Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Old Sears Store
Remains Unsold
The big Sears store was a happy place
But now it’s only an empty space
Friday, December 3, 2021
The Old Sears Store Remains Unsold - rhyming couplet
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Children and Machine Gun Dreams - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
By word and example…parents lead their children to authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift of self, and they cultivate in them respect for others, a sense of justice, cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity, and all the other values which help people to live life as a gift.
-St. John Paul
the Great, Evangelium Vitae
Do we sing to our
children machine gun dreams
Instead of sugar
plums? Little sleepyheads
Now tucked away
into their little beds
In matching
camouflage blankies and sheets
Do children code
messages to Santa asking him
For Barbie’s Bunker
all accessorized
With guns and
knives properly pint-sized
And Super Sniper
Skipper and Recon Ken?
Do children hide
bayonets beneath their coats
And measure the distance
to their classmates’ throats?
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
All Power to the People's Soviet of Gadgetry - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
All Power to the People’s
Soviet of Gadgetry
1.
The servile arts teach us to plan
Wars for sending our children to die
Barbed wire for penning our fellow man
Computers to sneak and snoop and spy
2.
The liberal arts teach us to ask
Why?
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Las Vegas, Geographically Speaking - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Las Vegas, Geographically
Speaking
Upon watching the 1960 Ocean’s Eleven
That oasis of Cool no longer exists
Except as road markers and artifacts
All else is gone: cigarette girls, ashtrays
Rotary telephones, Ford Galaxies
The glamour of cocktail dresses and tailored suits
Xanadu with electric lights and Scotch
Heliopolis with showgirls and cards
So Cool that no one ever called it Cool
And like those fragments of Ozymandias
All of that Cool is lost among the sands
Monday, November 29, 2021
A Man and His Dog at Sunday Mass - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Man and His Dog
at Sunday Mass
And
in what landscape of disaster
Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?
-Thomas Merton, “For my Brother - Missing in Action
1943”
His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan
With an air-conditioner duct-taped in back
And his old dog next to him in the seat
At Mass he sits in back with his good old dog
His clothes are warm, he gets enough to eat
And, sure, a man and dog who approach their God
Together are good and faithful servants indeed
His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan
And there is a dog
Sunday, November 28, 2021
We'll Trade You One Stealth Fighter for a Billion Vaccine Jabs - weekly column, 11,28.2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We’ll Trade You
One Stealth Fighter for a Billion Vaccine Jabs
A number of sources, including the Guardian (A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are
hoarding vaccines | Gordon Brown | The Guardian) are blaming the new
Covid variants on “rich countries” (that invariably means you and me) for
hoarding vaccines.
Poor countries, you see, can’t get any vaccines because Canada,
the U.S., the U.K., and France are keeping them all, rather like Gollum clutching
that ring while chanting, “My precious! My precious!”
I suppose I’d better dig up those sealed barrels of
vaccines I buried in my back yard and turn them over to Medicins sans
Frontieres (who also blame us) with an abject apology.
And you, good friends, need to check your closets and
cupboards for all those bottles of vaccines you’ve stockpiled next to pallets
of toilet paper, bottled water, and the complete collection of Wheel of
Fortune: The Lost Episodes. Gather all those vaccines and turn them
over to the INTERPOL officers who will land at the nearest intersection in
unmarked UN helicopters.
You can tell they’re UN helicopters because they’re
unmarked.
In truth, I aver that I might be the only man in America
who admits he doesn’t know doodlysquat about the coronavirus. I know only this: I have occasion to sit in
the same room with nurse practitioners, nurses, physicians, and physicians’
assistants, all of whom attended real medical schools, not The University of Google,
not The University of Gossip, and not The University of Some Loudmouth on
Television. I listen to what the nurse practitioners, nurses, physicians, and
physicians’ assistants who are in the room with me tell me about all sorts of
medical topics affecting my brief life on this earth, and I do what they recommend.
They know medicine. I know them. I trust them. As Martin Luther (otherwise not
one of my favorite people) said, “Here I stand; I can do no other.”
The only other medical thing I know is that the full-body
scanner that beamed across me last summer in a room that looked like the bridge
of the starship Enterprise had all sorts of pretty little lights on it
and made soft, susurrant, soporific sounds that almost put me to sleep.
Oh, and I can operate a Band-Aid.
But that’s it.
Given my trust in professionals with whom I can speak
face-to-face rather than screen-to-screen, I tend not to believe the metaphorical
medical mudslides on the InterGossip. The idea that a gang of Snidely
Whiplashes in Washington, Ottawa, London, and Paris are withholding vaccines
from poor nations who don’t seem to be so poor that they can’t afford the
latest weaponry appears to be just another variant on blaming others for one’s
own failings.
Pharmaceuticals are developed and manufactured by
companies interested in their profits. They want to sell drugs, not lock them
away in a variant (so to speak) of Uncle Scrooge’s money vault. The leaders of
companies and countries are not always the most ethical, but it is not in their
interests, whether in profits or philanthropy, to withhold vaccines from other
nations.
Beyond that, those nations who focus on accumulating
weapons and Swiss bank accounts could probably vaccinate all their peoples
against all sorts of diseases by foregoing a single new jet fighter.
But then, prudent budgeting should obtain here too: how
many luxury aircraft and armored limousines does ONE president need?
-30-
The Taste of Covid - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Taste of Covid
“Never give in…”
-Mr. Churchill, 29 October 1941
Coffee is metallic, as is my morning toast
Most everything else is vague, fuzzy, and flat
As if the world needed a pinch of salt
And that’s okay; it’s good to be alive
They say that there’s another variant or wave
Named Mu or Omicron or maybe Bob
Slithering ashore through Grendelian mists
We take our jabs in defiance because
We all have casualty lists of friends we miss
That’s not okay, and so we will never give in
(Still, I don’t know why
the coffee should be metallic)
Saturday, November 27, 2021
Advent - a Gift of Becoming - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Advent – a Gift of Becoming
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new”
-“The Coming of Arthur” and “The Passing of Arthur” in Idylls of the King
There is much to be said for Ordinary Time
Its very ordinariness is kind to us
The daily hours that end with the Vespers chime
Free of formation and pageantry
But Advent comes as part of the dance
Of seasons wheeling through the universe
And we must shift our thoughts back into time
In anticipation of the Nativity
In solitary splendor a wonderful Star
Gives us light for our pilgrimage renewed
Friday, November 26, 2021
Trytophan Dreams after Thanksgiving Dinner - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Tryptophan Dreams
after Thanksgiving Dinner
(channeling our inner Dorothy Parker)
Sleepy now, from excess of meat and cup
But unlike the poor turkey, we will wake up!
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Autumn is Life Writing its Autobiography - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Autumn is Life
Writing its Autobiography
Autumn is not the end of summer, nor yet
Is autumn the beginning of winter; it is
Itself. Autumn is not between anything
Autumn is the culmination of seasons
The seed that slept beneath winter’s cold death
Arose in spring, a resurrection of itself
And grew its summer strength through work and sweat
And in September finished, and mopped its brow
Surveying all its cosmography
Autumn is life writing its biography
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Face Masks and Hippie Hymns - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Face Masks and
Hippie Hymns
At Mass I breathe behind and through a mask
My custom still, one of the paper-faced few
Although one might with some good reason ask
If it serves much purpose in a crowded pew
Each humid exhalation clouds the lens
Of my eyeglasses so I can’t even read
But I’m sure I know how each lesson ends
Needless to say I’ve memorized the Creed
And to mask those sandwich hymns:
I make hidden faces when the soloist croons
Another of those awful hippie tunes
(Has anyone told the music
director that the 1960’s are over?)
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Book Reviewers Promote Freedom by Giving Orders - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Book Reviewers Promote
Freedom by Giving Orders
“Obey me and be free!”
-Number Six in the Free for All episode of The
Prisoner
The irony of the imperative in most reviews
Is to make a command that the reader must heed
Keeping in chains the literary muse:
You must read this must-read which you need to read
(now back to weaving
tapestries of this and that)
Monday, November 22, 2021
The Number of the Beast is .556 - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Number of the
Beast is .556
“This is my rifle. There are many like it”
Because they fall off assembly lines everywhere
Probably even in the Khyber Pass
And frankly, son, you don’t need the damned thing
A rifle is not your friend; it is a mechanical thing
A rifle is an engine of destruction
It is made for killing your fellow humans
The last one alive wins madness and guilt
You never made the first day of boot camp
(neither
did John Wayne)
You need to know what John Wayne never knew:
A .556 disintegrates a child
A .556 vaporizes your soul
A variant:
The Number of the
Beast is .556
“This is my rifle. There are many like it”
Because they fall off assembly lines everywhere
Probably even in the Khyber Pass
And frankly, son, you don’t need the damned thing
A rifle is not your friend; it is a mechanical thing
A rifle is an engine of destruction
It is made for killing your fellow humans
The last one alive wins madness and guilt
You never made the first day of boot camp
(neither
did John Wayne)
You need to know what John Wayne never knew:
A .556 disintegrates a child
A .556 vaporizes your soul
If you
finish recruit training and A.I.T.
And
have your orders in hand
then I’ll listen
But
if you come back
you’ll not want to talk
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Giving Thanks for all Our Thanksgiving - weekly column, 21 November 2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Giving Thanks for
all Our Thanksgivings
For a child Thanksgiving is sort of like Christmas only
without any toys. It’s interesting enough: lots of relatives come to dinner,
and there’s turkey and “the good china,” but without Santa Claus and toys it’s
not that big a thing.
Thanksgiving is also probably not a big thing among the
First Nations.
The absence of toys and their distraction makes Thanksgiving
a time when a child can more easily focus on the behavior of the adults in his (the
pronoun is gender-neutral) life.
For one, there is always an uncle, sometimes a
grandfather, who is convinced that everyone at the table is eager to hear about
his latest symptoms and diagnoses.
Another helping of irritable bowel syndrome, anyone?
And there comes a Thanksgiving when the child realizes
with a shock that some of the adults he has loved all his life don’t really
like each other, or that an aunt or uncle who was here last year is “visiting
friends” this year, and that topic is not mentioned further.
A painful moment is the remembrance of a beloved MeeMaw
or PawPaw who was laughing and joking around the table last year and is now in
Heaven with Jesus. And, yes, we spare a moment for happy memories and an
awareness of the transitoriness of life.
The matter of the children’s table is awkward. A little
kid loves it – it’s a rare occasion when the children sit together as a peer
group with somewhat less adult supervision than usual. An occasional crepe-y
arm hands across more turkey or rolls, and that’s close enough.
At the age of twelve or so a kid perceives that the
children’s table now reflects a lower social status. A girl cousin of the same
age gets to sit at the adult table and the boy is stuck with the rug-rats and
an admonition to “watch” them.
Humiliation.
After the dessert, when the adults are enjoying their
coffee and the heart-valve replacement stories arc through the air in one
direction while the hip-transplant narratives are flying the other way, the
young ‘uns can escape outside (“Don’t forget your coats!”). The little ones
fling leaves and little plastic balls around, and the older ones share school stories
and, perhaps, confess an attraction to a cute girl or guy in the sophomore
class.
Once upon a time a child would never have left the table
without asking the appropriate parent or grandparent for permission to do so.
The last time this occurred was in Gatineau, Canada in 2005. The occasion was
read into Hansard at the next Parliament.
And again, once upon a time a child would never have
rejected the turkey, ham, several kinds of dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed
potatoes, new potatoes, rolls, biscuits, pecan pie, apple pie, and other
wonderful gifts of food prepared by loving hands with a plaintive cry of, “Can
we go to town for pizza?”
Nor would an adult have asked about vegan options.
Such would have been dismissed as ungrateful by those who
grew up hungry during the Depression and the Second World War.
But that generation is mostly gone now, and with them the
core of that post-war world of industry, optimism, thrift, progress, a new
openness among peoples, and wonderful hopes for the future.
For them, simply to have survived and now at last to have
work and enough food to eat would have been among their many reasons for giving
thanks.
We do well to remember that, and to give thanks for them.
May your Thanksgiving be a happy one!
-30-
An Empty Cross - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Empty Cross
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
Fragments of bone and flesh forever stain
The spikes, the wood, the cross, the bloody cross
Is not a cute designer collectable
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
His crucifixion takes away our sins
But the bloodstains remind us
It was our sins that drove the spikes into Him
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
There won’t be, not until the last day of all
Saturday, November 20, 2021
Renegades - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Renegades
They sell themselves as precious Renegades
Two ossified establishment millionaires
As desperately cool as Nehru jackets
But don’t you fail to mind their copyrights
Renegades
Trademarks, podcasts, deluxe signed editions
They’re, like, authentic ‘n’ stuff, for a price
In carefully edited openness
They feel your pain and your credit card
Renegades
They wear suit coats with their collars open
How awesomely workin’ class hip is that!
Renegades
Friday, November 19, 2021
Thanksgiving Dinner at the Children's Table - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thanksgiving Dinner
at the Children’s Table
Thanksgiving is Christmas without any toys
And you get stuck at the children’s table
For more years than is strictly necessary
Because some extra old people show up
The uncle who has a diagnosis story
For every course, including the pies and cakes
Another helping of irritable bowel syndrome?
And the auntie who tries to hush him up
The cute second cousin you never met before
She’s your age but gets to sit at the Big Table
(And after her first glance she never looks
at
you again)
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Thanksgiving Essentials are out of Stock - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thanksgiving Essentials are out of Stock
-Thus saith
the news
A house, a book,
a dog, a good warm coat
A job, a ride, a
friend, someone to love
A dream, a hope,
a plan, coffee with you
A family around
the table, something to eat
And gratitude - all
the essentials are in stock
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Upon Reading Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Upon Reading
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita
Margarita flying naked over Moscow
She might have caught a cold doing that, you know
A big ol’ cat shooting a Browning Hi-Power
He was certainly amusing for an hour
The Secret Police were like the Keystone Kops
Not to be trusted even with traffic stops
And Pontius Pilate ordering a death
Almost with every other tortured breath
There were two burnings of the Master’s book
But yet at the end someone gave it look
The Master’s book…hmmmm…
I have finished this book; I thoughtfully read it
And I must confess that I just don’t get it
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Ten Knots along a Cord - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Ten Knots along a
Cord
A
trewe swinkere and a good was he,
Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee
-Chaucer’s Prologue
See the plowman walking home from the fields
He plods along with the pace of centuries
There is no haste, for time hardly exists
Only the seasons, rolling like cosmic tides
And in his hand, ten knots along a cord
To count each Ave as it passes his lips
And through his heart and hopes and gratitude
His soul secure along the links of being
See the plowman dreaming home from the fields
His feet upon the earth, his head among the stars
Monday, November 15, 2021
It's Not Really an Assault Rifle 'Cause It's only Semi-Automatic - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
It’s Not Really an
Assault Rifle ‘Cause It’s only Semi-Automatic
Once upon a time there was a stupid boy
He was seventeen. Someone gave him a gun
His mumsy drove him to another state
So he could hunt other people with his gun
See the boy hunt. Hunt, hunt, hunt
And he did. Be very quiet. He’s hunting Commies
But bullies wanted to take away his gun
And the boy was sad. So he shot the meanies
Bang, bang, bang. Take that, you rascally Liberals
Empowered, empowered, empowered
He had to go to court. He began to cry
Because they took away his big bang-bang
And his mumsy cried.
But the
dead can’t cry
Smith & Wesson™ – Empowering Americans since 1852©
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Wood Stoves and Thinking About Stuff - weekly column, 14 November 2021
Lawrence Hall
Wood Stoves and Thinking
About Stuff
Every winter our old cast-iron wood heater was useful
both as a source of heat and of conversation. During the long freeze of last
winter, after we missed our flight to Cancun, the wood-burner was a necessity.
After the worst of the cold passed the good old Birmingham heater, after some
sixty years of service to several families, failed. A leg (the stove’s leg, not
mine) crumbled, which led to a cascade effect, more pieces of iron falling to
the brick base.
I bought a new stove, a small one I could afford, and friends
Gary and Mickey worked a few hours heaving the old one out and the new one in.
The most interesting part was fitting the stove pipe. Anyone who works with
sheet metal and can keep his language clean is a champion.
The guys dollied the old heater to a concrete slab out
back to replace the cheap chimenea that lasted something less than sixty years.
Later I installed a remaining stove pipe segment to the
Birmingham to help the draft and to keep more of the smoke up and away while
sitting outside. Joining this one section to the heater required precision
adjustments and careful fitting, which I skillfully and methodically
accomplished by beating the (snot) out of it with a fence post.
There was no one around to hear me speak…plainly…to it.
Friend Jake at American Firewood advised me where I could
find a small grate, and on a cold evening I lit the new stove’s first fire in
accordance with the instruction. The coating needs three different burnings for
bonding with the iron, and I’m following that carefully. I also checked the
fittings for smoke-leaks, and all is well. The new heater features a tight
glass door and a clever new way of fluing the air, which results in a very
efficient small fire that lasts for hours and whose heat lasts even longer.
Nice.
Birmingham Stove and Range Company was in business from
1902 until 1903, and made lots of different cook stoves, wood heaters, and
cast-iron cookware. One source (Birmingham Stove Company - Easy Access To Information
Company (ninan.org)) says they invented the corn-shaped cornbread skillet.
Birmingham Stove and Range did not have the cachet of, say, Vermont Castings™,
but their products were less expensive and so more common in homes and railway
stations and businesses all over America.
A properly installed wood heater is a good thing. It
provides auxiliary heat and, in case of a power failure, it would make your
house safely warm. You really do need to know something about the different
kinds of wood and how they are dried and stored, and basic physics for lighting
a fire safely. Beyond that, a wood heater does not require programming, cannot
be hacked, and does not send you annoying messages about new software.
A wood heater smells of wood, one nature’s many types of
incense, and the flames give you a center for thinking about stuff while
sitting before it with a cup of coffee as the early winter night falls.
-30-
Okay, So It's the End of the World - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Okay, So It’s the
End of the World
“What
do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?”
“There
is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter.”
-P. G. Wodehouse
Okay, so what if this is the end of our world
Windblown sands where Ozymandias once ruled
Or dying like Charn in The Magician’s Nephew
Pale and sere under a fading red sun
Let us not meet it pajama’d on a couch
Videogaming upon a telescreen
And suddenly marveling that the power has failed
As a moving hand writes across the skies
If the world is going to end today
Let us dress properly for the occasion
Saturday, November 13, 2021
DeafCon 1 - nonsense
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
DeafCon 1
She said existential
I thought she said transcendental
She said she didn’t like her dentist anyway
Friday, November 12, 2021
An Executioner Feels Bad - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Executioner
Feels Bad
One of the state’s executioners
Is feeling bad about what he does
He’s speaking out about PTSD
Sleeplessness and thoughts of suicide
Speaking out
Lethal drugs, poison gas, maybe firing squads
Hands as skillful as those of an abortionist
“None of us wanted to do it,” he says
But he does it. A ticket to promotion
Don’t do drugs, kids
The chief executioner gets to be a Commander
He doesn’t tell his children about his work
It’s for the children
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-year-olds - poem for Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day, first published in 2012 in THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Afghanistan,
Graveyard of
19-Year-Olds
Ghosts shriek in the wind from the Hindu Kush
Falling upon the lowlands in despair
Of any reality beyond death
In the blood-sodden sands where sinks all good
Walls, monuments, souls, hopes – all blow away
In the wreckage of long-fallen empires
Their detritus trod upon by tired men
Whose graves will be the howling dust of time
And yet the empire masters will return
And leave fresh offerings, remnants of the young:
A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,
A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull
2012, The Road to Magdalena
Maslow's Hierarchy of Nerds - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Nerds
Okay, I’m the nerd, not part of the hierarchy
But you are core of my hierarchy of needs
Where do I place you on the pyramid?
But I don’t place you at all – you are
You are a hierarchy of, well, you:
‘Way up around self-actualization
And definitely among belonging and love
And the base, and the peak, and the center -
You are my hierarchy of truth
You are my pyramid of love
Tuesday, November 9, 2021
I Dry My Armpits for No Man - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I Dry My Armpits
for No Man
They gather in their thousands, the obedient, the passive
To stand submissively before their master
And wave their arms in orgasmic submission
To leather and braids and electronic erections
They gather in their thousands, the obedient, the passive
Marked with the Sign of the Capitalist Credit Card
Eager to buy their overlord’s livery
To yield themselves to his contempt for them
They gather in their thousands, the obedient, the passive
-
And cease to be
Monday, November 8, 2021
Boat! - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Boat!
“The fares are fixed, sir.”
-Boatman to St. Thomas More in A Man for All
Seasons
If I don’t give the Boatman Charon a tip
Do I get out of going on that final trip?
Oh, Yeah, Kids These Days - weekly column 11.7.2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Oh, Yeah, Kids
These Days
We can be reasonably sure that in 1939 parents in Canada
and England and the rest of the Empire and the Dominions dismissed their
teenaged children as lazy good-for-nothings without values or ambition. Kids
these days, eh?
Similarly, we can be reasonably sure that in 1941
American parents wrote off their young’uns with much the same words. Kids these
days, eh?
And that’s okay; those who survived the war dismissed
their own children as idlers and slackers (which in my case was accurate). Kids
these days, eh?
Last week a couple of sixteen-year-olds in Iowa were
arrested for murdering a middle-aged woman, and the reactions on the InterGossip
were both immediate and predictable, variations on the old “kids these days,
eh?”
First of all, the thoughtful citizen will bear in mind
the wisdom and logic in the Constitution – the two boys have been arrested, but
an arrest is only a formal accusation, not a conviction. By the Grace of God,
the InterGossip is not God, nor is it a court; it is mostly a bunch of grouchy
old people yammering.
And second, even if these two boys committed the murder,
they define nothing but their own errant behavior. They definitely do not define
a generation because, Tom Brokaw notwithstanding, a generation cannot be
defined. It can be stereotyped, but not defined. As Margaret More asks in A Man for All
Seasons, “What’s the man?” And we can add, “What’s the woman?”
Let us consider thirteen young Americans who are far more
representative of the rising generation, thirteen young Americans who were
killed last summer while serving humanity in helping refugees escape from
Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
We have all seen the photograph of Marine Corps Sergeant
Nicole Gee cradling an infant amid the chaos at the airport in Kabul when
everything fell apart. The picture is
not a government propaganda photograph; if it were it would be of better
quality. This is just a snapshot one of her fellow Marines forwarded to
her. She sent it by email to her parents
with the words, “I love my job!”
“I love my job.”
Those may have been the last words this United States
Marine - with her hair tied back in a ponytail - said to her mom and dad.
She was only 23. Some of her fellow Marines were only 20.
Kids these days, eh?
They might have been on the same bus route with our kids.
On the 26th of August Sergeant Gee and the
others who were killed with her almost surely did not think of themselves as
great Americans; they were too busy BEING great Americans. They would
have thought of themselves as only doing their jobs in the heat and dust and violence
of Afghanistan, helping civilians escape being murdered by the Taliban.
That’s what almost all young people would do. No one
should dismiss any generation with cheap and shabby stereotypes. Your teenager and
the goofy kid next door and the pimply oaf who can’t get your hamburger order
right would risk their lives – and someday may well have to do so - to carry a
baby amid the screams and terror and dust and heat to safety and then return to
the perimeter for another child or young mother or old man or anyone who needed
their help.
That’s what these thirteen young people did.
The oldest by far was Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T.
Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City, Utah. 31
might seem old, but, yeah, he was young.
Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo, another woman
Marine, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts
Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento,
California
Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California
Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska
Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport,
Indiana
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio
Bravo, Texas
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St.
Charles, Missouri
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson,
Wyoming
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho
Cucamonga, California
Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco,
California
Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights,
Ohio
Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton,
Tennessee.
Now there is a generation. They were killed in a
scene of horror by a mad bomber who chose hate instead of love. His hate killed
those 13 young Americans and wounded some 30 others who were saving lives,
and killed and wounded possibly 200 or more Afghans.
One unhappy young man chose hate. That poor (wretch) doesn’t define (poop).
But our young people chose love, the love Jesus spoke of
when he said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends.”
And these young Americans gave up their lives for people
they didn’t even know.
No greater love indeed.
We have spoken of these 13, but let us remember this:
every young American in Kabul that day was saving lives – they were helping terrified
people get to the airplanes, helping them to safety.
That is also the story of just about every American
soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or Coast Guard who ever served.
We absurd old people were once young – maybe when
dinosaurs roamed the earth – and we know that every veteran and almost every
American at some time has given up some of his own poor rations to help feed
children, given up some of his time and sleep and effort in helping those who are
hungry or displaced.
But that’s every generation’s story, to serve humanity.
The exceptions are irrelevant. Dang it, we’re good, and we don’t allow idiots
to define us.
In some way, in some place, in some time – as a soldier,
a police officer, a volunteer firefighter, a paramedic, or as a good American
civilian who stands tall when needed and helps the community in some way, all
of us serve humanity. We may not be called to carry a child to safety from
Kabul Airport or from a wrecked car or from a burning building, but we will
surely be called to help feed children or teach children in Sunday School or
kick in a little something for the Kirbyville Christian Outreach food pantry or
help out with the elementary school’s reading program.
There’s an old Army National Guard recruiting slogan that
says:
It wasn’t always easy
It wasn’t always fair
But when freedom called we answered
We were there
That’s who you are, and that’s who the kids are. Don’t
dismiss them. Don't stereotype them.
Don't underestimate them.
-30-
Sunday, November 7, 2021
Pontius Pilate and His Dog - poem
Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Pontius Pilate and His Dog
When a
man’s worked all day in signing off
On
having any number of his fellow men
Imprisoned,
flogged, branded, imprisoned, or chained
He’s
happy to come home to his good ol’ dog
The
master whistles, his happy dog barks
Man
and beast in happy concord meet
Playfully
tussling in their mutual love
While
the servants cringe and cower in fear
What
difference if a man executes his brother
As
long as he and his dog have each other?
The curious idea of Pontius Pilate having a dog to love is in
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, p. 311 in the Penguin edition. The
paragraph is almost as touching as Senator Vest’s courtroom speech, “Tribute to
the Dog.”
Saturday, November 6, 2021
WHITE BREAD! I NEED SOME WHITE BREAD OVER HERE! - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
WHITE BREAD! I
NEED SOME WHITE BREAD OVER HERE!
Pancake House on Crack Street II
With a Chorus of One Cook in Need of Some White Bread
A cold and dreary morning along Easy Street
The comforts of coffee and cholesterol
The senior special two fresh eggs your way
Farm fresh bacon or sausages your way
I NEED SOME WHITE BREAD OVER HERE! WHITE BREAD!
Down-home hash brown potatoes your way
Whole wheat toast with farm fresh butter your way
Fresh brewed Colombian coffee your way
“I’ll be with you in a minute, honey, okay?”
OVER HERE! I NEED SOME WHITE BREAD OVER HERE!
There aren’t any newspapers anymore
“In a minute!” So I studied my MePhone
WHITE BREAD! I NEED SOME WHITE BREAD OVER HERE!
I don’t think the cook was yelling about me
I don’t know, of course
The beggar at the door shivered quietly
Friday, November 5, 2021
Highway 96 - Dead Dogs and Shredded Tires - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Highway 96 – Dead
Dogs and Shredded Tires
U.S. 96 is paved from north Texas to the Gulf
With fragments of dead dogs and re-capped tires
We love to let our doggies run wild and free
And save ourselves some money with unsafe tires
“That’s a big 10-4, good buddy!”
U. S. 96 is paved with articles of faith
For in spite of all the evidence we believe
WE BELIEVE! CAN I HAVE AN “AMEN!”
That a paint stripe will keep cars from hitting each
other
“I’m gonna take me a selfie!”
Corpses of rotting dogs and shredded tires -
But the dead humans are scraped up and hauled away
“Can you hear me now?”
Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Guilted to the Cemetery Next to the Sewage Plant - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Guilted to the
Cemetery Next to the Sewage Plant
The dead with charity enclosed in clay
-Henry V IV.viii.121
I did not want to go to the cemetery today
And do things with Hobby Lobby flowers
Made in China plastic $8.95
And floral foam in chemical green blocks
The streets of my youth are rubble and weeds
The woods of my youth are now trailer parks
The church of my youth is a hollerin’ place
For even they have lost all dignity
The soft wind sighs over our people’s graves
The stench from the sewage plant sweeps in waves
Election Day in Texas: Proposition 3 - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Election Day in
Texas: Proposition 3
Pastor’s gotta have his collection coming in
No matter how many of the faithful must die
Vaccination-free for Jesus and America
It’s God’s will (so no one cares when the orphans cry)
Tuesday, November 2, 2021
Putting All the Hearts Back Together - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Putting All the Hearts
Back Together
A child who takes a clock apart to see
Just how it works can easily be forgiven
Someone who takes a heart apart to see
Just how that works is justly unforgiven
Monday, November 1, 2021
The Culture Wars We've Been Hearing About - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Culture Wars
We’ve Been Hearing About
Corporal Keats flung himself into the trench
“It’s no good,” he gasped, lighting a cigarette
“The Free Versifiers have ta’en our outposts
We spiked our sonnets but our blank verse is lost”
“And there’s an end on’t,” cried Corporal Johnson
“You will hear thunder,” sighed Corporal Ahkmatova
“Maybe we took the wrong road,” said Corporal Frost
“Where is Yevtushenkko?” asked Corporal Tsvetaeva
“Back in Moscow, awarding himself the George Cross
And promoting himself to field marshal”
Sunday, October 31, 2021
Human Intelligence, Human Ethics (not the catchiest of titles, eh?) - weekly column 31 October 2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Human Intelligence,
Human Ethics
From a long-ago Christmas I still have a trio of Radio
Shack instruments in an attractive 1980s plastic case: a battery-powered clock,
a thermometer, and a hygrometer. A barometer would have been a good fourth, but
I already had one.
The Radio Shack gizmos are so old that they were made in a
free nation, Taiwan. My metal and glass barometer is an antique: it was made in
the U.S.A.
Such things have been around for hundreds of years, and
no well-appointed home or office was without them. With them a thoughtful
individual, keeping a record and working out calculations with a pencil and a calendar
from the funeral home or the feed store, could reach reasonable conclusions in
anticipating weather conditions for the next few days. In determining weather
conditions for agriculture, construction, railways, road conditions, hunting, and
other purposes these simple machines and the complex human brain were essential
For years radio and television meteorologists still employed
such devices as well as on-the-ground observations sent to them via radio or
telephone. Now, whenever the electronic hijackers permit, weather casters have
access to all this information and more via computers.
But the electronics are unreliable.
When you look at the thermometer on your porch you are
reading the numbers on that thermometer, not a message telling you what the
numbers are said to be on some other thermometer in the area. Your thermometer
might or might not in itself be reliable, and it might or might not be
positioned properly, but it is in your line of sight.
If the weather services are hacked, if the power fails,
if that far-away thermometer is down, you can still observe your thermometer.
The same obtains with your mechanical clock, your hygrometer,
and your barometer. There are no third parties between you and them – no computers,
no satellite signals, no radio waves, no electrical lines, no hackers.
Most of us, including your ‘umble scrivener, access
weather information via the television, radio, the Orwellian telescreen that
looks like a small version of the mysterious slab in 2001: A Space Odyssey,
and, increasingly, our nifty little Dick Tracy watches.
The problem is that we access weather reports and other
sorts of information only with the permission of people who don’t like us.
I type this on a little machine bearing a fine old
American name but which was made in a slave-labor camp. So was my clever
fruit-named watch, my desk lamp, the glowing electronic components which send
and receive all the household messages, the de-humidifier glowing prettily in a
corner of the room, and most everything else of recent vintage.
Chairman Xi, the Big Rocket Man, can shut it down in an
instant. So can a sixteen-year-old.
Chanting “Back. To. Basics.” is as reactionary a ballcap
slogan as “Learn. To. Code.” but between those two rigid positions there is a
logical alternative: learn and practice the basics (no one ever hacked a steam
locomotive, a slide rule, or a tube radio) and extend them into the limitless
possibilities of research and development IN THIS COUNTRY.
Until we make that happen, we are a third-world country
dependent on the whims of other nations. And that sixteen-year-old.
-30-
Visiting a Friend in his Hospital Room - poem
Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Visiting a Friend in his Hospital
Room
For Tod
So
there you were with a tube in your arm
And a
crossword puzzle and pen in your hands
And a lovely
view of a sunlit roof
With
windblown debris whipping between the vents
An
assembly of physicians in conclave met
At the
foot of your bed to discuss your future
One of
them but a face on a telescreen -
One
thinks of The Head in That Hideous Strength
I
think of you comfortably back home tonight
An
ikon (and a brandy) on the table beside you
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