Special and Awesome Spring Concert in the Parish Hall - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Special and Awesome Spring Concert in the Parish Hall

Well, gosh, thank you for being here today
I am honored to be the conductor
Of this very special and awesome group
So let me introduce them one by one
To this special and awesome audience
It’s been an awesome season, and we’re glad
You could share this moment with us today
We’d like to give a special shout-out to
(Name and name) for making this wonderful space
Available to all of us today
As you know this is the last performance
Of the season, and the last here for (name)
Who is being transferred to Albuquerque
And we want to wish her well; she has been
A cornerstone-rock-heart of our little group
And also for (name) who is retiring
After thirty years with (name-name, inc)
And is looking forward to spending time
With his family and traveling about
With his awesome and patient wife (name-name)
And also with his awesome and patient dogs
Although of course he would never say that they
Are more awesome than his sweet wife ha-ha
You will notice that our program today
Features a diversity of pieces to appeal
To all sorts of tastes because the pieces
We have selected in their diversity
Are meant to appeal to all sorts of tastes
Oh, wait, did I say that already ha-ha
Because we all believe that music speaks
To the hearts of all in their special ways
Because music is the language of all
From Tchaikovsky and Wagner to Elvis
From the stuffiness of grand old Vienna
To ‘way-cool happenin’ New Orleans
Or as they like to say down there Naw-lins
Ha-ha music is the language of all
Because it is inclusive and diverse
And speaks to all our hearts with love
And, like, you know, stuff, so now we begin
With some traditional classic pieces
And then some popular tunes you can tap
Your toes along to, and then at the end
We will enjoy a good ol’ sing-along
And maybe some audience participation
Ha-ha but we’ll let that be a surprise
Our first piece now is by Paganini
Who was neither a pagan nor a ninny
Ha-ha so let me give you’re a little background
On this piece…

A Brief Discourse on the Subject of Standing or Not Standing for the National Anthem at Sporting Events That You and I Can't Afford to Attend Anyway

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Brief Discourse on the Subject of Standing or Not Standing for the National Anthem

at Sporting Events That You and I Can’t Afford to Attend Anyway

You don’t have to stand up, but I wish you would -
Standing up for the flag is standing up
For each other, me for you, you for me
But if you don’t, forgive me anyway

You don’t have to stand up, but I wish you would -
Because some fifty years ago That Man’s
Heel spurs kept him from crawling through the mud
With us; he’s not much of a stand-up guy

You don’t have to stand up, but if you do –
I would be humbly honored to stand with you

Gap Year for the Children of the Poor - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Gap Year for the Children of the Poor

Just cruising through the endless sunny days
Along a rainforest river lingering
Hatless, shirtless, catching some serious rays
Listening to the national radio

A practical internship in cultural studies
Interacting with the authentic locals
And sampling their authentic cuisines
And learning so much from authentic them

The authentic locals had much to teach us,
And they did - during our gap year in Viet-Nam

We Do Not Burn Books in America - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

We Do Not Burn Books in America

We do not burn books in America
We just ignore them, for we light our nights
And burn away our individual souls
Upon an altar green, clean plastic grass

Come together as one unto the lights
The concept of the tablets now writ large
An electronic scoreboard – and if we’re good
We’ll see our snaggly grins all ten feet tall

Eighty-thousand dollars of education
Beaming civilization six nights each year

Snake Interruptedruptedruptedrupted - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Snake  Interruptedruptedruptedrupted - A Song of Spring

Our merry springtime is a glorious feast
Of joyful sights and scents and happy sounds,
Of breezes turning warmly from the east
Of bustling bees winging their flowery rounds

Above, around, and through a world of green
In dreams of life that move the seasons along
Where each day’s sunrise halos a Creation scene
And every blossom is its own soft song

But the sweetest sound echoing through the glades
Is a snake being shredded by the lawnmower’s blades

A Pastoral Scene (without firearms) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Pastoral Scene (without firearms)

A fine wine’s not for us; we want cheap red
In paper cups beneath the apple trees
with cheese and bread upon the grasses spread
And you singing along each merry breeze

This fine day’s made for us; we want to kiss
Creation as we kiss each other’s lips
In celebration of sweet summer bliss
While soft away the dreamy twilight slips

Our fine moon’s rising, silvering the air -
She tells us we have kisses yet to share

Ceremonies of Innocence - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Ceremonies of Innocence

“The ceremony of innocence is drowned”

-W. B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”

The ceremonies of innocence live,
All of them: youthful lovers holding hands
Bees watering beneath a dripping tap
Good farmers tending summer’s ripening fields

Things fall apart, but gather we the bits
And carefully love them together again
With cups of coffee, lines of verse, kind words
And all the liturgies of worship and hope

The ceremonies of innocence live:
They mend the time through the blessings we give

A Makeshift Shrine - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Makeshift Shrine

 

for those who mourn...

Teddy bears ribboned to a chain-link fence,
Plastic-wrapped flowers stacked like compost,
Dime-store candles flickering in the exhaust
Of passing mini-vans. The inanity
Of filler-language falls, descends upon
The shattered souls of the barely alive,
The dead cliches’ of well-planned camera-grief:
“Our hearts and thoughts go out to you.”
What does that mean? Nothing but conventional noise
For generations of lovers and mourners
Long-ago looted of reality,
Programmed with state-sanctioned hyperbole,
And mourners now are left with nothing but
An existential howl against the light,
Sodium-vapor upon broken glass,
While strident Men of Destiny
There rake for votes among the ashes of death.


from The Road to Magdalena, 2012

Negotiating with Honeybees - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Negotiating with Honeybees

The squirrel makes a fuss - he must discuss
Drink-sharing with the thirsty honeybees
Who hover greedily above the bowl
And claim all water rights for bees alone

The squirrel pleas with “Please!” to all the bees;
In conclave met they buzz, and grant the fuzz-
Y neighbor limited let to get wet
If when drinking his fill he holds real still

And the bees’ pet human has come and gone –
He leaves them water, then leaves them alone

An Open Poem to His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

An Open Poem to

His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales,

Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order

Shave

Matthias - a Substitute Teacher - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Matthias – a Substitute Teacher

Perhaps Matthias is the patron saint
Of substitute teachers – called in rather late
And sent where he had never been before
Unsure of what might be expected of him

Without even a book of lesson plans
But ever willing to give it a go
To face a crowd incurious, hostile
Demanding of him: “What are you doing here?

Mostly ignored, his sign-in sheet misplaced
Late-called, but still, as he was called
                                                                he went

Bush-Hogging - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

(Mostly a remembrance of my father; I am very happy that bush-hogging [and milking cows, and plowing, and planting, and…] is not a part of my adult life.)

Bush-Hogging

Light fog, dense air - how should one think of them
The sun – he seems to be holding his breath
Until, oh, nine or so, when he exhales
Soul-sucking heat upon the steaming earth

The Massey-Ferguson sits patiently
Through all its dawn-lit diagnostic chores:
Check the oil, check the gas, and lube the points
Safety checks all ‘round before the mowing begins

Old hat, old gloves, old boots, a fresh cigar
And old eyes focused on a field afar



(Bush-Hog is a brand of farm-tractor-mounted rotary mowing machines and other types of farm equipment. Bush-Hog enjoys an excellent reputation, and so to mow fields and pastures, even with another brand, is referred to as bush-hogging)

The Bird Mark 7 Respirator - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Okay, a poem about a machine is suspiciously redolent of Socialist Realism, but I’m not ready to write an ode to a tractor factory.

The Bird Mark 7 Respirator

In memory of Forrest Bird, who saved the lives of millions

A little Bird, singing all through the night
A plastic box of green mechanicals
Its soft, subtle hiss-click there breathing life
Into and through the wreckages of boys

Americans, mostly, Vietnamese
Koreans, Cambodians, Lao, Hmong
And one who might have been a Russian (shhhhh….) -
The pretty Bird sang in their languages

And when they woke, the soft song that they heard
Was whispered to them by a little green Bird

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