Happy Clover

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
April, 2013

 Happy Clover

Brave little clovers scorn the mud and ice

Of dreary February’s indecision;
They bloom beyond the glass, the dead-dry heat
Of cinder-block cells and fluorescent lights,
That eternal summer of electrons
Shot from cool cathodes of ruthless progress
Against the holy mercury vapour:
Et flickering lux facta est to fall
Like home-office visitations upon

File folders full of fond fatuities,

Computer screens glowing the latest truths,
Stained coffee mugs that advertise good times,
And happy-happy photographs, staplers,
Photographs of acceptable partners,
A cartoon that was funny years ago,
Tape-dispensers, all elbowing for space
On the certified Plains of Abraham.
Oh, happy little clovers, fix for use
Some nitrogen in anticipation
Of the fragile, needful grass of summer;
Be proof against predatory herbicides,
And in the north wind dance your promises.

Camping on the Edge of Forever

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
April, 2013

Camping on the Edge of Forever

For Mike Marconett

of happy memory

Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.

Court Day

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
April, 2013

Court Day

So sullenly he sneers and slouches there

Behind a menu that he will not read
His mother smiles apologetically
And orders milk and cereal for him

He sulks beneath his franchise baseball cap

And grunts into a little plastic box
Then shoves it back into his pressed knee-pants
His mother smiles apologetically

                  tips apologetically

                  pays apologetically

The waitress with her chalice takes communion ‘round

Refills the cups at each creaky table
Newspaper stories, what is this world coming to,
Bacon and eggs, toast, orange juice, refills, life

Beyond the misted glass the old court house

Begins to take the early morning light
Like an old man taking his first cup of the day
Having another go at civilization

A rural Thomas More parks his old truck

This Chaucerian sergeant of the law
Will plead the usual catalogue of not-his-faults
The lad will smirk and feign apologies

The creaky tables of the ancient laws

To be served with irrelevant custom
The lad asks for change for the Coke machine
His mother yields

apologetically

A Twilight Study

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

A Twilight Study

Perhaps there is no reason why these thoughts
Should be reconstructed, recalled, re-read, 
This dusk in spring, soft-scented, green, and still,
With cumulous clouds rehearsing for the summer,
Silently flinging the falling sun about,
And from the grass the early mosquitoes
With tiny, unseen wings grudge wheeling birds
Utility, charm, sometimes majesty.
Mischievous cats dancing like couplets in rhyme
Along the fence-top in alla breve time
Torment with pirouettes the ground-bound dogs,
Provoking from their playmates envious barks,
Prologue to a reconciliation
And Eden’s sleep beneath the ancient moon.
Why should this hour, gentle with Vesper joys,
Be scanned and disciplined as iamb’d lines
In poor remembrance of reality,
A catalogue of senses lived in time
And reconsidered then on ink-marked page,
Or screen luminescent within a box?
Old Adam knew such tranquil gardened evenings,
And generations yet beyond the stars
Will live on earth such happy sunset peace;
Yet still, somehow, this moment of Creation
Is now commended to a leaf or so,
And when the actors of these moments past
Joy in the eternal summer of God,
Maybe, after whispering to the skies an evening hymn,
Someone will read these lines, and delight in them.

 Published in Longbows and Rosary Beads, http://longbowsandrosarybeads.blogspot.com/, 5 May  2013

A Diva's Demands

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

A Diva’s Demands

Let be set out a wooden crucifix

Of indifferent and artless workmanship
Upon a table where the lamplight falls
In yellow circles on a book or two,
And sheets of paper and a quirky pen.

Let be set up a surplus Navy bunk

With mattress and blanket, and pillow too,
If Brother Guestmaster has them to hand,
Luxury enough for merciful sleep,
Or combat desperate against fearful dreams.

Let be set into the wall a hook or nail

To serve the office of a wardrobe there,
Burdened with little but perhaps too much:
A decent habit for the liturgies,
A worn-out coat, a hat against the sun.

Let be set into the cell an exile,

A man of no reputation at all,
Unnoticed in the streets, unseen, unknown,
But who delights in anonymity,
Here in this palace in Jerusalem.

Hunted

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Hunted

 

A fugitive lopes through the ghostly woods
In animal despair, haunted, pursued,
Soul-stumbling in the spirit-grasping shadows,
Lost in the moonless cold, the hissing night.

His little plastic box still shows two bars.

Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary

Those who have never bagged corpses

After a night of flarelit horror
Confused, concussed, their souls awash
With blood and smeary shards of flesh
Incensed in obscene stench of death
Are calling for armed revolution

Let us call instead for a cigar

And a quiet evening with Keats

A Debt of Nature

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

A Debt of Nature

This pine tree was no aged forest giant,

No storied marker of Texas history;
It looked nothing like a Doric column,
Or a temple sacred to golden Apollo,
Or a cathedral scented with ancient prayers -
Since no cathedral features viscid bark -
Nor yet again a sentinel or spire.
No, it was but a good loblolly pine,
Discreetly failing after long service,
And, taking tendrils of wisteria
Down to a most surprising end for them,
On a quiet day it measured its length
And sighed its completed story to God.

Books on Watch

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Books on Watch

A day closes in obedience to the clock,

To weary yawns, more yawns, and wonky joints.
Words read are unremembered at this hour,
And pages lie open, idle, unseen.
The window panes reflect only this room
And its books, neither neat nor catalogued,
Slovenly ranks of civilization,
Askew, aslant, but yet on duty still;
They stand, and in defiance face the dark:
Poetry, novels, histories, and art,
Biographies and essays, music, too –

Even in their silence they seem to say

Slink off, dark Chaos, for here we stand and stay.

Oklahoma in the Spring

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Oklahoma in the Spring

 

A young mother cradles her broken child
Amid the fragments of her world, her soul.
Blood drips.  Rain-sodden insulation drips.
Stillness between storms.  The trees are all gone.
A dark Sargasso Sea of shattered wood,
Bricks, clothes, books, toys, rags, glass, papers, bodies.
In the gasping heat the rot begins now.
No houses.  No lights.  A helicopter
Floating valley boys with plastic boxes
Taking cruel pictures and O-My-Godding
For the telescreen (between soda ads).
And in fortresses of personal affronts
Keyboard commandos leap into inaction:

People who choose to live there deserve it.

We told you that global warming is true.
We didn’t have these things ‘til they kicked Jesus
Out of these here schools. And paddling, by God.
It’s Obama’s fault.  Or is it George Bush?
It’s the Republicans. Public schools. Gaia.
British Petroleum.  Coal.  SUVs.
Suburbs.  Not reading the Bible.  Comets.
You’re stupid. Well eff you, then.  Eff you more.

While in the second lowering line of storms

A young mother cradles her broken child.

Polwygles

Lawrence Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
May, 2013

Polwygles

Polwygles bathe in pools, primordial ponds,

As fingerlings in amniotic seas
That rise and fall through seasons, rain, and heat,
And breathe forth life into a springtime world.

Polwygles then in metamorphosis

Begin to bubble at the warm, sweet air,
Slow-swinging, flinging new and awkward legs
In lieu of childhood’s diminishing tail.

Polwygles rise to try their sticky toes

On land and leaves and stems, those unknown worlds,
Mysterious as a moonlit night in May,
There fully to be formed for yet more life,

And grown-up frogs are given the gift of song

To after-ask “O where do we belong?”

 

“Polliwog” is an anapest (../); the amphibrachic foot (./.) (yes, I had to look that up) of the Middle English “polwygle” (I had to look that up too) worked better for my purposes, and permitted me to show off.  That “amphibrachic” is in its first two syllables close to “amphibian” is probably an accident.

$20.13

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com
26 May, 2013

$20.13

May and June remain The Graduation Season featuring noisy assemblies in gymnasia or football fields wherein recordings of Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory,” which is about the British Empire, are miscued on electric gadgets made in China. In the meantime, the solemnity of graduation is marked with the sacred cowbell, the holy air horn, and the blessed vuvuzela.  This rite of passage, which, objectively, is not a rite at all, requires a gift.

Selecting a gift for the graduation speaker is easy – a one-minute egg-timer. 

Selecting a gift for the graduate is increasingly difficult. 

Once upon a time (when we were all poor but didn’t know it), a pen was an excellent choice as a gift for a graduate.  Pens were elegantly made and meant to last, and like a suit and a watch suggested that the bearer was going to escape following the plow or the cross-cut saw.

In East Texas there is no audible difference between “pen” and “pin,” and someone in need of a pen asks “Have you got an ink-pen?” and pronounces it “Have you got uh ink-pen?” 

Young people (and it’s their fault, right?) don’t know that some pens are aesthetically pleasing works of art and can be refilled; under-forties are familiar only with disposable, made-in-Indonesia ink-sticks which don’t work well or last long, on those rare occasions when the writer is not tippy-tapping on toxic plastic keys made in China.

Once upon a time (when we were all poor but we had love), a father took his graduating son to Mixson Brothers and bought him his first grown-up suit for graduation itself, and for job interviews, parties, weddings, baptisms, and funerals.  The play-clothes of boyhood were put aside; the young man began to dress as a young man.

But now that the Medicare generation creakily disport themselves in knee-pants, flip-flops, Grateful Dead tees, and Toronto Blue Jays ball caps, no thoughtful parent would ask young men and young women to dress as godawfully tacky as their grandparents.

Once upon a time (when a dollar was worth a dollar), a watch was a very useful graduation gift, because the man who needed a watch wasn’t following the position of the sun or the mill whistle as a schedule; he was doing better.  Watches now are historical artifacts like mill whistles, for the modern young man of affairs refers to his MePad for the time.

A Bible?  Well, which one?  Should the Old Testament follow the Alexandrian canon or the Palestinian canon?  Old King James?  Middle-aged King James?  New King James?  And who says?  Given the number of specialty renderings (there is even a C. S. Lewis Bible, in a translation that long post-dates his death), should the words of Glenn Beck and President Obama be printed in red?

Perhaps the safest graduation gift is a nice little check for $20.13.  The graduate can apply it to the purchase of his own pen, suit, watch, Bible, or life, and he will be very grateful to you.

I know the political script requires that I write “they,” but one graduate cannot be “they,” and “he” in context is gender-neutral, as it always has been.  Young people can be a bit rebellious, and you and I can hope and pray that they will always rebel at least a little against their political masters who try to bully them into following the Orwellian Newspeak illogic, both in syntax and in ideology, that one is many and many are one.

-30-

Messiaen's La Nativite du Seigneur

Naji Hakim plays Olivier Messiaen's LA NATIVITE DU SEIGNEUR on the Grand Orgue of the Church of La Trinite, Paris.  Vol 21, no 2, The BBC Music Magazine Collection.

This assemblage of disconnected riffs, motifs, stunts, tricks, and noises reminds us why pastors, assistant pastors, vergers, and the nice folks who tidy up after divine services should be careful to keep the church organ locked lest someone walk in and abuse it.

6 May 2012. The Game-Changer Icon Blows the Whistle at the Tipping Point

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

The Game-Changer Icon blows the Whistle at the Tipping Point

As tweeted in the national news by various reliable sources close to far-flung centrists, liberal media bias talking points reached the tipping point with pin-point accuracy by crossing a red line drawn in the sands of time by sustainable viral rebels.  Categorically denied by the FLOTUS, affordable prescription drugs impacted climate change as both sides of the aisle came together to grow the game-changing economy in order to take back our streets from right-wing team-building earmarks.

Further, green diversity admitted to a personal error in judgment whose smoking gun was revealed in a walk-back whose timing could only be politically motivated.  This unfortunate chapter in the party rank-and-file was a benchmark game-change for the leader of the free world to double down on gender-based innovations.

In Europe, the war on women sought out the game-change healing process through settled science along the fiscal cliff.  Green jobs coming out of the firewall were hailed by sources close to the Vatican as a time to move on up the slippery slope to wreak havoc on net chatter.  The mainstream was downstream because upstream porcelain shares were noticeably higher.

In other news, closure was sought by firewalls everywhere so that Israel’s Iron Dome would be a wakeup call too big to fail on climate change.  A key endorsement by real-time right-wing advocacy groups insisted that his resignation was based on his need to spend more time with his family’s fully-automatic assault rifle with high-capacity pressure-cookers.  Although sources close to Hamad Kharzi said this move was an over-the-top effort sounding a death-knell for the nanny state science-deniers, due diligence in the wake of hate crimes called for an end to outside-the-box mandates.

In business news, sources close to Wall Street suggest that the enhanced infrastructure game change showed real concerns in the optics of loose cannons on deck.  Empowering the enhanced status of free-market synergy led to pro-active core values reaching a jaw-dropping reality check on Asian memes.  The robust credibility of main street’s best practices suggests that the palpable excitement of transparency is cooling off to sustainable limits.

Finally, in sports news, sources close to the south end of a north-bound free agent exploring other game-changing options on Saturday reported that a great many people were stunned and shocked to the very core of their existential beings, bringing about a world that they no longer recognize, defining a generation and changing their lives forever, to discover that one horse can run faster than another.

-30-

Russian Easter - Christos Voskrese!

Christos Voskrese!

For Tod

The world is unusually quiet this dawn
With fading stars withdrawing in good grace
And drowsy, dreaming sunflowers, dewy-drooped,
Their golden crowns all motionless and still,
Stand patiently in their ordered garden rows,
Almost as if they wait for lazy bees
To wake and work, and so begin the day.
A solitary swallow sweeps the sky;
An early finch proclaims his leafy seat
While Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Then wide-yawning Mikhail, happily barefoot,
A lump of bread for nibbling in one hand,
A birch switch swishing menace in the other
Appears, and whistles up his father’s cows:
“Hey! Alina, and Antonina! Up!
Up, up, Diana and Dominika!
You, too, Varvara and Valentina!
Pashka is here, and dawn, and spring, and life!”
And they are not reluctant then to rise
From sweet and grassy beds, with udders full,
Cow-gossip-lowing to the dairy barn.

Anastasia lights the ikon lamp
And crosses herself as her mother taught.
She’ll brew the tea, the strong black wake-up tea,
And think about that naughty, handsome Yuri
Who winked at her during the Liturgy
On the holiest midnight of the year.
O pray that watchful Father did not see!
Breakfast will be merry, an echo-feast
Of last night’s eggs, pysanky, sausage, kulich.
And Mother will pack Babushka’s basket,
Because only a mother can do that right

When Father Vasily arrived last night
In a limping Lada haloed in smoke,
The men put out their cigarettes and helped
With every precious vestment, cope, and chain,
For old Saint Basil’s has not its own priest,
Not since the Czar, and Seraphim-Diveyevo
From time to time, for weddings, holy days,
Funerals, supplies the needs of the parish,
Often with Father Vasily (whose mother
Begins most conversations with “My son,
The priest.…”), much to the amusement of all.

Voices fell, temperatures fell, darkness fell
And stars hovered low over the silent fields,
Dark larches, parking lots, and tractor sheds.
Inside the lightless church the priest began
The ancient prayers of desolate emptiness
To which the faithful whispered in reply,
Unworthy mourners at the Garden tomb,
Spiraling deeper and deeper in grief
Until that Word, by Saint Mary Magdalene
Revealed, with candles, hymns, and midnight bells
Spoke light and life to poor but hopeful souls.

The world is unusually quiet this dawn;
The sun is new-lamb warm upon creation,
For Pascha gently rests upon the earth,
This holy Russia, whose martyrs and saints
Enlighten the nations through their witness of faith,
Mercy, blessings, penance, and prayer eternal
Now rising with a resurrection hymn,
And even needful chores are liturgies:
“Christos Voskrese – Christ is risen indeed!”
And Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

"Ice Machine! Dead Ahead!" - Cruising Route 66 (Sort of)

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

Cruising Route 66

“Come aboard; we’re inspecting you…” 

-      Paraphrasing a line from the Love Boat theme

Foreign-owned bulk carriers of humans have permitted a number of those humans to come to grief the last few years, tragedies which apparently seldom interrupt the clinking of the coins in the counting-houses of the owners.

Neither do those appointed to protect American interests and lives seem much interested in the seaworthiness of flag-of-convenience ships; in this they are not unlike their fellow civil servants who pretend to oversee slaughterhouses in the middle west.  The democratically-elected government of the United States is no more concerned with lives than was the board of directors of the White Star Line.

Until the MV Lyubov Orlova phase of cruising is over, vacationers might want to reconsider the Great American Highway, the ownership of which has not yet been surrendered to our masters in China.  To advance the cause of stayin’ alive by stayin’ in the USA, a few conspirators recently gathered around a battered table in a dank cellar illuminated only by a dripping candle and drew up a manifesto on why a motel room along Route 66 is far superior to a prettily-decorated cell lost somewhere along a confusing corridor of identical cubes on Deck 14C:

1.   A motel never needs lifeboats.

2.   Motel toilets not only flush, they flush into a functioning waste disposal system, not into the hallways.

3.   There is no possibility of a motel sinking at sea.

4.   Motel guests don’t all suffer the same sickness at the same time.

5.   Beneath the motel there are no hot, noisy caves of Nibelungs toiling anonymously.

6.   Raw sewage isn’t likely to flood the motel, but if it does you can step outside and walk away from it.

7.   Pirates don’t hijack motels.

8.   “My Pancreas Must Go On” – no one ever inflicted onto the world an insta-emo song about the persistence of body parts after the destruction of a motel.

9.   The night manager cannot possibly run the motel onto rocks.

10. No one ever fell off the porch of a motel and drowned in an asphalt parking lot.

11. Motion sickness is not a problem in a motel.

12. The desk clerk doesn’t search through all your stuff and confiscate your beverages, your snacks, your Swiss Army Knife, and your dignity.

13. No buffets of food fermenting at room temperature.

14. No tipping the caretakers.

15. Your motel room does not sit atop 700,000 gallons of fuel.

16. Finally, there is no seaman on watch atop the roof of a motel along a desert highway crying down to the office “Iceberg!  Dead ahead!”   

“Ice machine!  Dead ahead!”  Now that’s much better.

-30-

Russians in Moc Hoa

I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam

Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Russians in Moc Hoa

I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
And then I learned about Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!

Saturday Morning Thoughts Over Coffee With Other Old Geezers

Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Saturday Morning Thoughts Over Coffee With Other Old Geezers

If American money is so worthless, why does our government take it away from us under penalty of imprisonment? And why does our money go to people who don’t like us?…

So that’s what a thousand-dollars-an-hour, um, friend looks like. Yawn.…

Is the rebuilding of Iraq going any better than the eternal rebuilding of Interstate 10 between Orange and Beaumont?…

Tibet has risen in an unorganized but fierce rebellion against its Chinese occupiers. The streets of Lhasa are smoking with the fires of burnt cars and shops, people are hiding inside their houses, Tibetans are beating up and maybe killing Han Chinese, and Han Chinese are beating up and maybe killing Tibetans. The curious thing is that no one has yet blamed America. Well, maybe the Reverend Doctor Wright has.…

Some ministers are certainly tacking on the adjectives these days. Brother Noisy is now The Reverend Doctor Bishop Noisy. But just what university grants degrees in shouting at people?…

What, exactly, is a superdelegate? Does he leap tall voters in a single bound?…

Presidential candidate Senator / Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to control the evil, wicked, greedy oil companies who explore, drill, ship, and process oil despite increasing taxes, regulations, and criticism. The federal government’s record in regulating into oblivion passenger trains, hospitals, physicians, and our national borders suggests that this is probably not a good idea.…

Democrats in Florida and Michigan may get to vote for a second time in the Democratic Party primaries because the Democratic Party did not permit their votes to matter the first time. The Democratic Party in Texas held both primary elections and primary caucuses, so the old gag about Vote Early, Vote Often really is true. Even so, superdelegates can override the state primaries. So does anyone really know what’s going on?…

What is a subprime lender? What is a subprime anything? Is there a superprime?…

If a car can be pre-owned, does that mean it can also be post-owned?…

The very limited and highly-regulated sealing season is about to commence in Newfoundland, so expect the usual pictures of cute widdle iddy biddy baby seals, carnivorous varmints who are as about as cuddly as rabid raccoons on crack, being clubbed to death. Then in our profound sorrow we can all drive past the abortion clinic to the fast-food joint for some dead cow. It is a pity, though – a pity that the pelts of carnivore-rights activists aren’t worth anything.…

Why doesn’t anyone feel sorry for the cute little fishies and other marine life who die screaming in the greedy jaws of evil seals? Where are the eel-rights activists?…

Does progress mean that soon we will watch embarrassed husbands standing bravely by, shedding a tear or two, as their middle-aged wives confess to kinky, um, chess with 20-something boys and stealing public funds?

Always Wear a Clean Shirt at a Wedding

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Always Wear a Clean Shirt at a Wedding

During the recent royal wedding one could not help noticing the wild, bizarre headgear that seemed to detract from the sacredness of the occasion – I refer to hairy Prince Harry’s hair, of course. He seemed to be channeling Donald Trump. Oh, the follicles of one’s youth!

Prince Harry was in military uniform, and one wonders why his commanding officer didn’t tell him “Lieutenant, prince or no prince, you get that hair cut to regulation.”

Otherwise, how good to see women wearing hats in church and men respectfully bareheaded in the presence of God. Many middle-aged men have done great harm with the me-me-me thing of teaching younger men that respect for God, women, and country is secondary to keeping one’s costume ballcap on during all occasions because, like, y’know, this cap is who I am.

Yes, what man does not want to be a made-in-China cap?

The young princes, both pilots, looked great in their uniforms, and their families and friends were very proud of them. One imagines the awkwardness of someone opposed to military service getting married: “The groom and best man were resplendent in matching cable-knit sweaters.”

No one in the congregation displayed a cell ‘phone. Now that’s class.

No one in the congregation wore tee-shirts.

No one in the congregation wore advertising on his or her clothing.

No guitars. Thank God.

No cringe-making amateur musical moments.

No microphones or loudspeakers dangling from the ceiling.

No miscued audiotapes of “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.”

No one in the congregation called out “Where’s the birth certificate, William!?”

Baby sister as maid of honor and baby brother as best man – a brilliant way of avoiding squabbles and crowds on the altar.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London both mentioned God. This could distress NBC and CBS.

There were no air-raid sirens during the wedding; NATO hasn’t yet gotten around to bombing England.

Some gossipy old women on the television judged the guest list and found it wanting. Hey, Miz Grundy and Aunt Pittypat, not your call, okay? Not your family, not your decision. Just be happy if your own children ask you to their weddings.

Finally, although the wedding pictures were lovely, let us not neglect the great photograph of Princess Kate in khaki and boots in a muddy field, a shotgun in one hand and a brace of fowl in the other. Now that’s an English princess of the old school! Cue that country song about the tractor.

-30-

With Our Thrift-Shop Televisions We Will Conquer the World

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

With Our Thrift-Shop Televisions We Will Conquer the World

With the death of what’s-his-name in a small airborne assault in the great tradition of American raiders dating back to John Paul Jones, the world waits and wonders and ponders this great question: couldn’t the Scourge of Allah afford a better television set?

Did anyone ever tell The Pride of Riyadh “Hey, Fatwallah Guy, they’ve got flat screens now. I can score you one down at the souk for maybe two hundred filthy pagan dollars.”

But The Big Wookie was apparently comfortable with his thrift shop 15-inch and his Just For Bin dye job. Images of the old poop show him squatting on the floor huddled in a blanket and surfing the channels in a filthy room that any monotoothed Hardin County nester would disdain.

Wikipedia reports that the Lyin’ of the Desert’s favorite activities were charity, reading, horses, writing poetry, and following the English soccer team Arsenal. He was a soft-spoken man who perhaps enjoyed walks on the beach and candle-light beheadings of infidels. Hey, girls, isn’t that pretty much the blind date your well-meaning cousin set you up with after your guy Skippy cheated on you with your best friend Tammy?

The Big O was quite the family man, too. No one is clear on just how many wives he infested, and several of his exes (none in Texas) were never seen again. He sperm-donored some 20-25 children, and before his death was living with three wives, which may explain the haunted look on his face.

Did this Ward Cleaver of the Sands attend PTA meetings?

And imagine the home life of the family:

“Daddy, daddy! We’re playing Arabs and Jews, and Brother #12 won’t ever let me be the Arab! Why do I have to be tortured and beheaded all the time?”

“Now, boys, your father’s very busy plotting world domination and global genocide of the infidels; you go outside and play with the nice new Russian Kalashnikovs he gave you for World Peace Day.”

“Aw, shucks, honey, you’re the greatest. I think I’ll wait awhile before having you stoned to death.”

The sad reality is that Lurch was an evil man, a genocidal maniac who inspired others to murder thousands of people, most of them of his own religion. This spoiled son of the rich was technically trained but not educated, and loved machines – especially machine guns – but disposed of humans as mere obstacles to his demon-haunted fantasies of a perfect world.

When a good man dies one often says “We shall not see his like again,” and this is true. All good men exhibit the traits of honesty, loyalty, courage, and civilization, and yet they really are individuals.

But the evil little men who bedevil the world – they are drainage-ditch-common, mumbling and muttering as they listen to The Voices in grubby rented rooms or even grubbier tents, scribbling into their notebooks or tapping into their machines their eternal shrieks against God and man, their endlessly recycled versions of Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Das Kapital, and warehouses full of sophomoric manifestos.

Alas that we will see his like again.

-30-