Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Article 58 (a Russia series, 23) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Our leaders now investigate silences
And threaten imprisonment casually
For thoughts unknown and acts never considered
Under secret indictments alien to law
Star Chambers assemble in conclaves dark
Special prosecutors instruct their Cromwells
To find a law, or interpret one so
To make each midnight knock a work of art -
Mind what you don’t say, and how you don’t say it:
Our keepers now investigate silences
mhall46184@aol.com
Article 58
“We can’t go arresting people for what they say in a private conversation…I’ve no doubt we shall come to that eventually, but at the present stage of our struggle for freedom, it just can’t be done.”
-Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags
Our leaders now investigate silences
And threaten imprisonment casually
For thoughts unknown and acts never considered
Under secret indictments alien to law
Star Chambers assemble in conclaves dark
Special prosecutors instruct their Cromwells
To find a law, or interpret one so
To make each midnight knock a work of art -
Mind what you don’t say, and how you don’t say it:
Our keepers now investigate silences
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
The First Lenten Penance - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The first Lenten penance is being told:
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things…
But did anyone ever say it was?
mhall46184@aol.com
The First Lenten Penance
The first Lenten penance is being told:
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things
Lent is not just about giving up things…
But did anyone ever say it was?
The Revolution is a Corpse (a Russia series, 22) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The revolution is a stinking corpse
And spreading Walter Duranty all over a corpse
While chanting “It’s alive!” won’t make it so
Because a revolution is only death
Artists are never revolutionaries
Because artists work up the good and true
From the foundation of Creation
While revolutionaries obey diktats
Rearranging a corpse is never art
And revolution is always a corpse
mhall46184@aol.com
The Revolution is a Corpse
The revolution is a stinking corpse
And spreading Walter Duranty all over a corpse
While chanting “It’s alive!” won’t make it so
Because a revolution is only death
Artists are never revolutionaries
Because artists work up the good and true
From the foundation of Creation
While revolutionaries obey diktats
Rearranging a corpse is never art
And revolution is always a corpse
Homage to Pascal - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
O, thou dry Jansenist! A night of fire
Left in your pocket like a shopping list
Sitting quietly in a room, will never burn
To set your sere and withered soul alight
And one might wager that your calculator
In brass, for counting brass, touches not the heart
Which has the reasons which the mind knows too
Pensees which never make a night a day
Forgive thou, then, this lettre provinciale
And count it as a friend’s memorial
mhall46184@aol.com
Homage to Pascal
For Thomas V. Morris and William J. Bennett
In gratitude for a wonderful summer at Notre Dame
O, thou dry Jansenist! A night of fire
Left in your pocket like a shopping list
Sitting quietly in a room, will never burn
To set your sere and withered soul alight
And one might wager that your calculator
In brass, for counting brass, touches not the heart
Which has the reasons which the mind knows too
Pensees which never make a night a day
Forgive thou, then, this lettre provinciale
And count it as a friend’s memorial
Monday, February 12, 2018
Who was Stalin's Barber? (a Russia series, 21) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
So who was Stalin’s barber? Did he joke
About mass starvation, and did he bet
Stalin five kopecks on footer matches?
“The Spartaks are sure looking good this season.”
“Ya think? I’m betting on the Dynamos;
They’ve got a forward like you wouldn’t believe.”
“But, Comrade Boss, you had him shot last week.”
“Oh, yeah, after the Lvov game. I forgot.”
“Sometimes you just kill me, Boss; you really do.”
“That reminds me - just leave your keys after work.”
mhall46184@aol.com
Who was Stalin’s Barber?
So who was Stalin’s barber? Did he joke
About mass starvation, and did he bet
Stalin five kopecks on footer matches?
“The Spartaks are sure looking good this season.”
“Ya think? I’m betting on the Dynamos;
They’ve got a forward like you wouldn’t believe.”
“But, Comrade Boss, you had him shot last week.”
“Oh, yeah, after the Lvov game. I forgot.”
“Sometimes you just kill me, Boss; you really do.”
“That reminds me - just leave your keys after work.”
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Beeler Bible Class, Methodist Church, Kirbyville, Texas. Date unknown.
You Russian Poets (a Russia series, 20) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1
Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands
And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of a Russian spring
1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”
mhall46184@aol.com
You Russian Poets
You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1
Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands
And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of a Russian spring
1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”
Napoleon and His Poached Egg - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
I am Napoleon now. I want to be
Napoleon, and it is so. I can be
Anything I want to be – isn’t that
The cleverness you’ve always taught to me?
My truth is the truth, and it must be yours
My self-determination - it obscures
Your bogus science and reality
Fiat and fashion my truth thus secures
I am a poached egg 1 now. That’s what I want –
It’s illegal to argue that - so don’t!
1 The allusion to an argument in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is well known.
mhall46184@aol.com
Napoleon and His Poached Egg
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
-Father Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov
I am Napoleon now. I want to be
Napoleon, and it is so. I can be
Anything I want to be – isn’t that
The cleverness you’ve always taught to me?
My truth is the truth, and it must be yours
My self-determination - it obscures
Your bogus science and reality
Fiat and fashion my truth thus secures
I am a poached egg 1 now. That’s what I want –
It’s illegal to argue that - so don’t!
1 The allusion to an argument in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is well known.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Sorting Out Russian Poetry (a Russia series, 19) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Avant-garde post-modernism ego
Futurism symbolism acme
Ism constructivism cosmopol
Itanism formalism neo
Formalism futurism imag
Inism proletarian real
Ism absurdism maximalism
Socialist realism, nothingism -
Poetic beauty, in spite of the Isms
mhall46184@aol.com
Sorting Out Russian Poetry
Avant-garde post-modernism ego
Futurism symbolism acme
Ism constructivism cosmopol
Itanism formalism neo
Formalism futurism imag
Inism proletarian real
Ism absurdism maximalism
Socialist realism, nothingism -
Poetic beauty, in spite of the Isms
Friday, February 9, 2018
Sunlit Alley with Bicycle, Jefferson, Texas - photograph
Something of a cliche' composition, but this was as found.
Tap for the complete image.
Alexander Pushkin and the Poker-Playing Dogs (a Russia series, 18) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And our poker-playing pups, cheating at cards
Ruslan and Ludmylla dancing on ice
At the Houston Airport Holiday Inn
Did Pushkin paint the poker-playing pups
Or carve tetrameters while in his cups?
That green baize poker table, a samovar
And the Big Giant Head, who needs an ace
We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And too those kitschy dogs, being real bad!
mhall46184@aol.com
Alexander Pushkin and
the Poker-Playing Dogs
We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And our poker-playing pups, cheating at cards
Ruslan and Ludmylla dancing on ice
At the Houston Airport Holiday Inn
Did Pushkin paint the poker-playing pups
Or carve tetrameters while in his cups?
That green baize poker table, a samovar
And the Big Giant Head, who needs an ace
We can have our Pushkin, all thinky and sad
And too those kitschy dogs, being real bad!
Reading the Morning Newspaper at the Coffee Shop - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The fresh death notices a reader eyed
“Who was this woman, who recently died?”
“My ex,” he replied, not breaking his stride
With bacon and eggs, and toast on the side
mhall46184@aol.com
Reading the Morning Newspaper at the Coffee Shop
The fresh death notices a reader eyed
“Who was this woman, who recently died?”
“My ex,” he replied, not breaking his stride
With bacon and eggs, and toast on the side
The Olympics and Cruella De Vil - column
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The squabbling and politics began before the first competition of this year’s purported Olympics (which are not on Mount Olympus at all).
A male American athlete is reportedly suffering a wall-eyed hissy-fit because a woman will carry the national flag in the processional march and he won’t. After a tie vote the issue was decided by a coin toss. In an anti-social media posting of presidential dignity the male athlete said the coin toss was dishonorable.
The North Koreans will be permitted to compete in the games in South Korea, and South Koreans despise the U.S.A. as much as the Norks do. Don’t expect a tribute to the thousands of Americans who died protecting ungrateful South Korea.
The Korean peninsula is, well, Korean, divided in the middle between Koreans who don’t like each other except when they do, and then they both hate Americans. Let the Koreans sort it all out. Further, Chinese imperialists are strutting around in the area with their shiny new navy, so the Koreans should talk them into choosing sides and paying for the privilege, instead of our depleted Navy and Air Force. There are precedents - no American seems to miss funding bases in Viet-Nam and the Philippines.
The Koreans have promised to stop selling dog meat for the duration of the Olympics. How nice. Dachshunds will be off the menu for a month. If Charles Schultz’s Peanuts is printed in the newspapers in Korea, the appropriate and of course respectful cultural adaptation would be to have Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the other kids slaughter, dismember, and barbecue Snoopy.
According to http://koreandogs.org/ (I do not know how reliable this site is, but other sites concur), Koreans, north and south, prepare pooches for supper with the little things being “electrocuted, hanged, beaten, have their throats slashed, or are boiled or burnt to death.”
Just imagine a television cooking show in the Koreas: “Today, folks, we’re going to take this adorable little beagle with the cute, waggly tail and the big trusting eyes, put him through the blender, and then braise the beagle bits to a nice golden brown…”
The mascot for the Korean Winter Olympics is the Korean white tiger. Perhaps after the games he, too, will be eaten.
Another public relations issue and plumbing challenge at the Korean Olympics is the norovirus is spreading among staffers and possibly competitors. Norovirus, as you remember, is a Latin medical term which means “puking your guts up.”
The source of the current strain is unknown. Perhaps the puppies weren’t cooked properly.
Oh, yes, let us all be enlightened by the spirit of the Olympics.
mhall46184@aol.com
The Olympics and Cruella De Vil
The squabbling and politics began before the first competition of this year’s purported Olympics (which are not on Mount Olympus at all).
A male American athlete is reportedly suffering a wall-eyed hissy-fit because a woman will carry the national flag in the processional march and he won’t. After a tie vote the issue was decided by a coin toss. In an anti-social media posting of presidential dignity the male athlete said the coin toss was dishonorable.
The North Koreans will be permitted to compete in the games in South Korea, and South Koreans despise the U.S.A. as much as the Norks do. Don’t expect a tribute to the thousands of Americans who died protecting ungrateful South Korea.
The Korean peninsula is, well, Korean, divided in the middle between Koreans who don’t like each other except when they do, and then they both hate Americans. Let the Koreans sort it all out. Further, Chinese imperialists are strutting around in the area with their shiny new navy, so the Koreans should talk them into choosing sides and paying for the privilege, instead of our depleted Navy and Air Force. There are precedents - no American seems to miss funding bases in Viet-Nam and the Philippines.
The Koreans have promised to stop selling dog meat for the duration of the Olympics. How nice. Dachshunds will be off the menu for a month. If Charles Schultz’s Peanuts is printed in the newspapers in Korea, the appropriate and of course respectful cultural adaptation would be to have Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the other kids slaughter, dismember, and barbecue Snoopy.
According to http://koreandogs.org/ (I do not know how reliable this site is, but other sites concur), Koreans, north and south, prepare pooches for supper with the little things being “electrocuted, hanged, beaten, have their throats slashed, or are boiled or burnt to death.”
Just imagine a television cooking show in the Koreas: “Today, folks, we’re going to take this adorable little beagle with the cute, waggly tail and the big trusting eyes, put him through the blender, and then braise the beagle bits to a nice golden brown…”
The mascot for the Korean Winter Olympics is the Korean white tiger. Perhaps after the games he, too, will be eaten.
Another public relations issue and plumbing challenge at the Korean Olympics is the norovirus is spreading among staffers and possibly competitors. Norovirus, as you remember, is a Latin medical term which means “puking your guts up.”
The source of the current strain is unknown. Perhaps the puppies weren’t cooked properly.
Oh, yes, let us all be enlightened by the spirit of the Olympics.
-30-
Thursday, February 8, 2018
Song of the Vulgar Boatmen (a Russia series, 17) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Where is my sunblock? Where!
Over by the sodas – there!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
It won’t start, Dad – %^&*!
Where is my +*^% phone? Where!
There by your fishing hat - There!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Watch those tree stumps! Where?
&%#*ing tree stumps! *@#$!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Drift to that cove, now – there!
Cut the engine, now – shhhh!
Where are them fish, then - $#@%!
They ain’t here, Dad – *&^%!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – &#%&!
(Chorus fades as the sun sets over Tovarisch Bubba’s Bait, Beer, ‘n’ Borscht)
mhall46184@aol.com
Song of the Vulgar Boatmen
(In which good fellowship between Russians and Americans is probably not advanced)
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Where is my sunblock? Where!
Over by the sodas – there!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
It won’t start, Dad – %^&*!
Where is my +*^% phone? Where!
There by your fishing hat - There!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Watch those tree stumps! Where?
&%#*ing tree stumps! *@#$!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – pull!
Drift to that cove, now – there!
Cut the engine, now – shhhh!
Where are them fish, then - $#@%!
They ain’t here, Dad – *&^%!
Start the Evinrude – pull!
Grandpa’s Evinrude – &#%&!
(Chorus fades as the sun sets over Tovarisch Bubba’s Bait, Beer, ‘n’ Borscht)
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
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