Lawrence Hall, HSG
Is There No Sulky Gas?
To the dentist this morning but woe and alas
Only a cleaning - no laughing gas!
Ha, ha, ha!
Monday, April 1, 2024
Is There No Sulky Gas? - doggerel
Time Will Play the Tyrant - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Time Will Play the Tyrant
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 5
Time need not play the
tyrant; we have tyrants enough
But it is true that we
must go away
When time and God say we
have played our game
And must withdraw into
another world
We sneak past time with
our words and songs
Arcing over mortality with
truth
Distilling each day into poetry
That lives long after our hearts
and hands are stilled
Time need not play the
tyrant, for tyrants only bluff
And their poor poisons
with their masters die
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Unthrifty Loveliness - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Unthrifty Loveliness
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 4
I had told her how beautiful she was
(she knew that through the mirror, mirror on the wall)
For her bold eyes were upon herself
As she magicked with lipstick and mascara
I had
hoped her blush was for me to gaze upon
Her hair,
her perfect lips, her slender hips
Over
candlelight at the Starlight Roof
Then the telephone, not nature, called her away
I had told
her how beautiful she was
That sports-car
guy, far handsomer than I
Had said
so too
Saturday, March 30, 2024
The Discount-Store Patriot and the Bible Salesman - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Discount-Store
Patriot and the Bible Salesman
Two greedy old men a-shakin’ their Jesus cup -
No, son, for that I ain’t a-standin’ up
Look in Thy Glass - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Look in Thy Glass
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3
I look in the mirror and
ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my
mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and
an impish grin
But later they said I had
to become a man
She had her April, and
then so did I
And there are Aprils
enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils,
but they will do
Every April reflects our
youth back to us
I look in the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother
Friday, March 29, 2024
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Did a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook
Rushing to his topside battle station
But remembering the chief’s daily admonitions
And the way his mother kept her kitchen clean
Notice on a galley table a speck of dust
And pause to brush it away
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
A Tattered Weed - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Tattered Weed
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2
Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady
oak
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
After my morning’s work,
creaking into my chair
And reaching for my iced
tea and a book
Sipping on both for a
vision of youth
My Hercule Poirot body is made
almost young again
By strolling through Arden
with Rosalind and Orlando
(Only for a while; they
would much rather be alone…)
And then the iced tea tells
me of Ceylon
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
But sometimes - forever
young
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The World's Fresh Ornaments - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Word’s Fresh
Ornaments
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 1
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
In a springtime glow of iridescent greens
A sweet Creation scene of little bare feet
And puppies’ paws scampering across soft lawns
Bold pirate ships patrol the honeybees’ pool
And mockingbirds offer flights to the tops of the oaks
A line of waving crocus borders this Narnia
Oh, could there ever be a happier world?
The sun, the green, the bees, the endless day
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Look at How Much Sevin Dust is NOT in the Container - photographs
Brand-new container just now opened
Sevin (r) is good stuff, but while we admire the biologists and scientists who make gardening and food production possible, the alligator-shoe boys in marketing are not to be trusted.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
My New Career as a Doorman - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
My New Career as a
Doorman
“The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”
-in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed
I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night
Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello
And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Make America Pray Again Otto - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make America Pray
Again OTTO
We see the bills of their uniform caps
“OTTO” is the legend beneath the peak
Which reads “Make America Pray Again”
The operative word is “Make” – we must be forced
Then who is OTTO, and whence his authoritative voice?
Is he a god come among us with a rod
To beat us down until we bleed and bleat
A great American Ave or Shema?
A cultic cap is neither theology nor art
And I will never invite OTTO into my heart
Whistling Past the Graveyard - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Whistling Past the
Graveyard
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Not with the radio on and the windows up
Though in our barefoot childhood long ago
Walking home alone at dusk – we whistled
But there is no need to whistle now
The cemetery is not a place of spooks and haints
But of those childhood friends with whom we walked
Past our ancestors to the swimming hole
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Because those whom we love are silent there
Friday, March 22, 2024
We Serve Our Princess Catherine - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Serve Our Princess
Catherine
“We be the King’s men”
– Thomas Hardy and others
We are the King’s people
After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc
Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna
Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles
We are the Queen’s people
And because we are the Queen’s people
We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess
And every woman of our isles a Queen
To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith
We are the Prince’s people
We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –
But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more
Monarchy can easily be ‘debunked;' but watch the faces, mark
the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been
cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom
pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire
equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they
honour millionaires, athletes or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or
gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it
food and it will gobble poison.
-C.S. Lewis, “Present Concerns,” 1948
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Cattywampas - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cattywampas
Cattywampas? You don’t know what cattywampus means?
Cattywampas is:
When you discover in your apple only half a worm
When your planet is out of its orbit
When you lose your lover, your job, and your cat
When your DNA is flagged by the FBI
Cattywampas is:
When a traffic light is forever red
When the car wash strips out the rubber seals
When the doctor says you’re okay…for a man your age
When your neighbor on disability jogs every day
Cattywampus is:
When you have life sorted, indexed, and filed
And then find yourself staring into those eyes…
Years on the Night Shift - couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Years on the Night
Shift
Today’s student loans need not be met
How privileged of me – I paid my debt
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Rain Puddles and Children Make the World Better - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Rain Puddles and Children
For Nora and Theo
Our boat-captain neighbor is home from the sea1
(Okay, the Gulf of Mexico)
And this morning took his children for a walk
Along our road, and stopped to visit with me -
Nora watches and listens, but Theo loves to talk
Talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk
He wildly rushes his sentences and words
Words piled in heaps - he has so much to say!
But Nora in silence celebrates flowers and birds
She sees whole worlds in puddles along the way
And into them Theo LEAPS!
We know this world is in a bit of a muddle
But when children splash through a rain-filled puddle
They make everything better
1Cf. “Requiem,” Robert Louis Stevenson. The context is entirely
different.
Friday, March 15, 2024
Gardening with Happy Bees - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Gardening with Happy
Bees
…for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures
that by a rule in nature teach
The
act of order to a peopled kingdom
-Henry V, I.ii.87-89
A bumblebee hovers in front of my face
No hostility; it’s simply greeting me
As I putter from pot to place to pot again
Messing contentedly with seedlings and soil
But honeybees race around me in formation
No hostility; they’re ignoring me
They speed from water to flower to hive and back –
After all, every flower needs a little love (wink)
Blessed spring hovers softly everywhere
As bee-sy bees sing their sweetest airs
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
The InterGossip is a Content Cop - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The InterGossip is
a Content Cop
Number
Six: I have a choice?
Number
Two: Of course. You can do as you want.
Number
Six: As long as it's what you want.
Number
Two: As long as it is what the majority wants.
-The Prisoner
The
InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand
Half in my face, half-way to a
Fascist salute
Forbidding me to read or study
any further
Without pledging loyalty to a
community
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
If I want to keep reading, I
must subscribe
The cost is access to my
information…information…information
“You have read five of five
free stories this month”
Which is their way of saying, “Your
papers, comrade”
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
And if sometimes my words
violate the standards
Of communities I never joined –
white space
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
There's Nothing Old to Write About the Moon - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
There’s Nothing
Old to Write About the Moon
The newest moon – it blessed us tonight
A sharp bright crescent within a rim-glowing orb
Following the sun’s afterglow deep into the west
Ornamented with a frosting of stars
Monday, March 11, 2024
Ethan Crumbley's "Help Me" - column, 11 March 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
11 March 2024
“Help Me”
Murderer Ethan Crumbley scribbled “Help Me” on a geometry paper [Counselor who allowed school shooter Ethan Crumbley to stay in class despite drawing guns and threats says he thought it would be 'better' for him to be around students than alone after his parents refused to take him home | Daily Mail Online]. Many have inferred that this was that now ubiquitous “cry for help” employed as an excuse for all sorts of violent behavior, and that those who allegedly ignored this one of all the many cries for help are thus guilty of murder themselves and should be imprisoned or even executed.
There are three flaws in this conclusion:
1. That every complaint, whine, resistance, tantrum, protest, or scribble issuing forth from the mouth or pen of an unhappy person is an absolute moral, ethical, and legal imperative for every other human on this planet to shut down all economic, legal, cultural, artistic, and domestic activities until the complainant’s perceived needs are addressed.
2. That every man and woman who fails to read the minds of others or notice any of those famous “red flags” in the behaviors of others should be imprisoned or executed.
3. That Ethan Crumbley was not given help.
I wish to address item 3.
Ethan Crumbley wrote “My life is useless” (and it was; he chose to make it so), “The world is dead,” and “Blood everywhere,” along with foolish adolescent drawings, on a geometry handout on congruent triangles given to him and every other young person in his class as a review in preparation for a coming exam. A look at the exercises and at the vocabulary in the reason bank at the top right of the paper indicates that the instruction offered Ethan Crumbley was of a high level.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through, among other things, a high-expectation mathematics class to help him prepare for a useful, productive, and happy life not only through the immediate mastery of the needful science of mathematics but in extending those challenging lessons in problem-solving and logical thinking into all other fields of human endeavor. A Uyghur teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the provision of a warm, well-ventilated, well-lit place to learn. A Ukrainian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the offer of a hot meal at school every day. A Haitian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help, through his school, church, and community, with opportunities for cultural and charitable activities in music, dance, informal prayer meetings, fellowship, athletics, art programs, Boy Scouts, theatre programs, science clubs, roadside litter pickups, food drives for the poor for Thanksgiving, Christmas toy drives for the poor, nursing home visits for shut-ins, and other programs. A Communist Chinese teenager working long hours and with bleeding fingers to make junk for the amusement of Americans and the enrichment of Beijing oligarchs would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through association with hundreds of other young people from diverse backgrounds and with all sorts of wonderful goals. The young, like adults, are not always likeable. Welcome to reality, kid. Deal with it. A Venezuelan teenager in the streets with no school and no hope and no supportive peers would envy him all those happy possibilities.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through a world of books, music, dance, cinema, parks, after-school jobs, healthy recreation, youth clubs, and volunteer service to people young and old who could have used his help and kindness. But in the end Ethan Crumbley found nothing more interesting in life than his own sulky self-pity.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents, like the leaders of a drug
cartel, didn’t help at all; they gave him a semi-automatic 9mm pistol.
-30-
The Door of My Subaru Popped Out at 10,000 Feet! - photograph
THE DOOR OF MY SUBARU POPPED OUT AT 10,000 FEET!
(well, no, not really)
This is not an altered photograph...
...but, yes, it is deceptive. I was photographing spring bluebonnets in my yard and my MePhone accidentally took this shot ("I didn't pull the trigger, your honor!") as I was getting back into the car. My Subaru Forester is a great ride in every way, but it can't fly.
For a Texas Ranger Upon His Retirement - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
For Brandon Bess, Texas Ranger
Upon His Retirement
Strong of Heart, Lover
of Truth, Teller of Tales, Stoutest of Friends
“Rangers! The best in
Texas!”
-Monsieur Paul Regret
in The Comancheros
A Ranger
Tracking a
man among the obscurities
Of a weedy
field lit by refinery flares
Beer cans,
shadows and mud, cigarette butts -
A suspect is
out there somewhere, out in the dark
A Ranger
Tracking a
man among the obscurities
Of Texas
plains known to Nocona and Coronado
Bleak ridges where
the Comanche danced for the sun -
A suspect is up
there somewhere, hiding from himself
A Ranger
Tracking a
man among the obscurities
Of decaying
DNA in a coat worn years ago
A few rotting
fibers under a microscope -
A suspect is
in there somewhere, under a light
A Ranger
Finding a man
in the darkness of lost souls
And bringing
him out of it, into the Light
Saturday, March 9, 2024
Adverbs: Search Them Out and Destroy Them - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Search Them Out and Destroy Them
Do you truly and honestly
want your writing
Finally to be actually and
really stronger?
Then go search out your
adverbs. Kill them all.
Do you want your writing
to be stronger?
Friday, March 8, 2024
Wild Insects I Have Known - doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Wild Insects I
Have Known
(as Ernest Thompson Seton did not say)
Please don’t tell me that red wasps are benign
A recent one I met had my behind in mind
Its sting by design was most malign
So as I sit please be patient and kind
If I indulge in an unmanly whine!
Sunday, March 3, 2024
No One Keeps a Diary Anymore - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
No One Keeps a
Diary Anymore
Which
is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three
thousand tyrants one mile away?
– Mather Byles
No one keeps a
diary – life is safer that way
Men have been hanged for what they have written
It may be that they revealed some forgotten crime
Or, worse, that they possessed the gift of thought
No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
The Moms for Liberty are scared of books
Even the diary of a little girl
Because children must not read or write or think
No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way -
And have you self-purged your own books today?
South Carolina school district reviews, returns books after
ban attempt (msn.com)
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Bees and Breeze and Lime-Green Butterflies - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Bees and Breeze
and Lime-Green Butterflies
How
beautiful the world is
In
the morning cool and clear!
-Anna Ahkmatova, “The Lime-Trees by the Open Door”
Bees and breeze and lime-green butterflies
Follow the little green electric tiller
Bouncing through the turf from clod to clod
Upending roots and sticks and last year’s grass
Fresh soil awakened from its winter sleep
Eager to push summer sunflowers up and up
Sneezes and wheezes follow the tiller too
Pollens in green and yellow, clouds of allergens
But, oh, the earthen scents, perfect skies -
Bees and breeze and lime-green butterflies!
Friday, March 1, 2024
Is LONESOME DOVE a Sacred Text? - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
One of Texas’
Sacred Books
Taking an oath by placing one hand
On a copy of Lonesome Dove
Is not yet law in our sacred land
But by the Grace of God above…
Someday it might be
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Never Mind the Guns and the Drugs; Seize the Books - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Never Mind the Guns
and the Drugs; Seize the Books
By
1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,
4,175
titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…
-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War
Ideologues search libraries for dirty books
Because reading might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas
Censors search Mary Poppins for dirty words
Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas
In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas
How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in
literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)
The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times
(nytimes.com)
States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives :
The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR
List of banned films - Wikipedia
Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries
following new education reform - CBS News
Monday, February 26, 2024
Broccoli on the Primary Ballot - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Broccoli on the Primary
Ballot
(As President Bush
maior did not say)
Broccoli, limp broccoli, that’s all I see
Just rotting broccoli all stink, stunk, stank
No real choices today, only broccoli –
The same old broccoli, putrid and rank
Sunday, February 25, 2024
The Dime-Store Philosophy of Kahlil Gibran - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Dime-Store
Philosophy of Kahlil Gibran
How The Prophet Made Kahlil Gibran a Household Name in
America ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)
The dime-store philosophy of Kahlil Gibran
(“Daddy,
what’s a dime-store? And what’s a dime?”)
Reposing mostly undisturbed on brick-and-board shelves
The free-verse love-salad of Rod McKuen
And Lord of the Rings in
50-cent paperbacks
The Seekers played over and over on the phonograph
(“Daddy,
what’s a phonograph? Is it something bad?”)
Have you heard The Mamas and the Papas’ latest single?
Peter, Paul & Mary in “stacks of wax”
Three-chord commandos in every coffee shop
Looking back - it wasn’t the greatest stuff
But for the time and place, it was good enough
A Dragon Has Just Flown Over the Treetops - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
“A Dragon Has Just
Flown Over the Treetops…”
“We must all show great constancy.”
-C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Dragons! They seem to land among us daily
Blotting out all happiness, all innocent joys
In appearance and demeanor ugly and scaly,
Suppressing silence through foul foolish noise
Dragons! They don’t like anything about who we are
Our words, our works, our walks, our dreams, our tunes,
Our happy memories of a long-ago star
Our lazy moments in barefoot afternoons
Dragons! They want to crush us in the end
But we’ve read the story – we always win
Saturday, February 24, 2024
The Great Matter of Processing Hogs at the County Jail
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Great Matter
of Processing Hogs at the County Jail
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the topic
of hogs
-as G. K. Chesterton did not say
Our candidates for county sheriff have promised
There will be no more hanky-panky hog-ness
At the county jail
(Where
Elvis says the cats do wail)
Maybe the prisoners are going vegan now
The chief deputy says the hogs are a charity
That the prisoners are happy to butcher them
And share the meat out for the hungry poor
And nobody gets any personal advantage out of it
But whether the prisoners were volunteers or tasked
Certainly none of the hogs was ever asked
Friday, February 23, 2024
No, I Will Not Watch X - quatrain
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
No, I Will Not Watch X
For all
the same reasons I repudiate Q
I will not
watch X, not even for you
And I
regret that you asked me to -
They’re
both a Macbethian witches’ brew
Night of the Long Sporks - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Night of the Long Sporks
Republicans have their
sporks out for each other
Slashing each member with
unpassable bills
Impeaching each MAGA
sister and brother -
The 118th Congress gives me
the chills!
Thursday, February 22, 2024
IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT ALL OVER EUROPE AND OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
IT’S THE END OF THE
WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
ALL OVER EUROPE
AND OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Great AT&T Blink of 2024
America has failed, Babylon has fallen
Amid sturm und drang and riot and rout
Civilization has collapsed and we can’t call it in
Because our telephones are out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Oh, it’s back on – is this Joe’s Pizza?)
How to Write a Modern Scholarship Application Letter
Lawrence Hall, HSG
How to Write a Modern
Scholarship Application Letter
On a photocopy of a photocopy
of a word soup scribbled in pencil on a torn-out sheet of notebook paper at
lunch:
My future life plan goals include being a jet pilot or a
dentrist I havent chose a college yet I have a A in honers English your cholarship
would mean I don’t have to stress about working and my mom and dad don’t have
to stress about working I can just make good grades about stressing about
working I love aminals my hobbies are hanging with my friends and video games I
want to attend community college and become a veteranariarian PHd i was in
peewee football and cheerleading I want to major in bussiness’es and get my
batchelors in bussinnesse’s administeriation in my spare time I hanging with my
friends and we right fourwheeler’s and s’tuff i have looked at your program and
it look’s alright for me maybe I would like it because as a wise man once said to
thine true self be thine I am active in my crurch I WRITE music and build legos
my dreams are in my music i write I help with blue Santa last year I take care
of my specail need’s sister which is why I want to be an pediatrishin to help
specail nee’ds kids and I can inspire other’s to be like me my swimming coach
said I would never make the team and I did so I showed everyone who didn’
believe in me because the key to the bridge to success lys in my dream’s
because my dream’s are what make me me and my dream’s are going to take me to
place’s I never dreamed of as a wise man his name was Martin Luther King said
as a wise man named Gandih said it’s in this book as a wise man named Churchell
said as a wise man named Rosa Parks said as a wise man said
As a wise man said
As a man said
Maybe he said
Maybe
I found it in a book somewhere
Standing the Test of Time - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Standing the Test
of Time
So tell me about life’s test – is it multiple-guess?
Or fill-in-the-blanks for my empty mind
If the most common answer is C…oh, what a mess!
Gimme a hint, Teach; I’m falling behind!
The Wind Drove the Pages Wild - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Wind Drove the
Pages Wild
Reading Yevtushenko on a Windy Day
The flapping, fluttering pages went wild in the wind
And poetry sometimes should go wild, blow wild
To shake those gently slumbering words awake
Provoking peaceful musings into a storm
Nouns chasing verbs into logical conclusions
That turn about and bite the reader in the (hand)
And adjectives torment the symbolism
While adverbs, as always, were mostly in the way
I just wanted a quiet hour with coffee and verse
But flapping, fluttering pages went wild in the wind
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
A Single, Intemperate, Ill-Mannered Line About Tucker Carlson
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A One-Line
Dismissal of Tucker Carlson Isn’t a Poem, But…
Democracy dies in dorkness
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