Borodin: On the Steppes of Central Asia - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Borodin: On the Steppes of Central Asia

Lost in a remote province of the mind
A youth attends to the cheap gramophone
Again: On the Steppes of Central Asia,
A recording by a mill town orchestra
Of no repute. But it is magic still:

While washing his face and dressing for work
In a clean, pressed uniform of defeat,
For ten glorious minutes he is not
A function, a shop-soiled proletarian
Of no repute. Beyond the landlord’s window,

Beyond the power lines and the pot-holed street,
He searches dawn’s horizons with wary eyes
For wild and wily Tartars, horsemen out
To blood the caravans for glory and gold.
A youth greets the day as he truly is:

A cavalryman, a soldier of the Czar,
Whose uniform is glorious with victory.

Happy Merry Hallothanksmas - column

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Happy Merry Hallothanksmas

Halloween, an occasion of insanity for which no honest pagan would ever take credit, is long over, and we are now in a season not quite as bizarre.

Having suffered weeks of debates about who offered the first thanksgiving, and where, our attention is now turned (whether or not we wish it to be turned) to the next debate, The True Meaning of Christmas.

The four weeks prior to Christmas are the Christian season of Advent. Christmas properly begins on midnight on the 24th of December and ends with the Feast of Epiphany on the 6th of January.

But perhaps we should mention Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany only in the past tense.

These Christian seasons, along with All Saints and All Souls, have long been culturally censored by the Macy’s-Amazon Continuum, and organically recycled into one long distraction, Hallothanksmas. Some call it The Christmas Season, but this is the one thing it categorically is not. Hallothanksmas begins around the first of September and concludes with the beginning of Mardi Gras on December 26.

This cobbled-together season is honored in television shows about the Proletariat camping on the concrete outside Mega-Much-Big-Box stores the size of the Colosseum in Rome. At the appointed hour the electric bells ring out and an official opens the Gates of Consumer Heaven so that The People can crash against them and each other in a blood-sacrifice combining elements of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona and a jolly good riot between the Greens and the Blues in Constantinople.

The modern Proletariat compete not for a crown of laurel or of gold, which moths and rust consumeth, but for the everlasting honor and street cred of purchasing a made-in-China television set (in the vernacular, a “flatscreen”) much like the ones they already have, no matter how many of their fellow worshippers must be wounded and killed for it.

The old Christian seasons were predicated on the salvation story, gratitude, and good, healthy merriment; Hallothanksmas is ornamented with casualty lists.

Although Hallothanksmas is mostly about consumption, theft, and violence, it is also marked with ritual meals for the survivors during which the liturgy of the word is to share gory narratives about past and anticipated surgeries and illnesses. Turkey and dressing are just not complete without a look at everyone’s laparotomy, appendectomy, and open-heart-surgery scars and detailed accounts of the children’s latest bowel movements.

But soon all this must end with the beginning of Mardi Gras and its joyful excesses and proud public exhibitions of projectile emesis.

And let The People say “Woo! Woo!” as they bow their heads reverently before their MePhones.

-30-

Black Friday - Human Lives at Deep Discounts - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Black Friday: Because Humanity was Created

for the Buy-One-Get-Two Sale

When the last American has exhausted
The last extension on the last credit card
The last order is dropped by the last drone:
The last electronic talking flashlight

The last Your Team’s Name Goes Here baseball cap
With the patented adjust-o-matic
Sizing strap that will be the envy of
All the ‘way cool guys in the neighborhood -

Will then the drones be ordered far away
To search for credit on other planets?

A Sentimental and Heartfelt Thanksgiving Poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thanksgiving – It’s All About Family

Relatives are why
There are dead-bolts fitted to
All the inside doors

Gone to Glory Wearing a Beer Advert - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gone to Glory Wearing a Beer Advert

Found by a walker wandering through the woods:
Fragments of flesh, and bitten bits of bones
An ankle joint still jammed into a shoe
Sporting a checkmark, a fashionable sneak

And his tee-shirt, boasting a famous beer,
Unread in those months among the leaf-mold
As lonely winds and seasons passed over him
And the name brands abandoned to the mists

He’s gone to glory wearing a beer advert
And no one knows what any of that means

A Processional with MePhones - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Processional with MePhones

From an idea suggested by Anthony Germain,

The Duke of Suffix after the Order of Scrabble©™

In greeting students on their way to class
One speaks only to the tops of their heads
As they process in ‘tudes of ‘umble prayer
In silence each bowing to her small god

(Or “his” as the gendered pronoun might be)
Speaking to no one, detached from the world
Navigating as does the sightless bat
By strange sensations known only to them

One ‘phone, one soul – that is the ratio
And each dull brain stilled ever in statio

"We Use Cookies to Track Usage and Preferences" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“We Use Cookies to Track Usage and Preferences”

About Clever Us, the Magazine of Poetry and Thinky-ness

We print free verse about revolution
And deconstructing colonialism
The power and urgency of the story
Post-masculine dystopia redeemed

Visit our online submission system
Against the occupation resistance
As activist performance artisans
Who shape our unconventions for ourselves

Fists of ink against oppressionism
And that is why we track your usage

In a Wheelchair - His Body Mostly Broken

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Finest Health Care System in the World

In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken:
“I wish I could go fishing. I was a welder.
How long’s that doctor going to be? I’m tired.
I just don’t know how I can pay for this.

“I was doing okay ‘til I fell and broke my back.
Thirty-seven surgeries, would you believe it?
And my arm too. This catheter’s infected.
The last doctor just wouldn’t take it out.

“My Workman’s Comp’s all gone. I just don’t know.”
In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken




Culled from a waiting-room conversation (mostly a monologue)

A Ritual is Never Hollow - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Ritual is Never Hollow

A ritual is never hollow; sweet words,
Happy ancient words from the dawn of time,
Sung through the air, refreshing as a waterfall
Discovered at dusk on a marching day:

A ploughman bidding his beads to Jerusalem
A child who’d rather not sit still during Mass
A holy sister hymning along the Rhine
A wise man seeking still that elusive Star

Heal chaos through their living in the Hours -
Oh, no – a ritual is never hollow

The Super-Golly-Gee-Whiz Dog Food as Advertised on the Radio - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Super-Golly-Gee-Whiz Dog Food as Advertised on the Radio

O Alpha and Omega 3 Fish Oil
Now leach into Pup’s liver with great lust
Bring Old Blue’s lycopene to a steamy boil
Resurrect my beagle, O, yes, you must!

O fatty magnesiumed manganese
Seep into Fluffy’s geriatric joints
Pureed from a genuine Portuguese
(Lusitanian flesh never disappoints)

Heart arrhythmia, rashes, and lumbag-eeh-oh -
Trust your pet’s health to an ad on the radio!

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...