mhall46184@aol.com
Saint Francis of the Garden Center
Saint Francis is depicted in fine art
In great museums and in modest homes -
And you can find him too, down at Wal-Mart,
Between the plastic frogs and concrete gnomes
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Saint Francis of the Garden Center - a frivolous four-line poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Saint Francis is depicted in fine art
In great museums and in modest homes -
And you can find him too, down at Wal-Mart,
Between the plastic frogs and concrete gnomes
mhall46184@aol.com
Saint Francis is depicted in fine art
In great museums and in modest homes -
And you can find him too, down at Wal-Mart,
Between the plastic frogs and concrete gnomes
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
Chaucer and the Lightendyten - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
“The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
Grinds from the photocopying machine
And thus the casual observer, he wails
That technology produces the scene
And yet good Chaucer wrote in the long ago
Rhymed rhythms to instruct and to delight
The copier came later, as you know -
Our pilgrim was the first these tales to write
Or was he?
So here is a problem, which I you begge:
Of which came first, the cicen or the egge?
1 There was of course no Middle English word for “photocopier” so I cobbled one together from “lighte,” to give light, and “endyte,” to write. Chaucer said it was okay.
mhall46184@aol.com
Chaucer and the Lightendyten 1
“The Prologue” to The Canterbury Tales
Grinds from the photocopying machine
And thus the casual observer, he wails
That technology produces the scene
And yet good Chaucer wrote in the long ago
Rhymed rhythms to instruct and to delight
The copier came later, as you know -
Our pilgrim was the first these tales to write
Or was he?
So here is a problem, which I you begge:
Of which came first, the cicen or the egge?
1 There was of course no Middle English word for “photocopier” so I cobbled one together from “lighte,” to give light, and “endyte,” to write. Chaucer said it was okay.
Monday, January 14, 2019
Tears, BUSY Tears - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
These are not tears of sorrow or joy;
These are tears from allergens, m’boy.
(As Tennyson did not say)
mhall46184@aol.com
Tears, BUSY Tears
These are not tears of sorrow or joy;
These are tears from allergens, m’boy.
(As Tennyson did not say)
Sunday, January 13, 2019
If Robert Frost Slep with a CPAP Machine - a pastiche
Lawrence Hall
mhall4618@aol.com
Whose breaths these are, oh, yes, I know
And on the laptop they will show
With lines and graphs so all can cheer
Each breath of mine I huff and blow
My little dog must think it queer
To sleep with a machine so near
Sighing all night without a break
Every evening throughout the year
She gives her collar bell a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the beep
Of mechanical air intake
Breathing is lovely, counting sheep
And I have life to love and keep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
All honor to Robert Frost, to the scientists and medicos who invented CPAP and BIPAP machines, to the makers of those little life savers, and to all medical workers.
In cartoons and in family lore snoring is amusing; in reality snoring indicates a lack of oxygen to the brain and the body’s struggle to make it good. Snoring = oxygen deprivation, which leads to stroke and / or mental issues, and a too-soon death.
A sleep study involves no needles or indignities, only a night’s sleep with some flat little electrodes taped to one’s chest and extremities. Early in the morning the nice technician brings you a cup of fresh coffee. Now that’s my kind of medical care!
mhall4618@aol.com
If Robert Frost Slept with a CPAP Machine
Whose breaths these are, oh, yes, I know
And on the laptop they will show
With lines and graphs so all can cheer
Each breath of mine I huff and blow
My little dog must think it queer
To sleep with a machine so near
Sighing all night without a break
Every evening throughout the year
She gives her collar bell a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the beep
Of mechanical air intake
Breathing is lovely, counting sheep
And I have life to love and keep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
And hours and hours of healing sleep
All honor to Robert Frost, to the scientists and medicos who invented CPAP and BIPAP machines, to the makers of those little life savers, and to all medical workers.
In cartoons and in family lore snoring is amusing; in reality snoring indicates a lack of oxygen to the brain and the body’s struggle to make it good. Snoring = oxygen deprivation, which leads to stroke and / or mental issues, and a too-soon death.
A sleep study involves no needles or indignities, only a night’s sleep with some flat little electrodes taped to one’s chest and extremities. Early in the morning the nice technician brings you a cup of fresh coffee. Now that’s my kind of medical care!
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Weaponizing Weaponization - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
“Weaponization” has been weaponized
So that a shutting down may be shut down
By weaponizing a shutdown’s downside -
And let The People shout “Absolutely!”
By weaponizing one’s feelings and whims
There is projected a transparency
That calls for a personal comfort snake -
And let The People shout “Actually!”
So please shut down the shutdown; that’s the tonic -
And let The People shout “Iconic!”
A consideration made after reading Alan Glyn’s thoughtful essay, “Conspiracy Fiction Once Helped Us Tell the Truth. Now It’s a Weapon for Liars,” in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/can-conspiracy-thrillers-work-under-a-conspiracy-presidency.html. The title is preachy and too long, reflecting the heavy hand of an editor, but the essay is most interesting.
mhall46184@aol.com
Weaponizing Weaponization
“Weaponization” has been weaponized
So that a shutting down may be shut down
By weaponizing a shutdown’s downside -
And let The People shout “Absolutely!”
By weaponizing one’s feelings and whims
There is projected a transparency
That calls for a personal comfort snake -
And let The People shout “Actually!”
So please shut down the shutdown; that’s the tonic -
And let The People shout “Iconic!”
A consideration made after reading Alan Glyn’s thoughtful essay, “Conspiracy Fiction Once Helped Us Tell the Truth. Now It’s a Weapon for Liars,” in Vulture: https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/can-conspiracy-thrillers-work-under-a-conspiracy-presidency.html. The title is preachy and too long, reflecting the heavy hand of an editor, but the essay is most interesting.
Antihistamine Dreams with a Little Touch of Grendel in the Night - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Silence is here
I shine a light into the night
I see an eye an eye sees me
It seems to see inside of me
It seems to see what I might be
It sees in me a recipe
A single eye it seems to blink
It’s not a deer I dream, I fear
And now a mist I dream, I think
Slips from the wood across the field
In silence slips it flows, it dips
It comes this way I must not stay
I see the eye the eye sees me
I feel its breath I feel its death
I cannot move I cannot wake
I cannot walk I cannot take
A step, a step a saving step
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end
The caesura divisions might not have survived the transfer.
“A little touch of Grendel in the night” is a takeoff of “a little touch of Harry in the night” in Henry V.
mhall46184@aol.com
Antihistamine Dreams with a Little Touch of Grendel in the Night
Silence is here
I shine a light into the night
I see an eye an eye sees me
It seems to see inside of me
It seems to see what I might be
It sees in me a recipe
A single eye it seems to blink
It’s not a deer I dream, I fear
And now a mist I dream, I think
Slips from the wood across the field
In silence slips it flows, it dips
It comes this way I must not stay
I see the eye the eye sees me
I feel its breath I feel its death
I cannot move I cannot wake
I cannot walk I cannot take
A step, a step a saving step
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end
The dream won’t end
The caesura divisions might not have survived the transfer.
“A little touch of Grendel in the night” is a takeoff of “a little touch of Harry in the night” in Henry V.
Friday, January 11, 2019
Camping on the Edge of Forever: a Memorial to Youth - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
from 2103
Michael Dean Marconett of Minnesota was a Navy buddy in 1967-1968 through recruit training, Hospital Corpsman ‘A’ School, and Field Medical Service School. One weekend Mike, Bill, and another friend rented an old car, loaded up our Marine Corps sleeping bags, and went camping in the snow:
Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.
mhall46184@aol.com
from 2103
Michael Dean Marconett of Minnesota was a Navy buddy in 1967-1968 through recruit training, Hospital Corpsman ‘A’ School, and Field Medical Service School. One weekend Mike, Bill, and another friend rented an old car, loaded up our Marine Corps sleeping bags, and went camping in the snow:
Camping on the Edge of Forever
For Mike Marconett
of happy memory
Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
Tudors to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Kendra Scott - weekly column
Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
During the Second World War the royal family changed their surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, and one can understand why. First of all, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was just too many letters for the mailbox (Thames Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1NJ). And then there was the matter of their German cousins of the same catalogue of names being a spot of bother from 1914-1918.
Windsor sounds more comfortably English, like the names developers give their pop-up subdivisions. Who would buy a house on “SaxeCoburgGothabahn” or “Hohenzollernstrasse” when “Windsor Way” is so much easier to pronounce and spell?
The American obsession with kings and queens continues after 200 years of professing red republicanism. Each autumn students in every school elect a homecoming queen, not a chairwoman of the Students’, Workers’, and Soldiers’ Soviet, and in the spring a prom king and prom queen, not a prom good comrade of the month and another prom good comrade of the month. Video productions – or product – featuring the love lives of kings, queens, and czars are consistently profitable.
Thus, that an exhibition of British (English, mostly, but let it stand) royal portraits should be a big hit in Texas is not a surprise.
Through the 27th of January The Houston Museum of Fine Arts (https://www.mfah.org/) features, among many other galleries and offerings and films and lectures, Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol. Most of the pictures are on loan from London’s National Portrait Gallery, displayed only in Houston and then in Australia before being returned to England. The Houston museum staff have combined the visiting pictures with some of their permanent collection for a brilliant, accessible, and well-documented display of paintings, a few artifacts, and photographs among three capacious galleries.
One passes by Warhol’s stains and smears, of course.
There were many delights and surprises, but the picture y’r obedient ‘umble scrivener most wanted to see, Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More, now Saint Thomas More, was a surprise only in its beauty and excellence. The cliché that a reproduction is never as good as the original is a cliché because it is true, and this is especially true with this portrait.
Many of Holbein’s portraits are highly stylized because those who commissioned the pictures wanted the conventions of the time. However, Holbein’s Sir Thomas More is wonderfully true to the man.
More does sit in a formal pose, but looking away to the viewer’s right, perhaps in some sense perceiving his martyrdom, or perhaps seeing beyond his martyrdom.
He wears his Chain (and it proved to be a chain indeed) of Office as Chancellor of England, and its Tudor rose is place directly over More’s heart, indicating his love for and loyalty to King Henry in spite of all.
In More’s hands there is a bit of paper, and anyone familiar with Robert Bolt’s play will associate it with the fictional Averil Manchin’s petition and her attempted bribe.
In sum, the picture is in one way a standard portrait of a successful attorney, judge, and government official, but in other ways we see something of the man Holbein came to know. As More’s daughter Margaret says in A Man for All Seasons, there is a difference between the man’s office and the man himself.
The wonderful protective glass is so unobtrusive that it seems not to be there at all, and so one can see even the brush strokes of individual bristles, and the layerings that build up almost a glowing iridescence even in the drab fabric (More was no peacock).
I spent some time before this picture, while all around me shoals of beeping rental earphones were coming and going like the tide. Thomas More deserves it. Holbein’s painting deserves it.
You can see poor representations of Holbein’s More, including (http://visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/thomas-more-holbein.htm), but, no, it’s just not the same.
A young person of our acquaintance took the spouse-person and me to see the pictures, and was rewarded afterward with a new pair of Kendra Scott ® earrings. In them, too, art can be found. Perhaps in 500 years they will be seen and admired in some wonderful painting.
Mhall46184@aol.com
Tudors to Saxe-Coburg-Gothas to Kendra Scott
During the Second World War the royal family changed their surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, and one can understand why. First of all, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was just too many letters for the mailbox (Thames Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1NJ). And then there was the matter of their German cousins of the same catalogue of names being a spot of bother from 1914-1918.
Windsor sounds more comfortably English, like the names developers give their pop-up subdivisions. Who would buy a house on “SaxeCoburgGothabahn” or “Hohenzollernstrasse” when “Windsor Way” is so much easier to pronounce and spell?
The American obsession with kings and queens continues after 200 years of professing red republicanism. Each autumn students in every school elect a homecoming queen, not a chairwoman of the Students’, Workers’, and Soldiers’ Soviet, and in the spring a prom king and prom queen, not a prom good comrade of the month and another prom good comrade of the month. Video productions – or product – featuring the love lives of kings, queens, and czars are consistently profitable.
Thus, that an exhibition of British (English, mostly, but let it stand) royal portraits should be a big hit in Texas is not a surprise.
Through the 27th of January The Houston Museum of Fine Arts (https://www.mfah.org/) features, among many other galleries and offerings and films and lectures, Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol. Most of the pictures are on loan from London’s National Portrait Gallery, displayed only in Houston and then in Australia before being returned to England. The Houston museum staff have combined the visiting pictures with some of their permanent collection for a brilliant, accessible, and well-documented display of paintings, a few artifacts, and photographs among three capacious galleries.
One passes by Warhol’s stains and smears, of course.
There were many delights and surprises, but the picture y’r obedient ‘umble scrivener most wanted to see, Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More, now Saint Thomas More, was a surprise only in its beauty and excellence. The cliché that a reproduction is never as good as the original is a cliché because it is true, and this is especially true with this portrait.
Many of Holbein’s portraits are highly stylized because those who commissioned the pictures wanted the conventions of the time. However, Holbein’s Sir Thomas More is wonderfully true to the man.
More does sit in a formal pose, but looking away to the viewer’s right, perhaps in some sense perceiving his martyrdom, or perhaps seeing beyond his martyrdom.
He wears his Chain (and it proved to be a chain indeed) of Office as Chancellor of England, and its Tudor rose is place directly over More’s heart, indicating his love for and loyalty to King Henry in spite of all.
In More’s hands there is a bit of paper, and anyone familiar with Robert Bolt’s play will associate it with the fictional Averil Manchin’s petition and her attempted bribe.
In sum, the picture is in one way a standard portrait of a successful attorney, judge, and government official, but in other ways we see something of the man Holbein came to know. As More’s daughter Margaret says in A Man for All Seasons, there is a difference between the man’s office and the man himself.
The wonderful protective glass is so unobtrusive that it seems not to be there at all, and so one can see even the brush strokes of individual bristles, and the layerings that build up almost a glowing iridescence even in the drab fabric (More was no peacock).
I spent some time before this picture, while all around me shoals of beeping rental earphones were coming and going like the tide. Thomas More deserves it. Holbein’s painting deserves it.
You can see poor representations of Holbein’s More, including (http://visual-arts-cork.com/famous-paintings/thomas-more-holbein.htm), but, no, it’s just not the same.
A young person of our acquaintance took the spouse-person and me to see the pictures, and was rewarded afterward with a new pair of Kendra Scott ® earrings. In them, too, art can be found. Perhaps in 500 years they will be seen and admired in some wonderful painting.
-30-
Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Those who have never bagged corpses
After a night of flarelit horror
Confused, concussed, their souls awash
With blood and smeary shards of flesh
Those who have never smelt the night
Incensed in the obscene stench of death
Where screaming conscripts’ lives were ripped
Are calling for armed revolution
Let us call instead for a cigar
And a quiet evening with Keats
This is a variant on a poem I wrote in 2013 and published in Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, available on amazon.com.
mhall46184@aol.com
Poll: Armed Revolution Could be Necessary
Those who have never bagged corpses
After a night of flarelit horror
Confused, concussed, their souls awash
With blood and smeary shards of flesh
Those who have never smelt the night
Incensed in the obscene stench of death
Where screaming conscripts’ lives were ripped
Are calling for armed revolution
Let us call instead for a cigar
And a quiet evening with Keats
This is a variant on a poem I wrote in 2013 and published in Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, available on amazon.com.
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
The Week Before Term Begins - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Among administrative whisperings
And teachers sneak out of in-service
For an electronic moment in the head
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Computers in their wireless conclave met 1
Exchange that hushed arcana passed through PEIMS 2
And sticky notes – they seem to reproduce
Youth is reduced to a computer printout
And
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
1 cf. G. K. Chesterton’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”
2 The Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) encompasses all data requested and received by TEA about public education, including student demographic and academic performance, personnel, financial, and organizational information. (https://tea.texas.gov/.../Data_Submission/PEIMS/PEIMS_-_Overview)
mhall46184@aol.com
The Week Before Term Begins
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Among administrative whisperings
And teachers sneak out of in-service
For an electronic moment in the head
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
Computers in their wireless conclave met 1
Exchange that hushed arcana passed through PEIMS 2
And sticky notes – they seem to reproduce
Youth is reduced to a computer printout
And
The cleaning lady pushes her cart about
1 cf. G. K. Chesterton’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”
2 The Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) encompasses all data requested and received by TEA about public education, including student demographic and academic performance, personnel, financial, and organizational information. (https://tea.texas.gov/.../Data_Submission/PEIMS/PEIMS_-_Overview)
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Plough Monday - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
In my boyhood the fields were real indeed:
The winter soil to be awakened and turned
The manure, mulch, and mould lifted and turned
Wise husbandry’s anticipation of spring
My fields are all metaphorical now:
The winter files to be updated and turned
The documentation lifted and turned
Clerkly, accessibly, from A to Z
The files, the plough, to the long seasons fit
Papers or poop, it’s still long rows of (stuff)
mhall46184@aol.com
Plough Monday
In my boyhood the fields were real indeed:
The winter soil to be awakened and turned
The manure, mulch, and mould lifted and turned
Wise husbandry’s anticipation of spring
My fields are all metaphorical now:
The winter files to be updated and turned
The documentation lifted and turned
Clerkly, accessibly, from A to Z
The files, the plough, to the long seasons fit
Papers or poop, it’s still long rows of (stuff)
Monday, January 7, 2019
The Know-it-All in the Ticket Line (we all know him well) - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
“SO LIKE SHE SAID THAT HE SAID THAT SHE SAID
I SAID THAT REDNECKS WERE LIKE THAT YOU KNOW
CAN YOU IMAGINE PEOPLE LIKE THAT HERE
I LIKE TRY TO PERSUADE THEM BUT YOU KNOW
“SO LIKE I SAID THAT AXLE WAS BROKEN
SO LIKE I SAID THAT THE BEST COFFEE IS
SO LIKE I SAID THAT WE LIVED TOGETHER
SO LIKE WE WERE JUST FRIENDS YOU KNOW...”
The man speaks loudly, up and down the hall
The woman, well, she hardly speaks at all
mhall46184@aol.com
A Man and a Woman in the Ticket Line
for the Tudors to Windsors Exhibition at the Museum of Fine Art
“SO LIKE SHE SAID THAT HE SAID THAT SHE SAID
I SAID THAT REDNECKS WERE LIKE THAT YOU KNOW
CAN YOU IMAGINE PEOPLE LIKE THAT HERE
I LIKE TRY TO PERSUADE THEM BUT YOU KNOW
“SO LIKE I SAID THAT AXLE WAS BROKEN
SO LIKE I SAID THAT THE BEST COFFEE IS
SO LIKE I SAID THAT WE LIVED TOGETHER
SO LIKE WE WERE JUST FRIENDS YOU KNOW...”
The man speaks loudly, up and down the hall
The woman, well, she hardly speaks at all
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Holbein's Portrait of Saint Thomas More in an Aural Halo of Electronic Pings from Rental Earphones - poem (with pings)
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The (beep) painting (beep) dates (beep, beep) from (beep)
Holbein’s (beep) first (beep) visit (beep) to (beep)
England (beep) oil on oak (beep) a (beep) golden
Tudor (beep) rose (beep) over his heart (beep)
The chain of office his aurea catena
Of faith in God and in his king (beep, beep)
Is (beep) the (beep) paper (beep) in (beep) his
Hands (beep) Averil (beep) Manchin’s (beep) petition?
Saint Thomas seems to look so far away –
Perhaps he sees beyond his martyrdom day
Except for the rhyming couplet I’m having a bit of fun here. The Holbein painting of St. Thomas More is beautiful (beep) in every way, and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend some time before it. The Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol exhibition is brilliant as is everything the Houston Museum of Fine Arts does: https://www.mfah.org/
Saint Thomas More, ora pro nos
mhall46184@aol.com
Holbein’s Portrait of Saint Thomas More
in an Aural Halo of Electronic Pings from Rental Earphones
The (beep) painting (beep) dates (beep, beep) from (beep)
Holbein’s (beep) first (beep) visit (beep) to (beep)
England (beep) oil on oak (beep) a (beep) golden
Tudor (beep) rose (beep) over his heart (beep)
The chain of office his aurea catena
Of faith in God and in his king (beep, beep)
Is (beep) the (beep) paper (beep) in (beep) his
Hands (beep) Averil (beep) Manchin’s (beep) petition?
Saint Thomas seems to look so far away –
Perhaps he sees beyond his martyrdom day
Except for the rhyming couplet I’m having a bit of fun here. The Holbein painting of St. Thomas More is beautiful (beep) in every way, and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend some time before it. The Tudors to Windsors: British Royal Portraits from Holbein to Warhol exhibition is brilliant as is everything the Houston Museum of Fine Arts does: https://www.mfah.org/
Saint Thomas More, ora pro nos
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Acadiana in January, and Lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace
Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs
They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2
1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals. The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.
2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).
mhall46184@aol.com
Acadiana in January
And lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby
Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace
Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs
They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2
1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals. The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.
2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).
Friday, January 4, 2019
"Jose was Dead. So was His Fitness Watch" - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The Moleskine™© is Chinese now, has been for years
And anyway Hemingway would probably type
Into his electronic personal device:
“Jose was dead. So was his fitness watch.”
Still
There’s rhythm in a pen as in a key
One flows, the other taps, syllables dance
Your thoughts into an opera of life
Performed in a theatre of silent stars
The Moleskine is in your hands now, will be for years
So choreograph your thoughts onto that page
mhall46184@aol.com
The Moleskine is Chinese Now
The Moleskine™© is Chinese now, has been for years
And anyway Hemingway would probably type
Into his electronic personal device:
“Jose was dead. So was his fitness watch.”
Still
There’s rhythm in a pen as in a key
One flows, the other taps, syllables dance
Your thoughts into an opera of life
Performed in a theatre of silent stars
The Moleskine is in your hands now, will be for years
So choreograph your thoughts onto that page
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Keep Calm and Field Guide a Field Guide to Field Guides about Field Guides, Only They Aren't - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings
A Field Guide to Secure Wi-Fi
A Field Guide to Asset Forfeiture
A Field Guide to “Fake News”
A Field Guide to Lies
A Field Guide to Antibiotic Stewardship in Outpatient Settings
A Field Guide to the Italian New Right
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A Field Guide to Ripple Effects Mapping
A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing
A Field Guide to Jerks at Work
A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments
And so it field guides, and so it field guides
As dear old Kurt Vonnegut did not say
And what field is the writer talking about?
About the farmer outstanding in his field?
Alas there is no field guide to writing
A title blessedly free of field guide
Which would be a feel-good fieldless guideless
For which humanity would be grateful
About as original as Keep Calm
Keep Calm and Say Something Original
Let the last field guide be Keep Calm about
A Field Guide to Burying Tired Cliches’
mhall46184@aol.com
Keep Calm and Field Guide a Field Guide to Field Guides
about Field Guides, Only They Aren’t
A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings
A Field Guide to Secure Wi-Fi
A Field Guide to Asset Forfeiture
A Field Guide to “Fake News”
A Field Guide to Lies
A Field Guide to Antibiotic Stewardship in Outpatient Settings
A Field Guide to the Italian New Right
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A Field Guide to Ripple Effects Mapping
A Field Guide to Murder and Fly Fishing
A Field Guide to Jerks at Work
A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments
And so it field guides, and so it field guides
As dear old Kurt Vonnegut did not say
And what field is the writer talking about?
About the farmer outstanding in his field?
Alas there is no field guide to writing
A title blessedly free of field guide
Which would be a feel-good fieldless guideless
For which humanity would be grateful
About as original as Keep Calm
Keep Calm and Say Something Original
Let the last field guide be Keep Calm about
A Field Guide to Burying Tired Cliches’
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Nonessential Canadian and American Poets - a poem about poems, which is seldom a good idea
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
The words still flow, even though the grants do not
And an old scribbler’s name can never appear
On a shortlist of emerging young poets
Or on a shortcake from the Wal-Mart bakery
Unless it’s his birthday. No candles, though
“Good ink,” they say, never “Good electrons”
And so the words don’t flow, they just – emerge?
And, anyway, emerging from what, eh?
But still –
We are poets: we work, we serve, we write;
We pray that we help and heal and give delight
mhall46184@aol.com
Nonessential Canadian and American Poets
The words still flow, even though the grants do not
And an old scribbler’s name can never appear
On a shortlist of emerging young poets
Or on a shortcake from the Wal-Mart bakery
Unless it’s his birthday. No candles, though
“Good ink,” they say, never “Good electrons”
And so the words don’t flow, they just – emerge?
And, anyway, emerging from what, eh?
But still –
We are poets: we work, we serve, we write;
We pray that we help and heal and give delight
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Pictures on Your Map of Time - a poem for the new year
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
A new calendar is a map of time
Showing you spaces in which you might live
And setting off the seasons and solemnities
The penances and feasts in order just
Beneath pictures of cafes’ in Water Street
Arctic-wind hiking trails in Ikkarumiklua
A pint of Quidi Vidi in The Gut
And Peter Pan’s statue in Bowring Park
Or maybe
Our Lady of Walsingham
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
Notre Dame de La Salette
Or some puppies and kittens!
mhall46184@aol.com
Pictures on Your Map of Time
A new calendar is a map of time
Showing you spaces in which you might live
And setting off the seasons and solemnities
The penances and feasts in order just
Beneath pictures of cafes’ in Water Street
Arctic-wind hiking trails in Ikkarumiklua
A pint of Quidi Vidi in The Gut
And Peter Pan’s statue in Bowring Park
Or maybe
Our Lady of Walsingham
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
Notre Dame de La Salette
Or some puppies and kittens!
And may you find your heart’s desires this year
Monday, December 31, 2018
Is Taos Burning? - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Inspired
Apparently real pinon is not to be had,
Not anymore; the coffee is lesser now
Its taste inspired by a chemistry lab
Although the packet looks the same
Inspired
Instead of coffee flavored with pinon
The bean is only – inspired – and what is that?
It pretends that a chemical is from
The mountain pines of far New Mexico
Inspired
I want to go away to old Taos today
Where they make the best coffee at Michael’s Café
mhall46184@aol.com
Is Taos Burning?
“…inspired by the pinon nut native to the Southwest.”
- label on a coffee packet
Inspired
Apparently real pinon is not to be had,
Not anymore; the coffee is lesser now
Its taste inspired by a chemistry lab
Although the packet looks the same
Inspired
Instead of coffee flavored with pinon
The bean is only – inspired – and what is that?
It pretends that a chemical is from
The mountain pines of far New Mexico
Inspired
I want to go away to old Taos today
Where they make the best coffee at Michael’s Café
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Art in Pursuit of Man - Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Art cannot be but in pursuit of man
Whether or not man is in pursuit of art
For men are shifting shoals of shiftlessness
Artistic absolutes that calendar-clique
But art is not defined, not locked in time
Art does not yield her crown in obedience
To yet another Decree 349
To yet another Order of the Day
Art is herself; her names are Sapientia
And Sophia; she creates; she does not obey
mhall46184@aol.com
Art in Pursuit of Man
Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine
Art cannot be but in pursuit of man
Whether or not man is in pursuit of art
For men are shifting shoals of shiftlessness
Artistic absolutes that calendar-clique
But art is not defined, not locked in time
Art does not yield her crown in obedience
To yet another Decree 349
To yet another Order of the Day
Art is herself; her names are Sapientia
And Sophia; she creates; she does not obey
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