Book Removal Training - poem

  

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Book Removal Training

 

The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.

 

-The Book Thief, p. 112

 

And now burning words must be torn from free people

For if people read they might think about things:

Why does the Party’s Jesus hate everyone

And why are weapons superior to ideas

 

Can a hangperson’s noose teach us to love

Burning crosses comfort a frightened child

Do the cult’s censors fly our flag upside down

While stealing books from our children’s hands

 

A state that trains people to purge library books

Is a slave state

 

 

Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry

Story by Douglas Soule, USA TODAY NETWORK

 

Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry (msn.com)

A Congressssssional Hearing - poem

 

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

A Congressssssional Hearing

 

 

“But hiss for hiss return’d with forked tongue”

 

-Paradise Lost, X.518

 

 

Men in nice suits meet in air-conditioned luxury

Ties perfectly knotted, Cain’s mark on their lapels

Enthroned behind paneled tables of polished oak

Where by the magic of a secular oath, all are honorables

 

There is a chair, who is a man, not a chair

Who wields an oaken gavel of authority

As he smiles benignly and modestly

An ‘umble adornment to the Republic

 

Then “bash!” goes the gavel, and yelling begins

And no one seems to know why

The God of Children and Blueberries - poem

 

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The God of Children and Blueberries

 

For Theo (who is three today) and Nora (who is more than three)

 

“It is eaten, and renewed, every day.”

 

-Ramandu’s daughter in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 

God is prodigal with his seasons and feasts -

This is the season of blueberries, each day a feast

Great clouds of fat blue globes hang upon the little trees

Water and sky shading into Prussian blue

 

This is a table-tree, all are invited

To stand with buckets and thirsty lips

To pick and take, to take and eat, each day

The feast magically renewed each dawn

 

Mockingbirds, robins, sparrows, rabbits, and squirrels

 

And children

 

Picking, pecking, plucking, nibbling, biting

 

All at Aslan’s Table, and all at peace

A D-Day Reminder to Every Neo-Nazi Oaf, Including Members of Congress and Justices of the Supreme Court

 

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A D-Day Reminder to Every Neo-Nazi Oaf

 

Including Members of Congress

And Justices of the Supreme Court

 

There is poetry in this:

Our flag was not flown upside-down at Normandy

Shakespeare: Behold a Man - poem

  

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Behold a Man

 

Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 67 & 68

 

He is a man who needs no oils or scents

The arts of makeup, filters on a lens

A touch of blush upon his honest chin

A photographer’s vanity lights placed just so

 

He is a man who is his own manly self

Washed, shaved, and combed by his own rugged hands

Hands that know shovel, hammer, ax, and saw

A businessman’s hands, a protective father’s hands

 

He is a man who needs no frippery

For he is clean and honest and just, you see

The Doorkeeper of Notre Dame - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Doorkeeper of Notre Dame

 

“I pray you remember the porter”

 

-Macbeth II.iii.22

 

“‘Tis my limited service” on Sundays to mind the door

To open it to the faithful with cheerful greetings

This is pretty much my skill-level, this modest chore

Such is the ancient custom for Sunday meetings

 

A family of long acquaintance approached, almost late

They live some miles away and had a long drive

Their youngest son held his hand out at the holy gate

I thought his intent was a youthful high five

 

But with only one finger he greeted me!

And that was my lesson in humility

 

As for the boy

 

While the servers rang the welcoming bell

His momma yanked him outside and gave him (peace)

A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING

 

“We shall never surrender”

 

-Churchill, 1940

 

Bed and bath grip bars, universal crutches

Quadrupedal crutch tips, raised toilet seats

Cleaning wipes, reaching tools, bedside commodes

Walking sticks (but not one with an Elvis theme)

 

Sitz baths and universal urinals

Transport chairs, folding walkers, rolling walkers

Commode liner bags, inflatable cushions

Walker ski glides, walker tennis balls

 

None of this is depressing; it is inspiring:

“We shall never surrender”

Cataract Surgery (I'll keep an eye out for you) - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Cataract Surgery (I’ll Keep an Eye Out for You)

 

Cataract surgery, the left eye today

Which means I that while I can see through the right

The left side of the world is an iridescent pinkish blue

Through which only a few shapes can be perceived

 

And that’s fine (altho’ I keep tapping the wrong keys)

Sometimes we should look at the world differently

Think of Ransom on Lewis’ Malacandra

Or John Carter on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars

 

When you can see through only one lonely eye

Our home planet too is strange and wild

Grooving in Area 52 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Grooving in Area 52

 

Maybe…

 

The Beatles got it wrong back-then-ago

When groovy discs through grooves grooved out our songs -

For we now groove in an Area 52

Not in a groovy screen-door submarine  

 

Certainly…

 

We groove and grok in bondage behind chain links

Where elderly men fondle their guitars

And middle-aged women dressed as majorettes

Jiggle duct tape and weight-loss medications

 

Maybe…

 

The Beatles grooved it right ago-back-then -

Old grooves, dull mediocrity still lock us in

Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late

 

“It’s crap, I tell you; it’s just crap! Hey, you bump me again and I’m going to whip your /ss! Why don’t these people walk in that other aisle!? Can’t they see that there’s a line in this aisle!? What’s that?  That’s just crap; I told you that! Hey! Why’re you people late!? I don’t want to sit down don’t tell me to sit down I don’t want to sit down this is all bullsh/t!  Hey! You people need to walk over there! No, I don’t want to settle down don’t tell me to settle down if these people had shown up for work on time they could have had our stuff ready by now but not they just come in a half hour late and they don’t care! HEY! Why aren’t these people on time I got things to do I need my stuff but they don’t care don’t walk so close to me go walk in that other aisle why are all these people here why isn’t this line moving I think that guy’s trying to sneak in no he’s at the wrong window! HEY! That’s the wrong window the line’s over here you won’t get no help there…!”

 

The bandage on his head needed no explanation.

Memorial Day: This Bloody Field - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

                                        Memorial Day: This Bloody Field

 

That we may wander o’er this bloody field

To book our dead, and then to bury them

 

-Henry V, IV.vii.75-76

 

Some say this day began

                   As a memorial to the Confederate dead

Some say this day began

                   As a memorial to the Union dead

We only know that now it is a memorial for those

Who died for causes far beyond themselves

 

The glory of our soldiers is in the orphans they fed

The huts they helped repair, the ponchos they gave

To the shivering cold, reassurance to the terrified

Poor comforts to the bombed-out and the dying

 

The glory of our soldiers

Is not in some strident Man of Destiny

Bellowing fancy words from a prompter screen

But in hungry men who gave their C-rats away

 

Before they died in some damned bloody ditch

 

In their honor, then

 

Let us quietly work in causes beyond ourselves

And risk being made into sacraments

Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight - rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight

 

A powerful monster //  living down

in the darkness growled // in pain…

-Beowulf, Burton Raffel translation

 

In the sinister dusk // they seek our blood

A ghastly enemy // of disgusting thirst

Stealing up from the swamp // and primordial mud –

Well, we stole their habitat // – the mosquitoes were here first!

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate - rhyming couplet

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate

 

“No, sir, I do not bite my dentures at you, sir; but I bite my dentures, sir.” 

-as a brawler in Romeo and Juliet I.i.57 does not say

 

Neither man is a coherent talker -

This might end as combat by walker

We Can't Take Our Books with Us When We Die - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

We Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die

 

Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera. 

-Apocalypsis XXI:V

 

We can’t take our books with us when we die

That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:

The copy of The Brothers Karamazov

I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?

 

But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow

And since He is the Word, all our books are His

How foolish of us if we fear that God

Has made no proper arrangements for them

 

Books are eternal

 

Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf

For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief

A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists

 

A question may be brought about ownership

And the turgid content of the daily trawl

But even before the question of censorship

          One must ask

Why are adults on TikTok at all?

Shakespeare: Will Needs an Intervention - poem

 Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

William Needs an Intervention

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 42

 

Will, we need to talk:

                                      this is all your grief

Your friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all

I’ve seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark

Catching Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs

 

They saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe

But were mostly canoodling high up in the back row

I cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse

Grieving over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you

 

Give over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -

The Avon’s down the road; we should go fishing

Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors?

 

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon

In glorious CBS monochrome

Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow town street

And saunter through those familiar swinging doors

 

I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam

And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other

While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly

And for a while we are all at peace

 

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon

That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered outside

Shakespeare: I'm Not Going to Press Charges - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

I’m Not Going to Press Charges

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 40

 

I gave her my love freely; she did not steal

It only feels that way, for she is gone

She could not steal that which she was given

And she could not possibly leave it with me

 

The lock is broken, my poor room is rubbished

The neighbors saw nothing, my dog didn’t bark

The unseeing eyes of any cameras are dark

Love has no receipts, no inventory, no insurance

 

And so, officers of love, there is no report

Except that I lost my case in a higher court

Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny's - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny’s

 

for

 

William Tod Augustine Mixson

 

Saint Michael’s Orthodox Church, Beaumont

 

 “Memory Eternal”

 

A cup of coffee is a chalice in its way

It brings us all to a table of sharing

And consecrates old friendships with every sip

Blessing us at the end with an Ite of joy

 

But today there was an empty place

An empty cup, an empty plate, empty

Even the air was empty, empty and void

With a joke that wasn’t told today

 

Max found a Denny’s card among his things -

Tod treated us to breakfast once again

 

But not for the last time

 

He’ll tell us that joke at a more glorious feast

Shakespeare: Maybe We Need to See Other People

  

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Shakespeare: Maybe We Need to See Other People

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 39

 

Perhaps if we separated for a few days

We would find more passion in our love

 

 

 

(Please note all this artsy empty space)

 

 

 

After fourteen empty lines I find

My deep, abiding love for you stronger than ever

But who’s this…you’re seeing some other man?

THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!

I'll Be Away from My Desk for a Few Days - very short poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

“I’ll Be Away from My Desk for a Few Days”

 

“Look upon my absence, Ye mighty, and despair”

 

-as Shelley did not say

 

Every once in an ego you’ll read on a site

“I’ll be away from my desk for a few days”

As if everyone must re-schedule his life

And wait forlornly for Mr. O’s return

 

Nothing else remains 404 Error 404 Error

404 Error 404 Error 404 Error 404 Error

Shakespeare: Honoring a Muse is Sexist, They Say - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Shakespeare: Honoring a Muse is Sexist, They Say

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 38

 

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now

That the nine goddesses plus one are victims

Objectified passives honored in name

But neglected when the royalties are paid

 

But a muse is a goddess of power and truth

The artist or writer does indeed gaze at her

But the goddess gazes back, informing your art

With her beauty and her sternest truths

 

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now -

Ignore their jealousies: obey the goddess

The Spirit of Art - very short poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Spirit of Art

 

Is

 

The good, the true, the beautiful

 

Not

 

The sullen, the resentful, the envious

Smoke Drifting Across America - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Smoke Drifting Across America

 

“Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live” 

Columbia campus protester apologises for 'kill Zionists' comments (bbc.com)

 

Ash-grey smoke drifts across America

 

          “That’s a false narrative”

          “That’s a false narrative”

          “That’s a false narrative”

 

The narrative is metaphorical; the smoke is real -

Ashes and smoke from Auschwitz, from burning Jews

The Governor of South Dakota Takes a Shot at the Vice-Presidency - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 The Governor of South Dakota Takes a Shot at the Vice-Presidency

                        Who is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem? Dog controversy, more to know (usatoday.com)

Blazing a trail of death and bloody fur

She shot her dog, her goat, three horses too

Somehow they failed her, and so, we must concur  

She executed them in a bloody coup

When her family's animals disappoint her

She shoots them; she feels that’s her duty to do

Silencing each substandard bark, bleat, and purr -

Now what if she becomes disappointed in 

                                                you?

Every Morning Begins with Sunlit Hope - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Every Morning Begins with Sunlit Hope

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 33

 

Every morning begins with sunlit hope

Perhaps an echo of the Passover seder

“Why is this morning unlike all other mornings?”

Because this day our hope will be fulfilled

 

But it isn’t

 

The arrows of the pharaoh darken the sun

His beatings and executions extinguish light

We work and sweat and bleed, and are still found wanting

We take to our beds in exhaustion, and we dream

 

Next year in Jerusalem

 

Every morning begins with sunlit hope -

Maybe tomorrow will be the dawn of freedom

 

Let's Meet Again Next Week or Next Life - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Let’s Meet Again Next Week or Next Life

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 32

 

To ask to be remember’ed is good

Both for the humble asker and for the asked -

For both will pause to consider mortality

And both will pause to enjoy the happy now

 

We understand this world will pass away

That all created things must collapse and die

And yet we are promised them back again

And each other too, in saecula saeculorum

 

Then, yes, please, do remember me, if you would -

To ask to be remember’ed is good

While Clenching Their Fisties - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

While Clenching Their Fisties

 

Old men do not now argue politics

At the coffee table in the grocery store

Old men, like some university students

Simply say what they are ordered to say

 

By voices bellowing from Orwellian telescreens

 

While clenching their Trumpy-grumpy fisties

When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy Thought - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy Thought

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

 

I don’t need to summon up remembrances

They simply wander in uninvited

In death just as they did in life, good friends

To sit together with our jokes, our drinks, our pipes

 

We still argue with each other, our minds

So familiar after all those happy years

Thesis, antithesis, and Dunhill tobacco

Ice cubes rattling in the soft summer dusk

 

Lewis and Tolkien show up late, stern Milton too

Remembrances? Not really – we are forever here

 

 

In Moscow, 1937, during the annual Soviet writers’ congress—a time of severe purges—Pasternak took a courageous stand. Amidst the dull, regime-prescribed speeches praising Leninist-Stalinism, he did something extraordinary. He recited Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare:

 

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste.”

 

The impact was profound. All two thousand writers in the hall rose to their feet, joining Pasternak in this act of defiance. The number “30” became a symbol of resistance, a testament to the enduring power of poetry and memory.

 

Introducing a Sunday Series from Douglas Murray: Things Worth Remembering | The Free Press (thefp.com)

 

Those Who Straddle the Temple Walls - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Those Who Straddle the Temple Walls

 

“Choose you this day whom you will serve”

 

-Joshua 24:15

 

For those who are desperate to be accepted as cool –

 

You cannot straddle the walls of the holy Temple

You cannot straddle the barbed wire of Auschwitz

You cannot straddle the banks of the Red Sea

You cannot choose two sides and call them one

 

Since the Hitler time there have not been two sides

 

You cannot wear both the tallit and the snakeskin

You cannot break bread with your grinning executioners

You cannot dance to circled drums and bullhorn chants

You cannot forswear your family murdered in the gas chambers

 

Since the burning time there have not been two sides

 

He who chooses the fashionable, the clever, the cool

Chooses to be a kapo, a funktionshaftling

His people will despise him, so too his masters

                   (Who in the end will kill him in his shame)

And his memory will be a curse, not a blessing

 

But you –

 

Choose bravely so that your name will be written in The Book

And written in the hearts of your proud descendants

 

When Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

When Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

 

A good thing with being disgraced in men’s eyes

Is that that mostly they don’t notice you at all

As a nobody you are but a shadow at best

Or an accessory in their empty scenes

 

If they don’t notice you, then you are not disgraced

And you have better things to do anyway:

Children to raise, songs to sing, books to write

Each day’s honest labor at your honest craft

 

The resolution is

 

That some men might be disgraced in your eyes

That is, if you choose to notice them at all

And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway? - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway?

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 28

 

The days are a mess and so are the nights

Each day is burdened with labors unrelenting

Toils industrial and toils emotional

Everyone seems to want a bite of you

 

At night the stresses follow you to bed:

The boss’s write-ups seem to poison the pillows

The unpaid bills, the clapped-out car, the fears

The children’s report cards, the broken washer

 

You give life your all – you work, you struggle, you strive -

And why is there a cop car in your drive?

These Here So-Called Schools These Days - doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

These Here So-Called Schools These Days

  

“Lead, Follow, or Get the H*** Out of the Way” 

-a sign on the bulkhead in recruit training

  

Those coffee-shop cynics drowning in dejection:

Some of them wallow in existential abjection

And some meet every hope with an objection

Or with a sneering, irrelevant deflection

 

          But I did something other than b**** and moan

 

I voted in my local school board election