Mhall46184@aol.com
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
Saturday, November 5, 2016
Let's Go to the Pub and Get Bombed - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
New York, 17 September 2016
Twenty-nine wounded, but nothing to fear
The mayor assures us there’s no terror here
Mhall46184@aol.com
New York, 17 September 2016
Twenty-nine wounded, but nothing to fear
The mayor assures us there’s no terror here
Oh, Possum! - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
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
Mhall46184@aol.com
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
A Roman Poet - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
He is not a Celt
He is a Roman, his lines
Formed in marching order
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Roman Poet
He is not a Celt
He is a Roman, his lines
Formed in marching order
A Man, a Chair, a Book, a Dog - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A man sitting in a comfortable old chair
Reading a book by the light of a lamp
And smoking a philosophical pipe
Has thus recused himself from the burdens of rule
Without his supervision the planet still dances
Its graceful pas seul around the sun
Rulers of the earth must lead without him
And bishops must teach without his counsel
A little dog dozes before the fire
A man – he reads his book and smokes his pipe
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Man, a Chair, a Book, a Dog
A man sitting in a comfortable old chair
Reading a book by the light of a lamp
And smoking a philosophical pipe
Has thus recused himself from the burdens of rule
Without his supervision the planet still dances
Its graceful pas seul around the sun
Rulers of the earth must lead without him
And bishops must teach without his counsel
A little dog dozes before the fire
A man – he reads his book and smokes his pipe
The Spirit of the Age, and Stuff - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Republics are shabby in their bloody ends
And so too in their bloody beginnings
When altars, crowns, and thrones are stripped by mobs
And all the ancient unities denied
The consolations of philosophy1
Are shouted down in the execution cells
Confessions are dictated by the state
You only need to sign your sins, and die
As the caregiver takes another drag
And pushes the plunger on a health care choice
1Boethius
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Spirit of the Age, and Stuff
And so too in their bloody beginnings
When altars, crowns, and thrones are stripped by mobs
And all the ancient unities denied
The consolations of philosophy1
Are shouted down in the execution cells
Confessions are dictated by the state
You only need to sign your sins, and die
As the caregiver takes another drag
And pushes the plunger on a health care choice
1Boethius
Central Standard Dachshund Time - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Turn back the clock, but not a dachshund’s tail
Since dog and tail will turn right back again.
And then around three times, and without fail
She’ll want outside, and then –
She’ll want back in
To spin, for that is what a dachshund does
A doggy dance, a prance, and all four paws
Buzz, and where she is isn’t where she was
In violation of space-time and Newton’s laws -
On Saturday night we turn back the clocks
But there’s no winding down a baby dox
Mhall46184@aol.com
Central Standard Dachshund Time
Turn back the clock, but not a dachshund’s tail
Since dog and tail will turn right back again.
And then around three times, and without fail
She’ll want outside, and then –
She’ll want back in
To spin, for that is what a dachshund does
A doggy dance, a prance, and all four paws
Buzz, and where she is isn’t where she was
In violation of space-time and Newton’s laws -
On Saturday night we turn back the clocks
But there’s no winding down a baby dox
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Don’t pop your pimples during the processional
Or chew your gum before the recessional
And in between, try not to stretch and yawn
Or take a peek at your not-so-smart ‘phone
Don’t fold or tear the paperback missal
For it contains both gospel and epistle
Don’t leave your snot-filled tissues on the floor
The cleaners will think you a clod and a bore
Oh, yes:
All this advice is not for callow youth -
It’s for the grownups, in very truth!
Mhall46184@aol.com
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Don’t pop your pimples during the processional
Or chew your gum before the recessional
And in between, try not to stretch and yawn
Or take a peek at your not-so-smart ‘phone
Don’t fold or tear the paperback missal
For it contains both gospel and epistle
Don’t leave your snot-filled tissues on the floor
The cleaners will think you a clod and a bore
Oh, yes:
All this advice is not for callow youth -
It’s for the grownups, in very truth!
Monday, October 31, 2016
An American Legion Meeting - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
An American Legion Meeting
O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And discharge half-remembered boot camp yarns
As ragged volleys of camaraderie
Blasted through well-defended hearing aids
O let us not raise funds for this or that
Through weekend fish-fries in a parking lot
Or catalogue good deeds inflicted on
Those
For whom our kindness is a border breached
O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And remember again the Vam Co Tay
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Blame the Russians - a column about Rod McKuen
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Your grandmother and I are the only two people who will admit that they like the music of Rod McKuen. Many other people enjoy the old beatnik’s sounds too, only they don’t know it. McKuen wrote the musical scores of numerous films and television shows, but unless you pay attention to the rapidly-scrolled and myopically-tiny credits you wouldn’t know it. Some – some - of his film and television scores include:
Emily
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Scandalous John
A Boy Named Charlie Brown
Joanna
Me, Natalie
The Unknown War (Russian documentary series)
Among McKuen’s many albums are:
The Earth
The Sea
The Sky
Frank Sinatra’s A Man Alone
Beatsville
Rod McKuen at Carnegie Hall
A very few of the hundreds of McKuen’s songs:
“Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes”
“Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name”
“I’ll Catch the Sun”
“Love’s Been Good to Me”
“Kearny Street”
“Listen to the Warm”
“Seasons in the Sun”
“What a Wonderful World”
“Long, Long Time”
“If You Go Away’”
“I’ve Been to Town”
“Jean”
“Joanna”
Orchestral Pieces:
Symphony No. 1 in 4 Movements
Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra: 5 Orchestral Pieces
Concerto for 4 Harpsichords: 4 Orchestral Pieces
Piano Variations: 6 Piano Sonatas
Concerto No. 3 for Piano & Orchestra
The Plains of My Country: Seascapes for Solo Piano
Concerto for Cello& Orchestra
Concerto for Balloon & Orchestra: 3 Overtures
The Ballad of Distances: Symphonic Suite, OP. 40
The City: I Hear America Singing
Written in the Stars (The Zodiac Suite)
Something Beyond: Suite For Orchestra
The complete Rod McKuen discography can be found at: http://www.rodmckuen.org/discography.htm.
McKuen’s books of poems are of lesser stock. One might conclude that McKuen, a good businessman, culled from his notes and rejected lines and ideas the leftover words that, when, put together, could be called poems. The undisciplined, unorganized, and aesthetically void scribblings in what some are pleased to call free verse (if it’s free, it isn’t verse, okay?) were a fashion of the 1950s and 1960s that clings to a desperate half-life in the self-obsessed and incontinent gushings printed in little magazines and read by no one except the compositors. McKuen simply adapted to a transient literary fashion and made a nice profit: his thin verse sold very well, much better than a recent Secretary of State’s spook-written books, and will last far longer than any Trump tower.
Rod McKuen was never awarded that annual literary prize named for the inventor of high explosives, Mr. Nobel, who exceeded even Dr. Guillotine in the quantity of deaths due to his invention. Last week, however, a Nobel committee recognized another American songwriter for literature, maintaining that Mr. Dylan nee’ Zimmerman invented a new thing, “poetry for the ear.”
Any child who paid some attention in literature classes will scoff at a committee of European sophisticates who are unaware that, until the I, I, I, me, me, me prosetry of the well-dynamited 20th century, all poetry was for the ear: Sumerian religious chants, the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Beowulf, “The Seafarer,” sea chanties, work songs, Victorian parlour poetry – all are poetry for the ear. And yet the distinguished Nobel committee is unaware of 6,000 years of human civilization. They have ignored reality, and have from Sweden ruled that the oral tradition begins with a fellow who mumbles, does things with a harmonica, and is against stuff.
Frankly, I blame Russian hackers.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Blame the Russians
Your grandmother and I are the only two people who will admit that they like the music of Rod McKuen. Many other people enjoy the old beatnik’s sounds too, only they don’t know it. McKuen wrote the musical scores of numerous films and television shows, but unless you pay attention to the rapidly-scrolled and myopically-tiny credits you wouldn’t know it. Some – some - of his film and television scores include:
Emily
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Scandalous John
A Boy Named Charlie Brown
Joanna
Me, Natalie
The Unknown War (Russian documentary series)
Among McKuen’s many albums are:
The Earth
The Sea
The Sky
Frank Sinatra’s A Man Alone
Beatsville
Rod McKuen at Carnegie Hall
A very few of the hundreds of McKuen’s songs:
“Soldiers Who Want to Be Heroes”
“Doesn’t Anybody Know My Name”
“I’ll Catch the Sun”
“Love’s Been Good to Me”
“Kearny Street”
“Listen to the Warm”
“Seasons in the Sun”
“What a Wonderful World”
“Long, Long Time”
“If You Go Away’”
“I’ve Been to Town”
“Jean”
“Joanna”
Orchestral Pieces:
Symphony No. 1 in 4 Movements
Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra: 5 Orchestral Pieces
Concerto for 4 Harpsichords: 4 Orchestral Pieces
Piano Variations: 6 Piano Sonatas
Concerto No. 3 for Piano & Orchestra
The Plains of My Country: Seascapes for Solo Piano
Concerto for Cello& Orchestra
Concerto for Balloon & Orchestra: 3 Overtures
The Ballad of Distances: Symphonic Suite, OP. 40
The City: I Hear America Singing
Written in the Stars (The Zodiac Suite)
Something Beyond: Suite For Orchestra
The complete Rod McKuen discography can be found at: http://www.rodmckuen.org/discography.htm.
McKuen’s books of poems are of lesser stock. One might conclude that McKuen, a good businessman, culled from his notes and rejected lines and ideas the leftover words that, when, put together, could be called poems. The undisciplined, unorganized, and aesthetically void scribblings in what some are pleased to call free verse (if it’s free, it isn’t verse, okay?) were a fashion of the 1950s and 1960s that clings to a desperate half-life in the self-obsessed and incontinent gushings printed in little magazines and read by no one except the compositors. McKuen simply adapted to a transient literary fashion and made a nice profit: his thin verse sold very well, much better than a recent Secretary of State’s spook-written books, and will last far longer than any Trump tower.
Rod McKuen was never awarded that annual literary prize named for the inventor of high explosives, Mr. Nobel, who exceeded even Dr. Guillotine in the quantity of deaths due to his invention. Last week, however, a Nobel committee recognized another American songwriter for literature, maintaining that Mr. Dylan nee’ Zimmerman invented a new thing, “poetry for the ear.”
Any child who paid some attention in literature classes will scoff at a committee of European sophisticates who are unaware that, until the I, I, I, me, me, me prosetry of the well-dynamited 20th century, all poetry was for the ear: Sumerian religious chants, the Hebrew Bible, Homer, Beowulf, “The Seafarer,” sea chanties, work songs, Victorian parlour poetry – all are poetry for the ear. And yet the distinguished Nobel committee is unaware of 6,000 years of human civilization. They have ignored reality, and have from Sweden ruled that the oral tradition begins with a fellow who mumbles, does things with a harmonica, and is against stuff.
Frankly, I blame Russian hackers.
-30-
Edgar Allan Errol Flynn Poe - column
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Last week the Jasper High School Bulldog Theatre Company, directed by Mackenna Coffey, staged a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe scenes culled from “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Why are we never presented with a Tell-Tale Pancreas?
Given the small production and cast, Director Coffey and co. chose to position the audience seating on the stage, making for an intimate performance space which almost draws the audience into the set. The skillful blocking included cast members beginning their performances among the audience. This is the sort of thing that could project as a bit precious, but the actors worked the technique smoothly and without artifice.
The one set was minimalist with, as the program says, “Gothic Victorian and Steam Punk design elements…to blur the lines of what is real and what is in Poe’s mind.” This was the first indication that there would be no car chases or sword fights. Sigh.
Part of the fun was being able to see the lights, pulleys, lifts, connectors, and all the other complexities and gadgetries that make a professional theatrical presentation work. Every light, connector, and mysterious glowing globe is labeled with arcane markings and codes that are a mystery to the casual viewer but are a lingua Franca to the stage manager, lighting crew, sound crew, and move-heavy-things-around crew.
This was a premiere performance for many of the cast, with most of the experienced members of the troupe serving as crew and mentors so that the new actors could develop their skill and self-confidence. Sometimes the nervousness showed, which is how it should be. You don’t get to be a State of Texas U.I.L. championship actor as a senior without having been the third left nervous ensemble place-filler as a freshman.
A special strength was Cheyanne Nerren, who played Edgar Allan Poe with a vigor worthy of Errol Flynn, leaping around and sometimes onto the furniture. You almost expected her to draw a sword and as Robin Hood send the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham to his doom. She was outstanding through her sheer physicality and her mastery of the alternating comic patter and existential despair flung through hundreds of lines.
Savanna Billingsley in her too-brief appearance as the eponymous Raven very nearly took attention away from the lead. Even a small human is much larger than a large raven, and costuming said human as a raven could easily have deteriorated into an unintended comic effect. However, with restrained makeup and a simple black cloak with a bit of feathering at the throat Billingsley almost slithered (if a raven can be said to slither), slowly, menacingly, like a snake cornering a fear-frozen mouse, or one of Shakespeare’s three witches brooding wickedly over her destruction of Macbeth. Brilliant!
Mrs. McKenna’s band of merry minstrels this year includes: Breanna Astorga, Savanna Billingsley, Savannah Brasher, Jaden Carter, Daiyonia Collier, Katy Ferguson, Erin Klay, Lyric McLemore, Danielle Miller, Cheyanne Nerren, Allan Pulliam, Isabel Torres, and Daniel Zavala.
We look forward to seeing all of our fine young actors breaking metaphorical legs in different roles in the months to come, both in Jasper High School and Jasper Community Theatre productions, and sometimes as the second shepherd downstage right in Christmas plays.
Television is furniture.
Cinema is art.
Theatre is life.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Edgar Allan Errol Flynn Poe
Being part of the theatre department means being part of a family.
A really weird family.
-Numerous variations and attributions
Last week the Jasper High School Bulldog Theatre Company, directed by Mackenna Coffey, staged a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe scenes culled from “The Raven,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
Why are we never presented with a Tell-Tale Pancreas?
Given the small production and cast, Director Coffey and co. chose to position the audience seating on the stage, making for an intimate performance space which almost draws the audience into the set. The skillful blocking included cast members beginning their performances among the audience. This is the sort of thing that could project as a bit precious, but the actors worked the technique smoothly and without artifice.
The one set was minimalist with, as the program says, “Gothic Victorian and Steam Punk design elements…to blur the lines of what is real and what is in Poe’s mind.” This was the first indication that there would be no car chases or sword fights. Sigh.
Part of the fun was being able to see the lights, pulleys, lifts, connectors, and all the other complexities and gadgetries that make a professional theatrical presentation work. Every light, connector, and mysterious glowing globe is labeled with arcane markings and codes that are a mystery to the casual viewer but are a lingua Franca to the stage manager, lighting crew, sound crew, and move-heavy-things-around crew.
This was a premiere performance for many of the cast, with most of the experienced members of the troupe serving as crew and mentors so that the new actors could develop their skill and self-confidence. Sometimes the nervousness showed, which is how it should be. You don’t get to be a State of Texas U.I.L. championship actor as a senior without having been the third left nervous ensemble place-filler as a freshman.
A special strength was Cheyanne Nerren, who played Edgar Allan Poe with a vigor worthy of Errol Flynn, leaping around and sometimes onto the furniture. You almost expected her to draw a sword and as Robin Hood send the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham to his doom. She was outstanding through her sheer physicality and her mastery of the alternating comic patter and existential despair flung through hundreds of lines.
Savanna Billingsley in her too-brief appearance as the eponymous Raven very nearly took attention away from the lead. Even a small human is much larger than a large raven, and costuming said human as a raven could easily have deteriorated into an unintended comic effect. However, with restrained makeup and a simple black cloak with a bit of feathering at the throat Billingsley almost slithered (if a raven can be said to slither), slowly, menacingly, like a snake cornering a fear-frozen mouse, or one of Shakespeare’s three witches brooding wickedly over her destruction of Macbeth. Brilliant!
Mrs. McKenna’s band of merry minstrels this year includes: Breanna Astorga, Savanna Billingsley, Savannah Brasher, Jaden Carter, Daiyonia Collier, Katy Ferguson, Erin Klay, Lyric McLemore, Danielle Miller, Cheyanne Nerren, Allan Pulliam, Isabel Torres, and Daniel Zavala.
We look forward to seeing all of our fine young actors breaking metaphorical legs in different roles in the months to come, both in Jasper High School and Jasper Community Theatre productions, and sometimes as the second shepherd downstage right in Christmas plays.
Television is furniture.
Cinema is art.
Theatre is life.
-Numerous variations and attributions
-30-
Two Small and Legless Trunks of Electronic Devices - column
Mack Hall, HSG,
Mhall46184@aol.com
This weekend my summer-new computer did the Aunt Pittypat thing – it suffered the vapors, and fainted. While waiting for the high priestess of electronmongery to perform an exorcism I am pitty-patting the keys on an arthritic older computer – about three years old, which in computer years is 120 – that I never got around to tossing…uh…recycling. If this fails, I’ll scout out the good ol’ Royal typewriter that I bought for $10 when a newspaper office long ago computerized itself.
The wise ants among us back up their files daily to an external drive. The frivolous grasshoppers defer that easy-enough chore with “Oh, I’ll let it pass; I backed up stuff only last week.” I am a grasshopper, playing the fiddle while Rome burns. Or something.
+ + +
A friend in the far north lost his MePhone in a river while catching a large salmon. That seems to be a good trade. The bad part was when the fishing party made camp in the chilling evening and my friend had to make a word by rubbing two typewriters together.
+ + +
Women read stupid stuff – bodice-ripper novels, magazines with recipes and gossip and pictures of Duchess Kate’s baby, and articles about diets.
Now we men, we real men, we read the really important stuff – the comparative merits of the Lancaster bomber and the B17, gunfights at the Something Corral, baseball, spies, and spaceships.
+ + +
October 7 is a good day to read G.K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto” and reflect on the solidity of history, which affects our transitory present and our not-yet-happened future.
+ + +
New Orleans is greeting the autumn with a merry set-to about the statue of Andrew Jackson (who really was a bad man), among other monuments. One group wants to censor history out of existence, and the other group, led by David Duke, who also seems to be a bad man, wants the statue to remain.
I submit that the proper response to a questionable monument is to add another monument telling the narrative from a different point-of-view. After all, the Custer National Battlefield Park wasn’t bulldozed; it was quite logically renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The city bus on which Rosa Park refused a seat was not recycled as a dozen Toyotas but was restored and is now the center of a museum on the campus of Troy University in Montgomery. In both cases history was enhanced, not obliterated.
No one can learn from history if history is destroyed by cultural suicide.
And, after all, time and nature tend to reduce all our human vanities anyway. As Shelley wrote of “two vast and trunkless legs of stone”:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Two Small and Legless Trunks of Electronic Devices
This weekend my summer-new computer did the Aunt Pittypat thing – it suffered the vapors, and fainted. While waiting for the high priestess of electronmongery to perform an exorcism I am pitty-patting the keys on an arthritic older computer – about three years old, which in computer years is 120 – that I never got around to tossing…uh…recycling. If this fails, I’ll scout out the good ol’ Royal typewriter that I bought for $10 when a newspaper office long ago computerized itself.
The wise ants among us back up their files daily to an external drive. The frivolous grasshoppers defer that easy-enough chore with “Oh, I’ll let it pass; I backed up stuff only last week.” I am a grasshopper, playing the fiddle while Rome burns. Or something.
+ + +
A friend in the far north lost his MePhone in a river while catching a large salmon. That seems to be a good trade. The bad part was when the fishing party made camp in the chilling evening and my friend had to make a word by rubbing two typewriters together.
+ + +
Women read stupid stuff – bodice-ripper novels, magazines with recipes and gossip and pictures of Duchess Kate’s baby, and articles about diets.
Now we men, we real men, we read the really important stuff – the comparative merits of the Lancaster bomber and the B17, gunfights at the Something Corral, baseball, spies, and spaceships.
+ + +
October 7 is a good day to read G.K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto” and reflect on the solidity of history, which affects our transitory present and our not-yet-happened future.
+ + +
New Orleans is greeting the autumn with a merry set-to about the statue of Andrew Jackson (who really was a bad man), among other monuments. One group wants to censor history out of existence, and the other group, led by David Duke, who also seems to be a bad man, wants the statue to remain.
I submit that the proper response to a questionable monument is to add another monument telling the narrative from a different point-of-view. After all, the Custer National Battlefield Park wasn’t bulldozed; it was quite logically renamed the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The city bus on which Rosa Park refused a seat was not recycled as a dozen Toyotas but was restored and is now the center of a museum on the campus of Troy University in Montgomery. In both cases history was enhanced, not obliterated.
No one can learn from history if history is destroyed by cultural suicide.
And, after all, time and nature tend to reduce all our human vanities anyway. As Shelley wrote of “two vast and trunkless legs of stone”:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-30-
The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania TV
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan
Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse
Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue
Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania TV
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan
Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse
Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!
Bourgeois Sentimentality - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A beagle puppy napping on the hearth
The morning offering whispered at dawn
Young lovers flirting on a garden bench
The chair in which Granddaddy used to sit
Cranky old men who feed the birds each day
Cool boy-band posters on a teenager’s wall
Red spider-lilies in the autumn sun
And children’s toys scattered all over the yard
“Bourgeois sentimentality!” some cry:
Well, yes, yes it is – by the Grace of God
Mhall46184@aol.com
Bourgeois Sentimentality
A beagle puppy napping on the hearth
The morning offering whispered at dawn
Young lovers flirting on a garden bench
The chair in which Granddaddy used to sit
Cranky old men who feed the birds each day
Cool boy-band posters on a teenager’s wall
Red spider-lilies in the autumn sun
And children’s toys scattered all over the yard
“Bourgeois sentimentality!” some cry:
Well, yes, yes it is – by the Grace of God
Shepherding Winds - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
The optimism of spring passed long ago
Those darling buds of May1 need raking up
Fallen away from summer’s apogee
Onto this evening’s still-warm autumn earth
And as with leaves and wind, dreams fly about
Flittering and falling until they land
As litter upon a page, jumbled among
A merry confusion of iambs and lines
Playfully resisting organization -
The promises of spring are autumn’s now
1Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII
Mhall46184@aol.com
Shepherding Winds
“Once I lived all alone in an isolated hut near a Greek village,
‘shepherding winds’ as a Byzantine ascetic used to say.”
- Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco
The optimism of spring passed long ago
Those darling buds of May1 need raking up
Fallen away from summer’s apogee
Onto this evening’s still-warm autumn earth
And as with leaves and wind, dreams fly about
Flittering and falling until they land
As litter upon a page, jumbled among
A merry confusion of iambs and lines
Playfully resisting organization -
The promises of spring are autumn’s now
1Shakespeare, Sonnet XVIII
Indian Summer - poem
(Very happy to have the computer back from the mender!)
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Late, errant honeybees still swarm about
The hummers’ feeder in the afternoons
While lingering sunlight warms October days
Like lovers reluctant to say goodbye
Our little apian friends in chorus sing
A fading summer-song, before the frost
Sends workers home among soft, leafy ways
Of air and mist, over stubbled fields at rest
In that quiet hour before the moon
Ascends to light the autumn safely home
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Indian Summer
Late, errant honeybees still swarm about
The hummers’ feeder in the afternoons
While lingering sunlight warms October days
Like lovers reluctant to say goodbye
Our little apian friends in chorus sing
A fading summer-song, before the frost
Sends workers home among soft, leafy ways
Of air and mist, over stubbled fields at rest
In that quiet hour before the moon
Ascends to light the autumn safely home
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Che Guevara and His Darling Bonnet - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
His beret’s ‘way cool, his reputation’s hot
All for having lots of innocents shot
Mhall46184@aol.com
Che Guevera and His Darling Bonnet
His beret’s ‘way cool, his reputation’s hot
All for having lots of innocents shot
Nach Canossa Gehen - poem
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Nach Canossa Gehen
Everyone stands in the snow at Canossa
Not all at the same time, but eventually,
Alone, barefoot and alone, in the snow
Knocking on a door, for three days or more
A bare-headed, self-shaming penitent
Cold, hungry, shrouded in an exile’s shift
And fearful, hopeful, desperate for admittance
To mercy undeserved, and love, and peace
The door will open eventually, but first
Each man must stand in the snow at Canossa
A Babbler of Mere Fancies
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
A babbler of mere fancies and conceits
A distant figure lost in space and time
And speaking to an ever-present now
For whom there is no horizon or history
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Babbler of Mere Fancies
A babbler of mere fancies and conceits
A distant figure lost in space and time
And speaking to an ever-present now
For whom there is no horizon or history
Indian Autumn - poem
Indian Autumn
Late, errant honeybees still swarm about
The hummers’ feeder in the afternoons
While lingering sunlight warms October days
Like lovers reluctant to say goodbye
Our little apian friends in chorus sing
A fading summer-song, before the frost
Send workers home among soft, leafy ways
Of air and mist, over stubbled fields at rest
In that quiet hour before the moon
Ascends, and lights the autumn safely home
Lawrence Hall
The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania tv
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan
Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse
Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!
mhall46184@aol.com
The Adventures of Hibachi Fondue
Brushed aluminum, S & R Green Stamps
Tiki torches and instant Polaroids
George Jetson on the Sylvania tv
Elvis rockin’ away on Ed Sullivan
Chubby Checker twisting all over again
Like transistor sister did last summer
Eskimo Pies in the Kelvinator
But you can be sure if it’s Westinghouse
Keds, Schwinn, Salk vaccine, Captain Kangaroo
Randolph Scott, and President Eisenhower too!
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