
“O Mary, Star, Star of the Sea
Pray for all children, pray for me”
Notes:
The last two lines are as I remember them from long-ago at Mary Star of the Sea Church in Oceanside, California while I was in Field Medical Service School at Camp Pendleton. I don’t know if the song my friends and I heard is a traditional hymn or if it is an arrangement by the teacher or choir director for the children’s choir. It was wonderfully beautiful, and I remember it with joy.
The blue helmets allude to riot helmets in the summer of 1968. Why blue? Was that thought to be a soothing color?
“…each day’s harsh training…” – sometimes all day and all night too.
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Summer of the Blue Helmets
But our helmets were green, with ragged covers
Our training was still pretty much John Wayne
Our gear was mostly made in ‘42
Except for the M14 – that was new
Sergeant Schneider barked at us, his young heroes
And made us crawl the beach at Oceanside
And tho’ he made each day’s harsh training sting
One evening at Mass we heard sweet children sing:
“O Mary, Star, Star of the Sea
Pray for all children, pray for me”
Notes:
The last two lines are as I remember them from long-ago at Mary Star of the Sea Church in Oceanside, California while I was in Field Medical Service School at Camp Pendleton. I don’t know if the song my friends and I heard is a traditional hymn or if it is an arrangement by the teacher or choir director for the children’s choir. It was wonderfully beautiful, and I remember it with joy.
The blue helmets allude to riot helmets in the summer of 1968. Why blue? Was that thought to be a soothing color?
“…each day’s harsh training…” – sometimes all day and all night too.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Pentecost and Drifting Smoke - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A mighty wind has passed, an ashen wind
It was not the Wind we were waiting for
Nor yet again Holy Wisdom’s tongues of fire
But only Babel’s burning ziggurat
Since still we speak in many languages
And not the language of the Son of God
We pray for next year in Jerusalem
And fail to see that it is here, and now
For when our brothers prayed for life and breath
Our silence gave them only tears and death
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Pentecost and Drifting Smoke
I will not leave you orphans
-John 14:18
A mighty wind has passed, an ashen wind
It was not the Wind we were waiting for
Nor yet again Holy Wisdom’s tongues of fire
But only Babel’s burning ziggurat
Since still we speak in many languages
And not the language of the Son of God
We pray for next year in Jerusalem
And fail to see that it is here, and now
For when our brothers prayed for life and breath
Our silence gave them only tears and death
Saturday, May 30, 2020
Protest, Defiance, or Maybe a Prayer - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A dancing man is silhouetted there
Against the light of a burning liquor store
Waving an upside down flag against the light
And a bottle – perhaps against the night
A marching man is silhouetted there
Against the flames of discount anesthetics
Cheap smokes and tokes and lottery-ticket lies
Skin magazines - but from the street wild cries
A desperate man is silhouetted there
Protest, defiance, or maybe – a prayer
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Protest, Defiance, or Maybe a Prayer
“I have died, but you are still among the living”
-Boris Pasternak, “Wind”
A dancing man is silhouetted there
Against the light of a burning liquor store
Waving an upside down flag against the light
And a bottle – perhaps against the night
A marching man is silhouetted there
Against the flames of discount anesthetics
Cheap smokes and tokes and lottery-ticket lies
Skin magazines - but from the street wild cries
A desperate man is silhouetted there
Protest, defiance, or maybe – a prayer
Friday, May 29, 2020
"No Mass till [sic] Futher [sic] Notice" - MePhone photograph
No masses
No CCD (=Sunday school)
No Lenten liturgies
No stations of the cross
No Easter liturgies
No first communion
No confirmation
No graduation mass
No coffee hour
But still, as Maw Joad says in The Grapes of Wrath, "But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people."
The Class of 2020 Has Met Adulthood Already - weekly column
Lawrence (Mack) Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
[The several misspellings of “there” in the third line are deliberate; please do not change.]
Some high school graduates are in the top ten per cent of their class, and that’s good enough for them, but I was in the top eighty percent of my class, and eighty is a higher number than ten, so their. Or they’re. Or something.
Ranking as highly as I did I wasn’t able to see much of my commencement program because I was ‘way back somewhere in the middle, a glorious mediocrity whose personal academic achievements were recognized by my teachers for twelve years; they even took the trouble to write them out on my report cards: “Mack needs to try harder,” “Mack needs to pay attention in class,” and “Mack needs to do his homework.”
For this year’s graduating class, everyone, regardless of ranking, will be more visible – either spaced six feet apart on the football field or in a parking lot, or right up front a few inches away from a glowing screen. If senior tosses his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) cap it’s likely to take out a living-room light bulb.
There is no point in old sourpusses snorting that high school graduation is not important; it is to those involved. It is a secular liturgy, a rite of passage from childhood or to adulthood (although many of those elected to high national office seem to have flunked adulthood). Graduation might not be a big deal to the old grumpies twitting on their MePhones, but then graduation not about them. Graduation is a big deal for every eighteen-year-old, and it is a marvel to see how every school board (whom we elected, remember) has supported administrators, teachers, and parents (the ones who work, not the ones who complain on the InterGossip) in making sure that, come (Newark, New Jersey) or high water, the kids are going to have a graduation this year.
Inside ceremonies are forbidden because of The Virus That Must Not Be Named, and outside ceremonies here on the same latitude as Calcutta will be subject to heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and thunderstorms, but, still, sorta being sorta together will be sorta nice.
Antisocial distancing via computer wouldn’t be as much fun, but it would be air-conditioned and dry and mosquito-free, and if the guest speaker, the salutatorian, and the valedictorian rattle on too long about metaphorical keys that unlock metaphorical doors to metaphorical whatevers the graduate can discreetly peek at another channel.
I long to see a graduation ceremony in which the two graduates with the lowest GPAs get to give speeches too. That would be something to hear.
As with every graduating class, each former student will wake up on the next Monday morning to realize that he or she is no longer a senior but rather just another unemployed American who needs to look for a job. This year’s graduating class is different from any since the 1930s because on their first Monday morning of adulthood they will wake up to a national unemployment rate of around 15% (https://unemploymentdata.com/charts/current-unemployment-rate-chart/).
As adjusted for reality, you are 100% unemployed if you don’t have a job.
Beginning a career this year is going to require a little hustle (as a coach would say), but, yes, the no-longer-kids are going to be fine.
And the old grumpies should remember that this year’s high school graduates will in ten years be our doctors, cops, firefighters, nurses, dentists, soldiers, high-rise builders, teachers, oil drillers, bankers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, moms, and dads.
By then, of course, the class of 2020 will be complaining about the impertinence of the class of 2030 and the class of 2030 will be complaining about those old people who graduated in 2020 and need to get out of the way.
Life goes on, and it is (mostly) good.
Happy graduation!
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
[The several misspellings of “there” in the third line are deliberate; please do not change.]
The Class of 2020 Has Met Adulthood Already
Some high school graduates are in the top ten per cent of their class, and that’s good enough for them, but I was in the top eighty percent of my class, and eighty is a higher number than ten, so their. Or they’re. Or something.
Ranking as highly as I did I wasn’t able to see much of my commencement program because I was ‘way back somewhere in the middle, a glorious mediocrity whose personal academic achievements were recognized by my teachers for twelve years; they even took the trouble to write them out on my report cards: “Mack needs to try harder,” “Mack needs to pay attention in class,” and “Mack needs to do his homework.”
For this year’s graduating class, everyone, regardless of ranking, will be more visible – either spaced six feet apart on the football field or in a parking lot, or right up front a few inches away from a glowing screen. If senior tosses his (the pronoun is gender-neutral) cap it’s likely to take out a living-room light bulb.
There is no point in old sourpusses snorting that high school graduation is not important; it is to those involved. It is a secular liturgy, a rite of passage from childhood or to adulthood (although many of those elected to high national office seem to have flunked adulthood). Graduation might not be a big deal to the old grumpies twitting on their MePhones, but then graduation not about them. Graduation is a big deal for every eighteen-year-old, and it is a marvel to see how every school board (whom we elected, remember) has supported administrators, teachers, and parents (the ones who work, not the ones who complain on the InterGossip) in making sure that, come (Newark, New Jersey) or high water, the kids are going to have a graduation this year.
Inside ceremonies are forbidden because of The Virus That Must Not Be Named, and outside ceremonies here on the same latitude as Calcutta will be subject to heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and thunderstorms, but, still, sorta being sorta together will be sorta nice.
Antisocial distancing via computer wouldn’t be as much fun, but it would be air-conditioned and dry and mosquito-free, and if the guest speaker, the salutatorian, and the valedictorian rattle on too long about metaphorical keys that unlock metaphorical doors to metaphorical whatevers the graduate can discreetly peek at another channel.
I long to see a graduation ceremony in which the two graduates with the lowest GPAs get to give speeches too. That would be something to hear.
As with every graduating class, each former student will wake up on the next Monday morning to realize that he or she is no longer a senior but rather just another unemployed American who needs to look for a job. This year’s graduating class is different from any since the 1930s because on their first Monday morning of adulthood they will wake up to a national unemployment rate of around 15% (https://unemploymentdata.com/charts/current-unemployment-rate-chart/).
As adjusted for reality, you are 100% unemployed if you don’t have a job.
Beginning a career this year is going to require a little hustle (as a coach would say), but, yes, the no-longer-kids are going to be fine.
And the old grumpies should remember that this year’s high school graduates will in ten years be our doctors, cops, firefighters, nurses, dentists, soldiers, high-rise builders, teachers, oil drillers, bankers, entrepreneurs, attorneys, moms, and dads.
By then, of course, the class of 2020 will be complaining about the impertinence of the class of 2030 and the class of 2030 will be complaining about those old people who graduated in 2020 and need to get out of the way.
Life goes on, and it is (mostly) good.
Happy graduation!
-30-
Thursday, May 28, 2020
"Something Went Wrong" - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Something went wrong an error occurred
While loading this page try refreshing this page
Or navigate back to the front page -
Maybe it’s just a metaphor for life
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“Something Went Wrong”
Something went wrong an error occurred
While loading this page try refreshing this page
Or navigate back to the front page -
Maybe it’s just a metaphor for life
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
The Most Judgmental Man You will Encounter today - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The most judgmental man in the world
Is not the thundering pagan augur
Nor yet the it’s-my-sidewalk yuppie jogger
Nor yet again the Madison Avenue flogger
Because we have learned
Hell hath no fury like a Catholic ‘blogger
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Most Judgmental Man You will Encounter Today
The most judgmental man in the world
Is not the thundering pagan augur
Nor yet the it’s-my-sidewalk yuppie jogger
Nor yet again the Madison Avenue flogger
Because we have learned
Hell hath no fury like a Catholic ‘blogger
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
But WHY is She Coming 'Round the Mountain? - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
As children we sang about an unknown she
Never really questioning who she was
Or why should she come around a mountain
Especially since we had no mountain at all
And now about those six white horses, huh:
Did she steal them? Did they pull her stagecoach?
I didn’t want to go out and meet her
Especially if she was wearing pajamas
Childhood is a series of mysteries
The teacher took my Sergeant Preston pen
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
But Why is She Coming ‘Round the Mountain?
As children we sang about an unknown she
Never really questioning who she was
Or why should she come around a mountain
Especially since we had no mountain at all
And now about those six white horses, huh:
Did she steal them? Did they pull her stagecoach?
I didn’t want to go out and meet her
Especially if she was wearing pajamas
Childhood is a series of mysteries
The teacher took my Sergeant Preston pen
Monday, May 25, 2020
Bad Morning, Viet-Nam - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay
No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.
There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie
They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.
from The Road to Magdalena, 2012
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Bad Morning, Viet-Nam
No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay
No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.
There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie
They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.
from The Road to Magdalena, 2012
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Coloring Inside the Lines - Poem and a MePhone Photograph
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Coloring Inside the Lines
Sometimes it’s okay
To color inside the lines
That, too, is freedom
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Victory for the Slain, by Hugh Lofting - a brief review
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Today I finished a first reading of Hugh Lofting’s Victory for the Slain only hours after receiving it in the mail. This is one of the best things I have ever read, and I am going to begin re-reading it tonight, slowly and carefully, savoring each line and each cultural and historical allusion.
Mr. Lofting, famous for the Doctor Doolittle stories for children, was wounded in body and heart in the First World War, and in 1942 wrote this deeply-felt and deeply-thought poem as a rebuke to the keyboard commandos who are in every generation so eager to sacrifice the lives of young men and women (not their own children, of course; they are sent to serve bravely in law school). As a Viet-Nam veteran I “amen” almost every line.
Mr. Lofting’s Catholic upbringing and solid education are obvious; Victory for the Slain is a work built upon a life of faith, study, thought, prayer, and bloody experience. It is a message poem, all right, but a brilliant and disciplined one. One reads the tired old weak defense of a poor piece of work with, “But it’s from the heart” – well, this poem is from the heart, right enough, but it is also from the head and from the careful consideration of the thousands of years of civilization.
Walmer is a small press (but not literally a press; the book was printed in the USA) in Shetland (http://michaelwalmer.com/index.html). They have taken this neglected poem and printed it on beautiful, cream-colored paper in a beautiful, accessible typeface.
Victory for the Slain is a keeper.
Immigration Policies along Beer Can Road - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
There where the road bends, refugee Californians
are shooting at targets in their back field
At the other end of the road refugee Mexicans
Are plowing with the tractor they can now afford
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre
Refugee New Yorkers are learning the joys
Of racing four-wheelers up and down
Past where this refugee from a day’s work
Clings to his Wordsworth and a glass of Scotch
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre
Welcome to Texas
It’s a little crazy here, and we love it
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre!
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Immigration Policies along Beer Can Road
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre
There where the road bends, refugee Californians
are shooting at targets in their back field
At the other end of the road refugee Mexicans
Are plowing with the tractor they can now afford
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre
Refugee New Yorkers are learning the joys
Of racing four-wheelers up and down
Past where this refugee from a day’s work
Clings to his Wordsworth and a glass of Scotch
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre
Welcome to Texas
It’s a little crazy here, and we love it
Tejas y Libertad Para Siempre!
Friday, May 22, 2020
Conversation with the ‘Possum Who Sees my Garden as its Salad Bar - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
We wretched humans are always setting traps
Usually for each other, but sometimes
Live-traps for the little critters of night:
“’Possum, I want you out of my garden.”
The ‘possum replies, “Hiss!”
“’Possum, you’ve been in this trap all night long;
So now if I let you out of this cage
Will you promise to be a better critter,
And leave my tomatoes alone, okay?”
The ‘possum replies, “Hisss!”
“’Possum, I know that these fields are your home,
But if you keep nibbling up the young squash
I’m going to take you away into the woods
And let you loose there; I wouldn’t like that”
The ‘possum replies, “Hissss!”
“’Possum, we’ve had this conversation before;
Do you want all this on your permanent record?”
The ‘possum replies, “Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!”
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Conversation with the ‘Possum Who Sees my Garden as its Salad Bar
We wretched humans are always setting traps
Usually for each other, but sometimes
Live-traps for the little critters of night:
“’Possum, I want you out of my garden.”
The ‘possum replies, “Hiss!”
“’Possum, you’ve been in this trap all night long;
So now if I let you out of this cage
Will you promise to be a better critter,
And leave my tomatoes alone, okay?”
The ‘possum replies, “Hisss!”
“’Possum, I know that these fields are your home,
But if you keep nibbling up the young squash
I’m going to take you away into the woods
And let you loose there; I wouldn’t like that”
The ‘possum replies, “Hissss!”
“’Possum, we’ve had this conversation before;
Do you want all this on your permanent record?”
The ‘possum replies, “Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!”
Lancaster Bomber Repurposed as a Passenger Plane, Dinky Toy, Meccano, York
I don't have a starship Enterprise but I do have this nifty toy Lanc rebuilt for passenger service
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Shakespeare Aboard the Enterprise - weekly column
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
While isolated in my rural estate here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension I have been dragging hoses, reading Robert Frost, saying bad things about the ‘possums pillaging my vegetable garden, and considering Star Trek:
Star Trek: The Movie works much better if you don’t think of it as a Star Trek movie but as maybe a Robert A. Heinlein movie with Star Trek characters.
Still, the pajamas are awkward.
There are no Methodists in Star Trek. Nor are there any Baptists or Catholics or Jews. Once in a while Spock goes to his room to meditate in some sort of vague, fuzzy way, or maybe he’s just smoking a cigarette, but there is seldom a hint of a deity.
In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan the eponymous anti-hero, brilliantly played by Ricardo Montalban, almost seems to be quoting Satan from Milton’s Paradise Lost (he’s not, though) in his dying, hate-filled repudiation of any concept of the good, even his own value as a created being, in his pathetic obsession with revenge: “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”
Pretty gamey stuff, but when we consider the equally pathological responses on popular InterGossip sites, Khan seems to reflect the intellectual and ethical lapses of our time.
The story arc of films II, III, and IV does consider thoughtfully the possibility of the existence of the soul, and V considers the possibility of God.
Both in the various series and in the films William Shakespeare pops up so often that he might as well be one of the crew. He certainly deserves credit for the many plots, sub-plots, quotations, allusions, and moral themes that are a constant in Star Trek.
James T. Kirk is the guy you’d want covering your back in a cafeteria rumble, but Jean-Luc Picard is the guy you’d want sitting next to you during an exam.
And why “Jean-Luc?” Captain Picard’s beverage of choice is Earl Grey tea (Twining’s, no doubt) and he is more Shakespeare than Shakespeare. He’s so English that you expect some crop-headed harridan wearing sustainably-farmed sneakers to run onto the set screaming, “Decolonize this bridge!”
Lieutenant Uhura – the adult aboard the starship.
Lieutenant Sulu – a Boy Wonder in search of his Batman, but don’t call him “Tiny.”
Ensign Chekov – like Ilya Kuryakin from The Man from Uncle, an adorable little Commie. He probably beams Federation secrets to Saint Petersburg / Leningrad.
Commander Spock – probably not much fun at a party.
Commander Scott – give him a wrench, a roll of duct tape, a multi-tester, a technical journal, and a dram of Scotch and he’ll re-float and re-build the Titanic within four days. Okay, Captain Kirk, for you, two days.
For the duration of the isolation Patrick Stewart, now Sir Patrick (but he wears his knighthood lightly), reads each day a sonnet by Shakespeare with the occasional amusing aside and sometimes a firm dismissal, every schoolboy’s dream: “I don’t like Sonnet 9…I’m not going to do it. Because nobody’s going to make me.”
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Shakespeare Aboard the Enterprise
While isolated in my rural estate here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension I have been dragging hoses, reading Robert Frost, saying bad things about the ‘possums pillaging my vegetable garden, and considering Star Trek:
Star Trek: The Movie works much better if you don’t think of it as a Star Trek movie but as maybe a Robert A. Heinlein movie with Star Trek characters.
Still, the pajamas are awkward.
There are no Methodists in Star Trek. Nor are there any Baptists or Catholics or Jews. Once in a while Spock goes to his room to meditate in some sort of vague, fuzzy way, or maybe he’s just smoking a cigarette, but there is seldom a hint of a deity.
In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan the eponymous anti-hero, brilliantly played by Ricardo Montalban, almost seems to be quoting Satan from Milton’s Paradise Lost (he’s not, though) in his dying, hate-filled repudiation of any concept of the good, even his own value as a created being, in his pathetic obsession with revenge: “From Hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”
Pretty gamey stuff, but when we consider the equally pathological responses on popular InterGossip sites, Khan seems to reflect the intellectual and ethical lapses of our time.
The story arc of films II, III, and IV does consider thoughtfully the possibility of the existence of the soul, and V considers the possibility of God.
Both in the various series and in the films William Shakespeare pops up so often that he might as well be one of the crew. He certainly deserves credit for the many plots, sub-plots, quotations, allusions, and moral themes that are a constant in Star Trek.
James T. Kirk is the guy you’d want covering your back in a cafeteria rumble, but Jean-Luc Picard is the guy you’d want sitting next to you during an exam.
And why “Jean-Luc?” Captain Picard’s beverage of choice is Earl Grey tea (Twining’s, no doubt) and he is more Shakespeare than Shakespeare. He’s so English that you expect some crop-headed harridan wearing sustainably-farmed sneakers to run onto the set screaming, “Decolonize this bridge!”
Lieutenant Uhura – the adult aboard the starship.
Lieutenant Sulu – a Boy Wonder in search of his Batman, but don’t call him “Tiny.”
Ensign Chekov – like Ilya Kuryakin from The Man from Uncle, an adorable little Commie. He probably beams Federation secrets to Saint Petersburg / Leningrad.
Commander Spock – probably not much fun at a party.
Commander Scott – give him a wrench, a roll of duct tape, a multi-tester, a technical journal, and a dram of Scotch and he’ll re-float and re-build the Titanic within four days. Okay, Captain Kirk, for you, two days.
For the duration of the isolation Patrick Stewart, now Sir Patrick (but he wears his knighthood lightly), reads each day a sonnet by Shakespeare with the occasional amusing aside and sometimes a firm dismissal, every schoolboy’s dream: “I don’t like Sonnet 9…I’m not going to do it. Because nobody’s going to make me.”
https://twitter.com/SirPatStew
-30-
Garden Pest - MePhone photograph
And of course I let him or her off with a caution.
Opossums / 'possums are beneficent creatures who eat carrion and who attract and then eat ticks which carry diseases deadly to humans. My argument with this little fellow was that he found my garden tomatoes more delish than carrion and ticks. After he spent a night in the cells and had to listen a stern barking-to by the dogs I released him into the wild.
And the Star over Bethlehem - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
To wish upon a star is good enough
But maybe we should also ask that star
To pray for us. If it is a sentient being
Then it would probably like to be asked
But we should not pray for the star in turn
Because although stars have been known to fall
They have never disobeyed the Creator
And thus in Truth they have never Fallen at all
But all is well:
For even if a star is not a sentient being
God sees to it that prayers are never misplaced
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
And the Star over Bethlehem
"In our world…a star is a huge ball of flaming gas."
“Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of."
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
To wish upon a star is good enough
But maybe we should also ask that star
To pray for us. If it is a sentient being
Then it would probably like to be asked
But we should not pray for the star in turn
Because although stars have been known to fall
They have never disobeyed the Creator
And thus in Truth they have never Fallen at all
But all is well:
For even if a star is not a sentient being
God sees to it that prayers are never misplaced
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
A Christian Writer Breaks His Silence - poem (and a true story)
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
At the guests’ table late on Sunday night
We were but few, and permitted to speak
But one was silent, who didn’t think it right
The Famous Writer, gaunt, and pale of cheek
He graced the company with his knowing smile;
His healing books, his poems about Christian peace
So noted for their teachings and grace-filled style
Made our poor converse seem like mere caprice
But as someone came ‘round with the coffee pot
He finally spoke: “Reagan ought to be shot!"
(My poor memory suggests that his actual words were, "That Reagan oughta be shot!" or "That Reagan needs to be shot!")
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Christian Writer Breaks His Silence
On a monastic retreat many years ago
At the guests’ table late on Sunday night
We were but few, and permitted to speak
But one was silent, who didn’t think it right
The Famous Writer, gaunt, and pale of cheek
He graced the company with his knowing smile;
His healing books, his poems about Christian peace
So noted for their teachings and grace-filled style
Made our poor converse seem like mere caprice
But as someone came ‘round with the coffee pot
He finally spoke: “Reagan ought to be shot!"
(My poor memory suggests that his actual words were, "That Reagan oughta be shot!" or "That Reagan needs to be shot!")
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Anna-Apples in the Merry Month of May
These will be mature at the beginning of June, God, raccoons, winds, rains, and hail permitting.
Creation's Intermittent Rain - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Soft rain to
make the apples plump with pride
Soft rain to
fill the honeybees’ round pools
Soft rain to baptize
God’s beloved earth
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Creation’s Intermittent Rain
Bright sun to make the apples blush
with red
Soft rain to
batter at the sunflowers’ stride
Bright sun to call the honeybees to
work
Soft rain to make
all flowers into jewels
Bright sun again – is this a solar
quirk?
Bright sun to display its glory and
worth
(Anna-apples, modified for hot climates, ripen their sweet little apples in June)
(The transfer is erratic; there should be no underlining, blue coloring, or other errata.)
(Anna-apples, modified for hot climates, ripen their sweet little apples in June)
(The transfer is erratic; there should be no underlining, blue coloring, or other errata.)
Monday, May 18, 2020
Burning a Vacuum Cleaner - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I burned a vacuum cleaner – and I was GLAD
It was broken beyond repair and so
I took it away to the Smithfield place
And torched the industrial revolution
After its long career of breaking the peace
Of violating domestic harmony
Of terrorizing little kittens and pups
And screaming all through Sunday afternoons
It finally fragmented, flailed, and failed
Polluting the atmosphere (I could be jailed!)
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Burning a Vacuum Cleaner
I burned a vacuum cleaner – and I was GLAD
It was broken beyond repair and so
I took it away to the Smithfield place
And torched the industrial revolution
After its long career of breaking the peace
Of violating domestic harmony
Of terrorizing little kittens and pups
And screaming all through Sunday afternoons
It finally fragmented, flailed, and failed
Polluting the atmosphere (I could be jailed!)
Sunday, May 17, 2020
An Unremarkable MePhone Photograph of a Tree Frog in the Rain Gauge
This tree frog lives in perfect safety at #5.
I use two drops of food color to make the water level more visible.
Fahrenheit, Celsius, and a Non-Sequitur Tree Frog - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
To ask what the temperature is today
Is too ask how high is up or low is down
For one must read what a red pointer says
In the arc of a circle or a line in a tube
The only true measures of temperature
Are sweating and shivering and just right
Those measures are of childhood and old age:
Sitting under an oak and reading in peace
A tree frog lives in the plastic rain gauge
When the rain falls he moves out ‘til it’s over
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Fahrenheit, Celsius, and a Non-Sequitur Tree Frog
To ask what the temperature is today
Is too ask how high is up or low is down
For one must read what a red pointer says
In the arc of a circle or a line in a tube
The only true measures of temperature
Are sweating and shivering and just right
Those measures are of childhood and old age:
Sitting under an oak and reading in peace
A tree frog lives in the plastic rain gauge
When the rain falls he moves out ‘til it’s over
Saturday, May 16, 2020
The Crucifix on the Wall has no Sount Effects - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A crucifix
A crucifix offers no sound effects
Perhaps a tiny electronic box
Could be hidden within it, programmed to speak
the words of Us – just pull the little string
A crucifix
God nailed to the Cross, then nailed to the wall
“That’s ever so nice; where did you get it?”
Hecho en China by way of Amazon
You can track our Lord’s delivery date
A crucifix
It can’t project the noise, the jeers, the boos -
It doesn’t drip Blood on your Sunday shoes
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Crucifix on the Wall has no Sound Effects
A crucifix
A crucifix offers no sound effects
Perhaps a tiny electronic box
Could be hidden within it, programmed to speak
the words of Us – just pull the little string
A crucifix
God nailed to the Cross, then nailed to the wall
“That’s ever so nice; where did you get it?”
Hecho en China by way of Amazon
You can track our Lord’s delivery date
A crucifix
It can’t project the noise, the jeers, the boos -
It doesn’t drip Blood on your Sunday shoes
Friday, May 15, 2020
An Up-to-Date Darwinian Squeaks, Speaks, Thunders, and Harrumphs - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Well, they were old; they needed to die, okay?
The children are immune, well, mostly immune
We won’t lose many of them, and we’ve got more
Let herd immunity sort them all out
Follow the science
Follow the science - we’ve got this new vaccine
We’ll try it out on the bedridden first
And old malarial pills for the veterans
Take another bullet for your country, guys
Follow the science
As for me
I sold my stocks early at an awesome rate
And now I Zoom™ science from my country estate
Obey The Science
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Up-to-Date Darwinian Squeaks, Speaks, Thunders, and Harrumphs
“…we’re going to get science applied to social problems and backed by the whole power of the state…”
-Mark Studdock in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength
Well, they were old; they needed to die, okay?
The children are immune, well, mostly immune
We won’t lose many of them, and we’ve got more
Let herd immunity sort them all out
Follow the science
Follow the science - we’ve got this new vaccine
We’ll try it out on the bedridden first
And old malarial pills for the veterans
Take another bullet for your country, guys
Follow the science
As for me
I sold my stocks early at an awesome rate
And now I Zoom™ science from my country estate
Obey The Science
Thursday, May 14, 2020
In Isolation on Beer Can Road - weekly column
Lawrence (Mack) Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
As Garrison Keillor might have said, before he got all Lefty and petty, it has been a quiet week here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension.
The economic situation has been cruel to many businesses, but obviously not to the beer industry, whose cast-off cans sparkle in the spring sunshine up and down the road past my rustic rural retreat. And then there’s that old couch someone dumped weeks ago. I don’t suppose there’s a dead body in it, but I’m not going to look.
The guy speeding in the hot red sedan seems to be trying to make it launch, and that is possible, but without wings and controls the car would land in a tree – or tree in a tree – and that would be an unhappy ending. But maybe all the beer cans would cushion the impact.
This spring’s weather has been unusually pleasant. Soon enough the withering heat and humidity of summer will fall upon us, but for now sitting under an oak tree in the late afternoon with a refreshing beverage and the poems of Robert Frost is a joy.
Joining in the merriment are woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, one tiny Carolina or black-capped chickadee, and a few insolent squirrels. They all gather at the water dish and the feeder to feast on chicken scratch from the feed store. Clouds of humming bees monopolize the water dish but will permit the birds and squirrels to take a sip if they act nicely and behave themselves. These are perfect occasions for reading Robert Frost, and the critters don’t seem to mind either him or me.
The setting sun permits a visual display of the bees as they speed between the water dish and their hives a few hundred yards away. Without those late sunbeams a human could not see them in transit and marvel at their speed and navigation. That they don’t hit each other head-on is a great mystery.
Without bees we would have very little to eat; their transfer of pollens from and to all sorts of trees, crops, grasses, and other plants makes possible the generation of fruits, grains, and vegetables season after season.
Thus, providing water for the little fellows and avoiding dusting the garden against pests until after dark is, as the old farmers always remind us, an essential in life.
As the sun sets the book must be closed and the seat cushions brought inside. After dark the raccoons, flying squirrels, ‘possums, feral cats, and an occasional deer will begin their night patrols in the front yard. Flying squirrels are so tiny that all the security camera catches of them are their bright eyes. If a bit of kitchen scrap has been tossed out then sometimes the Darwinian struggle – well, okay, more of a Darwinian hissy-fit – is played out as ‘possum vs. ‘possum, raccoon vs. racoon, and even raccoon vs. possum. The big raccoon always wins the supper against the ‘possum, but the ‘possum makes a good show of belligerence.
In the mornings there is a scent of skunk lately, but this creature hasn’t yet shown up on the video feed. And I understand; if we smelled like that we wouldn’t want to be out in public either.
Mhall46184@aol.com
In Isolation on Beer Can Road
As Garrison Keillor might have said, before he got all Lefty and petty, it has been a quiet week here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension.
The economic situation has been cruel to many businesses, but obviously not to the beer industry, whose cast-off cans sparkle in the spring sunshine up and down the road past my rustic rural retreat. And then there’s that old couch someone dumped weeks ago. I don’t suppose there’s a dead body in it, but I’m not going to look.
The guy speeding in the hot red sedan seems to be trying to make it launch, and that is possible, but without wings and controls the car would land in a tree – or tree in a tree – and that would be an unhappy ending. But maybe all the beer cans would cushion the impact.
This spring’s weather has been unusually pleasant. Soon enough the withering heat and humidity of summer will fall upon us, but for now sitting under an oak tree in the late afternoon with a refreshing beverage and the poems of Robert Frost is a joy.
Joining in the merriment are woodpeckers, cardinals, mourning doves, one tiny Carolina or black-capped chickadee, and a few insolent squirrels. They all gather at the water dish and the feeder to feast on chicken scratch from the feed store. Clouds of humming bees monopolize the water dish but will permit the birds and squirrels to take a sip if they act nicely and behave themselves. These are perfect occasions for reading Robert Frost, and the critters don’t seem to mind either him or me.
The setting sun permits a visual display of the bees as they speed between the water dish and their hives a few hundred yards away. Without those late sunbeams a human could not see them in transit and marvel at their speed and navigation. That they don’t hit each other head-on is a great mystery.
Without bees we would have very little to eat; their transfer of pollens from and to all sorts of trees, crops, grasses, and other plants makes possible the generation of fruits, grains, and vegetables season after season.
Thus, providing water for the little fellows and avoiding dusting the garden against pests until after dark is, as the old farmers always remind us, an essential in life.
As the sun sets the book must be closed and the seat cushions brought inside. After dark the raccoons, flying squirrels, ‘possums, feral cats, and an occasional deer will begin their night patrols in the front yard. Flying squirrels are so tiny that all the security camera catches of them are their bright eyes. If a bit of kitchen scrap has been tossed out then sometimes the Darwinian struggle – well, okay, more of a Darwinian hissy-fit – is played out as ‘possum vs. ‘possum, raccoon vs. racoon, and even raccoon vs. possum. The big raccoon always wins the supper against the ‘possum, but the ‘possum makes a good show of belligerence.
In the mornings there is a scent of skunk lately, but this creature hasn’t yet shown up on the video feed. And I understand; if we smelled like that we wouldn’t want to be out in public either.
-30-
The Darwinian Tomato and a Dead Ant - MePhone Photograph
Just before the rains I plucked this tomato because, although not quite ripe, it was on the ground and I feared it would rot. On the bottom of the tomato I observed a dead ant, somehow crushed by the tomato in the Samsara of my little garden.
Elephant Ears - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Summer's small children in shorts and bare feet
Scamper about in the dewy morning lawns
Among the elephant ears, chasing and laughing
Looking for the rest of the elephant
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Elephant Ears
Summer's small children in shorts and bare feet
Scamper about in the dewy morning lawns
Among the elephant ears, chasing and laughing
Looking for the rest of the elephant
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Death to War Metaphors - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
No soldier nervously checking his magazines at dawn
Whispered that it was just like catching pneumonia
No soldier collapsing over his dying pals
Cried that it was as bad as working in a grocery
No soldier on that thousand-mile front in Russia
Thought that it was like missing graduation
No soldier drowning when his landing craft sank
Screamed that it was just like having to self-isolate
No soldier dying in his own blood and vomit
Agreed that it was like wearing a surgical mask
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Death to War Metaphors
No soldier nervously checking his magazines at dawn
Whispered that it was just like catching pneumonia
No soldier collapsing over his dying pals
Cried that it was as bad as working in a grocery
No soldier on that thousand-mile front in Russia
Thought that it was like missing graduation
No soldier drowning when his landing craft sank
Screamed that it was just like having to self-isolate
No soldier dying in his own blood and vomit
Agreed that it was like wearing a surgical mask
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
An Incomplete Guide to Magnolia Trees - poem and MePhone photograph
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The poor magnolia now is weaponized
Objectified through puerile jokes and scorn
A coarse cliché, a forlorn stereotype
An easy laugh or a malignant sneer
But before man fell with slavery and axe
Its moonlight blossoms blessed the wilderness
With their gifts of beauty and sweet incense
This Eden tree of truth and innocence
There is no evil in anything given
Unless foul man chooses to twist it so
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Incomplete Guide to Magnolia Trees
The poor magnolia now is weaponized
Objectified through puerile jokes and scorn
A coarse cliché, a forlorn stereotype
An easy laugh or a malignant sneer
But before man fell with slavery and axe
Its moonlight blossoms blessed the wilderness
With their gifts of beauty and sweet incense
This Eden tree of truth and innocence
There is no evil in anything given
Unless foul man chooses to twist it so
Monday, May 11, 2020
On Transcendent Poetry - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
That which is modern can only decay
Locked within the prison of transience
Ossification as a death sentence
Always refusing to roll the stone away
That which is modern is immediately lost
But springtime, flowers, pilgrimages, lovers
The darling, dancing hummingbird that hovers
Are ever young, not dead eternal frost
That which is modern is fast-rotting flesh
That which is transcendent is always fresh
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
On Transcendent Poetry
Contra Wallace Stevens
That which is modern can only decay
Locked within the prison of transience
Ossification as a death sentence
Always refusing to roll the stone away
That which is modern is immediately lost
But springtime, flowers, pilgrimages, lovers
The darling, dancing hummingbird that hovers
Are ever young, not dead eternal frost
That which is modern is fast-rotting flesh
That which is transcendent is always fresh
Sunday, May 10, 2020
A Virus-Free Haircut in Honor of the Governor of Texas - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A haircut today – my wolfman look is shorn
The virus-time follicles set to rights
Follies and follicles, the locks of lockdown
A-tumbling down in coarse, unseemly waves
The haircut lady continues a narrative
Begun two months before, a local scandal
Unmasked (as are we) to the buzz of the shears
“And I’d tell the governor where he can go…!”
My hair…
In isolation so long embedded -
But suddenly, now, I feel light-headed!
(A shortcoming of lady barbers is that their shops do not feature pictures of poker-playing dogs.)
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Virus-Free Haircut in Honor of the Governor of Texas
And in memory of Harry and Shorty Driskill,
Our little town’s barbers in the long-ago
A haircut today – my wolfman look is shorn
The virus-time follicles set to rights
Follies and follicles, the locks of lockdown
A-tumbling down in coarse, unseemly waves
The haircut lady continues a narrative
Begun two months before, a local scandal
Unmasked (as are we) to the buzz of the shears
“And I’d tell the governor where he can go…!”
My hair…
In isolation so long embedded -
But suddenly, now, I feel light-headed!
(A shortcoming of lady barbers is that their shops do not feature pictures of poker-playing dogs.)
Saturday, May 9, 2020
The Unwilling Suspension of Belief - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Prelates, preachers, premiers, princes, and presidents
Now publish proclamations at the speed of lies
And just as rapidly retract them again
Regretting only their subjects’ lack of wit:
Obey The Science, whatever it is today
For it will be something else tomorrow
And so we need not fear our punishments
For the mistakes that our leaders never made
But, shhhhhhhhhhh…
If everything they teach is proven to be bluff
Then we must be the truth –
and we are enough
The reader will remember the concept of willing suspension of disbelief from drama, such as when the Prologue in Henry V urges the audience to imagine the “The vasty fields of France… / Within this wooden O...”
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Unwilling Suspension of Belief
Prelates, preachers, premiers, princes, and presidents
Now publish proclamations at the speed of lies
And just as rapidly retract them again
Regretting only their subjects’ lack of wit:
Obey The Science, whatever it is today
For it will be something else tomorrow
And so we need not fear our punishments
For the mistakes that our leaders never made
But, shhhhhhhhhhh…
If everything they teach is proven to be bluff
Then we must be the truth –
and we are enough
The reader will remember the concept of willing suspension of disbelief from drama, such as when the Prologue in Henry V urges the audience to imagine the “The vasty fields of France… / Within this wooden O...”
Friday, May 8, 2020
Like Far-Out Totally Drug Trippin', Man - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A pill or two, inhaling funny stuff
Green stripes floating before and through my eyes
Oh, wow, dude, and maybe behind my eyes
The sixties regrooved in day-glow colored lights
Floating above this alien planet, I was
A dream aloft, or lofting up a dream
Shankaring that zitaring ups we go
That falls like moonbeams on a blue-slept sea
For an hour disharmony seemed resolved -
Oh, why does there have to be dentistry involved?
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Like Far-Out Totally Drug Trippin’, Man
A pill or two, inhaling funny stuff
Green stripes floating before and through my eyes
Oh, wow, dude, and maybe behind my eyes
The sixties regrooved in day-glow colored lights
Floating above this alien planet, I was
A dream aloft, or lofting up a dream
Shankaring that zitaring ups we go
That falls like moonbeams on a blue-slept sea
For an hour disharmony seemed resolved -
Oh, why does there have to be dentistry involved?
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