Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Mysteries for the
Day
Mysteries for the day
A pebble and a pine
cone
They are enough
Sunday, September 4, 2022
A Pebble, a Pine Cone, a Mystery - haiku
Saturday, September 3, 2022
The Water at Camp Lejeune - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Water at Camp
Lejeune
And the water in Viet-Nam, chlorinated muck
Flavored with Agent Orange and other guck
Was good enough for us – that’s our tough luck!
Friday, September 2, 2022
Editors Who Checklist Poets - poem (a poem about poetry - that's redundant, eh!)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Editors Who Checklist
Poets
A Poet’s Autobiography is his Poetry
-Yevtushenko
A poem is itself
So I’m not going to play any victim cards
I’m not even seated in their game
Ticking self-pity boxes is their game
Not mine
A poem is itself
I am not anyone’s propagandist
All are free to read a poem or not
Like it or not for its artistry and craft
(Or lack
thereof)
But I won’t be a confessional professional
A poem is itself
A worthy editor is a pearl beyond price
But a literary commissar is nekul'turnyy
For a poem is itself
Thursday, September 1, 2022
Self-Government in the United States with Tats and Extra Fries - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Self-Government in
the United States with Tats and Extra Fries
“Here, sir, The People rule.”
-Numerous attributions
I blame the Russians. And people who read books.
And that pornography in these here schools
The Navy SEALS is actually Lizard People
I only know what Q told me, okay?
I seen them suitcases of electoral votes
For the junior high cheerleading squad
It was stolen, I tell ya! Sarah Palin rocks!
It’s all in the Bible, you Commie-freak
Secret U.N. observers occupy our town
And that is why the InterGossip’s down
Wednesday, August 31, 2022
Cockroaches and Cold-Callers - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Cockroaches and Cold-Callers
We honor life as part of God’s creation
Its good is an objective reality
Cruelty to animals is an abomination
(Though a cockroach we flush with fiendish glee)
“Hi, this is Heather; we’re taking a survey…”
There are variations on this Leaden Rule
For if you haven’t sent a cockroach down the loo
(This practice should be taught in every school)
An telephone cold-caller will certainly do
“Good morning! We’re giving away free siding…”
Thus you may WOOOOSH! a swindler or a roach
Completely free of any self-reproach
“This isn’t a sales call; we only want to ask…”
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
As Neatly Packaged as a Letter-Bomb - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Brilliance of
Propaganda
“Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent
under it”
-Lady Macbeth
We
have seen vituperation beautifully expressed
In
the most elegant meter and rhyme
Wild
shriekings crafted with an artist’s skill
And
as neatly packaged as a letter-bomb
Monday, August 29, 2022
Sunday, August 28, 2022
Silencing Rooster Cogburn - weekly column, 28 August 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Silencing Rooster
Cogburn
True Grit appeared on the Orwellian telescreen the
other night, and I found myself watching that wonderful film yet again.
The climax of the film comes when John Wayne as Marshal Rooster
Cogburn confronts Robert Duvall’s Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang. After a few prefatory
remarks of ritual verbal abuse, Ned sneeringly demands that Rooster state his
intentions or get out of the way.
“I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or see you hanged
in Fort smith at Judge Parker’s convenience,” replies Rooster. “Which’ll it be?”
After some wonderfully Snidely Whiplash laughter from the
desperadoes, Ned taunts Rooster with, “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat
man!”
And then comes The Moment – The Moment, The Academy Award
Moment - when Rooster challenges Ned and his entire gang with perhaps the most
famous line in the history of cinema…
But the line was not spoken; The Moment never came.
The center, the axis, the climax of this great film was silenced
for television by some officious busy-body.
While Rooster spins his rifle in a menacing manner and Ned
and the lads are laughing at him, let us pause and consider the insensitivities
that have preceded this moment in True Grit:
1.
Tom Chaney murders Mattie’s father with a gutshot.
2.
Three prisoners are hanged on the courthouse
square before a mocking crowd which includes children
3.
A federal marshal repeatedly handles prisoners
with inappropriate roughness and occasional brutality.
4.
A Chinese character is stereotyped, although we
must admit that he gives the marshal a good what-fer when necessary.
5.
There is some casual stereotyping of American
Indians.
6.
The body count in the film would require a statistician,
and the deaths are gruesome.
7.
Several adults threaten the life of a child.
8.
A child shoots an adult.
9.
As for Mattie’s snide remarks about Texas
senators and bird dogs, we should let them stand with some sympathy for bird
dogs.
Dozens die in the film, but That Line, that Academy Award
line without which the story would fail to be true to the vision of the book’s
author and the artistry of the film’s professionals, must apparently not be
spoken lest it give offense to the delicate among us.
Look, the metaphor Rooster uses in the uncut version is
pretty rough, and on the lips of almost anyone else would come across as
adolescent potty-mouth-ness. But in the context of this great film and as
spoken by John Wayne, yep, it’s a work of art.
But what about the children who might hear it?
The prime duty in raising a child belongs to the parent.
Thus, the parent must guide his (the pronoun is
gender-neutral) child’s cultural experiences.
After all, it is pointless and indeed hypocritical to
give a child unrestricted access to a MePhone or the InterGossip and then demand
that a cinema, an author, an artist, a public library, a museum, or other
cultural milieux surrender their freedom of cultural exchanges with other
adults.
In sum, know when to turn off the television in your own
house. That’s your decision, not someone else’s
-30-
An Extended Warranty - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Extended
Warranty
You buy something and the man behind the counter
Asks you if you want to pay extra for a warranty
And when you ask why, doesn’t the gadget work
He’s grumpily ready for you to move on
Most things in life don’t have extended warranties:
Love, Hershey bars, tree frogs on the window screen
The John Wayne movie machine that broke long ago
But memories of MeeMaw are always fresh
You live through pain, and He who is beyond the stars
Gives it meaning – that’s the warranty
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Trust the Official Texas State God - That's an Order
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Trust the Official
Texas State God – That’s an Order
Some say
“All of us worship the same god, you know”
But what makes them think that this is so?
Is ‘In God We Trust’ an assertion of Christian nationalism or of American history in public schools? – Baptist News Global
Texas schools hanging 'In God We Trust' signs after new state law requiring donated signs be posted | Fox News
Thoreau-ly August - doggerel about the heat
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thoreau-ly
August
“The mass of
men live lives of quiet desperation,”
Protested
Thoreau in hopeless exasperation.
One would not
enter into disputation
With a famous
writer of great reputation
But
Alas that here
our lives are rank perspiration!
-
From The Road to Magdalena, 2012
(Available
on amazon)
Friday, August 26, 2022
Allusions to DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, Patrick McGoohan's THE PRISONER, Kafka, Orwell, and Mordor
Dear Anonymous Google Accuser:
Thank you for your note, the contents of
which sound much like the block warden’s caution (“Your attitude is noticed,
comrade.”) to Yuri in the film version of Doctor Zhivago.
I have re-read the column, which I wrote
nine years ago, and find nothing offensive in it (although it is rather
puerile), nor do you detail exactly what is offensive in it and why I should be
sanctioned. You are being Kafka-esque, and I say this as someone who has read
Kafka: you do not tell me what offense I have purportedly committed nor do you face
me with an accuser. You do not even face me with you, for you do not give your
name. You employ the passive voice in referring to an “Adult Content policy” and
to “Community Guidelines,” which sounds like something from an episode of
Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner: “The Committee won’t like this, Number
Six.”
Google (and one could find “google”
offensive, with its history mocking someone’s physical characteristics) is a
private company, and so is free to publish or not publish, as is only
right. And I am free to pity Google for
moral, ethical, and literary cowardice.
I was raised in situational poverty,
barely graduated from high school, and spent 18 months in Viet-Nam. Upon
returning to the USA (with life-long skin cancer which the DVA denies) I worked
straight nights (double shifts on weekends) as an ambulance driver and later an
LVN to put myself through university. I taught for almost forty years in public
school, community college, and university as an adjunct instructor of no status
whatsoever. In retirement I volunteered with our local school’s reading program
until the Covid ended that, and I still volunteer with the lads at the local prison.
I volunteer in community cleanup after our hurricanes (tho’ I’m getting a
little old for that). I’ve worked hard all my life, paid my taxes, paid off my
house at age 70, receive only half of my Social Security because of some vague
law, and never gamed the system. Indeed, I would say that the system has gamed
me.
And was all of this so that some frightened
committee of anonymous inquisitors staring at an Orwellian telescreen or a
Mordor-ish Palantir could find an innocuous scribble insensitive?
Pffffft.
Sincerely,
Lawrence Hall
Thursday, August 25, 2022
Pontifex Minimus - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Pontifex Minimus
I met a man who once
lived under a bridge
He said that was when
he was happiest
But he found Jesus and
civilization
So they put him in
prison
He likes having a bed
and three meals each day
But he misses his
bridge
A Woman Hollering and a Train Passing By - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Woman Hollering
and a Train Passing By
Next to the post office sags a trailer house
Where a fat old woman in a onesie
Was grilling something in her littered yard
Maybe some hot dogs, or just some dogs
A cigarette bounced about on her lip
As she screamed at me for driving by her life
Possibly she thought I was after her beer cans
Or her virtue, or her front-porch couch
A Santa Fe freight blew by, obscuring her words
And I accelerated, escaping her sorrows
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
The Prince-Poet-Cat of Gatineau, Quebec - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Prince-Poet-Cat
of Gatineau, Quebec
For Pushkin, of Happy Memory
And His House Pets Abbie and Alexander
In an ice-cream summer in the long ago
I met a marvelous cat in Gatineau
Pushkin by name, a fastidious Russian
His shiny fur coat never needed brushin’
He purred in an elegant iambic tetrameter
Precisely in its orderly parameter
A cat, of course, needn’t meter his speech
For a cat is a poem whose motions teach:
Running
Leaping
Sleeping
Purring
pouncing
Growling
Yowling
Howling
Twitching
Lurking
Sneaking
Posing
Dreaming
Snuggling
While in all things giving his children delight
In an ice-cream summer in the long ago
I met a marvelous cat in Gatineau
Monday, August 22, 2022
if We Change Channels All the Pain Will Go Away - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
If We Change Channels
All the Pain Will Go Away
Captors are shooting trembling prisoners of war
We can watch them writhing as they die
Screaming silently into our telescreens
American Idol is on 282
Saturday, August 20, 2022
Are We but Obscure Lines in Ezekiel? - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Are We but Obscure
Lines in Ezekiel?
Maybe we are doing time along the Chebar
But we are not in Babylonian captivity
Only in the captivity of our choices:
We fouled our own endeavors, our own lives
We banned and burned our books, our music, our art
Upon the orders of megaphone fuhrers
Sacrificing Truth on their altars of fear
We abandoned duty and found ourselves alone
Dry bones, dry bones in a desert of despair
But, shush – what is that Sound from over there…?
Friday, August 19, 2022
Whatever Happened to Clarence Eustace Scrubb? - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Whatever Happened
to Clarence Eustace Scrubb?
He
liked books if they were books of information and had pictures of grain
elevators
or
of fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools.
-C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
He was so good at banning ideas that later
They made him a Texas school administrator
Keller ISD to remove challenged books | The Texas
Tribune
(You will of course remember that in Mr. Lewis' wonderful book Scrubb became a fine young man at the end. There is also hope for book banners, book banners, and censorious old biddies of both sexes - may their eyes open soon to the joys of 10,000 years of literature!)
Thursday, August 18, 2022
Strippers Bid to Unionize in Los Angeles - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Strippers Bid to
Unionize in Los Angeles
-news item
To what enormity is this action owed –
Could there be an issue with the strict dress code?
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
Veterans' Cremation Benefits - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Veterans’
Cremation Benefits
-Ad on the InterGossip
AMTRACS with gas tanks beneath the floor
White phosphorus grenades gone bad, gone wrong
The Parrot’s Beak burning throughout the night
Napalm, burning flesh, screams, horror, death
A burnt man flailing about in agony
And where the hell is that dust-off now?
Copper sulphate, Sulfamylon, Kerlix, Telfa pads
We know about cremation well enough
But now tell us about our benefits
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
A Librarian is Your Fairy Godmother - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Librarian is Your
Fairy Godmother
For Miss Kelly,
Who Captured the Castle
A librarian is your fairy godmother
Who blesses her children with the gift of books
Her magic wand is a date-due stamp
Which just for you she will then ignore
She lives with brave Cassie in Mississippi
And in the greenwood with bold Robin Hood
On Wildcat Island, in Narnia and Middle-Earth -
She sails you there on bean-bag pirate ships
And if you’re nice to others (so please don’t tickle)
There might be a gift of watermelon pickle!
After We Shoot the Traitors Let's Go for a Hamburger - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall4618@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
After We Shoot the
Traitors Let’s Go for a Hamburger
Th’ devil’s in control; you could look it up
It’s right there in some righteous Christian podcasts
An’ we need to be armed against th’ Left
Like them pizza child molesters and stuff
I got me my AR-15 against them devils
DON’T CALL IT AN ASSAULT RIFLE!!!!!
It’ll blow uh liberal’s head right off
DON’T CALL IT AN ASSAULT RIFLE!!!!!
And this is a REPUBLIC, not a DEMOCRACY!
If they mess up my fry order I’m gonna shoot someone
Monday, August 15, 2022
Lines Written Upon the Occasion of the Confiscation of the Former President's Several Passports, Which May or May Hot Have Happened - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Lines Written Upon
the Occasion of the Confiscation of the Former President’s Several Passports,
Which May or May Not Have Happened
A flight risk? No, not that wretched has-been –
No civilized nation would allow him in!
Sunday, August 14, 2022
Hurricane Disaster Relief Kits - weekly column, 14 August 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Hurricane Disaster
Relief Kits
This summer the Bishop of Beaumont is promoting a good
idea and the organizational skills to make it so throughout the diocese: small,
easily transportable plastic bags of needful items for anyone displaced by hurricanes,
fires, tornadoes, or other disasters.
And in this part of the world, all of us have been
displaced, and will be again. Hurricanes and flooding have sent us on the road
or onto the boats, sometimes without a known destination. Some of us have bank
accounts and credit cards and places to go; many don’t. And the places we go or
the places we where we are isolated might not have the systems in place or the
supplies to accomplish transactions. You can’t buy a band-aid or a razor or a
towel if alligators are swimming through the muck where the grocery store used
to be.
Many churches and other service organizations provide
food, cooked when possible and as boxes of field rations when not, portable
shower units, tents, tarps, first-aid, and other necessities for life as refugees.
The bishop’s throw-and-go (No, don’t actually throw it;
you’d hurt someone) bags of non-food (and thus non-perishable) items are
adjuncts, something to be handed out through existing services or by themselves
as necessary. He has asked every family in the diocese to package a standard
but flexible list of items sealed in a waterproof plastic bag to contribute to
disaster relief. These kits are then stored in spaces in churches and
rectories, ready for immediate giveaway to those headed to safety. The list:
One bath towel
Two wash cloths
Three bars of bath soap
One hairbrush
Three disposable razors
One can of shaving cream
Two toothbrushes
One tube of toothpaste
One stick of deodorant
One container of skin lotion
One small general-purpose first-aid kit
One package of ball point pens
One container of multi-purpose anti-bacterial ointment
One small LED flashlight
Many of these items wouldn’t require a new purchase. Most
of us have good old towels and wash clothes that can be freshly laundered and
packed. After all, someone under a bridge trying to get the kid cleaned up
while the storm is blowing isn’t going to be picky about a new label and a
brand name.
If you haven’t got three bars of soap, one would do, or
maybe a couple of those little plastic bottles of shampoo pinched from the
Holiday Inn.
Some things, such as hairbrushes and toothbrushes, ought
to be new. Sure you can boil the germs and boogers and cooties out of them,
but, still, new is better.
I saw one of these throw-and-go kits stocked, but on the
list the first-aid kit notation was lined out and replaced with a box of
band-aids. That’s a practical substitution.
Tiny little flashlights can now be bought cheaply by the
dozen and they are so useful. We have so many illuminated gadgets in our houses
that not until a power failure do we realize how dark the night is for us
diurnal creatures. A flashlight is not only something for helping us see, but
to be seen by – in addition to our voices, difficult to locate in the darkness,
the rescuers can also see a light for determining location.
What shoulda / coulda / woulda been on the list is certainly
a topic for discussion, but a sine qua non is that the distribution and
handling of any one throw-and-go kit shouldn’t require a crew or any strength. Putting these together is something all of us
can do through our churches, volunteer organizations, schools, youth groups,
and businesses.
In a disaster even the best and strongest among us cannot
accomplish all that needs to be done. The little throw-and-go kits are a small contribution
that anyone can make, and make now, before they are needed.
Those who will use them – because there will be hurricanes
and evacuations - won’t know your name, nor will the bishop, but God certainly
will.
-30-
Afghanistan: A Steady Diet of Invaders - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Steady Diet of
Invaders
“And
the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A Fool
lies here who tried to hustle the East”
-Kipling, “The Decline of the West”
This is the day, they say, that Kabul fell
A year ago - but Kabul did not fall
It’s still there: invaders come, invaders die
Pale British, Russians, and Americans
Afghanistan has eaten all of them
It even devours its own, and gnaws the bones
And all are dust along the Hindu Kush
Where lizards scuttle among imperial dreams
That land where caravans and mystics roam –
Let’s mind our own
business and stay at home
Saturday, August 13, 2022
.553 / Free to Be / Dead, You See - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
.553 / Free to Be
/ Dead, You See
When this weapon blows a child’s head off
Don’t worry about that trifle
For the AR technically
Is not an assault rifle
Friday, August 12, 2022
Breakfast in Constantinople - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Breakfast in
Constantinople
The waitress greeted us in Saint Petersburg
We drank strong coffee in Alexandria
Our omelets were served in Cambridgeshire
As we gossiped in the narthex of Hagia Sophia
We briefly sat in the halls of Congress and idled
And said good morning to Shelley and Keats
We admonished die Rheintochter to behave
themselves
But they ignored us and flirted with some sailors
What fun in table-talk as the day begins -
There’s nothing more joyful than breakfast with friends!
Thursday, August 11, 2022
A Rosary of Childhood Summers - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Rosary of
Childhood Summers
“And summer’s lease hath all too short a date”
-Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
Between infancy and adolescence
Ten summers form a crown of memories
An Eden of bare feet and ice cream bars
That inform the dreams of our after-years
Each day is its own rosary of life
Those works and books and thoughts and ordinary chores
That with their attendant offerings and prayers
Give meaning to the mysteries of life
But we tell best those holy beads of youth
Whose innocent joys began our search for Truth
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Opposite the House of Sculptures - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Opposite the House
of Sculptures
“…unchanging,
shrill, crazy exclamations and demands, which became progressively more
impractical, meaningless, and unfulfillable…”
-Doctor Zhivago, Part Two, Chapter 13, “Opposite
the House of Sculptures”
O strong man, strong man, Supremo Alpha-Weenie
Please be our Putin, Hitler, or Mussolini
O strong man, strong man; tell us what to think
Pour us some Jim Jones; we’ll take a real deep drink
O strong man, strong man; tell us what to do
We’ll happily go to prison just for you
O strong man, strong man; clench your mighty fist
You put for us the “GO” in your “jingoist”
O strong man, strong man, you are our latest god
Please break us to obedience with your mighty rod
O strong man, strong man, you are our highest law
Whatever dribbles from your mouth we listen in awe
O strong man, strong man, we are your little elves
We promise to stow our history upon the shelves
And never, ever again think for ourselves
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Getting the Cows Up for the Evening Milking - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Getting the Cows
Up for the Evening Milking
My brother and I, barefootin’ down the lane
With an apple each, and a stick the cows ignore
A hot dry evening; sure wish there was some rain
I bonked Ol’ Bessie with an apple core
And if Dad saw that I’d sure get a switchin’
He taught us to treat animals fair and right
The late-summer grass gets my legs to itchin’
The milking follows, well into the August night
I’d give up my adventures, the places I’ve been
If I could get the cows up once again
Monday, August 8, 2022
A Prisoner's Modest Dream - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Prisoner’s
Modest Dream
Some
humorist on parade: “When the war is over…I’m going to buy a German and keep him
the garden and count him.”
-Wodehouse in a German detention camp,
quoted in Frances Donaldson’s P. G. Wodehouse: A
Biography
When this is all over I pray for us
To sit in in my yard in some cheap Wal-Mart chairs
Each of us with a beer and a cigar
We could talk about the joys of fresh air
We could talk about our families and our work
And air-conditioning, and our home addresses
No longer A-43-Upper or B-24-Lower
We could sing about the Day of Jubilee
And give our voices and our lives to God
And there wouldn’t ever be a head count
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Don't Follow the Science - weekly column, 7 August 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Don’t Follow the
Science
“Follow the science” is itself an unscientific expression,
personifying science as a sort of cosmic Boy Scout troop leader or perhaps a
soldier taking the point. It suggests that we should not follow our hearts
(which is just as illogical), our music, our dreams, or anything else except
science personified almost as a deity.
But science is an abstract concept, not a person. The word
comes from “scientia,” Latin for knowledge of all sorts. In our time we have
narrowed the term for the purpose of discovering and proving facts that can be
demonstrated to be valid or invalid [6
Steps of the Scientific Method (thoughtco.com)].
As an example, we humans have designed instruments arbitrarily
marked with numbers for measuring the air temperature for utility. Even so, a
scientist would not say that today’s temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit; he
or she would say that at a given time a given thermometer at a given location read
60 degrees Fahrenheit. He might go further and remind us that thermometers
almost never agree with each other. So what is the temperature? Scientifically,
we can’t really know, but even a caveman could tell us if the day feels warm or
cold.
Unfortunately, many humans tend to accept uncritically
almost any allegation to which the label “science” is attached, especially if
that allegation is made via the Orwellian Telescreens seemingly superglued to
our hands. If a piece of information is beamed to us through a little made-in-China
box that lights up and make noises then it must be true, right?
We fancy we have in some way progressed because we believe in
little boxes instead of the Delphic Oracle, but in the event they are only
little boxes.
Even scientists aren’t always scientific; now they name
storms and even attribute agency to them, a form of personification that reminds
us of Greek paganism.
This brings us to the French scientist who posted to the
InterGossip (which is scientific) a photograph (also scientific) allegedly
taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (yes, scientific) and promoted it as a
super-golly-gee-whiz image (scientific)
of Proxima Centauri,
a far-off star.
After a month or so,
the scientist admitted that the picture he promoted as a wonderful bit of science
was in fact not a star but a cross section of a sausage. He said he was only
joking [Scientist
admits 'space telescope' photo is actually chorizo in tasty Twitter prank
(msn.com)].
Follow the science,
right?
When someone says “follow the science” what he almost always
means is that he uncritically believes whatever babble he last read on the
InterGossip. In his small world, “you could research it” means to access whatever
conspiracies are floating around among Orwellian telescreens without ever once
considering the possibility that they might be inaccurate or even impossible – “Q,”
for instance, or Hillary Clinton dismembering children in a pizza parlor, or the
reincarnation of John F. Kennedy Jr. on the Grassy Knoll.
Not so long ago anyone positing such absurdities would have
been laughed out of the conversation; now that we have the science of the
InterGossip beamed through the science of little glowing boxes there are people
who now believe such nonsense and sometimes act on it to the harm of others.
Following the science seems mostly to be a matter of bellowing
thought-denying chants through bullhorns and raising clenched fists at each
other instead of thinking things through and considering all the possibilities
with both clarity and charity.
The six steps of the scientific method constitute a valid
means of examining only those facts which can be evaluated and measured. Science
cannot examine love, flowers, sunsets, a father playing catch with his child, or
old friends playing chess around a fire, and so science, while valid in its own
orbit, is but an incomplete study of Creation. Science itself is not a god, and
we dare not presume to treat it as one.
-30-
Saturday, August 6, 2022
The Nicest Funeral That Never Was - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Nicest Funeral
That Never Was
The doors of the church of my long-ago youth
Were locked; I peeked through the glass and saw
Huge Peavey speakers dangling in holy silence
Above where the Altar used to be
When friends arrived we pondered the mystery
Of a man’s reported death and cremation
With obsequies scheduled for Saturday
Yes, said the passer-by we asked about it
A Saturday next month, and so we loosened our ties
And over fingers of Scotch we asked our whys
Friday, August 5, 2022
An Active School Meeting in Progress - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Active School
Meeting in Progress
A motion to adjourn is always in order
This morning I drove by my old school
A staff meeting was being committed inside
Perpetrating crimes against intelligence
“HELLO MY NAME IS”
10,000
years of civilization?
Doughnuts and foam cups of coffee
“IT’S A GREAT DAY TO BE A WILDCAT!”
Or a lion, a tiger, a platypus
The new superintendent loves Jesus
His family, children, and America
Doughnuts and foam cups of coffee
He introduces the motivational speaker
Who loves Jesus, his family, children
America, and unsourced parables
“MAKE THIS THE BEST YEAR EVER! HOO-AH!”
Doughnuts and foam cups of coffee
The coaches sit in the back reading the sports pages
And Campbell’s Texas Football – a point of privilege
English teachers count split infinitives in the program
“LET’S ALL HOLD HANDS AND SING OUR ALMA MATTER [sic]!”
Doughnuts and foam cups of coffee
Generally speaking I’m against the death penalty
I’d make an exception for motivational speakers
It’s for the children
Thursday, August 4, 2022
A Sad Old Man on the Witness Stand - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Sad Old Man on
the Witness Stand
How easy it is to scorn the man we see
Bloated and loud-mouthed, insolent to all
A foul and loathsome tormentor of souls
A false accuser, a treacherous man
And now we see him brought low at last
Sweating and coughing and goggling his eyes
The tormentor now snarling in outrage and fear
His lies and greed and hate turned back on him
A curious thing about this squirming creature:
Maybe in him we see something of ourselves
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Social Security Online FFTTT!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Social Security Online
We have suspended electronic access
to your personal information we tried
three times to match the information you provided
with our records but were unable
to do so you may electronic information
again after 24 hours please verify
your personal information again
before trying to use this suspension
will not affect any Social Security benefits
you receive for further assistance please contact
EXIT My Social Security Request
a replacement social security card
we’re sorry we cannot accept online requests
at this time please try again later
you may begin a replacement social security
card request using another online social
may also contact your local office
for other replacement card options DONE
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
If I Win the Lottery - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
If I Win the Lottery
Above all, don’t lie
to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a
point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so
loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to
love.
-Fr.
Zosima in Book II, Chapter 2 of The Brothers Karamazov
If
I win the lottery, which is unlikely
Because
I never buy a ticket, you know
I’m
going to have cases of the Modern Library edition
Of
The Brothers Karamazov shipped to me.
For
the rest of my life I will give copies
To
everyone I meet: men in red plastic caps
Mensheviks,
Bolsheviks, vegetarians
A
lonely soul waiting at the bus stop
Dostoyevsky for everyone
If I win the lottery
Monday, August 1, 2022
Undocumented Gardening - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Undocumented Gardening
Last week I
planted my autumn garden
No permits were required
This evening I
dragged hoses in this drought
No reports were assigned
This morning I
freshened the water for the bees
There was no sign-in sheet
And then I used
a machine for cutting weeds
No evaluations
And then while resting
in the leafy shade
I inventoried
the grasses, blade by blade
The Mystery of the Lunar Month - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Mystery of the
Lunar Month
The reality of the lunar month
A tiny bat jerking and jinking through the dusk
In pursuit of its evening mosquitoes
Beneath a far-up vapor trail
The mystery of the lunar month
Calculated by wise ones in the long ago
With night far gentler than the solar heat
And minds more subtle than the glare of day
Each a mathematical autocrat
(Smoking an after-dinner ziggurat?)
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