Tyrannosaurus Texaco - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Tyrannosaurus Texaco

A dinosaur that doesn’t know it’s dead
Still thinks it’s eating swamp grass fresh and green
But truly after all is done and said:
It must accept that it is gasoline!

Weaving a Tapestry of Designer Alligators - column, 8.7.16

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Weaving a Tapestry of Designer Alligators

Is there a rule requiring all book reviewers to employ the tired metaphor “weaves” (as in “The author weaves a tapestry of…”) in every essay?

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For the last forty years the Navy has been playing dolly-dress-up with sailors. One recent costume faux pas, the infamous “blueberry” camouflage work uniform, is being replaced with a more woodsy camouflage. Just why an Electrician’s Mate repairing wiring harness deep in an access passage in an aging destroyer should be required to dress in camouflage at all is a concept that has eluded the admirals. But the blueberry camouflage was precious.

The admirals will award each other more medals for all this.

One wonders if the admirals have redecorated the body bags.

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The British Olympics team have banned cleaners from their rooms after a number of thefts. Too bad no one stole those ugly “designer” shirts the British team wore in the opening ceremony.

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In Texas, killing an alligator is a felony punishable by jail time and / or a fine. However, a baby human killed before birth is regarded by the state as “medical waste.”

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Hillary and Donald bikini mud wrestling.

In a malarial swamp.

With those protected alligators.

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The Jasper Newsboy last week related news of local events and local people which will be little regarded east of the Sabine or west of the Neches, but which reflect the inherent nobility in most people:

Four Burkeville and Newton fire fighters suffered heat injuries, always life-threatening, in the menace of a house fire in August. The kitchen was damaged but the rest of the house was saved, with all the necessities and little joys of life: a roof, a bed, clothes, books, and pictures of dear friends and family.

The Jasper Volunteer Fire Department, too, did some serious heat-time in raising funds for a little child suffering from leukemia. This is because the men and women of fire departments know more about the preciousness of children than the State of Texas.

In Tyler County a great many people, including law enforcement, prison staff, and just plain folks also risked their lives in the heat to search for an elderly man who was lost. They thought nothing for themselves, but all for their fellow man, who, in the end, they could not save. Their rewards in this life were a bottle of water, suffering, and sorrow, but for their gifts of service their names, too, are written in a great Book.

And finally, Jasper Mayor R. C. Horn, one of the peacemakers of whom Jesus spoke, has departed this life. In a turbulent time he faced down violence, jerks, idiots, opportunists, attention-seekers, and racists of all flavors with his quiet faith and dignity, and will always be a role model for all.

We are blessed with heroes everywhere; it’s just that we usually fail to see them and then learn from them.

-30-

A Novitiate in the World - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Novitiate in the World

“…you will go forth from these walls,
but will live like a monk in the world.”

-Father Zossima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

Every vocation is a novitiate
And every labor a monastic prayer:
Matins and Lauds are sung over coffee,
Then Terce for the plough, the lathe, and the wheel

Sext is gratitude for the midday meal
And None is the hour for downing tools
Soft Vespers is the song of happy homes
‘Til Compline sends all good folk to their beds -

Final vows are taken at death; for now,
Every vocation is a novitiate

Medical Waste in Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Medical Waste in Texas

Children are diminutive creatures who

Tease the dog
Pull the cat’s tail
Refuse to eat their vegetables
Resist daily baths
Want Goodnight, Moon read to them over and over and over and over…
Don’t give notice about upchuckings
Leave their toys on the lawn
Push little brothers down the stairs
Track mud through the house
Scream at each other
Scream for joy
Scream in frustration
Run screaming through the house
Cry for unknown reasons as well as for known ones
Tell Grandma entirely too much
Take “you’ll ruin your supper” as a challenge
Fidget during Mass
Hide notes from the teacher

Children are diminutive creatures who are not

Medical waste

S.T.E.M. - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

S.T.E.M.

A Crucifix once stood in the village square
Around it centuries grew old; it blessed
Generations of weddings, markets, and feasts
Marked by the bells of canonical hours

Desecrated and smashed in the revolutions
And then replaced not with an empty cross
But with that gift of the Enlightenment
The efficient, progressive guillotine

And now a quest for flickering Pokemans where
A Crucifix once stood in the village square

Forwarding Address - poems

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Forwarding Address

For Kathleen and Luther Lee Dockery,
of Happy Memory

A funeral is a study in awkwardness
Kleenex and hymnbooks strewn among the pews
Family and friends exchanging those well-meant words
That fail and fall from any meaning at all -

So let us remember them merry in life
Laughter and jokes, each cigarette aloft
As ensign to a verbal cavalry charge
Ideas and words volleyed in joy and love

And over coffee see them often again
For friendship is the study of forever

It's All About Family - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

It’s All About Family

A rush to change into trousers and shirt
Discarding pajamas and morning quiet
And a half-eaten breakfast burrito -
Dear God, the relatives are here again

They never ‘phone; like mayflies they appear
First peeking through the windows, and only then
Ringing the doorbell, breathless with gossip
And detailing their medical dysfunctions

They seem to settle in for the summer
While one’s soul longs for a burrito lost

Resistant to Change - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Resistant to Change

But what change would that be? A fallen oak
A leafy country lane paved into progress
Lifestyles and glowing screens instead of friends
Superior locks and fences and bolts

And childhood photographs fading away
Just like their subjects in the long ago
Christmas morning cowboys in pajamas
Cap pistols silent now in Kodachrome

Dreams crumbling into frail antiquity
Resistant to change? Yes, rigorously so.

Takeaways from the Political Klavens...um...Conventions - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Takeaways from the Political Conventions

“Let us become servants in order to be leaders.”

― The Prince in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot


Make America actually great again iconic what difference does it make absolutely let us actually stand absolutely as one actually unity absolutely get ‘im out of here unity iconic lock her up iconic unity actually career actually woman absolutely politician iconic dump Trump absolutely character iconic stronger together iconic hard actually work absolutely black lives actually matter absolutely undocumented iconic RINO actually progressive absolutely killary iconic Isis actually drumpf absolutely values iconic work actually dignity and respect actually values and morals actually brothers and sisters actually Code Pink iconic all lives matter absolutely boycott Israel actually the American people iconic fast and furious actually divorce absolutely immigration iconic Russia actually emails absolutely hacking iconic change-maker actually mother iconic trans-pacific partnership actually feel the Bern absolutely the only poll that counts is on election day iconic the other America actually inside the beltway absolutely outside the beltway iconic Joe Six-Pack actually the kitchen table absolutely working families iconic got the memo actually didn’t get the memo absolutely hey hey ho ho iconic the people will stand up to Washington actually build bridges absolutely build a wall iconic for the 21st century actually reach across party lines absolutely for the children iconic for the future actually at the end of the day absolutely the fact of the matter is iconic the heartland of America actually my father came to America with money in his underwear absolutely media bias iconic my amazing wife actually bromance absolutely swing state iconic populist actually glass ceiling absolutely blue lives matter iconic all lives matter actually came up short absolutely breaking news iconic woo woo actually rapid-response team absolutely technical woes iconic unity actually the base absolutely gays iconic guns actually God iconic Sandernistas actually hashtag absolutely traitor iconic raucus actually matchup absolutely syncs iconic tweets actually cyberwar absolutely treason iconic faux news actually pastor absolutely hyphen iconic I’m with her actually convention bounce absolutely plagiarism iconic evolve actually lyin’ Ted absolutely lion Ted iconic yuge actually passing the baton absolutely not for sale iconic protestors actually police barricades absolutely yes we can iconic endorsement actually teleprompter absolutely campaign manager iconic Clinton camp actually Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz absolutely under the bus iconic roar actually historic roll call absolutely Melania iconic media tents actually American flag absolutely LGBTQ iconic pivot actually midnight in America absolutely morning in America iconic I am your voice actually disaffected absolutely believe me iconic forgotten men and women actually politically correct absolutely bankers iconic Satan actually USA USA USA absolutely HILL-A-REE HILL-A-REE HILL-A-REE iconic diversity actually believe me absolutely NAFTA iconic coal miners actually Benghazi absolutely trade deficits iconic Iran treaty actually thank you God bless you and God bless America iconic actually absolutely

(Balloon drop)

-30-

High Summer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

High Summer

High summer is but headaches, haze, and heat
Parasitical heat, malignant heat
Heat creeping through the walls, even at night
Mocking the futile thermostatic air

By day all thoughts are wither’ed away
The words of favorite books shimmer unread
On pages like an oasis vaporous
Unreachable, or by an enemy occupied

There is no healing, hope, or hope of hope:
High summer is but headaches, haze, and heat

The Cleveland Yellfest - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Cleveland Yellfest

Roderick Spode: “Citizens…I say to you that nothing stands between us and our victory except defeat! Tomorrow is a new day! The future lies ahead!”

Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps: “D’you know, I never thought of that.”

- Jeeves and Wooster

Three disparate groups of civilization’s dissenters are said to have flung bodily wastes at each other in Cleveland, Ohio during the first of the two summer covens. Developing one’s ideological thesis statement in one’s urinary tract system is not quite Churchillian oratory.

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The discourse in the hall where the first coven was held was not exactly Churchillian either, with all those errant adverbs flying about. Communication becomes more effective when such clutter as “actually” is removed – after all, one cannot “unactually” do, see, or experience anything.

Further, an icon (also spelled “ikon”) is a two-dimensional religious image featuring Jesus or a saint. Icons are common in the Eastern Orthodox churches, less so in the West. Referring to a person as an icon is like referring to him or her as a crucifix, a cross, or a religious painting: “And now I want to introduce to you a real crucifix of our political movement…” or “He was such a religious painting of the music world.”

+ + +

Outside the Cleveland yellfest three, oh, real Americans were photographed posing in discount-store camouflage, gas station sunglasses, and the now requisite Pictish woad while cuddling what appeared to be poorly-maintained rifles with the usual curvy fruit magazines. They averred that they were present to back up the police. What a comfort to everyone, eh? One wonders if any of them ever took any military or police training beyond perusing the lurid pictures in a Captain Leotard comic book.

They should stop it. Just stop it. If they want to be cops, then they should apply for the academy. If they want to be soldiers, then they should enlist. But first they should grow up, stop playing with guns in the street, and get out of the way of the True Blues, the men and women who endure a rigorous program of physical and mental training, including ethics and law, and who take a sacred oath.

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The Republic of Turkey does not tolerate political conventions or political dissent.

Democratically-elected Turkish President Recezp Erdogan is reported by the Daily Mail to have sacked (so far) 50,000 judges, police, military, and teachers, and forbidden them to leave the country. This is in addition to some 9,000 others previously arrested on allegations of trying to overthrow their beloved leader. Those arrested include 115 generals, 350 other officers, and almost 5,000 enlisted men. Even before the recent coup attempt the loving father of his people arrested some 2,000 of his fellow citizens, including children, for not liking him.

If true, this means Erdogan is arbitrarily removing from both high-level and low-level government positions those industrious and thoughtful citizens from solid, stable working class and middle class backgrounds who are essential to the orderly life of a nation of laws.

In contrast to Erdogan’s fuhrerprinzip, American politics are goofy and undisciplined, but seem to work most of the time. At the ‘Publican Convention the Colorado, Alaska, and several other delegations, in the best tradition of a free people, made a spirited defense against being pushed about by the party bosses. They lost, but unlike the outspoken in Turkey they weren’t arrested, stripped naked, beaten in the streets, and crowded into concrete cells while shackled to each other, there to await show trials and executions.

Our inefficient political process, despite the stupid hats and cartoon tees and mugging for selfies, is in its bumbling pretty good after all.

-30-

On the First Ballot - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

On the First Ballot

Whose are these snarling faces, grown ugly in
The primordial aggression of the pack
Made manifest through individual fears
Witch-stirred inside a cauldron adamant

Dark sorceries beneath arena lights
Ferality and fists pumping in hate
Unhappy beings robed in cartoon tees
Cruel-yelping for the blood of innocence

Now to be splashed and burned and hated more:
Whose are these snarling faces – yours? Or mine?

Iconophiles - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Iconophiles

Iconophiles are true revolutionaries
Lowering their voices but raising their hearts
Falling into a written picture-prayer
Upon a bit of board or card – Creation

Made small and held within the hand, the eye
And knowing deeper in, all that was made
And Him Who was begotten before all
Permitting us to see before we see

Hymning formlessness into light and truth -
Iconophiles are true revolutionaries

Unintelligible Screaming - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Unintelligible Screaming

Young conscripts posted to a midnight bridge
They lean against an armored car and smoke
Wondering what idiot had the bright idea
Of a pointless exercise in guarding a road

Young conscripts posted to a midnight bridge
The first few drivers turn around as ordered
But then there are more, and these leave their cars
And gather ‘round, and yell and push and grab

“Get the lieutenant on the line…no…wait…”

Young conscripts dead upon a sunlit bridge

Must There be a Balloon Drop? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Must There be a Balloon Drop?

Why do political conventions always feature balloon drops as the final spectacle of spectacles? Such is appropriate for a child’s birthday party, not as part of the sober, serious governance of a republic.

Okay, that’s just grumpiness. For a good, restorative laugh nothing beats watching superannuated Republicans in funny hats and cartoon sunglasses trying to dance to the groovy pseudo-sixties rhythms of the convention rent-a-band

Don’t mock them, Democrats; you’re next.

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The Atlantic, nee’ The Atlantic Monthly, features a useful article on “book deserts” in the USA, and as its thesis asks this relevant question regarding the intellectual and ethical development of pre-school children: How do you become literate when there are no available resources?”

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/where-books-are-nonexistent/491282/?utm_source=feed

God bless those who through taxes, contributions, and volunteer service make public libraries free to all, especially to little children.

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One of the new robot cars is reported to have caused a fatal crash. What a marvel of technology modern science has given us: a car driven by a computer that can text, apply makeup, take selfies, look for those PokeyThings, light a cigarette, get drunk, scream obscenities at other computers in other cars, change the radio, ignore stop signs, and drive twice the speed limit.

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Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

From “Antigonish,” Williams Hughes Mearns

Americans, ever submissive to little plastic boxes that light up and make noises, have taken to searching for little beings that aren’t there. The little Orwellian telescreens layer beings that don’t exist upon physical realities that do – including parks, streets, cemeteries, churches, and gang headquarters. The purpose of this new game (“Human – fetch!”) is – well, let’s be real: the initial free access is a loss-leader for selling the player stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the game also allows a certain internet company-which-must-not-be-named to access the player’s machine, including contents and emails.

Let’s blame the police. And President Bush. And fluoride.

Old people are already complaining: “By cracky, in my day we played Angry Buzzards on a Mac II, and we were glad to get it.”

+ + +

There were probably no PokeyThings or pretty balloons in the streets of Constantinople and Angora last week. Confused and leaderless young conscripts were sent out – by whom? - in what was later said to be an attempt at a coup. Unwilling to shoot their fellow citizens, these isolated lads were quickly overwhelmed by hordes of healthy and better-organized young men who were not unwilling to humiliate, beat, and murder the young soldiers who had been ordered into an impossible situation and not told why. And as someone asked later, where did all those thousands and thousands of brand-new Turkish flags come from in the middle of the night?

How good it would be if children could go to bed with their mothers reading Goodnight, Moon to them, all without any fear of gunfire, rockets, mortars, rioters, tanks, and murders just outside the window.

-30-

Gently Used - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Gently Used

Gently used clothing, and gently used shoes
Gently used school supplies for charity
Gently used cast-offs – there’s nothing to lose
Gently used humans? Not a priority

The Summer of 2016 - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Summer of 2016


1969

In Viet-Nam you looked around
For even a stem of grass astray
You watched the water; you watched the ground
Upriver along the Vam Co Tay

1970

Safe home, the earth did not explode
There was no need to pause your breath
And hope they hadn’t mined the road
With stakes or bombs of gutting death

No cause to bring your piece to bear
On creeping shadows among the trees
Or a curious movement over there
Upon the sweet, leaf-singing breeze

2016

Except that now there is – O dreams
Lost and desolate among death-screams

Alexandria in a Seabag - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Alexandria in a Seabag

The barracks is a university
So too the march, the camp, the line for chow
McKuen shares our ham and lima beans
John Steinbeck helps with cleaning guns and gear

(You’re not supposed to call your rifle a gun)

The Muses Nine are usually given a miss
But not Max Brand or Herman Wouk
Cowboys and hobbits and hippie poets
And a suspicious Russian or two

Tattered paperbacks jammed in our pockets:
All the world is our university

What the EZine Reviewer Learned - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What the EZine Reviewer Learned

What I learned about the best cliché that
You’ve never heard of Mother Theresa
The Dalai Lama and me I went there
To teach them, but they taught me, how to love

And to embrace the possibilities
A heart like a butterfly with issues
Of marginalized voices crying in unison
While raising awareness of awareness

Because the paramecium was here first
Weaving a windsong tapestry of hope

Saint Peter ad Vincula - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Saint Peter ad Vincula

1st chess player, moving a pawn: “En passant.”
2nd chess player: “Just down the hallway, second door to your left.”

+ + +

Can a chess player have a checkered past?

+ + +

What is an ozone action day? What is ozone? Is it good? Bad? Decades ago the boys and girls with thick glasses and white lab coats were telling us that there was a hole in the ozone layer, said hole being a bad thing because ozone is a good thing. Now the hole in the ozone layer is closing up, and that’s a good thing because ozone is a good thing. But an ozone day is bad thing, and we are told we should not mow our yards or drive our cars lest there be more ozone.

Huh?

I wish in either case that the roving peddlers of make-it-up-as-you-go-along ideologies and “paving materials left over from a job” who infest my driveway would carpool, not so much for the ozone but so that I could conveniently shoo them off as a discount package.

+ + +

In a week in which there has been little cause for optimism about the human character there was this good moment: in Weatherford, Texas, six prisoners broke out of a courthouse holding cell, not for personal freedom but for the good of their fellow man.

The jailer, who had been chatting amiably with his charges, suffered a heart attack and fell to the floor unconscious. There was no one around except the prisoners, all of them shackled, who then broke down the door to get to the man and do what they could. None of them knew how to give CPR but they knew how to make a racket, and did.

Deputies and bailiffs in the courtroom upstairs responded to what they thought was a fight, and took charge of the scene. The medics got the jailer’s heart jump-started, and apparently he will be okay. The county installed a better door to the holding cells.

For a few minutes the six prisoners were in control of everything in the courthouse basement. They were in control of the keys, and could have bolted. They were also in control of a seventh man’s life and of his firearm. They could have made several kinds of bad decisions, but apparently it never occurred to them to do so; they made only the right decision.

You probably couldn’t trust these lads with your car or unattended lawn equipment, but you can certainly trust them with your life, and what is more important than that?

Saint Peter in Chains, pray for them and for all prisoners, and for all of us.

-30-