No Way, Shape, or Bombshell, Actually - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

No Way, Shape, or Bombshell, Actually

No way, shape, and form literally dropped
A bombshell to the next level, with no
Ifs, ands, or buts defining a generation
While living in the shadows of America

Where the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
Going viral in trending a hashtag
Through user-generated content link-bait
Engaging the meme traffic actually

Cloudwising virtual reality
Thinking outside the box form shape way no

(And let the people say “icon”)

The Invention of the Pencil - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Invention of the Pencil

We lay our scene in a monastic scriptorium in Cumbria

“Somehow I can’t get my pencil to work.”
“Now have you first tried to re-sharpen it?”
“No, I was in fear of breaking something.”
“Okay, move over, and I’ll show you how.

Take now your pen knife…”
“But this is a pencil.”
“We’re still at work on the pencil knife, true,
But a penknife for now will work as well.
Oh, isn’t technology wonderful!”

(cut, cut, cut)

“Just chant for P.T. if you have any more…”
“Wait a moment; just show me that again.”

A Picture Post-Card of Notre-Dame de Amiens at Dawn - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Picture Post-Card of Notre-Dame de Amiens at Dawn

For Doris and Anthony

I.

Merci, mes amis, for the picture-card
Of Notre-Dame de Amiens at Dawn
Of church and river greeting the new day
Over the loving heart of La Belle France

Near the Palais de Justice a streetlamp glows,
And across the Riviere des Clairons
A café opens for early risers
Workers and joggers, scholars, and poets too

While Matins and Lauds sung from the cathedral
Anticipate the sun and early Mass

II.

But otherwise the city is at rest
Thousands of years of civilization
Do not leap out of bed like children on
A holiday; they wait for the proper hour

To rise, to offer up their ancient prayers
So that Amiens may be blessed in her work
Of loving service to humanity
Her chosen duty from the long ago

This vision is France, first daughter of the Church,
God’s lamp upon the altar of the world

America's Best - a memorial

Mack Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

America’s Best

Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt:
He only lived but till he was a man

- Macbeth V.vii

Last week ten of our best young men and women died.

Their deaths were horrible; there is no avoiding that painful reality. But these ten did not die from drug overdoses, falling from resort hotel windows while drunk, committing crimes, blowing suicide vests among innocents, taking selfies on the edges of cliffs, in gang fights, fighting in Christmas shopping sales, or comatose in the middle of the street. They died in military training, preparing themselves for the defense of this nation. They died doing instead of talking, because in the Marines and in the Army there is no concept of hangin’ out, feeling sorry for yourself, or smoking loser-weed behind the dumpsters.

Families and friends will grieve for their military sons and daughters and comrades at their funerals and forever. They will never need to apologize for them. The families’ hearts are at half-mast but their heads are high, and the rest of us should in some way work to be just a little bit worthy of the memory of these ten and all who serve.

Those who died in service last week weren’t the common golly gee whiz supposedly super-secret commandos who write books and sue each other and make big noises; one was a Marine fighter pilot, and the other nine were soldiers in the Army, the real Army, the regular Army, the old Army, the kind of men and women who charge into a rathole to drag a nazi, a commie, or a jihadi out by the scruff of his neck and make him holler “calf rope!” without popping off about how wonderful they are.

They are good men and women, our defenders, far better than those of us who sleep in soft beds at night deserve:

Captain Jeff Kuss, USMC, 32, a Blue Angels pilot

Staff Sgt. Miguel Angel Colonvazquez, 38, Brooklyn, New York

Sp. Christine Faith Armstrong, 27, Twentynine Palms, California

Sp. Yingming Sun, 25, Monterey Park, California

Pfc. Brandon Austin Banner, 22, Milton, Florida

Pfc. Zachery Nathaniel Fuller, 23, Palmetto, Florida

Pvt. Isaac Lee Deleon, 19, San Angelo, Texas

Pvt. Eddy Raelaurin Gates, 20, Dunn, North Carolina

Pvt. Tysheena Lynette James, 21, Jersey City, New Jersey

West Point Cadet Mitchell Alexander Winey, 21, Valparaiso, Indiana.


“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon them.”

-30-

Poetry - All Dressed up with Some Place to Go - two poems

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Poetry – Dressed up with Some Place to Go

A poem need not be so overdressed
That it embarrasses free-verse poseurs
Awash in self-absorbed, self-pitying tears
The sound of one first-person pronoun clapping

But still they should be instructed

That a poem is not about the poet
It is about the reader who has turned
His attention and the writer’s pages
To the existential questions of life

And so is properly dressed for its work



Poetry – Slouched in a Chambray Shirt and Old Khakis

Dude! Slack me some slack here - my weekend words
Deserve to wear the untied sneakers of life
Kicked back, kicked up, with a cosmic crossword
To puzzle out with coffee and iambic-free buttered toast of indeterminate
scansion and crumbs

Since scribblers should be comforted

For a poem is about the poet too
Turning his thoughts and the reader’s pages
To those same questions, but with half-and-half
Sloshed into both the coffee and one’s art

And so is properly dressed for the porch

Saint Boniface - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Boniface

Saint Boniface chopped down a pagan oak
The followers of Thor resented the bloke
So some years after that witching tree fell
Those pagans chopped down that Englishman as well!

Transfiguration - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Transfiguration

A mysterious Light shines from Mount Tabor
On the holy Feast near the harvesting
And if a man chooses not see it
He builds a tabernacle in the dark

A stable not picked out by any star
An altar without any sacrifice
A pilgrim road that twists back on itself
A hymn in praise of hollow sentiment

If a man sees it not, he is not changed -
A mysterious Light shines from Mount Tabor

The Dragon Defense - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Dragon Defense

A dragon-errant went a-questing for
A cruel, fire-breathing knight who terrorized
The huts and hovels of poor villagers
Who humbly toiled and tilled the sacred earth

And yearly in October sacrificed
A maiden innocent in every way
To slake the dark and intemperate lusts
Of the violent and satanic knight

And thus at last the story is made right:
Take not the word of a fire-breathing knight!

Date of Departure Unknown - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Date of Departure Unknown

Green leaves are like the sails of fairy ships
Set fully by their sailors in the spring
But moored in harbor all the summer months
Awaiting orders to cast off and launch

We pass the waiting time in sorting out
The fancies and the dreams we want to pack
Into the hold of our wind-singing ship
And poring over charts yet to be drawn

‘Til Ceres and Demeter bid us go -
Green leaves are like the sails of fairy ships

The Latest Hundred-Year Flood - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Latest Hundred-Year Flood

Another hundred-year flood this wet week
With south winds gusting and slinging the rain
Wildly off the roofs, hour after dark hour
Sheeting the lawns into green fairy ponds

The woods are black upon a silvered floor
And lightning sends folks inside for the day
To their recurring coffee-corner clashes
About whose rain gauge is more accurate

While the rain sings of ditches, gutters, and drains -
Another hundred-year flooding this week

Linear Life Looping - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Linear Life Looping

How do they put those spirals into blank books
Threading wires along blank pages of dreams
Not yet realized or even written or drawn
Restrained as soon as penned into being

Story Line A formed up against Sketch B
And Schematic C made to dress right, dress
Addresses and telephone numbers lined
In exile on the last little page or two

Life spinning forward and up as little loops -
How do they put those spirals into blank books?

Decolonizing English Literature - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Decolonizing English Literature

Fluid active shooter situation
Surreal ongoing high-powered rifle
Show of force first responders swat teams
Abundance of caution fluid active

Shooter situation surreal ongoing
High-powered rifle show of force first
Responders swat teams abundance of
Caution fluid active shooter situation

Surreal ongoing high-powered rifle
Show of force first responders swat teams

Eligible for an Update - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Eligible for an Update

Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines
To register submission to the cause
And beg for life while starving in the cold
Applauding all the while their misery

Good comrades still fall in obediently
To register submission to the ‘phone
And fight for selfie-space – oooh, look at me!
Applauding bars of connectivity

The irony of queueing before false shrines -
Good comrades once were forced to stand in lines

Heelspur's Victory - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Heelspur’s Victory

“And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s Day.”

-Henry V

The great man seduces a ragged host
Of aged motorcycle commandos,
Appropriating their victories and sorrows
Channeling old Hollywood movie wars

But

How many of his Harley-mounted host
Fear-vomited in sour Cambodian mud
Or bled their youth out in sour desert dust
DD214 everyone? Anyone?

Don’t challenge keyboard commandos with the truth -
Who knows what anything is anymore?

Everybody's a Warrior - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody’s a Warrior

Weekend warrior
Prayer warrior
Eco warrior
Road warrior
Shopping warrior
Coupon warrior
Spiritual warrior
Bleacher warrior
Nutrition warrior
Social justice warrior
Fitness warrior
Happy warrior
Yoga warrior
Warrior, warrior, warrior!

Given all these wars, how good it is to be

A draft-dodger

Groovin' to the Hootenanny of Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com


Groovin’ to the Hootenanny of Time

The years sneak by, as we were told

But still –

How strange it is to be this old!

Nobody Apologized - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Nobody Apologized

From reading the popular press the naïve among us might infer that in August of 1945 the world was in a happy state of peace and repose, and that President Truman, with nothing much else to do, ordered an atomic bomb to be dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. For no reason. No reason at all.

Last week the President of the United States visited Japan, and was expected to apologize. Although he did say a few fatuous things about some nebulous concept called evolving morality (what, really, does that mean?), he did not apologize for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Better individuals than I have studied everything dispassionately and concluded that dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bad. Others, also better than I, studied the same primary sources and concluded that dropping the bombs ended the war more quickly than was otherwise possible, and in doing so saved the lives of millions of Japanese as well as free-world allies. So, I don’t know. I am thankful never to have been any part of that.

Last week the prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, also did not apologize. He did not apologize for Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, French Indo-China, China, Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, Borneo, Burma, Nanjing, Malaya, New Guinea, Singapore, Korea, Manchuria, Balalae Island, Andaman Islands, hundreds of death camps, forced labor, starvation, torture, the murder of civilian prisoners, the murder of military prisoners, Unit 731 and numerous other units for experimenting on live prisoners, dissection of living American prisoners at Kyushu Imperial University (but, hey, how ‘bout their football team, eh?), the Three Alls Policy, poison gas attacks, biological attacks, Alexandra Hospital massacre, Banka Island massacre, Balikpapan massacre, Laha Airfield massacre, Manila massacre, Pantingan River massacre, Sandankan massacre, Parit Sulong massacre, Suaid massacres and cannibalism, SS Behar massacre, I-8 massacres, Akikaze massacre, Attu aid station massacre, Sook Ching massacre, Sulug Island massacre, Tol Plantation massacre, Banka Island massacre, Nauru Island massacre, Wake Island massacre, Manila massacre, Bataan Death March, Burma Railway, hell ships, Panjiayu, Sandakan Death Marches, Changteh chemical weapon attack, Kaimingye germ weapons attack, and on and on and on.

There is not a dull word in the survivors’ accounts.

The same old complaint about “Why don’t they teach this in schools?” just won’t do - when the Soviets launched the first Sputnik in 1957 the concept of a broad education for all was jettisoned by the will of the people in favor of technical training. It’s mostly Chinese-made gadgets now. But you can pull up on the computer (usually made in China by a Japanese-owned company) any of the death-camp narratives, put your kid in front of it, and tell him “Boy, you read this before you complain about what a rough life you have.” You could start with the Alexandra Hospital massacre (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/60/a8515460.shtml).

One purpose of studying history – one of those purportedly fuzzy liberal arts so despised now - is that a young man or woman might question why the government his parents and elders elected should expect him to die next year protecting Japan from China.

Yes, we have all fallen short of the glory of God. All. And that suggests humility for all.

-30-

Spring Thunderstorm II - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Spring Thunderstorm II

“I am well rebuked.” – St. Thomas More in A Man for all Seasons

An underpass is no good in a storm
You cuddle up with a half-pint of plonk
Hiding it from those who are meaner than you
But they will probably find it anyway

The young have hopes that someday this will end
Humiliation, degradation, fear
The old have only memories of hope
And die in dreams of happiness long ago

Since if you wrap yourself in an underpass
You still have nothing but cold rain and death

Spring Thunderstorm I - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Spring Thunderstorm I

A house is like a blanket; in a storm
You cuddle up with cozy walls, and pull
The roof over your head against the rain
As lightning flashes through the window pane

And thunder is a bully, all full of himself
He tries to interrupt you as you read
Or sew or listen to the radio -
How tiresome the rain, lightning, thunder, and wind!

But if you wrap the house around yourself
It’s like your favorite blanket, safe and warm

The First Supper - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The First Supper

For all who wait tables

Who sets the table for the Passover Seder
In a rented room? Hoping that the guests
Won’t pinch too many salt cellars or knives
Or stay too late while the poor waiters yawn

And hope for a generous gratuity
For having to work so late on a holiday
Muttering sourly among themselves
“Why is this night longer than other nights?”

And will they want the bill split twelve ways?
Who sets the table for the Passover Seder?