Russians Under Our Beds (a Russia Series, 66) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Russians Under Our Beds

For Our Special Prosecutors,

Who Guard and Guide Us

Oh, borscht! Those pesky Russkies under my bed
Were marching around all night, changing my votes
Beaming mysterious rays through my sleepy head
And snooping through my lesson plans and notes

They programmed my radio with Marx and Lenin
Plastered a poster of Putin to my wall
Sailed Admiral Kuznetzov across my linen
Layered a Petrograd accent over my Texas drawl

The special prosecutor says no further discussions –
Everything’s the fault of those perfidious Russians!

Maundy Thursday - Mass of the Last Supper (poem)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Maundy Thursday – Mass of the Last Supper

“Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”

-Shakespeare

The air is thurified – the incense given
Our Lord upon His birth is fumed at last;
The censer’s chains, clanking like manacles
Offend against the silence at the end of Mass

Supper is concluded; the servants strip
The Table bare of all the Seder service:
Cups, linens, and dishes, leaving in the dark
An Altar bare, prepared for sacrifice

In Gethsemane the flowered air is sweet
But iron-heeled caligae offend the night

Prince Myshkin's Vigil (a Russia series, 65) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Prince Myshkin’s Vigil

Pale Prince Myshkin keeps vigil in a room
In which two aspects of civilization repose:
That which is dying, and that which is dead
That which is cold, and that which is very cold

The wounded healer waits, because he was asked
And harrows there the darkness with his light
He waits with the dead in a rented room
And on a hill, beside a waterfall

A keeper of souls for an appointed time
And his own is kept by Somebody Else



cf, Dostoyevsky's The Idiot

The First Hummingbird of Spring - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The First Hummingbird of Spring

O wing’ed messenger of happiness,
Aloft among the pollinating flowers,
At last you have returned from Mexico
And warm months there among soft latitudes
Where little birds can make a holiday
Far, far away from withering Arctic winds.

O tiny traveler, what souvenirs
Did you declare to customs at the Rio Grande?
South winds to tell the flowers to wake up
And Rosaries of morning fogs to bless
The yawning grasses with a morning drink,
And fresh new sunlight for the industrious bees.

O buzzing and impatient little friend!
Just wait a minute, your breakfast is coming -
The old glass feeder washed and packed away
In harvest-rich October’s golden light
Must be recovered and refreshed for you,

And

How good it is to have you home again.

The Staretz (a Russia series, 64) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Staretz

For Fr. Raphael

In middle life the sunflower bends its head,
No longer to the sun as in its youth,
But to the earth in all humility,
Ripening for us all its dreams and works,
And aging happily to eternal dawn.

Where are the Squirrels of Spring? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Where are the Squirrels of Spring?

(John Keats wrote much of the first line; I took care of the rest)

Where are the squirrels of spring? Ay, where are they?
Flattened by a log truck, just yesterday
When old enough to leave the family nest
They ran into the road, there flattened, pressed

Though cautioned by their wise sciuridaean sire
They panicked before an approaching tire
They had little time for a valedictory squeal
Before they died, so young, beneath the wheel –

So even if the old folks seem such a bother
You really ought to listen to your father

A Russian Sunflower (a Russia series, 63) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Russian Sunflower

Deep-rooted in the earth, old Zossima
Turns daily to the sun, our star in the east,
And of his kindness blesses all of us
Who pilgrimage to holy Russia where
He tells us, sure, what we already know:
Fall to the earth; from there look up and see
That like a sunflower, one can turn to Heaven

Pontius Pilate's Plea - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Pontius Pilate’s Plea

My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To distant duties, and never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew

Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards

I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip

But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it. And why was that my fault?

The Russian Soldier, 1918 (a Russia series, 62)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Russian Soldier, 1918

The Russian soldier, Moskina1 in hand,
Though filthy, tired, unknown, unpaid, unfed,
Fights for his God, his Czar, and his Fatherland:
No medals, no vodka, no sleep, no bread

His clumsy lowest-bidder boots,2 they rot
Into the foulness where the world’s sins pitch
Into the slime of old Iscariot3
Good men to die in some Gehenna-ditch

Saint George, Saint Michael, and Saint
Seraphim
Preserve him in the end from Judas’ crime4
Life’s-end tears, life’s-end prayers, a blood-
choked scream
And so he climbs the trench wall one last time,

Three cartridges5 clenched in his frozen fist,
He disappears at last into the mist6

1. Mosin-Nagant rifle
2. Betrayal by contractors
3. Betrayal by politicians and Bolsheviks
4. The Russian soldier does not fail in his his duty
5. Ammunition shortage / God, Czar, and Fatherland
6. The Russian soldier is known to God

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez' Pickup Truck - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Adventure Begins Over There by Mr. Gomez’ Pickup Truck

“And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes”

-Chaucer

Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Seeking the strange, elusive shores of truth
Each pilgrim bearing in his eager hands
A palm frond and a photocopied hymn

The pilgrimage begins in the parking lot
And marshaled by the blue HANDICAPPED signs
Ascends to the doors, the narthex, and in,
Up to the Altar, there where all worlds meet

Come to Jerusalem; you’re on the way -
Everyone is a palmer this holy day

Russians in Moc Hoa (a Russia series, 61) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam:

Russians in Moc Hoa

I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
And then I learned about Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!


Moc Hoa (pronounced something like “mock wah”) is a now-prosperous town on the Song Vam Co Tay near the border with Cambodia. In 1970 it was rather down at the heels and was a center of military activity, including mercenaries presumably controlled by the C.I.A.

Welders - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Welders

Load a squad of welders into a truck
Without any of their equipment or gear
And drop them in a wilderness at dawn
With an impossible mission to complete

Return at dusk; you will find all of them
Grilling steaks over a ‘cue they just built
While chillin’ under their funny cloth caps -
And the as-built is even better than the specs

No one knows how; this is a metallic mystery
And, really, we just don’t need to know, okay?

A Novitiate in the World (a Russia series, 60) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Novitiate in the World

“…you will go forth from these walls,

but will live like a monk in the world.”

-Father Zossima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

Every vocation is a novitiate
And every labor a monastic prayer:
Matins and Lauds are sung over coffee,
Then Terce for the plough, the lathe, and the wheel

Sext is gratitude for the midday meal
And None is the hour for downing tools
Soft Vespers is the song of happy homes
‘Til Compline sends all good folk to their beds -

Final vows are taken at death; for now,
Every vocation is a novitiate

"A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows" - column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“A Thing That Peers in at Bedroom Windows”

Until last week the rascally Russians were credited with swinging the 2016 election to President Locker-Room-Mouth, with Boris and Natasha yanking both the voting machine levers and our chains.

This week it’s all the fault of Cambridge Analytica, which is not located in any Cambridge but in New York.

Or so they would have you believe.

If you call something Cambridge or Oxford it sounds all cool and sophisticated, and the neologism analytica is soooo Big Bang Theory swoon-worthy.

Apparently, Cambridge Analytica is a room full of not very nice people using their STEM (but not any sense of ethics) to snoop on all the computers in America and all the ships at sea to gather gossip that can be used for marketing and for manipulating elections.

The tee-shirt boys at Facebook – not the Russians - have admitted to cooperating with Cambridge Analytica in giving – or selling – access to everything you have ever posted to that infamous scheme.

The sneaker-boys employ such euphemisms as psychographic micro-target, digital operations, multiple data teams, enhanced predictability models, data analytics, data farming, data scraping, cross-referencing, analyzing, and synthesizing to poke around in your mind, your heart, and your soul to sell (does anyone really think that Facebook is financed by rainbows and pixie dust?) to advertisers, governments, and wanna-be goverments to manipulate your mind, your heart, and your soul for their purposes, not for your good or the common good.

The axiom that progress is good is an error in logic, for some progress is bad indeed.

“Hero to general, from general to politician, from politician to secret service agent,

and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows, and thence to a toad,

and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

-30-

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Progress Through Your Soul

“…and thence to a thing that peers in at bedroom and bathroom windows,

and thence to a toad, and finally a snake – such is the progress of Satan.”

- C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost

When your last psychographic micro-target
Has through our digital operations
Been processed by multiple data teams
As enhanced predictability models

Standard data analytics suggest
That scraping data from your thoughts, your words
The way you touch the screen may sting a little
But we know what is best for you hashtag

Cross-referenced, analyzed, and synthesized
And vacuum-sealed into a Golden Age

What Were You THINKING, CBS!? - haiku

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Were You Thinking, CBS!?

There is basketball
But no Young Sheldon tonight
Life has no meaning

Iconophiles (a Russia series, 59) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Iconophiles

Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries
Lowering their voices but raising their hearts
Falling into a written picture-prayer
Upon a bit of board or card – Creation

Made small and held within the hand, the eye
And knowing deeper in, all that was made
And Him Who was begotten before all
Permitting us to see before we see

Hymning formlessness into light and truth-
Iconophiles are the true revolutionaries

If Wars Were Subject to Copyright - poem

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 weregeld 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
Won 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,
That glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and smoke

Ad Orientem (a Russia series, 58) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ad Orientem

Let us now face the sun, and not ourselves
And so forswear the mirrored loop of Us
That zeitgeist chasing its ossified Now
Into a spiral of dark nothingness

A club that looks endlessly at itself
Sharing dismal, universal handshakes1
Can never see the Incarnation dawn
As joyful, laughing Light upon the world

His star is in the east, and too His sun -
Let us worship the Lord, and not ourselves

1Yes, pinched from John Milton

Satan's Gasoline Pump - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Satan’s Gasoline Pump

X-treem card?
(Beep!) World Poker Tour card?
Credit card?
Debit card?
(BEEP!) Insert card now.
No, not that way, stupid!
Turn it around!
Would you like a receipt?
Why not?
What is your weight?
What is your (beep!) fate?
Would you like a free car wash?
Don’t talk to me like that –
I’m going to make you push some more buttons.
Push the “enter” button
which is cleverly (beep!) hidden
in a thicket of other buttons.
Oh, dear, you couldn’t find
The “enter” button in time!
Start over (Beep!) hahahahahahaha.
Gas went up ten cents a qallon since you got here.
There’s a motorcycle gang waiting behind you.
Impatiently.
Hurry!
You want air? (Beep!) Drive around back
And have your credit card ready.
Do you want water for your radiator? Yes?
Arctic Mountain Springs?
Montana (Beep!) Mountain Springs?
Sierra Mountain Springs?
All-Natural Mountain Springs?
City water??????
Would you like to come inside
and buy (Beep!) cigarettes from a hefty country girl
with a mouth full of chewing tobacco?
No?
Lift handle and select…
COMPUTER ERROR
Please start over.