Disoccidented - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Disoccidented

A piece of patrimony popped up today:
A scrap of Latin from the long ago
Misplaced from something, torn from something else
To mark a page of Babel new and raw

In a book of reclaimed Arianism
Embalmed in reclaimed paper, reclaimed ink
Aligned with the stars and computer bars
Composted in high definition noise

But these lines cry “Tolle lege! Lege!” as
Our patrimony, as eternal as dawn

Bleak Friday - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          Bleak Friday

Advent, now more often called “The Christmas Season,” has crossed the frontiers of our national conscience, and the forces of civilization are falling back under heavy fire. The casualty lists are incomplete as of this printing.

Advent as it should be is happier: no long lines to get into church on the First Sunday.

+ + +

And then there is the existential despair of Hallmark holiday movies.

+ + +

USA-ians considering emigrating to Canada should be aware of this important change promulgated by Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Every Canadian citizen is now required to write a teary-eyed memorial to Leonard Cohen. Candidates for immigration or refugee status also must complete a eulogy on Mr. Cohen en Francais or in English, and may choose from one of these topics:

How Leonard Cohen Changed my Life Forever
Leonard Cohen – Icon.
Leonard Cohen Defined a Generation.
Leonard Cohen – The Sound Track of my Youth.
Parliament Must Recognize the Sainthood of Leonard Cohen.
How Louis Riel Anticipates Leonard Cohen.
We Don’t Need No Stinking Byron, Shelley, or Keats, Eh (Residents of and temporary workers in Newfoundland omit the “eh” and append “I’s d’ B’ys”).

+ + +

A hero of the poor workers died in Cuba last week. Wonder who gets his Rolex.

https://twitter.com/hashtag/trudeaueulogy

+ + +

For pretexts that elude the thoughtful, all real Americans are commanded to boycott Famous Burnt Coffee because the CEO is said to be a Communist. All real Americans are also expected to boycott New Something Shoes because that CEO is said to be a Fascist.

Maybe all real Americans could please the teeth-gritted-fist-clenchers of both sides by visiting a Famous Burnt Coffee shop while wearing New Something Shoes.

If Ho Chi Minh had become a barista instead of a dictator, and if Mussolini had designed sneakers, the 20th century might have been happier. We can’t know. As for us, we are stuck with each other in the 21st century, and could try to get along better.

-30-

Supermoon - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

          Supermoon

November’s moon is wonderfully bright tonight
A supermoon - as if she could ever be less
In her appointed spheres empyrean
And progress royal among her courtly stars

And she is not unlike that rarer friend
Whose orbits celebrate those gentle truths
Which fall as haloing silver light upon
The wistful, wakeful watchers of the hours

A dusting of mist shivers into frost -
November’s moon is wonderfully bright tonight

I Attest That I Am - poem

This week at work I received a Homeland Security form with a terse note that I had filled it out incorrectly - in 2003. But I had not filled it out at all; this new form (already out of date by its own testimony) was predicated on a Department of Justice form which I did complete correctly; it had simply expired.

Altho’ I obediently completed the form, I maintain that I am not really a good-enough American. Anyway, I rendered part of the form (page 7 of 9) into not-really-a-poem, in lines of ten syllables:


           I Attest That I Am

employment eligibility
verification department of home
land security u.s. citizen
ship and immigration services u
scis form i-9 omb
no. 1615-0047
expires 03/31/2016
start here. Read instructions carefully be
fore completing this form. The instructions
must be available during completion
of this form anti-discrimination
notice: it is illegal to discrim
inate against work-authorized indi
viduals. Employers cannot specify
which document(s) they will accept from an
employee. The refusal to hire an
individual because the docu
ment presented has a future expi
ration date may also constitute il
legal discrimination. Section 1.
Employee information and attest
ation (employees must complete and sign
section 1 of form i-9 no later than
the first day of employment, but not be
fore accepting a job offer). Last
name (family name) First name (given name) mid
dle initial other names used (if any)
address (street number and name) apt.
number city or town state zip code date
of birth (mm/dd/yyyy)
u.s. social security number
e-mail address telephone number I
am aware that federal law provides
for imprisonment and / or fines for false
statements or use of false documents in
connection with the completion of the
form. I attest, under penalty of
perjury, that I am (check one of the
following)…

I Attest That I Am

This Discussion Has Been Closed - poetry

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

This Discussion Has Been Closed

Poetry Foundation

Issues of gender race, identity
Sexuality myth identity
Trans-homophobic appropriation
Referencing contemporary culture

Weaving that old shop-soiled tapestry
Of an empowering voice accessing the keys
That unlock a shared experience of
A distinct existential voice of hope

About us visit us contact us through
A discussion closed before it ever opened

An Orderly Transfer of Pen and Telephone - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An Orderly Transfer of Pen and Telephone

One is saddened to hear of some few students at the University of Texas bleating “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Donald Trump has got to go!” They seem to disapprove of democracy and the freedom of an individual to come and go at will.

Is Mr. Trump in Austin? Why has he got to go? And where?

Given the narrow margin in the election, if all eligible U.T. students had voted for Secretary Clinton she might be the president-elect today, busily selecting furniture for the White House - perhaps some of the furniture that seems to have disappeared early in 2001.

Further, students at a great university should not mindlessly repeat middle-school chants in puerile attempts at rhyme. They should mindlessly repeat middle-school chants rendered into Latin:

     “Eia age! Eia age! Heu! Heu!
     Donald Peditum delendum est!”

     (Ee-ya ah-gay! Ee-yah ah-gay! Hey-oo! Hey-oo!
     Donald Pay-dee-tum d’lindum ehst!)

Those university students with no Latin should speak their disapproval of democracy in the plain, unpretentious English of educated men and women:

     “I disapprove of Donald Trump.”

A venerable and wise Latin consultant advises your humble scrivener that the scrivener’s poor attempt at that ancient and noble language is also mindless. That (Middle English) keeps (Middle English from Old English from Old High German) one (which could be from Old High German or from Latin) humble (Middle English from Old French from Latin).

The day after the election President Obama displayed appropriate good manners and wise leadership in inviting President-Elect Trump to the White House to begin arranging for a secure transfer of the powers of the Office for the well-being of the Republic. The two honorables seem to have enjoyed the visit, prolonging it much longer than the scheduled handshake and photograph.

Some have expressed surprised that President Obama and President-Elect Trump seem to get on so well, but in truth they have much in common: both are statists and golf-playing millionaires who appear never to have busted a sweat in honest work.

President Obama expressed gratitude to President Bush for extending him that same courtesy in their first visit eight years ago.

Because President Obama is a gentleman he did not allude to President Clinton’s crude behavior and the thefts from and vandalism of the White House by the Clinton staff in 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us/white-house-vandalized-in-transition-gao-finds.html/). President and Mrs. Obama will not tolerate such foolishness from their staffs when they hand off the door keys this January.

President Obama once wore a white tie with a dinner jacket (sigh), and at least once worked some shorts in public (gentlemen, trousers, please). Other than those few slip-ups he has demonstrated good taste, and one hopes he will inspire Mr. Trump, who is neither a child nor a baseball player, to ditch the silly plastic cap.

Well, here we go, on the metaphorical road to January 20th. May God bless our wonderful, clunky, inefficient Republic.

-30-

Let's Go to the Pub and Get Bombed - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

Oh, Possum! - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

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, 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

The Spirit of the Age, and Stuff

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

Central Standard Dachshund Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

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!

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

Blame the Russians - a column about Rod McKuen

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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

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

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

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

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

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