The Heart of the House

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Heart of the House

In the place of honor, a great flat screen -
No sacred image of Our Lady Queen
No crucifix, cross, or ikon Hellene
No painting of some calm pastoral scene -
No, only a glowing, pulsing flat screen
On which nothing worthy is ever seen

The Fall of Man

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Fall of Man

A Christian walking down the street -
A dog came by and tripped his feet
The man fell down; oh, gosh, it hurt!
Another man (his name was Bert)

Said

“We don’t agree on what’s essential;
I, you see, am existential
I’ll call my friend; you’re in a fix -
You’ll need two walking agnostics!

(Thank you. Thank you very much.)

Birdsong

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Birdsong

St. Matthew 10:29

A fledgling dead, its little body limp
Not yet devoured by cats and ants and time
New russet feathers shining back the sun
And silent wings that cannot weave the wind
A handsome beak that now will never know
The sensual savour of seeds and worms,
Or gossip and prate around the leafy lawn
Where summer romance sweetens the twilight air:
We only know that this small life was sent -
And that may well explain the universe

Decoration Day on A.M. Radio

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Decoration Day on A.M. Radio

Willing to die for their country subscribe
Made the ultimate sacrifice buy stuff
All gave some some gave all your credit card
On the beaches of Normandy buy now
In the jungles of Viet-Nam on sale
In Afghanistan this offer ends soon
We honor those who served at a discount
Thank you for your service to our profits
Obey us if you love America
And buy more stuff from us radio heroes

A Bonfire of the Tree of Life

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Bonfire of the Tree of Life

Ireland 2015

Who made a bonfire of the Tree of Life?
And grilled snakefingers on the glowing coals
With one last autumn apple for dessert
And one last walk through gardens of decay
Then out through wooshing automatic doors
Guarded by cameras with flaming lenses
Against fig leaves and the popular vote
And tattooed Albigensians at play
In the fields of evolutionary regress
Who made a bonfire of the Tree of Life

The Mobius Strip

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Mobius Strip

What is more obvious than a smooth flat plane?
The clever Mobius begins as such
Thus promising an end somewhere out there
Deceiving soon the careless voyager
With loops that are not loops, and yet they are
With straights that are not straights, and yet they are
In disappearing back into themselves
They never go away or come again
Life twisting into a twist that is no twist -
What is more devious than a smooth flat plane?

Why is the Man in the Moon Always Happy?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Why is the Man in the Moon Always Happy?

The Man in the Moon is smiling tonight
His duty is his joy, to take his place
Within the celestial liturgy
Whose rubrics were appointed before time
So that the spheres in happy dignity
Perform their sacred offices to God,
Ab Introibo ad Benedicat,
As ceremonies of grateful creation
And that is why, with angels, stars, and us
The Man in the Moon is smiling tonight

Our Lady of Walsingham

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Our Lady of Walsingham

O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!
Queen of our hearts and hopes, and of the May
Sweet Empress over forest, down, and dene,
And happy Sunrise over the pilgrim’s way
O let us crown Our Queen with leaf and flower
Gathered this morning in the dawnlit dew
For we in this island are Her true dower
Pledging our faith with thorn and rose and yew
She gives us Her feast day, cool and quiet and green -
O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!

Baby Boomers

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Baby Boomers

For William Kristol Epiphanes

Children of privilege getting up at four
To herd milk cows in from ice-sleeted woods
And then at dawn running late down the lane
To catch the rattling school bus into town

Self-indulgent baby-boomers sentenced
In the gasping heat of Indo-China
Along the banks of the Song Vam Co Tay
Not optimistic about seeing the dawn

A useless, indolent generation
Working double shifts at the shop by night
Chaucer, geometry, history by day
Coffee, noodles, used textbooks, the laundromat

Those insolent, unfocused layabouts
On pilgrimage along the American road
Jobs, families, house-notes, voting, and taxes
But judged and found wanting by Divine Bill

Mockingbirds on Patrol

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mockingbirds on Patrol

At dusk the slithering cat stalks mockingbirds
Oozing in silence ‘cross the no man’s lawn
Of bread and seed contested by raccoons,
Squirrels, birds, and an unhappy ‘possum
Her target those most insolent mockingbirds
Who bully the doves and cardinals about
There driving them from the supper they want
And mockingbirds in turn supper for the cat
But no! the victims form squadrons like Spitfires -
At dusk the mockingbirds stalk the cringing cat

A Keeper of Civilization

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Keeper of Civilization

A tie clasp serves no useful purpose now,
This ornament that keeps a tie in place
But no one wears a tie, so what’s the point?
Like cufflinks, collars, and humility
This bourgeois affectation is passé;
A tie is not Authentic like a tee
Garnished with a cartoon grotesquerie
Aggressively proclaiming empty noise.
A tie clasp serves no useful purpose now
And that is why it is useful indeed

Dimitri in America

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Dimitri in America

Did Mitya escape to America?
He might have changed his name to Bob or Al
Married Myrtle in the Methodist Church -
Myrtle, nee’ Agrafena Alexandrovna -
And worked the candy counter at Woolworth’s
Riding the trolley downtown every day
While saving up for a new Model T
In obedience to his New World staretz
Horatio Alger hissing behind a tree
Was Mitya sentenced to America?

The Witanagemot

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Witanagemot

Under wide oaks men sit with pipes alight
And soft old amber single-malt to hand
The sun has just now set, the failing day
Resolves itself into a cooling dusk
Tobacco, talk, and time incense the air
And silent fireflies dance until the stars
Join with them in a festival of lights
While birds make wing to Shakespeare’s rooky wood
Crickets and frogs sing to celebrate the moon
And good men sit and talk, with pipes alight

Subversive

Subversive

Lapsing into 1968-Speak
The television priest says “subversive”
While waxing (and polishing?) discursive
He says it often, at least thrice a week

Pursued by Hallway Gideons

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Pursued by Hallway Gideons

Hi there how are you doing isn’t this a
wonderful day would you like a New Tes
tament sir thank you hi ma’am good to see
you would you like a New Testament you
are so welcome Hi there how are you doing
isn’t this a wonderful day would you
like a New Testament sir thank you hi
ma’am good to see you would you like a New
Testament you are welcome Hi there how
are you doing isn’t this a wonderful

Repeat

Hi there how are you doing isn’t this a
wonderful day would you like a New Tes
tament sir thank you hi ma’am good to see
you would you like a New Testament you
are so welcome Hi there how are you doing
isn’t this a wonderful day would you
like a New Testament sir thank you hi
ma’am good to see you would you like a New
Testament you are welcome Hi there how
are you doing isn’t this a wonderful

Repeat

Hi there how are you doing isn’t this a
wonderful day would you like a New Tes
tament sir thank you hi ma’am good to see
you would you like a New Testament you
are so welcome Hi there how are you doing
isn’t this a wonderful day would you
like a New Testament sir thank you hi
ma’am good to see you would you like a New
Testament you are welcome Hi there how
are you doing isn’t this a wonderful

Exeunt omnes, pursued by a bore waving a little green book about

The Ten-Thirty / Seven-Thirty Shift

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Ten-Thirty / Seven-Thirty Shift

For Nurses

No one writes verses much about nurses
Though no one more deserves a few kind thoughts
No, not about the lady with the lamp
(Not with all that oxygen around!)
Nor the nurse with eternal sad-me crises
Who often calls in sick and leaves her work
To be taken up by others – by you
So these poor lines are for wonderful you
Driving to work in your ten-year-old car
And carefully tending life throughout the night

No One Ever Said the War was Over

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

No One Ever Said the War was Over

No one ever said the war was over
They were honest in that one thing, at least
Since that which never began cannot end
Not for those in a war that never was
Some made fortunes, some got a bus ride home
Some shook it off, and made it out okay
And some stare vacantly in lonely rooms
Red, yellow, green – what did they ever mean?
“Thank you for your service” – what does that mean?
No one ever said the war was over

Invasion of the Metaphors

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Invasion of the Metaphors

On the Orwellian telescreen a woman recently returned from Nepal said that the country looked like a war zone.

One never hears young men and women returning from any of this nation’s many undeclared wars saying that the ditches and gullies and rocky slopes where they fought to stay alive looked like an earthquake.

What, exactly, is a “war zone?” Is that just a two-syllable way of saying “war?” Just say “war.”

Congress won’t, of course.

In the neverending quest (how’s that for filler language?) for metaphors, “war zone” appears to be most fashionable just now. Earthquakes, storms, messy rooms, the litter left after a football game, leaf-fall after a storm – all are grist for the war zone mill (mixing several tired metaphors).

If a family is killed by a building collapsing in an earthquake, we do their memory no service by saying that the wreckage looks like a war zone. It doesn’t. It looks like the result of an earthquake, and that is because it is the result of an earthquake. It isn’t like anything else; it is itself.

A common metaphor along our stormy coast is to allege that trees snapped like matchsticks. Does anyone ever maintain that matchsticks snap like trees? Does anyone sit around snapping matchsticks anyway? No one ever says that trees snap like cheap plastic cigarette lighters, which would be slightly more logical because almost no one uses matches anymore. Anyone wanting a box of matches might be advised to check the newsstand, over by the pay telephones, in the railroad station down the street past the Packard dealership.

Our part of the planet is subject to strong winds because of tornadoes, hurricanes, and thunderstorms, and sometimes these winds break trees. We should state this simple fact, that winds break trees, and not pull from a rag-bag (another tired metaphor – what is a rag-bag?) any of a collection of old metaphors that occupy space and obscure clarity of thought.

If, in the same storm, the winds toss your 1956 Plymouth about, they toss it about like a 1956 Plymouth, not like a toy, because a 1956 Plymouth is not a toy. It is itself. The toy comparison has been done, over and over and over, for decades. Now if you say that your 1956 Plymouth was tossed about like a referee after a close soccer match between Sheffield and Arsenal you’d be making a fresh and praiseworthy metaphor. Even so, it would probably be better to state the plain, clear fact that strong winds blew your 1956 Plymouth about, especially when making your case to the insurance company: “Like a toy, eh? Okay, here’s a voucher good for a Fisher-Price replacement, with a Ken and Barbie deductible…”

In East Texas another tired metaphor is to say of a child’s room not that it needs tidying up but that it looks like a hurricane hit it:

“But Dad, my room’s not here. The whole house is gone!”

“Exactly right, my son. Your room looks like a hurricane hit it.”

Sometimes reality is not subject to a metaphor at all.

-30

The Bates Motel and Recording Studio

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Bates Motel and Recording Studio

John Hinckley, Junior is a spoiled misunderstood, self-indulgent sensitive, vicious artistic, treacherous creative, disgusting delicate, back-shooting generous fecal impaction seeker after truth who all his life has been occupying space and breathing air that might have been used for better purposes trying to find himself. After all, we try to see the good in everyone.

In 1981 Hinckley, fascinated with a cinema actress instead of with life, decided that he would prove himself worthy of her by murdering the President. At close range he discharged a revolver and struck police officer Thomas Delahanty, White House Press Secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy McCarthy, and President Reagan. James Brady spent the remaining decades of his life paralyzed and in pain, and his death in 2014 was ruled a homicide.

Despite the movie scripts, no one, no matter how young and healthy, ever fully recovers from gunshot and fragmentation wounds. Everyone Hinckley shot that day received a life sentence of pain and disability.

For assault, treason, and murder, John Hinckley was sentenced to – the hospital.

Adolescent shoplifters have received sterner punishment.

Come to think of it, you’ve received sterner punishment. When you went to see the justice of the peace about that out-of-date inspection sticker the judge did not say, “You know, I understand your needs. I’m sure you forgot about the annual inspection because you had a rough childhood. Since your mumsy and dadsy are rich and connected, let’s skip that fine, and talk about your feelings.”

For the last three decades, gentle reader, you have been working and paying taxes to support John Hinckley’s hospitalization, psychiatric care, and, yes, music therapy. You get up and go to work every day; John Hinckley hangs out and practices the guitar.

For the past few years Hinckley has spending much of every month with his 89-year-old mother. Well, hey, family is everything, right? His family, of course, not yours, and certainly not the families he destroyed.

Having committed murder and ruining the lives of many individuals and families, this detritus inspirational singer-songwriter wants to start a band, which is pretty much the dream of every 60-year-old.

One can imagine the rehearsals – “Stan, you might want to strengthen that opening note when you come in on ‘Baby Baby Baby Yeah Yeah Yeah’ – or die. Just a thought, dude.”

If Mrs. Hinckley Senior suggests it’s time for Junior to go night-night, will our geriatric artiste respond with “Mumsy, don’t make me go all Bates Motel on you, okay?”

When Junior does achieve his dream of putting his band together, the first number could, appropriately, a cover of the Beatles’ “I’m a Loser.”

Music might not be Junior Hinckley’s thing, of course, in which case he seems perfectly fitted by disposition and experience to be a customer service representative for an internet company.

He could do something with drones.

Or maybe the new Secret Service.

And since Junior is soon to be released from hospital completely, perhaps his room will then be given to an injured worker, a war veteran, or someone else who has made an effort to do something meaningful in life.

-30-

The Face on the Twenty-Dollar Bill

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Face on the Twenty-Dollar Bill

“The Face on the Twenty-Dollar Bill” sounds like the title of a Robert W. Service poem, but is in fact a matter of some discussion – who should replace stern, handsome, Trail of Tears President Andrew Jackson on the price of a cup of designer coffee?

That President Jackson will be replaced is not in doubt, and a mature discussion (which you certainly will not find in my scribblings) of the matter by Steve Inskeepmay can be found at: www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/opinion/should-jackson-stay-on-the-dollar20-bill.html.

Curiously, Mr. Inskeepmay proposes replacing President Jackson, a slave owner, with John Ross, another slave owner, but since Mr. Ross was a Cherokee that’s okay with Mr. Inskeepmay.

As we know, the one-dollar-bill features George Washington, inept British colonial officer in his youth, slave owner, general of the armies in the American secession from the British Empire, later president, and still a slave owner.

The five-dollar-bill gives us Railsplitter Abe, a handsome man save for that fungal growth at the end of his chin, a fashion statement he shared with Democrat Jefferson Davis and with Doctor Ben Carson, like Lincoln a Republican candidate for the presidency.

Gentlemen, please, if you love your country, step closer to your designed-in-Holland-and-made-in-China Norelcos. Please.

The tenner shows another dignified man, Alexander Hamilton, who later found fame as drummer for The Dave Clark Five. Or was he one of the guitarists?

Easy, The Alexander Hamilton Fan Club. Just a little attempt at humor. Your Alexander Hamilton posters are not threatened.

After Andrew Jackson the poor man’s wallet enjoys little familiarity with presidents, although President Grant is known to be on one of the holiday-in-Davos bills. But he drank whiskey and smoked cigars, and we can’t have that, no, sir.

Whose face will next grace the twenty? My prediction is Harriet Tubman or Sojourner Truth, who accomplished wonderful things without later becoming involved in genocide, land swindles, or the ownership of their fellow human beings.

In the meantime, we are free to indulge in a little whimsical wish-fulfillment in considering other possibilities for adorning our national currency:

How about a three-dollar bill with President Clinton on the front and Lindsey Lohan’s reverse on the reverse?

The problem with President Obama’s picture on a currency bill is that the reverse would read “You Didn’t Earn This,” and he would take the money away from you.

President Hilary Clinton’s twenty-dollar bill would have her “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE!!??” moment embedded in a little audio chip.

President Hilary Clinton? Deal with the reality, Republicans: you complain but you don’t vote.

Hey, how about Louis Armstrong on the twenty? But, no, he made people happy, and that would never do.

Here is an idea for an image on the twenty-dollar bill that no one has yet considered: the now-forgotten American worker. Put a picture of a worker on our currency. I propose variants to be printed on the face of the twenty in monthly or yearly cycles: a farmer harvesting wheat, a woman behind the counter at a fast-foodery, a bus driver, a welder, a logger, a nurse’s aide, the nice lady in the ticket window at the movies, a (gasp!) police officer, a private in the Army, a miner, a railway engineer, a mechanic, a lineman in a thunderstorm, a kindergarten teacher, or any other worker, all without any reference to DNA.

Nah, it’ll never happen.

-30-