Let's go to the Pub and get Bombed - poem

Let’s go to the Pub and get Bombed

New York, 17 September 2016

Twenty-nine wounded, but nothing to fear -
The mayor assures us there’s no terror here

Oh, Possum! - poem

Oh, Possum!

or

Marsupials in the Mist

or

Didelphimorphia Park

Well, there you are, snarling behind the mesh
Of a steel humanitarian trap
For the crimes of digging under the fence
And encouraging the dogs to escape

Stop hissing, now, through rows of dragon-teeth
And listen to human words you won’t believe -
Late summer grapes have tempted you to this,
So absolution is granted; ajar is the door

Your executioner stands down: Go forth!
And be a better ‘possum forever more

Not Standing up to Honor a Bucket of Pokemons - column, 11 September 2016

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Not Standing up to Honor a Bucket of Pokemons

Not standing up for the flag has become the latest look-at-me fashion. Like selfies, hashtaggeries, unicycling across Texas to get money uh, “raise awareness,” the incessant “starting a conversation” thing, LiveStrong bracelets, and throwing a bucket of ice water over one’s head, it will go away, only to be replaced by next year’s newer-than-new look-at-me, me, me virtue-signaling.

Some have suggested that not standing for the flag constitutes treason, but probably not. At worst it is ill manners. After all, committing an act of treason requires some degree of critical thinking.

What might be more important is whether a young man stands up to greet his mother.

+ + +

An event known as The World Dog Show is scheduled to be held in China in 2019. The irony is that in China the dog is more than a domesticated little pal; in China the dog is lunch. Order a hot dog in China and that’s exactly what you get. Think of supper as a roasted beagle, maybe with an apple in its mouth.

+ + +

John Hinckley, who made his name and his fame sneaking up on unsuspecting people and shooting them, is now free to be (you and me?), driving around town, living with his mom next to the golf course in a gated community, working on his art and his singer-songwriter gig, and visiting psychiatrists and therapists who hold his hand and tell him how special he is.

While you are at work, perhaps Mr. Hinckley will inspire you to greater efforts by deigning to wave to you as he tootles by in Mumsy’s car on his way to his music lessons and his therapy.

+ + +

Last week your ‘umble scrivener visited an old but elegant little bakery / coffee shop on Calder in Beaumont. With the morning sun streaming across the four or so tables, newspapers lying about, fresh coffee and croissants, and a cast of diverse characters (one of them was reading a book!), the scene was so very 1950s beatnik, only without the berets, bongos, cigarettes, and manifestos.

A woman approached the waitress / barista apologetically to say “I am so sorry but my little girl spilled her goldfish [the crackers, not the critters] on the floor. Could I borrow a broom and dustpan?”

The barista replied cheerfully “Oh, no, honey, I’ll get that.”

The woman apologized again, and the barista cheerfully assured her that this was not a problem at all.

The happy little girl, perhaps two or so, learned from her mom and the barista about tidiness and about how real adults resolve life’s many little daily happenings without displaying any me-me-me-ness.

And all that was exactly as encounters should be, and so seldom are. Here and there, almost hidden at present, civilization still happens.

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Ode to Barnes & Noble - two poems

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Ode to Barnes & Noble

Patrick Leigh Fermor never roamed these aisles
Sir John Betjeman never rhymed these aisles
Graham Greene never despaired of these aisles
And Rod McKuen was never alone here

And anyway the two or three feet of poetry
Are hidden far away in the back behind
The puzzles, records, comics, and plastic toys
And solitaries plugged into their machines

But on a winter weekday a writer’s retreat -
A yellow pad, coffee, a window seat

Ode to Barnes & Noble - Variant

Patrick Leigh Fermor never roamed these aisles
Sir John Betjeman never rhymed these aisles
Graham Greene never despaired of these aisles
And Rod McKuen was never alone here

And anyway the two or three feet of poetry
Are hidden far away in the back behind
The puzzles, records, comics, and plastic toys
And solitaries plugged into their machines

But on a winter weekday a reader’s retreat -
A New in Fiction, coffee, a window seat

The Moon Would Be Alone - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Moon Would Be Alone

The moon veils her presence with mist and damp
Mortals are not wanted in attendance
On such a night, when rain rises as fog
And the singing of frogs is a menacing chant

The apples of summer, the frosts of autumn
The barefoot maidens dancing on the lawns
Or old men smoking through philosophy:
All are forbidden on a night like this

Above the trees swings a half-hidden lamp -
The moon veils her presence with mist and damp

The Kettle Calling the Pot Chartreuse - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Kettle Calling the Pot Chartreuse

It was only the ice of the tipberg
When the upset was applecarted and
A sand was drawn in the line, though better
To curse the candle than dark a lightness

Or judge a cover by its book shelving
Off the flies toothed to the arm calling a
Posthole auger a posthole auger
Which was cracked at the dawn of down and hurts

In chaining a yank on the side bed of
The wrong partial wax of ball went pancreas down

Papa Ben - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Papa Ben

In that old man, that frail old man, the power
Of God is manifest in gentle love
His whispered prayers are louder than the roarings
Of wicked dragons loosed upon the world

His every beaded Ave is a hymn
Taught by an Angel and sung in the Presence
Of Our Lady Fair, our crown’ed Queen
In praise of God, and for the blessing of all

In solitude he lives for God, for us -
For in that man, that frail old man, Christ lives

War Chariots at Dawn (and a Three-Hole Paper Punch) - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

War Chariots at Dawn

(and a Three-Hole Paper Punch)

A friend was given a dream in which there was:

Deep darkness and an infinite silence
And then a soft, soft, subtle tingling sound
On the horizon impossible blue
And then more light and then a jingling sound
A line of chariots in silhouette
And led by Three in ancient robes, afoot
And all advanced upon my friend who was
Three in himself, but not capitalized:
A boy afraid, and a middle-aged man
And an old man too, to complete the three
The uncapitalized three, in the darkness
The men then urged the reluctant boy forward
For he was fearful in the face of the Three
And of the chariots on the horizon -
And there the dream ended, all unresolved

And I was given a dream in which there was:

The three-hole paper punch gone missing from
The office (of old and unrequited dreams1)

1a play on The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

Zavalla, Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.co

Zavalla, Texas

In Zavalla, Texas, an old café

Beside the two-lane blacktop through the pines

Even the setting sun seems summer-tired

Aslant across an open page of Keats

The old men political over their coffee

Are silent suddenly, a surprise to all

The oldest shuffles over on his cane

And asks suspiciously “What are you?”

What are you? Each man asks that of himself

In Zavalla, or wherever he happens to be

Leafy Labor Day and Summer's Last Dragon - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

     Leafy Labor Day and Summer’s Last Dragon

In a happier world, children this day,
Barefoot children, running about in play
Would pause now at the end of summer time -
New school supplies from the old five-and-dime

Write those first smudgy lines with a new ink-pen
For tomorrow the new school year takes in
And count their cedar pencils, one, two, three
Then out again to the Robin Hood tree

A wooden sword, and a dragon to slay
In a happier world, children this day

     (Their Robin Hood wants to slay a dragon,
     and so a wrathful dragon slain shall be;
     Little children know best about these things)

There are no Millenials - column, 1 September 2016

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

There are no Millennials

After the Second World War the surviving soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guard, and Marines came home to their wives and girlfriends, and then they, well, you know, resulting in a high birth rate. Years later someone said this event was a “baby boom.” Thus, children born to World War II veterans were labelled “baby boomers” and then simply “Boomers,” usually as a pejorative. Everything that was wrong in the world was said to be the fault of Boomers, who were insolent, indolent, ungrateful, self-indulgent, disrespectful, and un-American – even those 2,000,000 Boomers who fought in South Viet-Nam, North Viet-Nam, Cambodia, and Laos, and the 60,000 Boomers who were killed there because the young officers of 1941-1945 forgot their lessons as they grew grey and decided that the casual disposal of young lives in undeclared wars would be a good idea.

Some sources define a Boomer as anyone born between 1946 and 1964. Accepting this definition, a baby born at 11:59 P.M. on the 31st of December 1945 is not an evil Boomer, but one born at 12:01 A.M. on the 1st of January in 1946 is. A child born just before midnight on the 31st of December 1964 is a bad, bad Boomer, and a child born just after midnight on the 1st of January 1965 is a God-fearin’ John Wayne American standing straight and tall.

You remember John Wayne – he played Yankee Doodle American police officers, fire fighters, pilots, soldiers, and sailors in the moving pictures, but never did any of those things for real.

Why isn’t there a movie about the life of Dorie Miller?

As with all forms of stereotyping, condemning people because of their dates of birth is illogical.

The new targets of chronological prejudice are Millennials, who of course aren’t Millennials at all, but individual children of God who happened to have been born on…wait…when?

In 1987 William Strauss and Neil Howe (both Boomers) wrote academic research about the identity group whom they were the first to label as Millennials, and for them this centered on the children who would graduate from high school in the year 2000. Thus, by the original meaning, the only millennials are those who happened to have walked across a stage in May or June of 2000.

William Strauss also wrote academic research about Viet-Nam veterans, though he was never in Viet-Nam himself. How cool is that.

Millennials in their turn are said to be insolent, indolent, ungrateful, self-indulgent, disrespectful, and un-American – even those killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and every other Whosedumbideawasthisistan because the young officers of 1964-1970 forgot their lessons as they grew grey and allowed civilians who missed that whole Indo-China thing to bully them into the casual disposal of more young lives in more undeclared wars.

Resume’ enhancement and medals for the desk commandos, body-bags for the desert fighters.

All the futile arcana of Boomer / Gen X / Gen Y / Millennial is no more relevant than conversational Klingon. Let it go. As C. S. Lewis says in Prince Caspian, we are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, and that is glory enough and shame enough.

Anyway, when it comes to being narcissistic and self-centered, I stand alone. So to speak.

The background noise you hear comes from my fellow Boomers rattling their walkers, false teeth, and oxygen tanks in disapproval of Millennials – those lazy Millennials who are now our doctors, nurses, builders, police officers, oil drillers, fire fighters, pilots, chemists, engineers, attorneys, and on and on.

But I must go – there is a John Wayne movie on the telescreen. I can recite the dialogue in Rio Bravo from memory, but I don’t want to miss it anyway.

-30-

Thick and Thin Malarial Smears - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Thick and Thin Malarial Smears

An eye, a brain, a journey deep down a lens
Examining the secrets of the blood
Parasitic protozoans frozen in place
Artistic smudgings streaked across glass slides

Anopheles has wrought her evil work
Plasmodium slithers across the field
Unknown to the shivering nineteen-year-old
Who writhes in his government-issue cot

In the agonized mysteries of the dark
While rain, hot rain, rattles the freezing tent

Disaster Preparedness Checklist - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Disaster Preparedness Checklist

Double-A batteries, a map out of town
A tank full of gas, a mind full of plans
A flashlight, toilet paper, a radio
A can opener and cans to go, go, go

Leather gloves and duct tape, whistles
Waterproof matches, and match-proof water
Blankies and ponchos and a change of clothes
A medical kit and a pocket knife

But

No one ever lists a box of cigars,
And a Wodehouse for reading by lamplight

A Man Could Stand Up - column, 8.28.16

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Man Could Stand Up

“A man could stand up.”
-Ford Madox Ford

Long ago and far away there was an isolated little island named Ioto. There were about a thousand residents, one primary school, one house of worship, and one police officer. The islanders lived by fishing, farming, and sulphur mining. A government mail boat visited once a month, and a freighter less often. The children probably complained that nothing ever happened on Ioto, and the adults were probably happy that this was so.

Things change.

In English the island is known as Iwo Jima.

The story of the battle in early 1945 is well-known, but lately there has been some unnecessary controversy about the raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi: just who raised the flag?

At least two flags were raised over Iwo Jima at different times on the fourth day of the battle, 23 February, and several pictures were taken on both occasions, with different Marines and Navy Corpsmen in the frame. The most famous picture was a hasty, unposed grab shot by civilian AP photographer Joe Rosenthal. All of this was under fire. For the first time in 4,000 years a Japanese Home Island had been invaded, and the Japanese defense was fierce. No one had the leisure to take names as if the event were a class photograph, and most of the young men in the pictures were later killed in the battle, which continued for another month.

Less than a year before, in June of 1944, some of those young Marines and Navy Corpsmen had indeed posed for pictures, their high school graduation pictures, and the contract photographer with his Speed Graphic made sure he got the names right: “Haines…now is that spelled H-a-y-n-e-s or H-a-i-n-e-s or H-a-n-e-s…?”

Within a year those same young men as Marines atop Mount Suribachi were surrounded by angry, frightened Japanese soldiers, sailors, and airmen defending their island, and the Japanese were not taking names.

On the sea, ships of the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy (not often mentioned because American admirals, like French admirals, did not approve of the British, sometimes to the extent of forgetting who the real enemy was) shelled Japanese positions. Navy ground support aircraft made run after run. Most of the combatants on Iwo Jima were Marines, but there were also Navy Corpsmen, underwater demotion teams, chaplains, and Seabees, and Army airmen struggling to establish an air field, all of them constantly under fire, many of them killed, more of them wounded. Some of the landing craft never made the beach; they were destroyed by Japanese artillery, and their Navy crews and their Marines were killed without ever reaching the volcanic sand.

So who raised the flags over Iwo Jima?

We will probably never know the names of each man in the several pictures; the violence and confusion were that bad, and almost all those who survived 1945 have since been taken from us to join their comrades on another shore.

There should be no arguments in the matter of the flags, only quiet reflection. There should also be some kind remembrances for the Japanese defenders who, after all, were mostly teenaged conscripts misled by a bad government. That sort of thing has happened in many nations.

In a sense, every Marine on Iwo Jima, and every Navy Corpsman, Seabee, UDT, and Army Air Force soldier with the Marines, raised that flag, and in spirit the flag over Iwo Jima is still raised every day by every Marine and every Corpsman serving with the Marines.

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

-30-

Examining Room - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Examining Room

“The nurse will be with you presently, sir.”
And you are left alone in a fluorescent cube
A little desk, a screen, two plastic chairs,
A tray of quaint and curious1 instruments

And here all earthly vanities are shed
Presumptions and assumptions are laid flat
Upon a roll-sheet bed where no one dreams,
Where auguries are gently divined out

The comfort-book remains unread, time stalls -
“The nurse will be with you presently, sir.”



1Poe, of course

"Roganville! Roganville! Don't Forget Your Shoes and Grapes!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The conductor calls out:

“Roganville! Roganville! Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes!”

The Doodle Bug rattles on the Santa Fe
Through cut-over woods and hot sunset fields
From Kirbyille, where they have a traffic light
And a picture show, and they don’t milk cows

Oh, don’t forget your shoes and sack of grapes
A brand-new shirt from Mixson’s store, for church
The memory of a soda at City Drug
And city kids, who wear shoes all the time

I’m going to live in the city someday

But for now

The Doodle-Bug rattles on the Santa Fe

Church Ladies and Chariots - column, 21 August 2016

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Church Ladies and Chariots

“School is just around the corner.” No it’s not; it’s a few miles down the road. Simply follow the big yellow bus on which the wheels go ‘round and ‘round, and be a grownup about the amber and red lights. Certain functionaries in the democratically-elected government of the State of Texas regard children as but medical waste, but we know better. Children are precious. Even when they’re making faces at you from the back window.

+ + +

Why do internet service providers and computer manufacturers seem to be universally dishonest? My latest famous-name-brand disposable computer and its shadowy operatives in Shanghai keep sending me exclamation-mark notices about important software updates which usually turn out to be camouflaged games. Settings / apps / uninstall.

+ + +

The International Olympic Committee is a shadowy organization composed of sinister, secretive, and powerful men operating from inconspicuous bases in Europe – perhaps the I.O.C. is really T.H.R.U.S.H. from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

+ + +

Remember when Bill and Hillary were the cool kids?

+ + +

The InterGossip reports that the latest version of Ben-Hur is not doing well at the cinemas. There is much discussion about possible inadequacies in plot, casting, or direction, but few consider two other possible explanations: cartooning and color.

In the previous movie adaptations of General Wallace’s novel crowd scenes really were crowd scenes. Thousands of folks were employed to fill the stadium at Cinecitta Studios in Rome in 1959 for the chariot race. Now, with electronic cartooning, the producers need only hire a few dozen extras and then manipulate the images into unreal thousands. There is nothing ethically or artistically wrong in this, but it just doesn’t feel right. One almost expects Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck to appear in the next chariot, with Elmer Fudd as the Emperor of Rome intoning “Wet the Wames Bewin.” Cartooning is perfect for Frozen, but wrong for live-action.

The Mediterranean world is reported by reliable sources to be in color. Modern movie-makers, however, seem to want to persuade viewers that Creation is mostly sepia-toned, with little sparkle to relieve the gloom. The previews of the new ‘n’ improved Ben-Hur indicate a continuance of this drab fashion. There are two artistic choices in imaging – sharp, crisp black-and-white is one. The other is color, glorious color, color flung energetically onto the screen, color that stands up and yells “Here I am!” and not the doughy, pasty pseudo-color that looks like a palette of date-expired buttermilk.

+ + +

On Sunday the beginning of the liturgy at Notre Dame de LaSalette was paused for about thirty seconds while the in-training Nonna / Abuela / Babushka / Oma / Meme’ / Church Lady adjusted the hoods of the habits – the albs, not the behaviors – of the young altar servers. God gives us church ladies because if some things were left to men they simply wouldn’t get done, and Sunday observances would collapse in an existentially bleak wilderness of askew hoods and flowerless altars. In the hierarchy a church lady is superior to a priest (just ask the church lady) but inferior to a bishop, and more knowledgeable than either about how matters of faith and practice ought to be accomplished.

In a world of uncertainties how thankful we should be for the constancy of church ladies and young people who volunteer to serve, and for the freedom of all of us to attend divine services without being shot for doing so.

-30-

What I Learned from People Who Entitle Their Narratives "What I Learned From..." - not exactly a poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

What I Learned from People Who Entitle Their Narratives
“What I Learned from…”

O

Death of a Country Gentlemouse - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Death of a Country Gentlemouse

In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat
Reposes an elegant little field mouse
Neatly laid out for the visitation
Attended not by aunts now, but by ants

Luna-Dog, separated from her kill
Poses prayerfully at the back-door screen
Or predatorily, as it might be, before
With work-gloved hands the mouse is bade farewell

Tossed respectfully over the garden fence
In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat

She Loves You, Cough, Cough, Cough - column, 8.14.2016

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

She Loves You, Cough, Cough, Cough

A Hard Day’s Night was on Channel Siberia last week, and its charming innocence plays better now than it did in 1964. The plot, as in any musical, is but a weak thread for holding the songs together, and the Beatles could neither sing nor act, which, like an amateur musical in the parish hall, is part of the fun – all this was before they began taking themselves seriously.

The surprising strength of A Hard Day’s Night is its cinematography. The producers apparently could not afford color film, and so employed the then-unfashionable but excellent black-and-white stock which produced – and has maintained for over fifty years – crisp, clean, bright images which hit all the registers of light and dark. Except for the high-end technologies such as Technicolor, color film from the 1960s has since deteriorated, one might almost say soured, into fuzzy garish tones on the yellow end of the spectrum.

Many of the sequences are set outdoors, free of sets and CGI, and show post-war London, poor but tidy, with the ruins of bombed-out blocks still visible. The trains, busses, and taxis on screen were real, and are gone now, so the movie is a period piece about an era when people took the train to work and even the poorest man managed a much-cleaned and much-patched coat and tie for public wear instead of the current serf-livery of knee-pants and cartoon tees and plastic ball caps.

Most of the g-rated film is good-natured buffoonery, but the middle of the film changes mood for about fifteen quiet minutes of reflection as Ringo skips a rehearsal in order to take a solitary stroll along the streets and alongside a canal with his Pentax. He encounters all sort of people simply being themselves at work and play. There is little dialogue, and many of the images, as stills, would be works of art in themselves.

Because of the accidents of a low budget, monochrome, good humor, respect for the audience, a lack of artistic pretension, and an unselfconscious amateurishness in most of those in the picture, A Hard Day’s Night still has a youthful spring in its metaphorical step.

And let The People say “iconic.”

One of the recurring sub-themes in the film is the matter our lads fleeing hordes of screaming teenyboppers in beehive hairdos, reflecting the reality of the Beatles’ popularity in the 1960s. In contrast, there is a recent narrative of one of the surviving Beatles arriving at a post-awards show party for 2016’s cooler-than-cool, only to be turned away. Either no one knew who he was, or didn’t care.

1964’s A-list is still welcome at Luby’s Cafeteria.

And let The People sing “Yesterday.”

-30-