Je Suis Dust Jacket

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Je Suis Dust Jacket

A can’t-put-it-down layered tapestry of
Spell-binding patriarchal must-read rich
Ness woven of cross-cultural patriarchal
Assumptions is a multi-gendered land
Mark of accessible, richly textured
Narratives that will make you laugh, make you
cry,
And change your life forever through a unique
Voice of powerful unstinting timeless
Human condition moving milestone land
Mark compelling nuanced epic of searing
Honesty and gripping poignancy burnt
Into the human conscience challenges
The heterosexist patriarchal
Mainstream that will define a generation
Iconic sensual stunning absorbing
Lapidary roman a clef triumph
Definitive edgy in the tradition
Of luminous provocative. And stuff.

The Revolution

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Revolution

Little men arguing in shabby rooms
Meetings, manifestos, revolvers, bombs
Informers, spies, social organization,
Speeches, minutes, dues, What is to be Done?
The great cause of the Proletariat
Greetings from our good comrades in Smolensk
Nihilism, committees, secrecy
The thirst for culture is aristocratic
Nihilism is the only art of the people
Rumors, whispers, clandestine magazines
The unification of workers and peasants
Resolutions passed in the factory soviet
Clenched fists to reject the personal life
Electrification and equality
Cigarettes, vodka, the people’s justice
Against the parasitical bourgeoisie
Solidarity to destroy the kulaks
His poetry reeks of sentimentality
Self-centered intellectual decadence
The people’s will for the people’s party
Education for the twentieth century
Lift high the red banner, fill full the graves

Adjective Childhood Pity

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Adjective Childhood Pity

Your Irish childhood – oh, give it a pass
Indian childhood
Single-parent childhood
Poverty childhood
Small-town childhood
Urban childhood
Farm childhood
Army brat childhood
Immigrant childhood
Emigrant childhood
Migrant childhood
Reservation childhood
Mountain childhood
All that adjective pity - it’s been said
But your childhood – your childhood, your
childhood
Free it from adjectives, and you’ll have
something

Save the Date

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Save the Date

O how I hope that you will Save The Date!
It’s a special occasion, so don’t be late
Be sure to sign in with the guard at the gate
I leave on the twelfth; I simply can’t wait
That’s when I’ll be executed by the State

Registered at Coffins ‘n’ Stuff,
Thibodeaux’s Funeral Home,
& Jardin d’Memoires and Gift Shoppe

Martinmas

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Martinmas

Red is the color of a soldier’s cloak
Exchanged for a poor man’s blessing in the night
Met well there by a crumbling pagan oak
Ennobled now that vestment in angelic white
Martin is the name of that Roman guard
Between the watch fires pacing slow his round
Ready and alert, though the frost is hard
And spies a sad wretch shivering on the ground
Now does the soldier give him warmth and hope
Cold is the night, and yet somehow made mild
Exchanging his pride for a priestly cope
Denying self – the poor man is the Child;
As does Saint Martin, all good soldiers still
Yield self in service to the Christ Child’s will

Does This Machine Kill Fascists?

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Machine Kill Fascists?

Does this machine kill Fascists? Probably not
Unless it bores them to a yawning death
Through soporific clichés crudely imposed
Upon a few poor, battered chords that twang
Like the barbed wire of an Arctic gulag
Where happy comrades
Shiver in the snow
Wither in the wind
Starve on slops
Burn with typhus
Rot in the tundra
As they build the future upon mass graves
While the anti-Fascist cashes his checks

The Privileged Patriarchal Postcolonial Boy

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Privileged Patriarchal
Postcolonial Boy

To the tune of “The Wild Colonial Boy”

He vets his work for political tone
Writes nothing to annoy
And if his words offend – they’re gone!
The postcolonial boy

He was born and raised in poverty
His mother’s only joy
Still a child of privilege, you see
The postcolonial boy

No matter what he might dare say
No matter how polite, how coy
Nothing can excuse his DNA
The postcolonial boy

A shame it is that he submits
Agrees that he’s sans foy
He silences himself; he quits
The postcolonial boy

Some More Short Poems

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Widening World of Cookery

Old housewives cook, and talk about it so
Someone invented the cooking show
Where women watch the fashionable gas ring’s glow
And watch also their widening waistlines grow


Posting Grades

But the grades aren’t really posted at all
Just tapped by super-secret access code
Into an Orwellian telescreen
Thin tittle-tattle about test results



A Flicker of Life

Movies are but flickering images
Sometimes, to the observer, so is life


Dante

Dante Alighieri
Wasn’t very merry
Whenever he didn’t feel well
He imagined his enemies in (Newark)


A Funeral

The hymns have been sung, and the Gospel read;
We prayed for everyone except the dead



The Tedious Gatsby, Old Sport

I took up Gatsby, and I read,
And now I’m glad that Gatsby’s dead

The Mild Ones

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Mild Ones

“What are you rebelling against?”

“Whaddaya got?”

“A philosophical matrix predicated
Upon experience analyzed rationally
Without incessant self-reference
Or submission to transient fashions.
This matrix considers natural law,
Epistemologically demonstrable,
Ecclesiastical law, which is subject
To discussion because of variant
Concepts of divine revelation
And then secular law, which grounds
Even a republic, in its origin,
In the Jewish-Christian Mosaic law
But which is subject to modification
According to the federal constitution
And the various state constitutions
Expressed by popular will according to
Due process of law, that is, elections.
Applying the Hegelian dialectic,
One can sort out for himself a mode of life
In harmony with both his conscience
And with the needs of a multi-cultural state.”


“Got a beer?”

Had Byron Lived a Few Years Longer

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Had Byron Lived a Few Years Longer

V:

She stalks in Makeup, like a fright
Of Senior Specials and takeout fries;
And all that’s worst of snark and bite
Meet in her painted layers of guise:
Thus billowed in fluorescent light
Which Heaven to youthful lads denies

R:

He talks of Makeup, silly old wight
Of faded beauties – through his old eyes!
And his slim waist and muscled might
Have long departed – he is no prize!
Thus now of greater width than height
Which Heaven to happy girls denies

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator

From Le Chansons de Volga File Clerks Rouge
© 1962 by Les Chansons, Leningrad

O sing a song of reproduction
Accomplished by electrical induction
As workers’ hands insert the paper
Deep into the magic vapor
Chanting without a fuss or stink,
“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of ink!”
Ions charge the chemical toner
Unless there’s none, ‘cause it’s all goner
Or even worse – if there’s a jam
And then the worker yells out (“Goodness!”)
But with a wrench and a mighty shout
Like that ol’ Czar, the jam is OUT
The Committee decrees a Print Command
This is their red-star’red demand
And out comes the paper, newly free
Fresh from a cartridge in a… (There! See?)
By Good Comrade Worker, Ivan-on-the-Spot
Alas, the message is for him to be…

shot

Instructions to the Chauffeur

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Instructions to the Chauffeur

Said the owner, most intently,
“Mind, now, how you drive my Bentley:
Always drive it confidently,
Never, ever insolently
‘Sure to watch the road intently
Take the sharp curves very gently
Follow my rules most excellently
Then you’ll never get a dent, see?”

Sola Scriptura

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Sola Scriptura

“It’s right here in the Bible!” she said,
Waving her MePhone over her head

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

A Subversive Priest

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Subversive

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

Triptych for a Dipstych

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Triptych for a Dipstych

Raul Castro Find Jesus

Raul admits that Jesus saves,
Says nothing of his victims’ graves

The Sleep of the Innocent

Raul sleeps peacefully in his bed
Dreaming of his thousands dead

Raul Reflects

Thousands to their executions driven -
“It’s all right, ‘cause I am shriven.”

Pilgrimage Along the A1

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Pilgrimage Along The A1

For all the de Beauvilles, Beauvilles,
Bevilles, Bevills, and Bevils

From Peterborough drops a road
Across the Fens, into the past
(Where wary wraiths still wear the woad);
It comes to Chesterton at last

And we will walk along that track,
Or hop a bus, perhaps; you know
How hard it is to sling a pack
When one is sixty-old, and slow

That mapped blue line across our land
Follows along a Roman way
Where Hereward the Wake made stand
In mists where secret islands lay

In Chesterton a Norman tower
Beside Saint Michael’s guards the fields;
Though clockless, still it counts slow hours
And centuries hidden long, and sealed

And there before a looted tomb,
Long bare of candles, flowers, and prayers,
We will in our poor Latin resume
Aves for old de Beauville’s cares

A Few Frivolous Poems

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)1

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.)



1Father Raph suggests that this passerby might have been Bertram Russell



Wu Who?

One misses the British Empire
And the jolly old Hapsburgs too
The Czars beneath an onion spire
And Chinese emperors named Wu


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 Latest Pew Poll

Sometimes you just don’t know what you should
do -
So park that problem in the nearest pew

Bill Kristol Disapproves of 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
To 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 The Divine Bill

The Indictment of Beowulf

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Indictment of Beowulf

A sad, sensitive, suffering soul,
Dwelling deeply down in a wetland,
Poisoned by perfidious polluters,
And cunning cultural imperialism,
Vacated vehement vegetarianism,
And dined on Danes, delicious Danes,
Who foolishly failed in their fatuous folly
To understand Grendel's special needs.
His hunger for delectable Danes in truth
A plaintive plea for pity, for grief counseling,
Because the demonic, devilish Danes
Forced Grendel to devour them
Through their ethnocentric failure to
inculturate,
Vividly vivifying Grendel's victimhood.
The harrowing of Herot, high Herot,
Was, as all the world knows,
The fault of the Danes themselves.

'Til that warrior came, that weaponed wonder,
That greatest of Geats, brave Beowulf,
Who slew misunderstood Grendel,
Grendel, who had a bad childhood,
His existential angst
Crying out among the fluorescent-lit cinder-
blocks,
Who just happened to be standing on dead
bodies,
Dead Danish bodies, waiting for his friend,
His friend, um, Bob, um, to
To drive him to his therapy.
Or maybe to his Bible class.

And the Danes cheered that brave Beowulf,
Deliverer of that people, leader of men,
Until office-hungry courtiers,
Perfumed, protected, precious princes
Loaded fantasies into their photo programs,
And promoted a perfidious pogrom,
Sacrificing truth, once again
Worshipping the old, old gods.

Then Hrothgar, as commanded by the Court,
The wonderful, worshipful Witan Court
Arrested Beowulf, woeful warrior,
For the worst of war crimes -- winning a war.
"Hwaet!" wailed the wise ones, wrapped in robes,
Judicial robes spun from the blood of workers.

"We accuse you of insensitivity, of Grendel-cide,
Of profiling, heterosexuality, and smoking
cigarettes.
We accuse you, in the name of The People,
The MePhone-passive, obedient People,
Who think as they are told, vote as they are told,
Dress as they are told, riot as they are told,
The People, in whose Name we fatten ourselves --
We accuse you, Beowulf, of thinking for yourself.
We accuse you of courage, of caring, of
compassion.
We accuse you of killing an innocent creature
Who was just expressing his or her existential
angst,
Undoubtedly abused by a meddlesome priest,
And of killing a mother, a caring mother,
An artist, an acclaimed artist
And an activist (we forget just for what)
Whose scraps of human skin on the walls of her
den
Won a 1985 Honorable Mention
In the Cutting-Edge Arts Show and Peace Rally.

"Did you try therapy, tender-touch therapy?
Did you offer Grendel, that forest-forager,
Your human hand in in humane humility?"

Then Beowulf, greatest of the Geats,
Deliverer of Danes, destroyer of dung-hearts,
Stood, and, almost unlocking words from his
pancreas...
Was told by his court-appointed attorneys
That his salvation reposed in silence.

"It was all Beowulf's fault!" cried The People,
Forgetting the slaughter of their friends.
"Punish Beowulf for lying about
Monsters of mad destruction!
Let us abase ourselves
For offending Grendel,
Cultural, colorful Grendel, and let us dialogue
And inculturate. Like, y'know."

And so beaten Beowulf, now baddest of the bad,
Retired to his country home
To spend more time with his family
to write his memoirs,
While his men, winning warriors all,
Rowed back to Geatland, and were ignored
By the MePhone People,
Who praised whomever in this hour’s Daily Mail
And had no more use for truth, justice,
Or the Geat way. They tore down statues
Of their warriors, and put up peace plazas,
And lapsed into languor, Lethe-ish languor.

And other Grendels, grinning Grendels,
Waited and watched.