Universal All-Purpose InterGossip Post Response for The Year of Our Daily Mail 2022

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Universal All-Purpose InterGossip Post Response

for The Year of Our Daily Mail 2022

 

Tinder box iconic cannon fodder

iconic clown show iconic clown circus

iconic clown car iconic clown train

iconic absolute clown show train iconic

he didn’t get the memo iconic

you had one job iconic I have no words

iconic new and selected iconic

subvert iconic at its best iconic

I’m getting the popcorn iconic much

iconic subversive iconic witch hunt

iconic fairy tale wedding iconic

unsung iconic what could possibly go wrong

iconic there, there fixed it for you iconic

FACT I’ll wait iconic oh, wait iconic

snake-oil salesman iconic taking the world

by storm iconic all aboard the crazy train

iconic you could google it iconic

tightknit community iconic worst

case scenario iconic Tinder box

iconic cannon fodder iconic

he didn’t get the memo iconic

you had one job iconic I have no words

iconic new and selected iconic

subvert iconic at its best iconic

much iconic subversive iconic

witch hunt iconic fairy tale wedding

iconic unsung iconic what could

possibly go wrong iconic there,

fixed it for you iconic FACT iconic

I’ll wait iconic oh, wait iconic

snake oil salesman iconic taking the world

by storm iconic you could google it

iconic tightknit community iconic

worst case scenario iconic end of

iconic quelle surprise iconic wheelhouse

iconic dog and pony show iconic

iconic in the crosshairs iconic

jaw dropping iconic supply chain iconic

decolonize iconic post-colonial

iconic neo-colonial iconic

just dropped iconic unshackled writers

iconic quagmire iconic not out of the woods

just wow iconic facepalm iconic

LOL iconic pulled out all the stops

iconic systematic racism iconic

systemic racism iconic structural

racism iconic RINO iconic

Demoncrat iconic Republicrap

iconic bombshell iconic game changer

iconic wow iconic just wow iconic

end of story iconic tight knit iconic

field day iconic perfect storm iconic

winter wonderland iconic

Setting a Cat Among the Pigeons - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Setting a Cat Among the Pigeons

 

After two months

I filed a complaint with the insurance company

After four months

I filed a complaint with the state insurance board

 

Neither the cat nor the pigeons are much moved

Except to disapprove of me for noticing

 

That nothing much has moved

The Decline of the British Empire - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Decline of the British Empire

 

Whatever happens

We have got

Milton and Shakespeare

And they have not

 

But this is what

They have got:

A strong economy

And we have not

 

(Based on a bit of 19^th century triumphalist doggerel, attributed to Hilaire Belloc and others, about the Maxim gun. And let The People shout, “Decolonize these lines!”)

The Second and Most Efficient Memory Device - weekly column 11 December 2022

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Second and Most Efficient Memory Device

 

The concept of the free public library with access to all is, like rural electrification programs, public roads, untaxed airwaves, public schools, university agricultural extensions, and other outreach plans, an expression of the burst of genius and energy that helped make this nation great.  The idea that all citizens, rich or poor, should have access to learning, freedom of movement, the exchange of ideas, and possibilities for self-improvement does not originate in America but this is the nation that made it work.

 

For most of human history access to learning, to the ability to read and write and measure the world and map the stars, to participate freely in what the Romans called the res publica (the republic, that is, the public life), was limited to a relatively small upper class.  England, for instance, gave the world the genius of Shakespeare; America saw to it that everyone had access to Shakespeare.

 

The stunning and inexplicable failures of access via racial, gender, and class biases demonstrate the point that possibilities must be available to all, and that a universally literate citizenry makes life better for all of us.

 

Books have always been expensive, but the American invention of pulping wood for paper in the 19^th century made them less so. The free public library meant that those still-pricey volumes would circulate among the people as does the air, the air of freedom.

 

Libraries have changed, and in many ways not for the better. In our time the successful and stabilizing repositories of knowledge and aesthetics have been seen by some as weapons of ideology, with the promotion of limited points of view and the attendant suppression of others. Public libraries have sometimes been required by the governing authorities to serve as non-emergency homeless shelters and as centers of political activity.

 

In times of crisis, yes, a library or any other building can be used for shelter. A great many libraries in Ukraine, for instance, are of necessity helping keep the dispossessed housed. But housing is not what a library is otherwise for.

 

The freedom to assemble peaceably is an essential value of our republic (with its very democratic systems of voting), but serving as the headquarters of a political party or ideology of any kind is not what a library is for.

 

Adult men and women are free to attend certain entertainments, but those entertainments are not what a library is for.  No one ever entered the Cheyenne Social Club or Miss Kitty’s Long Branch Saloon to demand that the girls cover up and the boys put down their beers for an hour’s discussion of the Wife of Bath and Lady Macbeth as symbols of feminist empowerment.

 

All things to their proper venues.

 

And let’s get real – news features about some guy costuming himself as Elsie the Cow in makeup for a function staged in a public library are news because they are as rare as they are inappropriate. It doesn’t happen here, and it won’t. Librarians are guardians of civilization; posturing loudmouths with bullhorns are not.

 

On the other hand, there’s all the unhappy content in the MePhones parents provide their children.  You think the kid walking down the street with the little Orwellian telescreen in his hand is reading Plato’s concepts of the good, the true, and the beautiful?

 

Back to the books, everyone.

 

-30-

The Objective Correlative of the Construction Trades - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Objective Correlative of the Construction Trades

 

A builder takes a vision of a surface

A vision of place, stability, and horizon

Connections between a bookcase and a window       

Smooth transitions from sitting room to bath

 

And pours them all out as concrete indeed

The Cat as an Argument Against the Concept of Evolution - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Cat as an Argument Against the Concept of Evolution

 

On the sixth day God made the animals

The cat generally disapproved of the others

And in a superior fashion licked its paws

In the springtime shade of the very first oak

 

The very first cat looked upon the very first bird

 

And ate it

 

                   And the cat said that the bird was good

Chewy in musculature and crunchy in bone

 

Then when the Creator rebuked the cat

The cat ignored Him

And in a superior fashion licked its paws

What WE Did in the War - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

What WE Did in the War

 

For all those Keyboard Commandos

Who Can Quote Every Line in Patton

 

You talk about what WE did in World War Two -

Well, I wasn’t there, and neither were you

A Row of Missals on the Chimneypiece - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Row of Missals on the Chimneypiece

 

Those inexpensive missals, all in a row

Upon the chimneypiece of their little home

Each with its ribbons in orderly place

Like children in line for the Eucharist

 

I envied my friend for his family’s faith

The daily liturgies of a Catholic home

Rhythms and usages giving order to life -

They are all gone now, dead or dispersed

 

And in a garage sale some fifty years on

I found his missal, ribbons still in place

The Unemployed Second-Amendment Carpenter Looking for Work - rhyming couplet

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Unemployed Second-Amendment Carpenter Looking for Work

 

“I have five ARs to support,” said he

Without the merest hint of irony

Jack and the Magic Cryptostalk - weekly column 4 December 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46194@aol.com

 

Jack and the Magic Cryptostalk

 

As we are so often reminded in life, there are no magic beans. Still, the lesson is often not taken: The Dutch Tulip Bubble in the 17^th century, the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Bubble in the 18^th century, the original Ponzi scheme in 1919, fools’ gold, emus, Enron, Madoff, cryptocurrency, the Texas State Lottery [State lottery advertising tells players half of the story | AP News], Theranos, and any number of other get-poor-quick schemes that victimize people with cruel tricks to separate them from their savings.

 

We all read about these historical ripoffs in our history classes and wondered how anyone could be so naïve as to mortgage the house to buy, say, tulips, or maybe shares in a gold mine in Peru.

 

In the future people will read about cryptocurrencies and marvel even more. How is it that people invested in something that didn’t even exist? A machine or series of machines generate secret codes that have no reference to anything in reality, and some clever people then sell these secret codes for money. The idea is that the secret codes acquire value and can later be sold for a profit.

 

Magic beans indeed.

 

The first few code owners in any given scheme do make a profit; they tell their stories which in turn entice others to buy some of the magic beans – codes – and so the originators accrue fortunes which they filter to a foreign tax haven before discreetly disappearing with almost all of the investors’ money into another nation which for a generous fee will ignore any attempt at extradition.

 

The recent dramatic failure of a cryptocurrency [Crypto Stocks Teeter Near Abyss as Fink’s Warning Adds to Angst (yahoo.com)] and [Why Hasn’t Sam Bankman-Fried Been Arrested Yet? (nymag.com)] has let the metaphorical cat out of the bag with regard to the others.  The beanstalk is falling; the marvel is that it stood as long as it did.

 

The first few investors might or might not be required by an inquisitive federal court to give their winnings back, and while Poncy Clever, MBA, is lounging on a tropical beach (as long as a host government will want to put up with him), the thousands of investors will be left with nothing but self-reproach.

 

Poncy Clever, MBA, with an umbrella drink in his hand and a Rolex on his wrist, might paraphrase Marie Antoinette and say mockingly, “Let them eat fungible tokens.”

 

Or magic beans.

 

-30-

Trial by Twitter - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Trial by Twitter

 

“…why torture ourselves in order to hurt others?”

 

-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings

 

We have made ourselves a surveillance state

Eager to be approved

Fearful of being judged

We the accused must not presume to think

 

We impeach ourselves daily on their screens

(The screens are hardly ours)

Accusing ourselves of sin

Against the loving terror of the Now

 

But as for a torch and a Phrygian hat –

Is there an app for any of that?

Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, and Pom-Poms - senryu

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbers, and Pom-Poms

 

And sometimes I hear

Professional craftsmen gossiping

Like cheerleader sponsors

Cats, Mice, and Inter-Species Violence - senryu

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Cats, Mice, and Inter-Species Violence

 

Inspired by Kirk Briggs’ thoughts on eye surgery

(It’s complicated)

 

I have cats and mice

The mice don’t need surgery 

But the cats insist

The Cataracts of the Nile - (yes, this one is awful...)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Cataracts of the Nile

 

Obscure and opaque

But surely there are in Egypt

Ophthalmologists

Navigating the Rules - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Navigating the Rules

 

Everything not forbidden is compulsory

 

-T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn

 

The rules are immutable and absolute

Except when they’re not. The rules this week

Are whatever the powerful might say -

Questions are a burden; simply obey

 

Accept that whatever you think is wrong

To the truculent who disapprove of you

For you are outdated, a relic, a prat

And you are wicked to disagree with that

 

Anything in your defense that you might urge

Is now a forbidden ism subject to purge

Negotiating Toilet Paper - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Negotiating Toilet Paper

 

The escort carried three rolls of toilet paper

As she walked me to the classroom area

One each for Dorm A, Dorm B, and the guards

Some fellows walked casually along the path

 

“And you guys know how to walk single-file”

 

“Yes, ma’am”

 

“Yes, ma’am”

 

“Sure thing, ma’am”

 

And thus in silence they formed that single-file

 

“One roll of toilet paper per prisoner per week

Sometimes it’s just not enough,” she said

“We had a meeting on it; I told the guys

Sometimes administration just doesn’t get it”

 

Dignity, like treaties, can be broken

In many ways

The Eyes of a Stalker - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Eyes of a Stalker

 

Dear Publisher:

 

Yes, I thank God you are free to publish your books

And I thank that wise First Amendment thing

Even though crafted by agnostics and rebels

Who ought to have been faithful to their King

 

You are free to call that parasite a prince

You are free to profit from his treacheries

But selling your honor for shillings and pence

Reveals your failure as cultural trustees

 

But know you something of that sullen talker?

On the cover you have given him the eyes of a stalker

FIFA FO FUM - weekly column, 27 November 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

FIFA FO FUM

 

Association football, aka soccer, aka football, is said to be “the sweet sport,” though no one seems to know why. Soccer is nominally a healthy youth sport in which teams of young men and women kick a round ball and occasionally each other, but what one observes in the FIFA World Cup is a sour political mess of grownups acting like children without any positive role models.

 

When we drive by a school or a park and see children playing sports we consider how good it is for them to practice self- and external discipline in pursuit of a common goal.

 

When we open the news and read about adults burning down cities in response to other adults playing those same sports, we wonder at what point did society fail to heed the lessons of youth.

 

No sport can be considered sweet when its commercial sponsors, national sponsors, fans, and players choose to condemn each other in matters religious, national, racial, and political, with apparently little regard or respect for a well-played round, inning, or goal. There are lots of accusations and few congratulations, and fists instead of handshakes.

 

FIFA footer is not a sport, it is an incubator of hatreds and ideologies, and for a very few, great wealth.

 

This nation is hardly innocent in the matter – the behavior of adults attending youth sports in schools and even in church leagues reminds us that at one time children were encouraged and guided in sports by the adults in their lives, not overwhelmed with partisan passion from the stands.  As President Theodore Roosevelt said,

 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds…”

 

Sports for young people are important as part of their intellectual, moral, and physical development. A child participating in a team or even kicking a ball around the back yard is much further along to adulthood than the poor schlub vegetating on the couch with the little Orwellian telescreen for hours at a time.

 

A parent must determine that elusive dividing line between encouraging the child in sports as opposed to displacing the child from making any decisions, and it’s never easy.

 

But as for FIFA as a role model for anything, that’s easy – no.

 

-30-

On the Eve of Advent - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

On the Eve of Advent

 

On the eve of Advent Jupiter ascends

As is his custom at dusk this time of year

Then Mars and the company of Orion

And all the dutiful stars awake, arise

 

To mark the passing of Ordinary Time

And arc into the west and disappear

Late leaves rustle unseen in the deepening dark

We whisper our Compline prayers along with them

 

And in the absence of light await the Light

Which will appear in the most unlikely places

Old Men in Chambray Shirts - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Old Men in Chambray Shirts

 

Meditation on a theme of Tod Mixson

 

We don’t see khakis, Bull Durham, or farmers’ hats

Or muscled arms that toss square bales of hay

Two strokes hammering a ten-penny through two-by-fours

One stroke of an axe splintering lightered pine

 

A hand-rolled smoke dangling from sun-blistered lips

An old boot heavy on a rattlesnake’s head

An old stock knife to cut that b*****d apart

And old, unwritten yarns from the long ago

 

For now old men wear shorts and slogan tees

A flock of gabbing fools with knobby knees

The True Knowledge - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The True Knowledge

 

The True Knowledge

 

Them slaves was happy and well taken care of

Prisoners lay around in air-conditioned private rooms

Teachers don’t teach nothin’ but sex and all them lies

I need disability; I’ve got five ARs to support

 

The True Knowledge

 

They sell children at the pizza parlor

Jesus is my king and Trump my president

I saw them suitcases full of votes

Don’t try to tell me there ain’t no Q – FACT!

 

The True Knowledge

 

I didn’t have to go to no fancy college

I got me [whisper] some sites - they teach The True Knowledge

The Glowing Page - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Glowing Page

 

Once upon a time, when I was young

In wonder I opened the pages of Stanyan Street

And heard those sometimes artless verses speak to me

Through pages golden with the California sun

 

Once upon a time, when I was young

I received a message from Zima Junction

It was somewhat confusing in translation

In Viet-Nam the reception wasn’t very clear

 

It helps to understand that poetry never speaks

For the briefcase politician in his Jeep

Football and the Several First Thanksgiving - weekly column 11.20.2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Football and the Several First Thanksgivings

 

In 1863 President Lincoln established the annual observance of Thanksgiving in honor of the Union victory at Gettysburg (President Lincoln proclaims official Thanksgiving holiday - HISTORY). Over the following decades the holiday was backfilled with stories and histories of questionable accuracy, moving the focus back from Gettysburg to Plymouth Colony, but a holiday dedicated to gratitude for God’s blessings is always good anyway.

 

Without a football game between the University of Texas and Texas A & M the days loses much of its meaning, though. Sniff.

 

Different groups claim that the dinner-on-the-grounds at Plymouth was not the first Thanksgiving. Texas, being Texas, claims TWO first Thanksgivings [The First Thanksgiving? | TX Almanac (texasalmanac.com)]:

 

1541 – the expedition of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado in May in Palo Duro Canyon and

 

1598 – the expedition of Juan de Onate at San Elizario. No one, including the Spanish government, gave thanks for Onate when his mass murders were finally reported.

 

San Augustin / Saint Augustine, Florida claims yet another first Thanksgiving [The First Thanksgiving - Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)]:

 

1564 – the expedition of Pedro Menendez de Aviles and 800 settlers.

 

Most of the images show the First Nations participating in the several first Thanksgiving, which is ironic – it’s as if someone shows up at your house uninvited, cooks your food, and then invites you to sit at your own table and at the foot, not at the head.

 

But all nations appear to have migration stories, and so almost every group has displaced other groups and each has been displaced in its turn. The one exception I know (and I am wonderfully ignorant) are the Acoma of what is known at the present as New Mexico. The Acoma maintain that their ancestors came from the earth right there, not somewhere else, and that is a rare historical narrative indeed.

 

Other Europeans who colonized part of what is now the U.S.A. include:

 

France – 1524

 

Holland – 1615

 

Sweden – 1638

 

Russia – 1732

 

Presumably they too had their own first Thanksgivings, so metaphorically there should be room at the table for everyone and at almost any time of the year.

 

Maybe the only matter upon which all agree is that any Thanksgiving should include a football game.  Every culture on the planet played forms of football from prehistory and it was a biggie in this hemisphere. Thus, playing any kind of football game on Thanksgiving is a very Meso-American thing to do.

 

-30-

Tumbrils Rattling Ideas to Their Deaths - poem

 

Tumbrils Rattling Ideas to Their Deaths

 

 

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

 

-attributed to Gustav Mahler

(But no one sources the quote so maybe it’s from someone else)

 

 

That which is good is now tumbriled through the streets

The carter following the map upon his MePhone

Or rather the map upon their MePhone

Now that one man must not, dare not be he

 

That which is true is stood upon the gallows

It may tweet aloud for a moment or two

But weighted down with the burdens of trends

It must immediately be jerked up short

 

That which is beautiful is burnt as fuel -

All sacrificed to Moloch, loving and cruel