Friday, February 16, 2018
On Reading Doctor Zhivago (a Russia series, 25) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Love lost along abandoned railway lines,
Grave-cold, grave-still, grave-dark beneath dead snow,
A thousand miles of ashes, corpses, ghosts -
Sacrarium of a martyred civilization.
A silent wolf pads west across the ice,
The rotting remnant of a young man’s arm,
Slung casually between its pale pink jaws -
A cufflink clings to a bit of ragged cloth.
Above the wolf, the ice, the arm, the link
A dead star hangs, dead in a moonless sky,
It gives no light, there is no life; a mist
Arises from the clotted, haunted earth.
For generations the seasons are lies,
Since neither love nor life is free to sing
The eternal hymns of long-forbidden spring -
And yet beneath the lies the old world gasps
The old world gasps in sudden ecstasy
A whispered resurrection of the truth
As tender stems ascend and push the stones
Aside, away into irrelevance.
And now the sunflowers laugh with the sun
Like merry young lads in their happy youth
Coaxing an ox-team into the fields,
Showing off their muscles to merry young girls.
The men of steel are only stains of rust,
Discoloring the seams of broken drains,
As useless as the rotted bits of brass
Turned up sometimes by Uncle Sasha’s plow.
For this is Holy Russia, eternally young;
Over those wide lands her church domes bless the sky,
While Ruslan and Ludmilla bless the earth
With the songs of lovers in God’s ever-spring
mhall46184@aol.com
On Reading Doctor Zhivago
Love lost along abandoned railway lines,
Grave-cold, grave-still, grave-dark beneath dead snow,
A thousand miles of ashes, corpses, ghosts -
Sacrarium of a martyred civilization.
A silent wolf pads west across the ice,
The rotting remnant of a young man’s arm,
Slung casually between its pale pink jaws -
A cufflink clings to a bit of ragged cloth.
Above the wolf, the ice, the arm, the link
A dead star hangs, dead in a moonless sky,
It gives no light, there is no life; a mist
Arises from the clotted, haunted earth.
For generations the seasons are lies,
Since neither love nor life is free to sing
The eternal hymns of long-forbidden spring -
And yet beneath the lies the old world gasps
The old world gasps in sudden ecstasy
A whispered resurrection of the truth
As tender stems ascend and push the stones
Aside, away into irrelevance.
And now the sunflowers laugh with the sun
Like merry young lads in their happy youth
Coaxing an ox-team into the fields,
Showing off their muscles to merry young girls.
The men of steel are only stains of rust,
Discoloring the seams of broken drains,
As useless as the rotted bits of brass
Turned up sometimes by Uncle Sasha’s plow.
For this is Holy Russia, eternally young;
Over those wide lands her church domes bless the sky,
While Ruslan and Ludmilla bless the earth
With the songs of lovers in God’s ever-spring
Thursday, February 15, 2018
4,000 More Light Casualties (a Russia series, 24) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
A touchy old man who never went to war
Now poses with his decorative generals
In their tailored Ken-and-Barbie battle dress
All prepped for combat in the officers’ clubs
New president, same as old presidents
And generals, awarding each other medals
And promotions for their golden resumes’
For sending not-their-children off to die
While they prosper on defense industry bids,
Afghanistan is the graveyard of our kids
(Shhhhhhhhhh…Don’t disturb Congress;
they’re fast asleep.)
Many incidents detailed in Zinky Boys parallel incidents in the lives and deaths of American enlisted men in Viet-Nam.
mhall46184@aol.com
4,000 More Light Casualties
A group of journalists arrived from Moscow and were told that the Afghan National Army…had taken the ridge. (They) were posing for victory photographs while our soldiers lay in the morgue.
-Svetlana Alexeivich, Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
A touchy old man who never went to war
Now poses with his decorative generals
In their tailored Ken-and-Barbie battle dress
All prepped for combat in the officers’ clubs
New president, same as old presidents
And generals, awarding each other medals
And promotions for their golden resumes’
For sending not-their-children off to die
While they prosper on defense industry bids,
Afghanistan is the graveyard of our kids
(Shhhhhhhhhh…Don’t disturb Congress;
they’re fast asleep.)
Many incidents detailed in Zinky Boys parallel incidents in the lives and deaths of American enlisted men in Viet-Nam.
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Pensees' for an Ash Wednesday - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Today is also Valentine’s, and so
For the schoolchildren little candy hearts
As we remember from our happy youth
Teenagers like them still, and so they should
Now lessons follow: the four elements
Of Anglo-Saxon poetry, history
Chemistry, a turn in the auto shop:
Yeats’ happy “ceremonies of innocence”
And in the afternoon, Mass, and ashes,
And the cleaners tidy up candy wrappers
Instead of corpses
mhall46184@aol.com
Pensees’ for an Ash Wednesday
Today is also Valentine’s, and so
For the schoolchildren little candy hearts
As we remember from our happy youth
Teenagers like them still, and so they should
Now lessons follow: the four elements
Of Anglo-Saxon poetry, history
Chemistry, a turn in the auto shop:
Yeats’ happy “ceremonies of innocence”
And in the afternoon, Mass, and ashes,
And the cleaners tidy up candy wrappers
Instead of corpses
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!
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