School Walkouts - What Would Little Sheldon Do? - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

What Would Little Sheldon Do?

The concept of a school walkout, which is a temper tantrum on the level of “I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue,” isn’t in itself an intellectual challenge – the subject opens the door, often with his or her little fistie clinched while yelling “My momma said I don’t have to put up with your **** anymore,” and walks away.

Is that so difficult?

According to several news sources, the students of Antioch High School in Tennessee messed up a hissy-fit walk-out so badly that they had to try again on Thursday.

According to its own site, Antioch High School is proud to be a S.T.E.M. school (https://schools.mnps.org/antioch-high-school). The principal or her amanuensis also tippy-typed the usual filler-language about “high-quality academic programs, “state-of-the-art” something-or-other, “vision,” “knowledge, skills and character,” and “vision” again.

That’s all well and good, but the future Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einsteins couldn’t even manage skipping school. They tore down a flag and trod on it, vandalized a police car, and fought with each other, all in the name of non-violence.

But, hey, if you call boorish behavior S.T.E.M. then everything’s okay.

On Thursday a selected few young scientists were permitted to walk out again, and reportedly made a success of look-at-me hooky. They raised the flag they had walked on the day before, and the band played the National Anthem.

But how curious that a high school administration organized a walkout. How did they determine which students would be permitted to leave school and who would be required to stay?

In a press release (to go with the student release), the district said:

We encourage parents to talk to your child(ren) about how they may be feeling, and the importance of expressing themselves in appropriate ways while at school. MNPS also has counselors available and ready to talk to students at any time. (https://patch.com/tennessee/antioch-south-nashville/national-school-walkout-antioch-students-rip-down-flag)

Well, all right, the young S.T.E.M visionaries left their classes, and with knowledge, skills, and character tore down the flag, vandalized a police car, and got into fights. And all this peace ‘n’ love was under the guidance of their school administration, who function under the authority of the democratically-elected school board. Maybe the parents will want to share their feelings with the trustees they elected to organize a program of instruction, not a program of rioting.

-30-

Contra Julius and Gregory (a Russia series, 52) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Contra Julius and Gregory

A year does not fail, because there are no years
There are only seasons dancing through being
The choreography of Creation
Written with meteors dreamed out of stars

And so the first day of January
Is the thirty-second of December
And neither is either or even itself
But only a mark that says left foot forward

Continuing a step from beyond forever –
The year does not fail, because there are no years

A Song of My People

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of My People

What Would Woody Guthrie Say?

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From your post-hole diggers to that nice pry bar
From your leaf blower to your garden rake
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

While I was climbing
Your backyard fence
I saw your bolt-cutters
Don’t take offense

But you are rich
(You’ve got a job)
I’m sharing your wealth
(I don’t really rob)

My stuff is my stuff, your stuff is my stuff
From the real long power cord to that full tool box
From your brand new shovel to your socket set
Your stuff – it now belongs to me

Repudiating the Writers' Soviet (a Russia series, 51) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Repudiating the Writers’ Soviet

To Propagandists of All Flavors in All Nations

Sometimes my work is joyful, sometimes sad
Sometimes my work is good, more often bad -
But never does it belong to you, comrade.

Leonard Cohen - Kensington Avenue

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Kensington Avenue

With Leonard gone, who can wear a fedora?

A pilgrimage away from Kensington
Lovers and mountains and islands and words
Questions flung far into the universe
Returned as Alleluias angelic

Or as Comments Constant in lonely rooms
Where Marianne in memories spoke to him
Sometimes upon a wire from otherness
Finishing words about the avenue

Now home from mountains and islands and song -
Perhaps one answer was here all along

Rasputin (a Russia series, 50) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Rasputin

There once was a scoundrel, Rasputin
Whose diet was entirely free of gluten
          Since it was all whiskey and gin
          And big helpings of sin -
But he died from poison and shootin’

More Byzantine than Russian, Still... (A Russia series, 49) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Theodora

There once was an empress, Theodora
Whose subjects began to bore her
          They were too much at home
          In the old Hippodrome
So she killed ‘em - they’re pushing up flora.

Everybody Honors Th' Workin' Man, But Nobody Honors a Working Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody Honors Th’ Workin’ Man

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man
With songs about the dignity of work
Poems, impassioned speeches in Congress
The latest book about worker housing

But everybody ignores that working man
Who builds the stage on which the singer sings
The plumber who makes the artist’s royal flush
The electrician who wires the elections

Everybody honors Th’ Workin’ Man -
But nobody honors a working man

"But They Didn't Let Me Finish!" (a Russia series, 48) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“But They Didn’t Let Me Finish!”

For Isaac Babel

Babel, you hated Russian, Pole, and Jew
You wrote as you were told, in ink all Red
You wrote the same old bigotry, nothing new
In gratitude dear Stalin shot you dead

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Conversation between a Homeowner and a Visiting Stepfather

The homeowner:

“O should we warn your kids that my yard fence
Is now electrified against possums
And foul raccoons most pestiferous?”

The stepfather:

                                                                  “No.”

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator (a Russia series, 47) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Song of Comrade Photocopier Operator

From Le Chansons de Volga File Clerks Rouge

© 1962 by Les Chansons, Leningrad

O sing a song of reproduction
Accomplished by electrical induction
As workers’ hands insert the paper
Deep into the magic vapor
Chanting without a fuss or stink,
“Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of ink!”
Ions charge the chemical toner
Unless there’s none, ‘cause it’s all goner
Or even worse – if there’s a jam
And then the worker yells out (“Goodness!”)
But with a wrench and a mighty shout
Like that ol’ Czar, the jam is OUT
The Committee decrees a Print Command
This is their red-star’red demand
And out comes the paper, newly free
Fresh from a cartridge in a… (There! See?)
By Good Comrade Worker, Ivan-on-the-Spot
Alas, the message is for him to be…

                                                              shot

Your Signature Cheeseburger - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Your Signature Cheeseburger

A drive-in fast-foodery advertises
Its golly-gee new signature cheeseburger
But what in burgers does “signature” mean?
Who signs a cheeseburger, and how, and why?

Maybe…

The Artist Known as Nihil composes his
Signature cheeseburger, customized for you,
While waiting for his big break in Vegas
And then he’ll show all you little people

But for now he needs to sign your cheeseburger:
“To Customer 362,
                                Best wishes,
                                                      from Nihil”

Does This Machine Kill Fascists? (a Russia series, 46) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Machine Kill Fascists?

Does this machine kill Fascists? Probably not
Unless it bores them to a yawning death
Through soporific clichés crudely imposed
Upon a few poor, battered chords that twang
Like the barbed wire of an Arctic gulag
Where happy comrades
          Shiver in the snow
          Wither in the wind
          Starve on slops
          Burn with typhus
          Rot in the tundra
As they build the future upon mass graves
While the anti-Fascist cashes his checks

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let's Talk about You - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

But Enough about Mr. Trump; Let’s Talk about You

These hours are not The Age of Trump, oh, no
Nor yet the age of McDonald’s arches
Turned upside down like pendant parts spilt from
The four-color process of a Playboy mag

All time is God’s, and as a gift to you
May be employed in work and play as you
Think best in gratitude for all the light
That falls upon your acts, your arts, your loves

Whatever else, this is an age of you
In quest for the good, the beautiful, and
                                                   the true

The Revolution (a Russia series, 45) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Revolution

Little men arguing in shabby rooms
Meetings, manifestos, revolvers, bombs
Informers, spies, social organization,
Speeches, minutes, dues, What is to be Done?
The great cause of the Proletariat
Greetings from our good comrades in Smolensk
Nihilism, committees, secrecy
The thirst for culture is aristocratic
Nihilism is the only art of the people
Rumors, whispers, clandestine magazines
The unification of workers and peasants
Resolutions passed in the factory soviet
Clenched fists to reject the personal life
Electrification and equality
Cigarettes, vodka, the people’s justice
Against the parasitical bourgeoisie
Solidarity to destroy the kulaks
His poetry reeks of sentimentality
Self-centered intellectual decadence
The people’s will for the people’s party
Education for the twentieth century
Lift high the red banner,
                                             fill full the graves

The Futility of the Coccolithophores - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Futility of the Coccolithophores

In a careless moment, much to my grief
I lost the heritage of millions dead
And much like an unconscionable thief
Considered my atrocities, and fled

In reefs and shoals they lived, they worked, they died
From ancient times, and even until now
In patience layering their art with pride
Each tiny home and funereal how

Not even in their ruins can they now talk
Because I dropped and broke them – goodbye, chalk!

A Song of Liberation (a Russia series, 44) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Song of Liberation

Grandfather’s Saint George medal – hide it first
The ikon of Saint Seraphim – that’s next
Babushka’s crucifix – O, how she loved it
The picture of the Czar – away! Away!

Do not betray your thoughts – a careless word
A smile not authorized, a memory
A fragment from a cheerful Christmas song:
These do not advance The Revolution

Beneath our Brave Red Star they must lie hidden
While our dear comrades love and watch us all

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Alone in the Parish Hall While Waiting for a Meeting to Begin

(smells kinda funny in here)

Words:

Behold the Lamb of God, Exit, Please turn
The air-conditioner off, NO SMOKING PLEASE
One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic
Nicene Creed, 6th Grade Classroom, On this Rock

Things:

Crucifix, thermostat, coffee machine
American flag in a flower vase
Clock, napkins, chairs, a misplaced plastic fork
And folding tables unfolded to the light

Sounds:

A choir of refrigerators out of tune
With each other, and with Ordinary Time

Futurism (a Russia series, 43) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Futurism

Futurism acknowledges the past
But only to condemn it, discard it:
A song that was sung sweetly yesterday
By a pretty girl while driving to work

A baby laughing at a butterfly
A beagle pup chasing a rubber ball
Geese honking through their autumn pilgrimage
And former people who would not adapt

Reflecting on the mass graves it has filled
Futurism acknowledges its past

"Order 263...263...!" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Order 263…263…!”

For Yue Wang Yidhna

And All Who Brew Morning Poetry for the World

You are neither barista nor priestess
Even though perhaps a little bit of both
You do not serve either McDonald or Tim
But rather the supplicants who approach

Who plead with you to offer them the Cup
Of transient peace and hope in this sad world
A layered paper chalice wherein is borne
Colombian savour, healing and warm

And it is from your hands that they receive
A special blessing, and strength for their day