Thoughts on a Picture of Two Men in Dinner Jackets - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thoughts on a Picture of Two Men in Dinner Jackets

If they were Of The People they’d tog in tees
The uniform of the Proletariat
To demonstrate their unique specialness
And admire each other’s piercings and tats

Sitting at a bar in dinner jackets
Without any irony, just two men
And talking with each other, not to ‘phones
Quiet voices – so totally not cool

Having a few after a semi-do
They’ve been noticed1 - not Good Comrades, these two


1“Your attitude’s been noticed.” – Commissar to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago

A Study of Situational Poverty in the Rural South - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Study of Situational Poverty in the Rural South

Raggedy barefoot children in the five and dime
With a Saturday morning quarter each
Plastic toy soldiers, Nazis and Yanks
Or a wind-up car – but that’s a dollar

Whitman adventure books for fifty cents
If nothing this week, then maybe the next
The Call of the Wild, with noble dog Buck
But what about marbles in a little net bag?

Tables of treasures at the variety store
Aladdin’s Cave (with a swept wooden floor)

The All-Seeing I - column. This one's pretty good

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The All-Seeing I

When, Gentle Reader, you open a newspaper or a conversational site on the InterGossip and note that a column, article, poem, or letter-to-the editor begins with that first-person “I,” skipping that item and going on to something else is almost always a good call.

When a written piece of work includes the phrase “When I was in graduate school…” skipping that is always the right thing to do. That one has been in a classroom is irrelevant; we have all sat in classrooms, usually looking at the clock and in silent prayer pleading with the Divinity, “How long, O Lord, how long?!”

Recently your ‘umble scrivener noted on a news site from far away a report about a young man who had spent some time in prison but had now redeemed himself with the gift of music. While he was in prison he rented a guitar for a nominal sum and taught himself to play it.

The redeemed was pleased to talk about himself, his tattoo celebrating his release from prison, his progress in making himself a better person now, his feelings, his soul, and his music.

And then the viewer was treated to him singing one of his original compositions celebrating himself.

Once upon a time your ‘umble scrivener watched in fascinated horror as a king snake fought and then devoured a rattlesnake while the rattlesnake was still alive.

The purported musician’s performance was rather like that, so whiney-nasal in the vocalization, so self-obsessed in the lyrics, and so brutal in the abuse of the chords and the poor guitar that the interest was in how awful (not awesome) an exhibition of narcissism could be.

But, hey, there were thousands of InterGossip hits (sic), so the music was aesthetically pleasing to some.

When the unhappy noises were ended and the segment was closed with the usually filler-language praising this, oh, experience, the thoughtful observer could only note that the redeemed never expressed any concern about those whom he had hurt.

There was a too-common catalogue of crimes in this young person’s life, according to the interviewer, one of which including breaking into an elderly woman’s house and robbing her.

The inspirational singer-songwriter never mentioned her or any of his victims. He made no apologies, he never expressed any regret, he never suggested in any way that he had broken the norms of civilized behavior. He never mentioned having a job

All he discussed was his therapy, his redemption, his music, his vision, his feelings in the incessant I, I, I, me, me, me that so often constitutes public discourse.

Common generational snobbery would dismiss this self-obsessed young person as a millennial, ignoring the salient fact that the good a man does, or the evil that a person does, is not connected with the date of birth. The reality is that most folks born between 1983 and 2001 – the much maligned millennials – now form the core of this nation’s military, police and fire services, medical professionals, and work force. Passing on clichés about millennials is a disservice to our concepts of honor and honesty – after all, almost all our fine young men and women fighting in the deserts are (gasp) millennials.

And, after all, self-obsession is not defined by date of birth; a individual chooses to grow up and kinda / sorta try to act like a man, or he can just sit around and feel sorry for himself.

The first-person voice is sometimes necessary for advancing a narrative, but it is a risky thing to do.

Even so, one would like to hear more first-person voices from those who have done hard time in Afghanistan or with the police or fire services, and not from those who have enjoyed the leisure to learn the guitar on the taxes and labor of those in Afghanistan (did you know that a soldier’s combat pay is taxed?), the fire and police services, and in the sweat of honest work.

-30-

The In-Laws of Other In-Laws Who Happened to be in the Neighborhood and Decided to Stop by for Just a Minute - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The In-Laws of Other In-Laws Who Happened to be in the Neighborhood

and Decided to Stop by for Just a Minute

Oh yeah that’s right we met at now where was it
Uncle Skinny’s funeral now I think that
was now when was that dear? Oh, it
was at Cousin Verlis’ wedding okay
I’m sure stove up from my last surgery
yeah, me an’ Bubba worked the tugboats for years
Then he fired me we lived there for years
but sold the place and we’re still living there
now it was all flooded up there to where
the Baptist Church was so we couldn’t go
they say Interstate Ten’s a mess this summer
we need to go I got to take my pills
that’s why rice farmers just leave their combines
in the field to rust ‘cause the government’s
all mixed up in it I guess there ain’t many
of us left we all grew up together
I got me this new gun now where’s my ‘phone
Oh it’s in the truck I’ll get it
                                                  now here
I can’t make this thing work I know it’s in
my pictures oh there it is wait it’s gone
we need to go I’ve got to take my pills
now was Cousin Skeeter buried with his parents
no wait that was his son joined the Marines
but they kicked him out ‘cause he was no good
we need to go I’ve got to take my pills
now they was both buried in California
I guess I seen ‘em in 1968 last
These chairs is too low I’m all stove up
I don’t know why the government ain’t prepared
For hurricanes they dug this big drainage ditch
But what if the water backs up along it
Then what am I going to do
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills
I ain’t never met a stranger, no, sir
That’s what they always said about me
Now when I was in school if I had said
“computer” they’d-a sure-’nough kicked me out
We didn’t need all that stuff we learnt just fine
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills
(a ten-minute monologue about a couch
goes here) so I ended up buying a new couch
my first job was with Caterpillar but
after ten years he left and went to work
down’t Port Arthur now if you’re ever
down our way be sure to stop by
we’d sure be glad to have you come on by
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills


[The morning’s interrupted projects and chores
Are resumed, but somehow in a milieu
Of existential despair.]

Some Observations on the Habits of the American Cardinal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Some Observations on the Habits of the American Cardinal

The Cardinal knows that he is a pretty bird
Splendidly attired in feathers bright and gay
He publishes loudly; he will be heard
Among the squawks of mockingbird and jay

He gobbles and scatters husks, rusks, and seeds
In self-indulgent abandonment
He ignores all others in his wants and needs
They’re secular birds; they can take a hint

The Cardinal certainly loves to be seen
At the public feeder in all his pride
Attentive to fashions, and always keen
For the Best Birds to be posed at his side

But then one day

A few remnant feathers, a ripped cardinal’s hat -
He seems to have forgotten the watchful cat


From Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, 2014, available from amazon

"Why Aren't You in Class? Who's Your Teacher?" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Why Aren’t You in Class? Who’s Your Teacher?”

No one seems to care; no one really listens
If you don’t play football, baseball, or basketball
Nobody cares. Most teachers don’t know me
And I don’t know them. We need orange jumpsuits

You can’t ever talk to the principal;
He’s too busy, and if you do, he finds
Something wrong with you, and gives you a sermon
Maybe his Jesus loves me, but he sure doesn’t

The assistant principal doesn’t know us
Or care about us; she just screams at us
Unless you’re an athlete. She likes athletes
Everybody just seems so uncomfortable

Or like they don’t want to be here…

“WHY AREN’T YOU IN CLASS?! WHO’S YOUR TEACHER?!”

Contra William Carlos Williams - a rather boring poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Contra William Carlos Williams

The only realism in art is of the imagination. It is only thus that the work

escapes plagiarism after nature and becomes a creation.

-Spring and All, p. 35

A leaf sometimes might seem to be a bee
Afloat upon the humming summer air
The tiny tree-ness of some greater Tree
Or brolly of a fairy-lady fair

A leaf may be presented as a shield
In chlorophyllic marching order trimmed
Its veins as dents received upon the field
The eye of each woody cell dying and dimmed

But even so

In this, inter-warriors, come not to grief
For in the end, a leaf is still a leaf

Dreamcatchers Along a Navajo Road - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dreamcatchers Along a Navajo Road

“…the war…often seems to have happened to someone else.”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

A pickup truck beside a Navajo road
Tables of souvenirs, a Thermos of coffee
Clotheslines of dreamcatchers catching the sun
For now; the dreams must wait for sleepless hours

“You were in Viet-Nam,” the old man said
To another old man. No mystery;
He simply took a chance to make a sale
And did, for both had known the Vam Co Tay

Old men along the road, catchers of dreams
Who burned their chances in the long ago

Thoughts of a Man Deferentially Silent During a Conversation Between his Daughter and his Wife - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Thoughts of a Man Deferentially Silent

During a Conversation Between his Daughter and his Wife

How is it that a man can live a long
And happy life in the service of God
And humanity without ever having made
A deep study of the cultivation
Of eyelashes?

0300, and all is not well - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

0300, and all is not well

“…or if we must be wakeful, cheerful…”

-from St. Thomas More’s evening prayer in A Man for all Seasons

Soft, healing sleep now rolls away, away
One’s senses flicker unreliably
The electronic weather panel glows
The CPAP whispers a leaking-air hissssssss

Awake. And why? The day was cruel enough
And now the night reproaches with things done
And things not done, all mixed in raw reproach
Life-choices laughing, mocking, taunting

Perhaps sleepless Macbeth can tell us why
With mirth displaced, all through these haunted hours

When a Plan That Wasn't Made Doesn't Come Together - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

When a Plan That Wasn’t Made Doesn’t Come Together

One loves it when a plan that wasn’t made
Doesn’t come together in a hall that wasn’t hired
By a man who was never told to hire
The hall by a committee that never met

And thus the event which was never held
Was not postponed by the man never told
To postpone the event that was never planned
By a committee that never met anywhere

One loves it when a plan that wasn’t made
Leaves one at peace with book and pipe and Scotch

The Tragic Death of a New World Vulture - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Tragic Death of a New World Vulture

Cruisin’ best speed, foot lightly on the gas
But suddenly, alarm, alack, alas!
Around a curve, vultures lunching en masse
(On ‘possum de jour, a rotting, sodden mass)
One panicked bird leaped up to fly and pass
But wobble-crashed into the windshield glass
He bumped, he bounced, he bonked upon his (brass)
His life flailed out among the roadside grass

Off the Beaten Cliche' - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Off the Beaten Cliché

Upon Reading Literary Reviews

Off the beaten path – is that part of the trail
That was blazed after the door to the future
Was unlocked with the key of somethingness
As an imaginative entrée, hmmmmmmm?

How dangerous it now must be to walk
Beneath that stress-fractured ceiling of glass
Paving the way that was blazed and unlocked
With the key to the future where dreams live

The oppressed voiceless up in champagne class
In resistance to the something-archy

And let The People yawn “iconic”

The Arts Community is Watching You Carefully - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Arts Community

First Member of Social Group to Number Forty Two: “All right, you say you're a poet and you were composing, and you failed to hear Number Ten's greeting.”

Second Member of Social Group, accusingly: “Neglect of social principle.”

Number Six: “Poetry has a social value?

Number Forty Two to Number Six: “You're trying to undermine my rehabilitation! Disrupt my social progress!”

Number Six: “Strange talk for a poet.”

-The Prisoner, “A Change of Mind”

The arts community unmutuals
The individual who dares presume
To work outside The Committee’s deep love
For democratic creativity

The arts community instructs us all
In unison chanting freedom of thought
Painting, writing, and thinking within the lines
As set before us harmoniously

The arts community sets us all free
As long as we are free obediently

Who IS Jack Robinson, Anyway? (But Bob's Your Uncle!) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Who is Jack Robinson, Anyway?

(But Bob’s Your Uncle!)

Before you can say “Jack Robinson”
You’ll want to pause and take another breath
Your heart will beat tum-tum-tiddly-tum times
The earth will rotate on its axis some

Before you can say “Jack Robinson”
You’ll wonder if you brushed your teeth after lunch
The clock will go on strike for four o’clock
The moon will hold her mirror to the sun

Before you can say “Jack Robinson”
You will forget why you meant to say that

Selling Jesus at the Truck Stop - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Selling Jesus at the Truck Stop

A table of Jesus-stuff at the door
A beefish man in gas-station shades
Channeling Chaucer’s Pardoner – he ain't
Never heard of him – in peddling salvation

“It’s for the church. It’s for the missions,” he says
Ignored by most. Then in a mutton moment
He spreads his legs and clutches at his (faith)
Laughing a pelvic thrust at his fellow apostle

A gormless guide to The Golden Shore
Touting tawdries and tidings at the truck stop door

The Weekly Hollering Lady at Tia Linda's Get 'N' Go - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Weekly Hollering Lady at Tia Linda’s Get ‘N’ Go

“I sure like your blowed-up hair!
A lovely day!
A lovely day!
Let’s light a candle for your blowed-up hair!

No ideas for being locked in for a week!
It’s later!
Play with the peacocks and the monkeys yesterday!
Play with the peacocks and the monkeys yesterday!

Well y’all have a blessed day! A blessed day!”

A kind voice from the next booth: “Bless her heart.”

Amen

We Could Ask for King George III Back - column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

We Could Ask for Santa Anna or King George III Back

Last week there was a merry meeting of the democratically-elected Houston I.S.D. school trustees with lots of adults yelling at each other “for the children” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/04/25/wild-night-at-houston-school-board-meeting-as-police-drag-out-protesters/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8bd7fc283371).

The democratically-elected board president, someone wielding a hyphen between her two names, ordered the boardroom cleared so that the people’s business could be continued. Removing the people from the people’s meeting dealing with the people’s business seems contradictory, but when there is disruption this is legal and necessary.

One of the people was shown being cop-pulled along the floor on her aspiration, but since the floor had recently been waxed by the always unappreciated cleaners she suffered only indignity. After a while the two police officers stopped (they seemed to be tired from the exertion of heaving democracy along) and asked the lady if she would like to walk now, and she did, and they helped her up, and life went on.

The thoughtful observer asks himself if any of the unhappy people yelling at their democratically-elected trustees, including the trustee with the hyphen, bothered to vote for or against them in the previous school board election.

Y’r ‘umble scrivener recuses himself from commenting on the specifics of the people’s business being conducted, but will address the matter of government by guerilla theatre.

Americans seem to have developed a tendency to try to govern by yelling instead of by voting. Only about 50% of the electorate – those people who are registered to vote - participated in the last several presidential elections. Democrats, Republicans, and all those little inhaled-too-much-weird-stuff parties yell and scream and ALL-CAPS on the InterGossip, but they don’t vote. Perhaps they are too busy yelling at or along with the fat boys on a.m. radio to do so.

Local school board elections are more important than presidential elections, because democratically-elected school boards are the people’s democratically-elected trustees, charged by the people with establishing local school policy in all matters, from curriculum to choosing the brand of floor wax for the people to be pulled along upon, and funding the people’s schools by assessing, taxing, and spending millions of dollars of tax revenues. School boards also hire and fire everyone, from the superintendent to the nice folks (always underpaid and underappreciated) who wax the floors so that the people may be pulled along them with minimal let, hindrance, or friction.

And yet voting in a local school board election is a lonely experience.

There is much babble about the decay of the public school system in this nation, but a prior point is that something that does not exist cannot decay. There has never been a public school system from sea to shining sea; there is only a mess of sometimes conflicting federal laws, state laws, judicial rulings, and policies set by local, democratically-elected boards of trustees.

The local trustees we elect do the metaphorical heavy lifting. While the Texas legislature swoons at the cooings of that seductive foreign publisher who pushes the goofy textbooks and goofier standardized tests inflicted on Texas children, the people’s democratically-elected board of trustees must make our children’s education function in spite of conflicting laws and rulings and edicts.

We the people are those “government schools” sneered at by the gossips because we the people are the government. It says so in the federal constitution and in the state constitution. If a school is bad it is because we the people make it so by voting for inept trustees or by not voting at all.

Our ancestors rid themselves of kings because they felt that the people knew their own needs best. To fail to vote is to surrender that individual power our ancestors sacrificed to give to us.

There is dignity in the exercise of power through the vote; there is only embarrassment in waving a MePhone around while yelling like an ill-raised brat.

In Texas, a very few good men and women are freely choosing the governance of their schools by secret ballot through the 5th of May. There aren’t many people voting, only the best, and you can choose to be one of the best.

-30-

A Movie Review over Coffee at Tia Linda's Get 'N' Go - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Movie Review over Coffee at Tia Linda’s Get ‘N’ Go

V: “There was this police chief and the cartels
beheaded his wife so it was vengeance
ride time and then they raided this house with
armored personnel carriers and 7.63

machine guns and stuff and BOOM! and there was
heads in the walls ‘cause they’d hid the bodies
in the walls man it was gross and then they
sneaked up on the super-secret cartel

bunkers and silently killed all the guards…”

R: “Well, I guess I got to get to work now…”

The Wheels on the Quantum Bus Go 'Round or Not, But Not Simultaneously - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Wheels on the Quantum Bus

Go ‘Round or Not, But Not Simultaneously

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Is certainly not uncertain at all
Or, rather, to avoid the negative
The certainty is that no one gets it

Not even the skilled quantum mechanic
That thoughtful hermitian operator
On his symmetry-breaking creeper beneath
A cosmological Schrodinger’s Cat

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
Doesn’t rhyme with orange or anything else

(Observation Changes) The End