A Rosary from Jasna Gora - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Rosary from Jasna Gora

For, as always, Our Lady of Czestochowa

and for Kirk Briggs

A little string of wooden gift shop beads
Each bead a hymn along the pilgrimage
From Nazareth to Bethlehem to - to us
Praying again the Angel’s greeting-song

A hymn of the universe sung and told,
And written 1 by Saint Luke upon a board
From the Table where all have come to share
Both feast and Feast, until the world shall end

O Lady of the Mountain Bright, please bless
Us through these humble wooden gift shop beads

1 In Orthodoxy an ikon is said to be written

Moonlight Saving Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Moonlight Saving Time

Oh, let the moonlight
Fall upon the leaves, and through
The leaves, upon…you

After The Soviet Revolution - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

More Former People

You see them, sometimes, lurking in the shadows
Slipping away furtively, trying not to be seen
They’d rather clutch a volume of Dostoyevsky
Than try to act like good, plain, honest folks

They always thought they were something special
Always thinking about stuff, reading books
Not chanting the day’s slogans when they’re told
Not joining in, still thinking the old thoughts

We don’t need them. Our Leader will provide
You see us, sometimes, dying for ration cards

A Visitor from Canada - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Visitor from Canada

Across the border she discreetly slipped
Not bothering the ICE with paperwork
They’ve got enough to do in their little booths:
“And is this visit for business or for pleasure?”

So here she is, on a bright five-pence piece
All elegant in profile, crowned and just,
Mistaken for a democratic dime
In a handful of republican change

What really is the reason for her visit?
To ‘mind us of our own nobility

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day, 2017 - The Library of Alexandria in Our Seabags

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Library of Alexandria in Our Seabags

…in the army…(e)very few days one seemed to meet a scholar, an original,

 a poet, a cheery buffoon, a raconteur, or at the very least a man of good will”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

The barracks was our university
So too the march, the camp, the line for chow
McKuen shared our ham and lima beans
John Steinbeck helped with cleaning guns and gear

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

The Muses Nine were 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 into our pockets:
All the world was our university

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 8, If Wars were Subject to Copyright

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If Wars were Subject to Copyright

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then candidates would have to pay a fee
Each time they appeal to the glorious past
When standing for the election, the proceeds
To fall like bloody manna on the dead
Who can never cash the checks anyway

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then Hollywood movies should pay their dues
Whenever a bold-scripted commando,
Body-waxed muscles glistening with makeup,
Advances up Hamburger-Helper Hill
With a patriotic song on his lipstick

If wars were subject to a copyright –
The generals’ memoirs, the admirals’, too,
Would pay to lighten the blighted young lives
Of soul-fragmented lads whose pain and blood
Gave the air-conditioned another star
And unctuous applause at the officers’ club

If wars were subject to a copyright -
The President would have to pay his bill
Each time he banged the lectern for a war,
The glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and dreams

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 7, Something About Life

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 7

 

Something About Life

Strelnikov: “What will you do in Varykino?”

Yuri: “Live. Just live.”

-Doctor Zhivago

The plane lifted, and the cheering was wild
And at that happy moment the pilot said
“We are now clear of Vietnamese
Territorial waters.” There was joy,
Even wilder cheering for most, and quiet
Joy for a few. For one, Karamazov
To hand, peace, and infinite gratitude.
“I’m alive,” he said to himself and to God,
“Alive. I will live, after all.” To read, to write,
Simply to live. Not for revolution,
Whose smoke poisons the air, not for the war,
Not to withdraw into that crippling self-pity
Which is the most evil lotus of all,
But to live. To read, to write.
                                                 But death comes,
Then up the Vam Co Tay, or now in bed,
Or bleeding in a frozen February ditch;
Death comes, scorning our frail, feeble, failing flesh,
But silent then at the edge of the grave,
For all graves will be empty, not in the end,
But in the very beginning of all.

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 6, Ever England

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ever England

Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb
Far up into the English summer sky
At the lingering end of a golden time
As wild young lads and aging empires die

The Hood and Rodney still the Channel guard
Against the strident Men of Destiny
Then shellfire falls; the helm is over hard
But the brave old ships keep the Narrow Sea

Dear Grandpa and the boys sport thin tin hats
In Sunday afternoon’s invasion drill
Gram says he’s too damned old for all of that
But she too smells the smoke of Abbeville

Faith does not pass with ephemeral time:
Brave Hurricanes and Spits still claw and climb

Remembrance Day / Veteran's Day - 5, For the War Correspondents Who Get it Right

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ash Wednesday in Libya

For Anthony Germain of the CBC

The wisdom of the desert is dispersed
Among the industrial monuments
To mechanized murder, wireless chaos,
And war-porn for touch-screen degenerates

On this Ash Wednesday night while smoky flares
Obscure, with false, flickering fumes, the stars
God sent to dance above those ancient lands,
You choke and weep among the ashes of

More victims of pale Herod’s shopping trips.
So of your kindness grant that we, your friends,
May wear your ashes for you on this night,
For you, a truth-teller among the liars,

And for the weary innocents who flee
The ashes of their burnt and blasted world

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 4, Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O! Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?

I need no kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight...

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 3, Bad Morning,Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 3

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.

There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie;

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.


(Note re news from Texas and California: How bitterly ironic that attending religious services in the USA is now as dangerous as combat.)

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 2 - Would You Like a Downgrade? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day 2

Would You Like a Downgrade?

I.
“Everything I own I’m carrying on my back,”
A shipmate said wonderingly that last day
In the recruit barracks. And it was so:
Two sets of dungarees, one pair of shoes,
Two sets of Undress Blue and then one set
Of Dress Blue B, one pair of sneaks, one pair
Of this, more sets of that, a ditty bag
Of Personal Hygiene Articles,
Officially and carefully approved,
All in a new seabag.
                                      It was enough.
How much does a man need in order to die?

II.
And now we carry mortgages, jobs, books,
Televisions, cars, hunting rifles, clocks,
Lawnmowers, bills, Sunday suits,
Monday shoes,
Plastic boxes that light up and make noise,
Fences that need repair, cats to the vet,
Air conditioners, chainsaws, queen-sized beds,
Closets that need sorting out, chests of drawers
Of things we never needed anyway,
Cameras, clawhammers, pens, reading lamps,
Scissors, and writing paper.
                                               It is too much.
How much does a man need in order to live?

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 1

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 1

 

Midwatch and Matins - Recruit Training, San Diego

In youth

Awakened by another sailor, one stands
A sleepy watch, leggings and dungarees,
A Springfield rifle at right-shoulder arms,
A-yawn, awash in midnight fog to guard
A clothesline of national importance

In age

Brought now to sudden weary wakefulness
By those eternal mysteries we muse,
Bereft by noisy day’s false comforts, we
Begin the nocturnal lessons of truth
Because some nights we must stand watch again.

The Russians are Burying Secret Spy Underwear all over America - column (a weak one, I'm afraid)

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Russians are Burying Secret Spy Underwear all over America

England’s Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/11/02/farmers-urged-bury-underpants-improve-quality-beef/) advises us that if you want to know how good your soil is for farming and ranching, bury your undies.

Presumably the farmer owns a spare pair.

Okay, this all sounds wholly Texas A & M-ish, but in England and Scotland farmers bury their cotton unmentionables about the place and then dig them up two months later. If the garment is bio-degraded then the soil is full of bacteria and worms and bugs and sophomores, and so healthy for crops.

If the short-shorts are intact, that bit of land is not the best place for disposing of the body.

The object for soil-testing must be cotton, and none of yer laboratory Frankenstein materials.

This agricultural news comes to you from England, Scotland, and California. The California variant is that they bury a World Series pennant and dig it up after a year.

+ + +

Canada has a new Governor General, and when you observe her mannerisms and hear her speech (http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/julie-payette-takes-on-junk-science-and-tests-the-limits-of-her-job-title/?utm_source=nl&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=mme_daily), you will be grateful that governors general no longer enjoy any real power.

The new Governor General and our President will probably be twooter Space Invaders combatants pretty soon: “Stand by photon torpedoes, Mr. Scott!”

By the way, the new GG is an astronaut. For real. She has some super accomplishments on her resume’, but this loopy, chiding, Ms. Grundy-ish first speech is awkward.

+ + +

This week I have concluded that “fake news” means any information that makes me unhappy, “Fascist” is anyone who disagrees with me, “Communist” is anyone who disagrees with me more, anything that is wrong in this nation is the fault of the Russians and / or the Ukrainians, and that for our executive and legislative branches of government name-calling and twooting abuse at each other on the InterGossip like 12-year-olds is what passes for civic discourse.

Given this crisis of confidence in the Republic, I, like any good American, have this 501C question to ask of the world: where do I sign up to be bribed by the Russians and / or Ukrainians?

-30-

A Bourgeois Committee Admiring Itself - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Bourgeois Committee Admiring Itself

A Cautionary Tale for Secessionists

The way of republics is to fall apart
Because without history, Altar, and Throne
A government is but a little boy’s blocks
Kicked over and aside upon a mood

A culture is poetry, and melodies that live
And flow with the waters, stories of kings,
Farmers and workers proud upon the land
Their heads bowed nobly when the Angelus rings

These truths make a people royal, not subject to
A bourgeois committee admiring itself

"It Could Have Been Worse" / New York City, 31 October 2017 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“It Could Have Been Worse”

New York City, 31 October 2017

Our thoughts and prayers are with the families
copycat we are Something Strong we are
not afraid plow into mowed down it could
have been worse the new normal lone wolf we

will not change the way we live our thoughts
and prayers are with the families copycat
we are Something Strong we are not afraid
plow into mowed down: “it could have been worse…”

Oh, newsman, how could it could have been worse
For the eight innocents murdered in the street?

Last Sunday after Pentecost - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Last Sunday after Pentecost

A calling-crow-cold sky ceilings the world,
Lowering the horizon to itself
All silvery and grey upon the fields
Of pale, exhausted, dry-corn-stalk summer

The earth is tired, the air is cold, the dawn
False-promises nothing but an early dusk
As calling-cold-crows crowd the world with noise,
Loud-gossiping from tree to ground to sky

Soon falling frosts and fields of ice will fold
Even those fell, foolish fowls into the depths
Of dark creek bottoms where dim ancient oaks
Hide darkling birds from wild blue northern winds

Crows squawk of Advent disapprovingly,
For Advent-autumn drifts to Christmastide
When all the good of the seasonal year
Then warms and charms the house, the hearth, the heart.

Poetry of the Occupation - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Poetry of the Occupation

“…trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new system

invented by a genius so great that they never bothered to verify its results.”

-John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Political poetry occupies the streets
Brakes squealing to a stop before an idyll
Squads of inclusive wordtroopers disembark
Into our souls to force submission and love

Armed with warrants and inquisitions
The bills of indictment already drawn
Needing only a tap upon a screen
To serve in the office of a signature

And sensitive to death the personal life -
Political poetry occupies the streets

Vaches Sans Frontieres - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Vaches Sans Frontières

An American
Cow goes “Moo.” A Canadian
Cow goes “Eh.”    Merci.

That Happy Little Dachshund Dance - poem

Lawrence Hall
mall46184@aol.com

That Happy Little Dachshund Dance

All dachshunds dance their days in happiness
And shake their bodies, tails, and ears about
And thank their humans every doggie day
With puppy kisses and yappings of joy:

     For cats to chase, for beds to muss
     For grassy lawns on which to play
     Hoovers to bark – oh, what a fuss!
     And your pillow at the end of day

For dogs still live in Eden, and that is why
All dachshunds dance their days in happiness