An Old Man on a Balcony, Gasping for Breath

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

An Old Man on a Balcony, Gasping for Breath

 

Those he commands move only in command,

Nothing in love

 

                   -Macbeth V.ii.19-20

 

The city and the nation seem to ignore him

He stands irresolutely, heaving his shoulders

Twitching his lips, fidgeting with his coat

Behind his embalmers’ makeup seeking breath

 

There are no happy cheering crowds tonight

He waves only to a departing helicopter

And salutes the ghosts of what might have been

Before turning away, inside, to the silence

 

The people talk about him, but not to him

If they did, he would not listen - he is alone

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

 

Garage-sale-blocked again, the one-lane road

Hosts cars on both sides, and oxygened-men

Defiantly aluminum-caning the middle

In their Quixotic quest for eternal youth

 

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

On collectible plates and VHS tapes

Marilyn and Elvis bourbon decanters

Chinese-made MAGA caps in camouflage

 

“They just don’t make things like they used to do” -

Which is true, indeed, for them, and me, and you

Supervising Elections in an Underdeveloped Nation

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Supervising Elections in an Underdeveloped Nation

 

It well may be that civilized nations

Will send us soldiers to patrol our rubbled streets

And at each poll post tanks and squads of men

To ensure that our elections are fair

 

Their soldiers will pat our children on their heads

And give them chocolate bars and chewing gum

While practicing their Americanese from little books:

“Where is please coffee shop thank you we are friends”

 

And propping up each mayor and governor here

A sturdy German, Pole, or Czech will stand

                                                                   (and sneer)

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/justice-dept-fbi-planning-for-the-possibility-of-election-day-violence-voting-disruptions/ar-BB19E6tq?li=BBnbfcL

If You Sing a Song and No One Hears It

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

If You Sing a Song and No One Hears It

 

If you sing a song and no one hears it

          The song is heard

If you write a poem and no one reads it

          The poem is read

If you draw a picture and no one sees it

          The picture is seen

If you read a book and no one knows it

          The book is known

If you speak of love, and there is no love –

          Oh, yes, there is

 

When you give something to the universe

It was given to you first

And you have kindly sent it on

Ceilings Breaking Glass Icons

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Ceilings Breaking Glass Icons

 

Newsies, both in print and on the telescreens, seem unable to refer to anyone who has died as other than an icon. As a metaphor, this never worked well anyway, as an icon is a two-dimension painting or drawing – the Orthodox term is “written” – of a religious figure for inspiration.  Obviously a human being, alive or dead, cannot be an icon in any meaningful sense, although he or she might someday appear on an icon after ecclesiastical investigation, documentation, and recognition a life of recognized saintliness.  But since the metaphor has been spun out daily for years, possibly decades, it is time to let it go.

 

“Icon” has long since joined “give you the shirt off his back,” “never met a stranger,” “his word was his bond,” “they broke the mold when they made him,” and other funerary imagery as filler-language that says nothing. If we mean to praise someone, let us do so in good, plain, declarative sentences, and forego all the babble that everyone trots out for everyone else.

 

In the run-up to All Souls and All Saints, secularized as “Halloween” with its purportedly pagan Celtic origins, “Spooktacular” infests advertisements as a variation of “spectacular.” Every advertisement and every fund-raiser is gas-filled by dull and lazy writers as “spooktacular.” Please, don’t. Just don’t.

 

Another contemporary failure in speaking and writing is the excessive use of adjectives and adverbs. Or to put it in another way, “Another absolutely contemporary failure, actually, in actually speaking and actually writing, actually, is the unnecessary excessive and repetitive and pointless use of so many overwhelmingly redundant adjectives and really and truly excessive adverbs, actually.”

 

The best way to say something is to do so without any adjectives and adverbs, in the plainest way possible, and so clearly that it cannot be taken as meaning anything other than what the speaker intended.

 

And while your ‘umble scrivener is being grumpy, let’s also get rid of that “he must have had a pre-existing condition” thing as a weak deflection when discussing the CV. We all have pre-existing conditions; no one is perfect physically. Some people say “pre-existing condition” as if 200,000+ of our fellow pilgrims here on earth deserved to die. If a child is eaten by an alligator someone will defend the alligator’s violence with, “well, the kid had a pre-existing condition,” and of course “the alligators were here first.”

 

Use the brain God gave you. Wear your mask. Keep your distance. Act right. Wash. This is real.

 

-30-

 

The Cruise of HMS Disreputable

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

https://poeticdrivel.blogspot.com/

 

The Cruise of HMS Disreputable

 

                                             For myself,

I knew as soon as I could read and write

That I must be a poet.

 

-Sir John Betjeman

 

I left Mesquite and broken promises

In the after-market rear-view mirror

Bolted to the wing of my third-hand MG

And rattled along that magic road to the west

 

Sleeping bag, Olivetti portable

Dostoyevsky, Yevtushenko, some clothes

An honorable discharge from a dishonorable war

A few undistinguished undergraduate credits

 

And now…

 

I have left behind my Nobel acceptance speech

Because the journey will have to be enough

 

 

Bitter Old Men Yelping at Each Other

 

 

Bitter Old Men Yelping at Each Other

 

(rather like some of the in-laws over Christmas dinner)

 

 

“Language, the home and receptacle of beauty and meaning….”

 

-Doctor Zhivago, p. 437

 

 

My country, ‘tis of thee

 

     “Get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap!”

 

Sweet land of liberty

 

     “What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name!”

 

Of thee I sing

 

     “It’s hard to get a word in with this clown.”

 

Land where my fathers died

 

     “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!”

 

Land of the pilgrims’ pride

 

     “He’s Putin’s puppet!”

 

From every mountain side

 

     “You can’t even say the word ‘law enforcement!’”

 

Let freedom ring

 

     “Will you shut up, man?!”

 

 

(No apologies to Samuel Francis Smith; he pinched the tune from “God Save the Queen.” As for the angry old men, they are entirely our own.)

 

We Greatly Value Your Opinion - Except When We Don't

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

 

We Greatly Value Your Opinion – Except When We Don’t

 

I. We Love Hearing from You!

Dear Book Lover,

Thank you for being a part of our panel.

We appreciate having a group of book lovers

That we can learn from! We have crafted a fun

And interactive survey related to books

 

About health, well-being, and spirituality,

And we would appreciate If you would

Take part as we greatly value your opinion.

The survey should take no longer than

 

5-10 minutes of your time. We hope

You'll participate - we love hearing from you!

Warm regards,

The Penguin Random House Reader Insight Team

 

II. We’re Looking for a Different Type [sniff] of Reader

 

Thank you for your interest in participating.

We're looking for a different type of reader

For this survey, but we hope to hear from you

Another time!

To a Ball-Cap Commando Wearing his Semi-Automatic Albatross

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

 

To a Ball-Cap Commando Wearing his Semi-Automatic Albatross

 

Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung

 

-Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

 

An albatross seems hung from around your neck

Or maybe you are hugging it to your heart

That steel and plastic engine of death-tech

That seductive vanity of satanic art

 

Where are you strutting with your deadly toy?

Why are you posing like a comic-book commando?

Oh, be a man, and not a dullard boy

You’re ‘way too old to play at G.I. Joe

 

There’s anger enough, and no more hate to give -

That albatross: get rid of it

                                                            and live

The Petrograd Paradigm - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

 

The Petrograd Paradigm

 

He has more than a touch of Komarovsky

Loyal to nothing but his appetites

Cigars, sensualties, sins, and souls

All of them casually disposable

 

He gives more than a touch of Komarovsky

He whips the dogs, and tests the snow to know

If it blows from the east or from the west

And throws his latest values to the wolves

 

He takes more than a touch of Komarovsky

Asking the oldest question: “What’s in it for me?”

Decolonize Unpacking Actualization

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

 

Decolonize Unpacking Actualization

 

Let’s unpack the cliches and hyperbole

The nuclear option and we’ve got this

What we know now we have our options frontline

Off the table Armageddon option

 

Privileged out of an abundance of caution

Like an actual warzone actually

Or forging a road, a path, a plan

(Says he who never saw a blacksmith’s forge)

 

Decolonize decolonization

And actuate actualization

 

(By blazing a trail that unlocks the future)

Kristin Hannah's Winter Garden, Sort Of

Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/ Kristin Hannah’s Winter Garden, Sort Of Not, not mine: it’s somebody else’s wound. I could have have borne it. So take the thing That happened, hide it, stick it in the ground. Whisk the lamps away… Night. -Anna Akhmatova, As quoted by Kristin Hannah One day this summer I (masked) was in the drugstore for my monthly refill, and the pharmacist, James Lee Elliott (also masked), asked me what I was reading lately. I mentioned my recent fondness for poetry, especially English and Russian (in translation, of course), which like any American lad I had despised in my callow youth. Take a boy who loves Robin Hood and mindless cowboy shoot-‘em-ups and place before him names like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Algernon Swinburne, and Dante Gabriel Rosetti and you will encounter fierce resistance. If they had been named Kitty, Rocky, Shotgun, and Lefty, maybe not. James Lee mentioned that he really liked Kristin Hannah’s novels, which I pooh-poohed as chick-lit. He assured me that they are really good, and that with my love of Russian literature I would appreciate Winter Garden, parts of which are set in Leningrad (nee’ Saint Petersburg then Petrograd then Leningrad and now Saint Petersburg again, as is right and just). In the event I gave the book a quick look when the local Barnes & Noble reopened. To me (here I risk the stern disapproval of Kristin Hannah’s many fans), the characters seem to be two-dimensional wish-fulfillment stereotypes, and the writer describes a morning sky as “cerulean” (p. 53), the favorite adjective of every beginning poet. Bad enough, but then there’s this line: “Take me to bed, Daniel Flynn. Get me through this night” (37). Daniel Flynn did not flee, but I did, and put the book back. And then James Lee died. As a health care professional he served the needs of dozens of people every day, and at some point caught the corona virus while performing the duties God expected of him. In doing so became one of the 200,000 Americans (so far) to die of a pestilence which millions of other Americans deny exists. He was my merry pharmacist. I taught his children. We were speaking of books and ribbing each other one day, and then within a few weeks he was dead. I went back to Barnes & Noble and bought the book James Lee had recommended. And I still didn’t like it. James Lee mentioned that much of Winter Garden is set in Leningrad, so I went in search of those bits and was much rewarded in them. Here I must praise Kristin Hannah for her thorough research into Leningrad and The 900 Days, and for her brilliant – brilliant – rendering of a woman and her children enduring the obscene cruelties of Communism and then the even more obscene Nazi siege. Most of them die – Hannah spares the reader none of the horrors. When the grandmother succumbs to cold and starvation, the protagonist writes, “Thankfully, Sasha is in the army, so we only have to stand in line a few hours for a death certificate” (341). That was Leningrad in 1941; in contemporary America the family of another friend who died of the CV had to wait months for a death certificate, without which they could not bury him. And, no, I’m not comparing The 900 Days with the CV; I simply make an observation. I wish Kristin Hannah had centered her story in Leningrad instead of framing the strongest and most skilled narrative only as an expository device to explain the behaviors of the modern characters. She has a gift for serious historical research and then building good, solid fictional narratives upon that research. Winter Garden is certainly worth reading for that. And she quotes the great Anna Ahkmatova - how many American writers do that? Thank you, Kristin Hannah, and thank you, James Lee Elliott, for good parenting, good pharmacy-ing, good reading, and good fun. “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon him.” -30-

Google has made a mess of their Blogger, so I am back on: https://hellopoetry.com/

https://hellopoetry.com/

Okay, looking for a free blogger matrix that works - suggestions, anyone?

Bumper Cars, Airlines, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You - third attempt

Lawrence Hall, HSG Mhall46184@aol.com Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com Underground Bumper Cars, Airline Employees, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You According to Observer.com, A subsidiary of Elon Musk is constructing tunnels under Las Vegas so that people may be shuttled via robotic cars from one shuttered location to another shuttered location. The first part of the route is to open in 2021, but only virtually. I suppose “virtually” means you can watch it on television, so what’s the point? The subsidiary is named The Boring Company, which seems appropriate. And if you ever get to be shuttled around beneath the earth, what about the danger from giant radioactive worms and the Lizard People? + + + The Wall Street Journal reports that beginning in October airlines will have to start laying off thousands of employees. I suppose after that they will show up at your door and charge you $25 for each extra suitcase you own. But if they ask for something to eat you can tell them that you ran out of lunch entrees 20 rows back and coffee 10 rows back, just like Air Canada. + + + So far this year 28 soldiers have died or been murdered at Fort Hood. And still there are people who think conscription should be reinstated. They mean your children, not theirs. + + + Numerous sources have reported on a 12- or 13-foot alligator swimming through someone’s yard in Pensacola during the recent wild rains. There is a remedy for an alligator in one’s yard, but you’ll go to prison for it. After all, alligators were here first (chant it as a mantra). If the alligator eats your child, someone will dismiss your baby’s life with, “Oh, well, the kid had a pre-existing condition.” Everyone has a pre-existing condition; there are no flawless humans. The way some people say “pre-existing condition” seems to infer that the victim had it coming. + + + Far away and long ago I had occasion to wear a steel helmet to help protect my life. I did not complain about it or say that it made me look silly (I look silly anyway), and I did not feel that my 1st Amendment rights were being violated. True, the helmet would not have protected me from a 40-mike-mike. It wasn’t meant to. Far away and long ago I had occasion also to wear a flak jacket. True, the flak jacket would not have protected me from a mortar round. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked offshore I wore a nifty plastic helmet. True, the hard hat would not have protected me from a falling beam. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked my way through school as an LVN (I was the first male LVN I ever knew; I suppose there was a glass ceiling or glass floor or something) I sometimes had occasion to wear a mask to help protect patients. And you can bet that I made sure that protection happened. And now I wear a patriotic Texas Lone Star mask in order to help protect others. True, it is no defense against rocket grenades, mortar rounds, or falling beams, but it is a part of one’s personal defensive perimeter, along with good hygiene and distancing. Wear the mask. It’s not about you; it’s about the vulnerable. -30-

Bumper Cars, Airlines, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You - second attempt

Lawrence Hall, HSG Mhall46184@aol.com Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com Underground Bumper Cars, Airline Employees, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You According to Observer.com, A subsidiary of Elon Musk is constructing tunnels under Las Vegas so that people may be shuttled via robotic cars from one shuttered location to another shuttered location. The first part of the route is to open in 2021, but only virtually. I suppose “virtually” means you can watch it on television, so what’s the point? The subsidiary is named The Boring Company, which seems appropriate. And if you ever get to be shuttled around beneath the earth, what about the danger from giant radioactive worms and the Lizard People? + + + The Wall Street Journal reports that beginning in October airlines will have to start laying off thousands of employees. I suppose after that they will show up at your door and charge you $25 for each extra suitcase you own. But if they ask for something to eat you can tell them that you ran out of lunch entrees 20 rows back and coffee 10 rows back, just like Air Canada. + + + So far this year 28 soldiers have died or been murdered at Fort Hood. And still there are people who think conscription should be reinstated. They mean your children, not theirs. + + + Numerous sources have reported on a 12- or 13-foot alligator swimming through someone’s yard in Pensacola during the recent wild rains. There is a remedy for an alligator in one’s yard, but you’ll go to prison for it. After all, alligators were here first (chant it as a mantra). If the alligator eats your child, someone will dismiss your baby’s life with, “Oh, well, the kid had a pre-existing condition.” Everyone has a pre-existing condition; there are no flawless humans. The way some people say “pre-existing condition” seems to infer that the victim had it coming. + + + Far away and long ago I had occasion to wear a steel helmet to help protect my life. I did not complain about it or say that it made me look silly (I look silly anyway), and I did not feel that my 1st Amendment rights were being violated. True, the helmet would not have protected me from a 40-mike-mike. It wasn’t meant to. Far away and long ago I had occasion also to wear a flak jacket. True, the flak jacket would not have protected me from a mortar round. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked offshore I wore a nifty plastic helmet. True, the hard hat would not have protected me from a falling beam. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked my way through school as an LVN (I was the first male LVN I ever knew; I suppose there was a glass ceiling or glass floor or something) I sometimes had occasion to wear a mask to help protect patients. And you can bet that I made sure that protection happened. And now I wear a patriotic Texas Lone Star mask in order to help protect others. True, it is no defense against rocket grenades, mortar rounds, or falling beams, but it is a part of one’s personal defensive perimeter, along with good hygiene and distancing. Wear the mask. It’s not about you; it’s about the vulnerable. -30-

Bumper Cars, Airlines, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You - weekly column, and I have no idea how the formatting will work

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG Mhall46184@aol.com Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com Underground Bumper Cars, Airline Employees, Soldiers, Alligators, Children, and You According to Observer.com, A subsidiary of Elon Musk is constructing tunnels under Las Vegas so that people may be shuttled via robotic cars from one shuttered location to another shuttered location. The first part of the route is to open in 2021, but only virtually. I suppose “virtually” means you can watch it on television, so what’s the point? The subsidiary is named The Boring Company, which seems appropriate. And if you ever get to be shuttled around beneath the earth, what about the danger from giant radioactive worms and the Lizard People? + + + The Wall Street Journal reports that beginning in October airlines will have to start laying off thousands of employees. I suppose after that they will show up at your door and charge you $25 for each extra suitcase you own. But if they ask for something to eat you can tell them that you ran out of lunch entrees 20 rows back and coffee 10 rows back, just like Air Canada. + + + So far this year 28 soldiers have died or been murdered at Fort Hood. And still there are people who think conscription should be reinstated. They mean your children, not theirs. + + + Numerous sources have reported on a 12- or 13-foot alligator swimming through someone’s yard in Pensacola during the recent wild rains. There is a remedy for an alligator in one’s yard, but you’ll go to prison for it. After all, alligators were here first (chant it as a mantra). If the alligator eats your child, someone will dismiss your baby’s life with, “Oh, well, the kid had a pre-existing condition.” Everyone has a pre-existing condition; there are no flawless humans. The way some people say “pre-existing condition” seems to infer that the victim had it coming. + + + Far away and long ago I had occasion to wear a steel helmet to help protect my life. I did not complain about it or say that it made me look silly (I look silly anyway), and I did not feel that my 1st Amendment rights were being violated. True, the helmet would not have protected me from a 40-mike-mike. It wasn’t meant to. Far away and long ago I had occasion also to wear a flak jacket. True, the flak jacket would not have protected me from a mortar round. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked offshore I wore a nifty plastic helmet. True, the hard hat would not have protected me from a falling beam. It wasn’t meant to. When I worked my way through school as an LVN (I was the first male LVN I ever knew; I suppose there was a glass ceiling or glass floor or something) I sometimes had occasion to wear a mask to help protect patients. And you can bet that I made sure that protection happened. And now I wear a patriotic Texas Lone Star mask in order to help protect others. True, it is no defense against rocket grenades, mortar rounds, or falling beams, but it is a part of one’s personal defensive perimeter, along with good hygiene and distancing. Wear the mask. It’s not about you; it’s about the vulnerable. -30-

Jesus 'n' Me 'n' My Cartoon Tee - just an old man being grouchy. And why can't I single-space on the new but not improved format?

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Jesus ‘n’ Me ‘n’ My Cartoon Tee

 

Ecclesiastical reforms begin

When we begin to dress like adults for Mass

Blighted Sepulchers - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Blighted Sepulchers

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them

shall not fall on the ground without your Father.

-Saint Matthew 10:29

One cannot die without permission from the state

A man enters a hospital, and waits
He is dusted off to another, and waits
He is ambulanced to a third, and dies

But he does not have permission from the state

A man cannot be buried without paperwork
There is no paperwork; no one knows what to do
With so many corpses fallen to the ground

One cannot die without permission from the state

No permission is required for refrigeration
No permission is required for a family to grieve
No permission is required to wait for permission

One must not die without permission from the state

But in the beginning, and in the end
At play in the nursery, at work in the fields
In all that follows the generation of a man

God freely grants the joys of eternal life


(In context, “a man” is gender-neutral, and anyway this narrative is one of a specific man, Paul Evdosuk, of happy memory. As Marc Anthony says of Caesar, “He was my friend, faithful and just to me.”)

Ever England - a poem for Battle of Britain Day

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Ever England

Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb
Far up into the English summer sky
At the lingering end of a golden time
As wild young lads and aging empires die

The Hood and Rodney still the Channel guard
Against the strident Men of Destiny
Then shellfire falls; the helm is over hard
But the brave old ships keep the Narrow Sea

Dear Grandpa and the boys sport thin tin hats
In Sunday afternoon’s invasion drill
Gram says he’s too damned old for all of that
But she too smells the smoke of Abbeville

Faith does not pass with ephemeral time:
Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb



Previously published in longbowsandrosarybeads.blogspot.com and The Road to Magdalena (amazon.com)

Each Carrying a Holy Book - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Each Carrying a Holy Book

Most people carry a vade mecum
Bound in leather, or in cloth-covered boards
Sometimes in paperback, the words being all
In a portable portal to the transcendent

For President Lincoln it was Macbeth
For Fermor The Oxford Book of English Verse
For some a Bible, for some the bad news of Marx
(For Yevtushenko, well, he carried himself)

And what is your book, in pocket or purse –
Dostoyevsky, perhaps, or a bit of verse?

The Haikuza - a weak haiku

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Haikuza

The Haikuza leaps
Silently from concealment
And steals your iambs

From Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, 2014, available through amazon.com

Death in an Unfashionable Zip Code - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Death in an Unfashionable Zip Code

“The care of those who are sick…is an absolute priority...”

-Saint Benedict’s Rule, Ampleforth Abbey, 1997

Seventeen more cases, another death
They say the mortuary is full up now
Friends go to friends’ funerals, then die in their turn
And more funerals follow, and more friends die

The utilitarians rattle on
Like crumbling bones, about herd immunity
Until the ghost of Darwin comes for them
As a spectral ideologue in the night

Empty seats at the table, and in the pew
And a refrigerated room full of corpses

A Waiting Room in a Time of Waiting - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Waiting Room in a Time of Waiting

Every other chair is a virus chair
Made sacred by a yellow crime scene tape
Reserved for that little man who isn’t there 1
A sad unflattened curve in its drooping shape

The walls are all covered with warning signs
Our positions are marked two meters apart
And we must follow cheerfully painted lines
Any other decision is less than smart

We wisely obey, and live another day
But…
We wish, we wish the Covid would go away!

1 cf. “Antigonish,” William Hughes Means

Just What Does "Hunker Down" Mean? - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       Just What Does "Hunker Down" Mean?

“We need to hunker down…”

-Dr. Fauci, quoted in NBC News, 10 September 2020

Doctor Fauci tells us to hunker down
And I really don’t know what that means
Can we hunker up instead, or maybe around
Or is it something naughty we do in our jeans?

And what exactly is that which we hunker -
A foot, a nose, a leg, a trouser seat
Is it something we do in a toilet or bunker
At home, at work, or in a busy street?

I don’t mean to sound even a little bit rude
But speaking of hunkering seems somewhat…crude

Handwashing Tips from the English Department (Miss Robinson in Newfoundland)

A Review of Hugh Lofting's VICTORY FOR THE SLAIN

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Review of Hugh Lofting’s Victory for the Slain

“Perhaps my very thinking’s out of step.”

-Hugh Lofting

This month is the 100th anniversary of Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Doolittle yarns, which I have never read. When it comes to talking animals I prefer Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny and the wonderfully selfish, grasping Uncle Scrooge.

However, there is much more to Mr. Lofting than conversing with rabbits and squirrels – after all, everyone does that.

Lofting was a civil engineer working in Africa, the West Indies, and Canada as a surveyor, prospector, and builder of railways, but lived most of his life in the USA. In 1916 Lofting returned to England to volunteer at the age of 30, and was wounded in France.

While in the Army he wrote letters to his children with little animal stories and pictures, not wanting to share the horrors of warfare. These letters were the beginning of Doctor Doolittle.

In 1942 Lofting wrote his one adult work, Victory for the Slain.

Recently I finished a first reading of Victory for the Slain, and then, immediately, read it a second time, 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 soul in the First World War, and in 1942 wrote this deeply-felt and deeply-thought poem as a rebuke to the keyboard commandos who in every generation are eager to sacrifice the lives of young men and women (not their own children, of course; their children are sent to serve our nation bravely at university) in wars, most of them undeclared.

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 often 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, certainly, 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.

Inexplicably, the cover is a mess. The design bridges the aesthetic gap between Hammer Studios and a Big Brother poster for 1984, made worse by incorporating that long-cliched ban-the-bomb thingie from the 1950s and made yet worse again with a greasy / finger-printie surface that is repulsive to the touch. The stiff boards are too much for the thin volume, which should have been bound in paper for ease of handling, and while coping with this reader-hostile thing I was repeatedly tempted to rip the boards off and burn them. As it is, I hope I can find a bindery to recover the book with something worthy of Mr. Lofting’s poem and the quality of Walmer’s paper and type; Victory for the Slain is brilliant.

-30-

A Wheel is a Wonderful Thing - via "legacy" - meaning it works - dashboard

A Wheel is a Wonderful Thing

A wheel is a wonderful thing: it goes

Around-around-around-around-around

Until it doesn’t. And then you are sad

Because your little wagon is tripedal now

And so you dismount the wheel and tire

And take them to Mr. Shannon at his shop

He repairs the tire with a brand new tube

And your father sighs, “A tube cost that much?”

A wheel is a wonderful thing: it goes

Around the world with your little wagon

And with you

Blogger.com, WHY have you MADE A MESS? The previous dashboard was clean, neat, user-friend, accessible, and professional. This one is NOT.

A Wheel is a Wonderful Thing; this botched new dashboard is not.

A Wheel is a Wonderful Thing

A wheel is a wonderful thing: it goes

Around-around-around-around-around

Until it doesn’t. And then you are sad

Because your little wagon is tripedal now

And so you dismount the wheel and tire

And take them to Mr. Shannon at his shop

He repairs the tire with a brand new tube

And your father sighs, “A tube cost that much?”

A wheel is a wonderful thing: it goes

Around the world with your little wagon

And with you

On the First Day of School, the Smell of...Disinfectant - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

On the First Day of School, the Smell of…Disinfectant

“Attention, comrades! This is disinfectant – use it.”

-Railway official in Doctor Zhivago

Cedar pencils, fresh packs of notebook paper
A new vinyl notebook with a shiny brass zipper
New shoes, new socks, new jeans, new everything
All with the scents of optimism, of hope

But this year all your friends fit into cubes
On the computer screen at your kitchen table
And you hope your stupid brother won’t dance
Across the room in his Captain Marvel underwear

But you can still take comfort in remembering
That Robin Hood remains free in Sherwood Forest

The Chainsaw Days of September - Poem and MePhone Photograph

The Chainsaw Days of September

As mandated by the recent hurricane

These are the chainsaw days, humid and hot

Wind-blasted shingles and wind-blasted trees

And clearing windfall in the gasping heat:

Litter to the burn-piles, firewood to the stacks

Even the bees seem tired, but the hummingbirds

Around the feeders form flittery clouds

As if they have suddenly received orders

For their long autumn flights to Mexico

But as for me, I work and sweat and stink

Pausing sometimes to watch the sky, and dream

(As Freud did not say, sometimes a chainsaw is just a chainsaw. Don’t grasp at metaphors that aren’t there; people will stare at you. And if you grasp at a chainsaw you will lose your hand. And then people will stare at you even more while taking MePhone pictures of you in your agony. They won't do anything for you, of course.)

Not Burning the Books That Aren't There - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Not Burning the Books That Aren’t There

In Eastern Europe the [Nazis] burned…375 archives,

402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries.

-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War, p. 13

In America books are neither burned
Nor banned - the State does not execute poets
Mostly because the mutual writers of grants
Move no one with their me-verse free-verse bleats

In America books are usually ignored
Robert Frost is a mystery to the president
James Baldwin means nothing to the DNC
And doesn’t Ernie Pyle play for the Jets?

Statues have been pulled down, each in its turn
As for the books – there aren’t many to burn

Destry Rides No More - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Destry Rides No More

The Long Branch Saloon became a Goodwill
And then a souvenir shop, before it burned
The Santa Fe Trail is a two-lane blacktop
Lined with peep shows, tattoo parlors, and KFC

Boot Hill features clean restrooms and a gift shop
Curly the Cowboy cooks at the Dairy Queen
And lives in a trailer next to the pueblo fence
He owns a complete set of Louis L’Amour
                           (In hand-tooled leather)

John Ford filmed the Duke riding into the sunset
Where the tribal president parks her 250 Ford

The Allegory of The Cave Bar & Grill - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Allegory of The Cave Bar & Grill

One wonders what Plato did with his cave
After he had no further use for it
As an instructional tool for undergrads
In Philosophy Intro. 101

Perhaps he repurposed it as a club
Along the campus drag, with puppet shows
To keep the English students entertained
As they exchanged Miltonian bon mots

And when Daddy’s credit card bounced (the corner
          booth)
The barman lectured on the nature of truth

A Week after the Hurricane: to Town for the Mail - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Week after the Hurricane:

To Town for the Mail

"That's bad. All our sympathy. Still, it's none of our business."

-Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, p. 227

I remembered my watch and pocketknife
But I had forgotten my duty mask
And so I scuttled into the post office lobby
Hoping that no one would see me bare of face

Our town is mostly plywood now, and weeds
There wasn’t much here before anyway
And now the plague-time and the hurricane
Have pulled the old brick walls into the streets

Plywood and weeds, blue tarps, MREs and showers
In shiny trailers outside the Baptist church

Post Office Trash Can and Priority Mail Tape - a metaphor?

The Poets are Remarkably Silent on the Subject of Portable Generators - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Poets are Remarkably Silent

on the Subject of Portable Generators

-as G. K. Chesterton did not say

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has nothing to add to the many Hurricane Laura narratives except gratitude:

1. To the Jasper-Newton Electric Co-Operative, who had the power up again within a very few days despite the multiple failures of large feeder lines and the many localized windfall line breakages.

2. To the Jasper-Newton Rural Water Co-Op, who through their professionalism and anticipation kept the water flowing.

3. To all the coppers and first responders and volunteers and charities and church groups who provided food and water and showers and support for the refugees and for those without resources during this bad time.

4. To the National Weather Service and to our local television and radio stations who gave us good, accurate, no-nonsense, timely information on the progress of the storm.

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has a criticism:

The well-paid, well-fed, loud-mouthed afternoon radio boys, who never pushed a verb against a noun without trying blow up something (Inherit the Wind) faulted the NWS and other weather services for creating unreasonable fear through hyperbole. Nonsense. And other words. The public and private weather services called it right. The storm was just as destructive as anticipated, only in a smaller area. As for survivability, in Louisiana they haven’t finished counting the corpses.

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has a wish:

I wish that a certain pompous jack-ass (am I permitted to say that?) who postures and pesters and prattles and pontificates for a corporate weather service that will remain nameless but not shameless, would, while standing in the wind and gassing off like a Dan Rather manque’ (and the original is tiresome enough), be hurled off his feet by the storm and sent skidding on his as(ininity) a block or two down the street. One wishes no real harm to him, of course, only a needed lesson in humility and professionalism.

As for your ‘umble scrivener, he bugged out to Midlothian (Dallas, not Scotland) with the extended family, including two dachshunds and two cats (and tooooooooo thrilling) for two comfortable nights at the Marriott, whose kind and patient staff are much to be praised.

One of the desk clerks is Leto, pronounced “Plato” only without the “P.” He is a juggler and entertainer, and one of the many Marriott staff who did so much for all of us.

Upon return I was happy to note that the new portable generator worked as advertised. No one was happy to note that the old window air-conditioner failed, and so we miseried through a couple of hot nights with only electric fans. But, hey, we had electric fans, and a lot of people in Jefferson County and in Louisiana southwestern parishes don’t have fans or electricity or water or any certainty about the future.

When on Sunday the preacher-man asks for a second collection for the displaced, give. GIVE. People are suffering.

Peace.

-30-

Dreams / Limit Three Per Customer, Please - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Dreams / Limit Three Per Customer, Please

For a Supermarket Worker

We passed in the market, next to the frozen foods
Shelves mostly empty; she was checking a list
I asked her how she was doing; she paused
Then wearily sighed, “I’m just living the dream”

We are all weary, evacuation-weary
Virus-weary, and hurricane-weary
Weary from the heat and damp and rot
Weary from the motions, weary from unpaid bills

Weary from the crises that wrecked many a plan -
And some were weary before all this began

The Juggler of Midlothian as Written in This Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Juggler of Midlothian

He steps away from Cicely, Alaska
He steps away from the reception desk
He steps into the center of the lobby
He steps up and sends into inner space

Tennis balls      Tennis balls                              Tennis balls
             Tennis balls

                                         Tennis balls

                    More tennis balls

TennisTennisTennisTennis balls

And calls them back into his hands again

His name is Leto, pronounced like Plato
Only without the P; his text is Dune
Frank Herbert’s Dune, and he is Leto
The Emperor, in exile for a time

The tennis balls evoke the worlds he dreams
And this one too – nothing is as it seems


(I’m a plodding Dostoyevsky man meself)


Note: Leto is a desk clerk at the Midlothian (Texas, not Scotland) Marriott, who welcomes early-rising exiles with merriment, wisdom, and orbiting tennis balls.

That's Not Where Sunscreen Goes - InterGossip Capture

Not-a-Haiku about Haiku - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Not-a-Haiku about Haiku

Only a Japanese master can shape happy words

To fall upon the earth like soft spring rain

Choreographing merry rivulets

Through which Ame-no-Usume dances the dawn

Only a Japanese master can take a leaf

As a page of the Emperor’s great book

And taste it, hear it, touch it, sing of it

And in it see the completion of the world

Only a Japanese master can wield

Kireji, On, and Kigo as a sword

(In this context “master” is gender-neutral)

United States Postal Service - Someone Has Peeked

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms! - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms!

(It’s a Navy thing)

If you think you’re too special to sweep the deck
Well, you’re not; get over yourself and turn to
But if someone hands you a broom and a ‘tude
That Irish pennant needs to get over himself

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation

“…and that the fury of the storms may pass away.”

-Missale Romanum, p. 1612

The temperature is 97

The hummingbird feeders must go up first

The humidity is 77

The feeder for the birds and squirrels is next

The temperature is 97

The outside cats are nowhere to be seen

The humidity is 77

But food and water are waiting for them too

The temperature is 97

The largest oak has lost much of itself

The humidity is 77

Red oak – more firewood for the winter

The temperature is 97

The electrical lines are down – how long?

The humidity is 77

But happiness - the house itself seems okay

The temperature is 97

Leaves shoal across the lawn and against the walls

The humidity is 77

Insulation from lost houses reef the fields

The temperature is 97

Debris, human and natural, debris

The humidity is 77

The world is covered with a litterfall

The temperature is 97

The generator coughs and barks and starts

The humidity is 77

We will sleep under electric fans tonight

The temperature is 97

Electric cords slither across the floors

The humidity is 77

The refrigerator takes turns with the coffee pot

The temperature is 97

The window unit that worked two weeks ago

The humidity is 77

Failed – everything is damp and hot and still

The temperature is 97

The damp and rot make sleep impossible

The humidity is 77

Dawn is but headaches, heat, dampness, and despair

The temperature is 97

Shifting fallen limbs from the driveway and lawn

The humidity is 77

And breathing heavily in the soggy heat

The temperature is 97

The road is blocked down at the other end

The humidity is 77

Strangers back up to my lane to turn around

The temperature is 97

We share information, rumors mostly

The humidity is 77

And wish each other well in this fallen time

The temperature is 97

The cats return, shyly, and one by one

The humidity is 77

From among green cover new to them

The temperature is 97

I sit in the shade and drink lots of water

The humidity is 77

And sweat and stink and try to catch my breath

The temperature is 97

An insolent hummingbird buzzes me

The Humidity is 77

He wears a green coat and a bright red tie

The temperature is 97

The bees are back at their freshwater pool

The humidity is 77

I poison the ants who are invading the house

The temperature is 97

Day after day, like The Ancient Mariner

The humidity is 77

Becalmed for days on a sunbeaten sea

But then: today, to everyone’s great joy

The electrics were restored by the rural co-op

And I stopped cleaning up the yard and house

To kill the generator and roll up cords

And to write to you to say that all is well
At our little house

Because we have houses to live in, you and I,

And lots of people don’t, and that’s easy to forget

At the foot of the thermostat

Peace especially for the homeless and for exiles
And for you too

The Juggler of Midlothian (Midlothian Marriot Courtyard, Desk Clerk Leto)

An enjoyable stay while in exile from Hurricane Laura. All the staff at the Midlothian Marriott Courtyard are very friendly and helpful. I was up at dawn for that first cup of coffee and met Leto, one of the many nice folks who work in this hotel.

"Now Tell Me Again the Things We're Against" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Now Tell Me Again the Things We’re Against”

She told us that she had truly been saved
Her new life of freedom had now 
          commenced
Then she turned to a co-religionist and 
          raved
“Oh, tell me again about the things we’re
          against!”

"Make Sure all Your Devices are Fully Charged" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Make Sure All Your Devices 
are Fully charged”

Nothing about a storm respects our trifles:
A flashlight is no good against the rain
A MePhone cannot block a falling tree
A watch cannot divert wild thunderbolts

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

A wireless doorbell cannot stop the wind
A radio cannot swim to save its life
A tablet cannot operate a boat
A laptop is quite unable to float

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

That’s thin advice when facing the eternal:
Nothing about a storm respects our lives

What Toppings Would You Like on Your Hurricane Cone? - poem for 23 August 2020

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

What Toppings Would You Like 
on Your Hurricane Cone?

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Two cones? I’d rather just one. Vanilla
And Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence was 
          fun
I had to sort out conic sections in math
But cones like that are lacking in good 
          taste

And now two cones are moving up the 
          coast
Maybe tomorrow they’ll move back down 
          again
While we stack toilet paper and MREs
Perhaps the ice cream truck’s an ice cream 
          float

No one knows if the cones are there or 
          here –
That’s pretty much a metaphor for this 
          year

John Milton Title Page, MePhone Photograph

Of your kindness please pray for the repose of 

Professor Huston Diehl

of happy, happy memory -

A true scholar and a wonderful teacher