Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Non-Profit, NGO, and a Yo-Ho-Ho

The status of my bank account tells me

That I too am a non-profit organization

Friday, July 15, 2022

The Secret Service Says: Our Computers Ate Our Homework - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Secret Service Says: Our Computers Ate Our Homework

Grown women in Colombia, little girls back home

Beating up a woman in a Jerusalem bar

Drunk and disorderly wherever they roam

(Say, Mr. Pence, just step into our car…)

A funny thing, those messages gone missing

And wanting to take the VP - for a ride?

Maybe it was Dear Leader’s *** they were kissing

So what has our SS got to hide?

So, yes, we’re all a little bit nervous

About the weirdos and drunks in our Secret Service

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Kleenex Goes in the Top, Right-Hand Drawer - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Kleenex Goes in the Top, Right-Hand Drawer

They don’t talk about Kleenex in teacher-prep

But it is an essential for adolescent tears

The hissings of mean girls, heartbreak, mis-matched socks

The deaths of schoolmates

Kleenex goes in the top, right-hand drawer

Immediately to hand when the world goes wrong

Rejections, failing a test, no date from the prom

The deaths of schoolmates

Kleenex goes in the top, right-hand drawer

Sometimes it’s all you have

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

When Caesurae Go Bad - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

When Caesurae Go Bad

The dramatic pause-dash that - holds its breath

Is meant to create a – sense of tension

For dramatic effect; that’s what they - say

John Wayne uses the - caesura a lot

But since neither writers – nor editors – know

How to employ the worthy – caesura

They just - shoehorn it in any old place

Dramatic effect even in a - recipe

Stop using those dashes for pointless pauses

And save them for really important - causes

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Patient Intake: Mis'ries - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Patient Intake: Mis’ries

When I was a young LVN I didn’t understand

Mis’ries as a complaint or a diagnosis

From Viet-Nam I well knew GSW

Pneumothorax, traumatic amputation

But in the civilian ER I met old people

And when I asked what was wrong they said

Mis’ries, you know; I got me my mis’ries

Doctor Junior, he’ll know what I mean

It isn’t in the texts, but now that I’m old

I know about all about th’ mis’ries myself

(I was the first male LVN I ever knew)

Monday, July 11, 2022

The People of America Stand Tall - a sort-of poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The People of America Stand Tall

When the American people are faced with a crisis

They buy toilet paper and semi-automatic rifles

And so are wiped out either way

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Poetry in the Desert - weekly column, 10 July 2022

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Poetry in the Desert

A story told about Field Marshal Wavell is that while throwing some things into a bag for a field tour of soldiers defending India from invasion by the Japanese he asked if anyone had seen his Browning.

When someone pointed out that he was wearing it – his Browning 9mm – he said that he was looking for his copy of the poems of Robert Browning. In all his campaigns Wavell always carried poetry with him.

The life and career of Field Marshall Archibald Wavell has been the subject of numerous biographies, and rightly so. He campaigned against the Boers in South Africa, was arrested by the Russians as a spy (and he was) in 1912, was badly wounded and lost an eye leading his soldiers against the Germans in the First World War, served in the inter-war Palestinian Mandate, won Britain’s first victories in the Second World War, was admired by Rommel (who carried Wavell’s book on leadership with him in the desert) and despised by Churchill, and was the next to last Viceroy of India. Wavell was no Call of Duty keyboard commando; he was the real thing. Archibald Wavell: Britain's first wartime victor | National Army Museum (nam.ac.uk)

Most of what passes for poetry now is self-obsessed, self-pitying wailing scribbled in free verse, which of course is not poetry at all. But this was not true in Wavell’s Victorian youth, when poetry was written and read as a literary art, not therapy. After the disasters of the First World War, the ‘flu epidemic, economic collapse and the deaths of millions poetry generally ceased to be structured, artistic, aesthetical pleasing, or encouraging, but many individuals resisted the chaos and maintained the strength and determination of their upbringing.

Indeed, for millennia almost all literature in all cultures was poetry. The greats we studied in school were soldiers, statesmen, businessmen, and agriculturalists first; writing poetry was a leisure activity but also something expected of every man or woman of substance. Prose as art comes to humanity late; the argument has been made that Cervantes’ Don Quixote is the first prose novel.

Thus, Wavell’s love of poetry was an inheritance of 10,000 or more years of civilization. One cannot imagine him spending an evening staring at a glowing screen.

Like Patton, Rommel, and other military leaders Wavell wrote scholarly articles and books on the practices of war, but reading poetry was his after-hours hobby and late in his life he edited a volume of his favorite poems entitled Other Men’s Flowers. One can only regret that his editor did not change that unfortunate title, for this is a volume of poetry mostly by men and mostly for men. The book, after all, is an anthology of a soldier’s personal favorites while on campaign and not a compendium of quota-driven scribbles.

Because this is an anthology one simply opens the book and finds a poem (they are all short ones). If one poem won’t do, then another one will. Best of all, Wavell chose poets who respect the reader.

Both the hardback and the paperback are out of print, but they are still available cheap on Brazos de Dios.com (or is it some other river?). We spend much of our lives waiting for others or riding in the passenger seat, and it’s going-against-the-stream fun to be the only one in a waiting room with a book of instead of the omnipresent little Orwellian telescreen made in Shanghai. We might as well catch up on the eternal wisdom of our ancestors instead of obeying the transient lights and noises of programmers.

-30-

The Great Big Russian Doomsday Submarine - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Great Big Russian Doomsday Submarine

As with Leviathan or Moby Dick

Or Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, perhaps

The Belgorod haunts the darkness of the seas

And it haunts our minds, our darkest fears

We scorn shabby Russian gimcrackery

The wreckage of tanks, the ashes of men

Whose feeble aircraft flame down from the sky

But this thing – it needs to work only once

What if it’s real, so very real

That we don’t finish…

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Another Student. Another Funeral - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Another Student. Another Funeral

Another former student. Another funeral.

A folder with a photograph and a prayer

No one gave the cause of death - I only know

We’re not supposed to be burying our children

Friday, July 8, 2022

Builders of Empires - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Builders of Empires

Great men of thought, of character and strength

Have built from time to time empires of industry

Empires of soldiers and sailors forcing conquests

Of ancient lands and nations for their own purposes

Great men have built ziggurats and stood upon them

Mapping the Dance of the sun, moon, and stars

Great men have written books, pondered the arts

And given us the empires of the mind

But a man alone in his cell telling his beads

Builds better and forever, for all of us

(In context “man” is gender-neutral. As Samuel Johnson would say, “And there’s an end on’t.”)

(“Empires of the mind” references a speech by Churchill at Harvard in 1943.)

Thursday, July 7, 2022

Man vs. the Awful Majesty of the Hummingbird

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Man vs. the Awful Majesty of the Hummingbird

In the sun-soured heat of dusk I stood

Harvesting a few midsummer sunflower seeds

Tough prairie stock that the First Nations knew

A little sack of them to share with others

Under the half-moon a god appeared

A green-necked hummingbird of august mien

A tiny little god, but a god indeed

For it judged me a trespasser, and glared at me

And I withdrew respectfully

I wished I had a picture of the moment

But the moment was, and the moment is

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

What if the Banker Had to Stand in Line at Your House? - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

What if the Banker Had to Stand in Line at Your House?

HOURS 1000-1100 and 1400-1500

What if the banker had to stand in line

(six feet apart, please)

While you stared blankly at a computer screen

And finally mumbled, “Howc’nIhelpyoutoday”

While chewing gum and hardly looking up

What if the banker asked you a question

(a mask is recommended)

And after a long, unproductive silence you mumbled

“notatthishouseyoucoulddoitonline”

Or “that’snothowyournameisinthesystem”

What if the banker actually did her job

(WHAT!?)

Instead of balancing out her resume’?

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Upon Reading C. S. Lewis' THE ABOLITION OF MAN - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Upon Reading C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man

For Grace

“…the doctrine of objective value…”

-p. 29

At least I think I read it, did I not?

The book exists and was read, but by whom?

I’m beginning to feel that I’m the trousered ape

Who feels that a slide rule is for scratching one's back

But reality obtains – if a tree falls

That tree forever falling in the forest

In 7^th grade science, and no one hears it

It sends a sound into the universe

I think I understand about truth and space

But if I’m confused, I’ll simply ask Grace!

Monday, July 4, 2022

Sunday Morning: A Dead 'Possum and Broken Glass - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Sunday Morning: A Dead ‘Possum and Broken Glass

After the buzzards pluck the ‘possum’s eyes

Like businessmen at the airport Holiday Inn

Choosing olives for their plates at the buffet

It will still be grinning at the sun

After the beer bottle’s empty promises

And the powderings of broken glass have worn away

Along with the tire-tread promises of ads

A cardboard temptress will still be grinning at drunks

“We moved 84,000 cases this month”

The latest life-partner pukes on the trailer floor

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Independence Day and a Government of Merovingians - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Government of Merovingians, by Merovingians, and for Merovingians

John LeCarre’ asks what you owe to your country when you no longer recognize it.

-cover blurb, Silverview

Inadequate klansies in gas-station shades

Bullhornistas polluting the civic peace

Q-Anonsters lurking behind their screens

Purported patriots hiding behind their masks

Doxers sneaking and spying like Milton’s Satan

Gollums clutching their “My Precious!” black rifles

Censors memory-holing literature and art

Anti-Communists Communisting our lives

Drug gangs and firebombs, looters and spies:

This is a nation no one can recognize

(So work, vote, volunteer, and, as Mr. Churchill said, never give in.)

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Summer on the Lake - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Summer on the Lake

Children slosh noisily about on a catamaran

While lovers in the shade sit with crosswords and drinks

Or barefoot stroll along the lakeside sand

Each wondering what the other thinks

Minnows hover in the amber shallows

Dragonflies search among bright waving flowers

Sheltered beneath wind-trembling Chinese tallows

Throughout the drowsy, dreamy summer hours

This is early July, soft winds in the dales -

Which means it’s time for back-to-school sales

Friday, July 1, 2022

Q - doggerel (or perhaps sheeperel)

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Where they go one, they go all

Just like sheep in a rented U-Haul

(Bah, bah, bah!)

Thursday, June 30, 2022

Come Laughing Home at Twilight - for Canada Day

Lawrence Hall

Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A repost for Canada Day:

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O! Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,

A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –

As if he owned the very paving stones!

He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,

The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;

A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,

Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –

He was my finest, him and his Da,

His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,

They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.

But no, he too was killed on the first of July

Only it took him months to cast away,

And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,

Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,

Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:

I only want to see my men come home,

Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,

An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,

Come laughing home at twilight.

An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee - poem

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee

I once saw one of those slogan coffee cups

(I’m sure it would have served as well for tea)

Which read something like this:

The beginning of faith

Is to realize that you are not

The ruler of the Universe

And it is so – I am not very good

At ruling even myself

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited

Long, long ago

In the station at Tucson we waited

Someone said the locomotive had burned in the desert

A girl with earphones chewed gum through the hours:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

Her eyes were closed, her music was her god

She clutched a leatherette case of tapes

Just as some clutch a Bible, and chewed:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

Her mechanical chomps could have been the rhythm

Of the passenger train that wasn’t there

My paperback novel never joined in:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

I don’t remember her boarding the train

That in the evening finally arrived

She might be in the Tucson station still:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now - poem

Lawrence Hall

-Gassing Operations | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now

After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union and Einsatzgruppe mass shootings of civilians, the Nazis experimented with gas vans for mass killing…

Dozens of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio on Monday in what appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.

-At least 50 migrants found dead inside a truck in San Antonio, officials say (cnbc.com)

We have our death vans too, not well-organized

But rolling down the American road

Unseen by our leaders in their personal jets

Flying to Frisco or maybe Cancun

Bombings and shootings on the street and in church

Job lots in hospitals, by the dozens in schools

For we too specialize in genocide

And may Moloch and Herod bless our AR-15s

If any children survive, we’ll call them Generation Something

And tell them each day how inadequate they are

Monday, June 27, 2022

The Narthex as a Barricade - poem

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Narthex as a Barricade

I have become a greeter in my old age

(Why is that pickup truck circling the parking lot?)

How good to see you! What happy children you have!

(Any bulges in that unknown man’s pockets?)

The Altar servers are in place for the processional

(Why is that man just sitting in that car?)

The lector gives everyone a word of welcome

(Pssst – do you know that guy sitting in the back?)

I open doors and hand out bulletins

And watch

Sunday, June 26, 2022

To Please Her Man - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

To Please Her Man

She underwent the stomach-stapling knife

To please her man, to tighten her tummy and cheeks

While in recovery she bled out her life

He married his girlfriend within a few weeks

Saturday, June 25, 2022

The Pale Lady of the Well - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Pale Lady of the Well

I am mostly English, which is now uncool

And my soupcon of West African genes

Along with a whiff of Russia and First Nations

Protest Northumbria and East Anglia

But when outside at dusk with poetry and pipe

And a whisper of single-malt offered to the earth

Sometimes I seem to see visions proper to a Celt

And hear soft songs from the dawn of time

How is it that an Englishman can still

Sense the White Lady near the well at dusk

Friday, June 24, 2022

At Noon, After Mowing - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

At Noon, After Mowing

I sat in the shade and mended a hose

A water hose whose fittings had parted ways

And on the grass some mockingbirds and jays

Argued and shrilled – but why? Nobody knows

I cut away the plastic (hecho en China)

And fitted brass (hecho en Mexico)

For repairs that is the best way to go

To make a hose secure – what could be finer?

And what could be finer than to sit a while

In the dreaming shade? Yes, that’s my style!

The Lawnmower Man - poem with hammers

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Lawnmower Man

He came at last, with pickup truck and tools

And for some two hours there was hammering:

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

(Dang!) Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang!

And then he went to the store for a bigger hammer:

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

(Dang!) Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

Heat, humidity, grease, the wrong wrench

The grease gun’s empty the wrong hex key

Dead battery, no brake spring maybe next week

The evening was concluded with a lecture

On the wonderfulness of Donald Trump

(In the event the lawnmower runs fine now)

Thursday, June 23, 2022

We Know Where You RINO Traitors Live - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

We Know Where You RINO Traitors Live

Some Christians by a newer word seem to abide:

For they preach Trump, and Him crucified

(As Charles Spurgeon did not say)

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

The Morning Radio Guy Turns Himself Off - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Morning Radio Guy Turns Himself Off

He was much of my mornings for years

His news, his jokes, his notes, his anecdotes

His affirmation of the goodness of man

Began each day with good humor and wit

But now he brandishes the radio waves

Like an old man threatening with his cane

By-Godding both the future and the past

Trapped forever in a 6^th of January

Poor man! All he does now is scorn and scoff -

It’s like he’s turned his own radio off

Monday, June 20, 2022

The Metternich System - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Metternich System

Like Metternich

We seem to be shoring up crumbling institutions

Institutions that have no use for us:

Heavy-lipped Habsburgs, an ossified Church

Like Metternich

We ask if the revolutionaries have permission

To murder each other for the Goddess Reason

While princes and oligarchs flee for their lives

Like Metternich

We wonder if Napoleon won after all

Sunday, June 19, 2022

CLASS OF 2022!!!!! - free clothes and groceries Tuesdays and Thursdays

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

CLASS OF 2022!!!!!!

“CLASS OF 2022!!!!!” is still painted on his pickup truck

Which is parked in front of Christian Outreach

Free food and clothes on Tuesdays and Thursdays

He’s got his MePhone and a box of stuff

And some accuse the young of not planning for their future

Midsummer Sunflowers - weekly column, 19 June 2022

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Midsummer Sunflowers

Colonel von Luger: “Fliers are gentlemen, not peasants to dig in the earth.”

Group Captain Ramsey: “The English have always been very keen on gardening.”

Von Luger: “Yes, but flowers. Is this not so?”

Ramsey: “You can’t eat flowers, colonel.”

-The Great Escape (1963)

But of course the seeds of some flowers are edible. Now that we are at the summer solstice the sunflowers are ripening quickly. Mine are a great success, the third crop of native American sunflowers I planted last year. The package I bought from CowCreek.Com (or something like that) contained 15 or so different varieties of real sunflowers in all sorts of colors, presumably much as the First Nations cultivated them.

I planted zinnias, the spouse-person’s favorites, in a parallel plot but they and the sunflowers have become great friends and share the patch. They have required lots of watering this year, but together the sunflowers, zinnias, and to a lesser extent the tomatoes make a colorful show. The peppers gave it up early.

Even now the sunflower heads are maturing into seeds and in the next week or so – I don’t want to rush them – I will begin harvesting them and storing them in the refrigerator in paper bags. The birds will certainly enjoy a feast, but many seeds will fall to the ground for the second crop. When both the sunflowers and zinnias are pretty much gone in July I will mow everything down and then simply wait for the second crop. Unless there is an early freeze that second crop will be just as beautiful when autumn comes.

The bees are happy and I have a fine crop of tree frogs, very useful little creatures and reportedly reliable biological markers: if you have bees and tree frogs you have good air, soil, and water.

This week is the summer solstice, also observed on St. John’s Day, which is also known as Midsummer Day. The eggheads time the arrival of summer to the hour, although any schoolchild knows that the first day of summer is the first day after school lets out. Functionally this week is midsummer, when the sun is at its apogee and the daylight hours at their longest. Our nifty little solar system will slowly, slowly begin altering the courses of the planets and navigating toward the winter solstice and the Nativity six months from now.

The ancients sorted all this out with their observations of stars and shadows and the Great Dance (C. S. Lewis) of the planets from pyramids and ziggurats in the Middle East and stones planted on Salisbury Plain. We don’t have to eyeball the sunlight through Stonehenge or climb a roof in Israel to track the stars; all we need do is call up one of the weather applications on our MePhones to note the changes.

Just now a cold front would be the most welcome seasonal marker of all.

And Colonel von Luger was wrong: gentlemen dig in the earth.

-30-

Saturday, June 18, 2022

The Day Internet Explorer Died - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Day Internet Explorer Died

Our gadgets from the store, all shiny and new

The subjects of our brags and anecdotes

Are soon held together with Scotch tape and glue

And covered with coffee stains and sticky-notes

Codings and software must also decay

Metaphorical patches fall apart

They too enjoy only a limited day

Thus the limits of electronic art

To our own end, yes, we eventually toddle -

To be replaced by the latest model!

Friday, June 17, 2022

Like Love Withdrawn - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Like Love Withdrawn

After months of dreary drought and heat

Light raindrops fall upon the withered world

A few, a very few, and then they stop

Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

At dusk the paving into dryness steams

Only the hot and heavy air is wet

And smells of disappointment, dark and sour

Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

The westering sun shines briefly, and then is gone

Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

Thursday, June 16, 2022

The True Believer Fondles His Piece - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The True Believer Fondles His Piece

He cleans his AR with his little rod

And screams that Trump is his daddy-god

("Piece," of course, refers to a firearm. In a free society the reader may interpret it otherwise.)

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

The Stillness of the Summer Solstice - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Stillness of the Summer Solstice

I picked a few plums in the summer heat

Some withered apples in the summer heat

A bouquet of zinnias in the summer heat

The figs still green in the summer heat

I gathered blueberries in the summer heat

I dragged water hoses in the summer heat

I mowed the lawns in the summer heat

I fed the hummingbirds in the summer heat

Summer is the season that seems to stand still

And I don’t

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Cemeteries are Dangerous Places - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Cemeteries are Dangerous Places

“The dead with charity enclosed in clay”

-Henry V, IV.viii.119

A friend wanted to visit the bones of her people

And give their graves some weed-killer and tending

I was deputed to follow along:

Cemeteries are dangerous places

The cicadas droned through the midday heat

While respectful dust covered the leaves

And my pistol remained discreetly pocketed:

Cemeteries are dangerous places

You never know if you’ll end up in one:

Cemeteries are dangerous places

Monday, June 13, 2022

Assault Speeches - poem

Lawrence Hall

The mayor thinks New York gets ‘special energy’ from crystals. Is he right? | Life and style | The Guardian

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Assault Speeches

Demanding answers speeches outrage speeches

Taping stuffed toys to chain-link fences speeches

Candles speeches makeshift shrines speeches sermons

Speeches asking questions speeches antisocial media

Postings speeches yelling speeches no words

Speeches just no words speeches beyond

An open letter to speeches horrific speeches

No gun zone speeches AR-15 style

Speeches legally speeches well-regulated

Speeches why didn’t someone speeches assault rifle

Speeches it’s not an assault rifle speeches

Assault rifle speeches it’s not an assault rifle

Speeches assault rifle speeches it’s not

An assault rifle speeches speeches speeches

Sunday, June 12, 2022

The Rock Upon Which New York is Built - weekly column, 12 June 2022

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

The Rock Upon Which New York is Built

His Honor Eric Adams, Mayor of New York, is into magic rocks and crystals, part of the reiki / chakra / ouija / enneagram / pyramid world of self-obsessed low-prole fantasy that would embarrass a sixth-grader.

His bracelet of little stones was noticed when he ran for office, but the assumption was that these were but ornaments – the mayor is a man of fashion. Someone mentioned that one of the stones was from West Africa, and that’s certainly a nice thing, a connection with one’s ancestral homeland.

But apparently, according to several sources (hey, they’re on the InterGossip; they must be true, right?), the mayor believes that different rocks and crystals possess special powers. One stone is for healing, another for protection, another for peace, and so on, all rather Harry Potter-ish.

And this is surprising in a grown man with a solid (maybe even rock-solid) background: his father was a butcher and, sadly, an alcoholic. His mother cleaned houses. He was something of a street tough and was arrested for criminal mischief, doing a few days in juvy and then probation. A police officer and a minister appealed to his better self, and young Eric finished high school, worked different jobs to pay his way through community college and then a B.A. in criminal justice and a Master’s in Public Administration. He joined the New York Police Department as a street cop, retiring as a captain after twenty years to go into politics.

His life and hard work are an inspiration, and suggest a man grounded in reality, and yet the bit about the rocks and crystals and the spiritual influence of the rock strata on which New York is built are disturbing. Eric Adams is mayor of New York City and thus the leader of one of the most powerful leaders in the world. If New York were its own nation its economy would be larger than that of most nations.

According to the (Countries With A Bigger GDP Than New York - WorldAtlas), only China, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, Brazil, and Canada have larger economies than New York City.

Last autumn the people of New York put their great economy into the hands of Eric Adams, so, yes, the illogic of his belief in rocks and crystals is at least curious if not worrisome.

Whatever Eric Adams does is not a local issue; it impacts all of us. Let us hope he does not forget where he came from, his parents’ hard work, the beat cop and the minister who saw something in him others did not, and those long shifts patrolling the subways and the streets in service to the people.

Mayor Eric Adams believes NYC is filled with 'special energy' because of mysterious stones | Daily Mail Online

The New Identity Politics of Eric Adams - POLITICO

-30-

For the Cranky Old Man Who Complains About Girls Wearing Short Skirts in Church - poem

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

For the Cranky Old Man Who Complains

About Girls Wearing Short Skirts in Church

If it were a crime to be young and pretty

The kids could be up for the death penalty

If it were a crime to be young and pretty

The case against you would be adjourned sine die

Saturday, June 11, 2022

This is Texas - poem

This is Texas

Where books are banned

And weapons are not

Where we pray for our land

And our children are shot

Friday, June 10, 2022

A Grim Quatrain on Mortality

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Grim Quatrain on Mortality

A dog sees birds with its malevolent eyes

And puts the poor feathered creatures to rout

But one day in the field the old dog dies -

The poor birds then will have the dog’s eyes out

(I blame the heat. And fluoride. And George Bush. And public schools. And the mysterious crystals beneath New York City. And the Mormons. And th' Cath'lics. And the Masons. And France. And the Commie spy chips implanted in us with the Covid vaccine. And the hamsterpox. And rock 'n' roll.)

Thursday, June 9, 2022

A Violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Violation of the First Law of Thermodynamics

A day so hot that ordinary tasks

Exhaust the body and the soul; to grasp

The handle of a water tap wearies the mind

To grasp a simple thought eludes one’s will

The day is in violation of childhood summers

When little bare feet scampered across the grass

Those days have in adulthood have been stolen

The victims lie abandoned in the dust

Who will lay these charges, and against whom?

And in what court should this strange case be placed?

Wednesday, June 8, 2022

My Bourgeois Leanings - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

My Bourgeois Leanings

One day, at a meeting of the Komsomol…he was accused of bourgeois leanings just because he happened to wear a tie.

-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, recounting an anecdote by his father

I am the only man who wears a tie

With proper coat and trousers (inspection pass)

Properly kitted like a proper guy

To weddings, funerals, dinners, and Sunday Mass

I am the only man who does not wear

Sneakers or baseball caps, gas-station shades

Knee pants, tee shirts, jeans with a built-in tear

Or plastic jackets shaped like hand grenades

If we are facing civilization’s end -

One’s trousers touch one’s oxfords with a quarter-inch bend

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

A Poem is its Own Studio - poem

Lawrence Hall

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Poem is its Own Studio

Words lift themselves from the canvas of life

The iambs are open so that the light drifts in

On the artist’s favorite smiling verb

Posing on a dais draped with flowing dreams

Before a canvas of possibilities

Words lift themselves from the canvas of life

A splash of adverb might go here – or not

Maybe a subtle conjunction instead to join

The thesis and the antithesis

In a loving reconciliation

Embraced by silent interjections of love

Words lift themselves from the canvas of life

Monday, June 6, 2022

Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Dushen'ka - poem

Lawrence Hall