Friday, March 29, 2019

About Those University Admission Bribes... - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Temporary, Part-Time, Adjunct Faculty Instructor of No Significance Whatsoever at a Little Cinder-Block Community College Unknown to Anyone Beyond the Interstate Bypass Asks the Most Important Question About Admissions Bribery


Oh, please forgive this seeming diatribe
But I am one of the scrivening tribe
A poor Chaucerian scholar, a scribe

Who asks

Why doesn’t anyone offer me a bribe?

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big? - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Does This Lumberjack Shirt Make My Pajama Bottom Look Big?

“Men Ditch Suits, and Retailers Struggle to Adapt”

-Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2019

We all must be good comrades now
We all must wear good comradewear
As if we worked with wrench and plough
Instead of cruising an office chair

We all must be good comrades, da!
And from one’s well-lit office space
Sneer at “the suits” - so long, Grandpa!
And so decolonise this place

We all must be good comrades now -
But have you ever milked a cow?

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

0400 at Denny's Along the Interstate - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

0400 at Denny’s Along the Interstate

A line cook at Denny’s (must have own pans)
Is an artist, accomplished in assemblage
Compositions of eggs (rather like Cezanne’s)
Toast, bacon, waffles for his decoupage

His gesso is the window layered in steam
Built of reflections and condensation
Hinting at the flowing Interstate stream
Beyond the No Smoking pumping station

The line cook has indeed his pans and plans -
Art, as the muse of cookery commands

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Morning Courage - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Morning Courage

Some have said that the bravest thing we do
Is to get up each morning and face the dawn
It may be so. The light is grey and cold
There seem to be no reasons to go on

And yet - the morning sun begins to kiss
The sensitive, delicate springtime leaves
Turning their own hopes to the morning sun
Stretching their chloroplasts awake to life

So even as sunlight embraces the tree
So maybe there will be kisses - we’ll see!

Monday, March 25, 2019

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Hasty Partisan Response to the Mueller Report

“And art made tongue-tied by authority”

-Sonnet 66, often quoted by Pasternak

The Russian reports on my desk include:

Selected Poems, Yevtushenko
The Possessed, Dostoyevsky
The Zhivago Affair, Finn and Couvee
The Complete Poems of Anna Ahkmatova
August 1914, Solzhenitsyn


And some of them unread, some of them read
And better read than red, so someone said
Some of them shelved (We and The House of the Dead)
But now I’m going to work the flower bed

And what century is it outside? 1


1 Pasternak

Sunday, March 24, 2019

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Sidewalk Artist Who Knows Who You Were

“He is a dreamer; let us leave him – pass.” Julius Caesar I.ii.24

Strident philosophers at Hyde Park Corner
Poor buskers at Queen Victoria’s feet
Chalk artists remaking the pavement as Rome
A Seventh Sister with her folk guitar

These are not dreamers passive in their beds
Or supplicants awaiting permission:
They are the worker bees; they know of pain
And sweat, and sunstroke in the fields - and truth

When a sidewalk artist notes that the Ides
Have come, Caesar indeed should turn to hear

Saturday, March 23, 2019

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance - rhyming triplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Moment of Byronic Arrogance

Whether I am on the right side of history
Is a fantasy and an irrelevancy -
History had better be on the right side of me

Friday, March 22, 2019

Across the Cemetery Fence - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Across the Cemetery Fence

Hart-Bevil Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas


From service as Companions of the Conqueror
To the democracy of death and dust


This was family land in the long ago
Now alienated from the living
Accessible through permissions and locks
But we and the ghosts are okay with that

They say that only four of them were hanged
The dealer in false deeds died of old age
Some possibly were saints; hard to believe
For after all, we are de Beauville’s kin

From Normandy, and then green Chesterton
And then dispersed to the colonies
At the convenience of His Majesty
De Beauvilles and Bevilles and then Bevils

And some are buried on this lonely knoll
Dim mossy bones and stones among the pines
Across the fence a little heap of glass
Broken flower vases from the dime store


Now the democracy of dust and death
But once
                     Companions of the Conqueror

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The Select Committee for Something or Other Meets in Market Basket #3 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Select Committee for Something or Other
Meets in Market Basket #3

We have no fine old paneling of oak
No ancient silver on a sideboard new
When Charles the First still wore his handsome head
We have no Latin, we may not smoke, but still -

Between the cinder blocks and coffee urn
Dining upon the finest plastic foam
We laugh at yarns that Saint Augustine thought
Well out of date when Africa lost Rome

We have no fine old paneling of oak
But every day we share a fine old joke

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

A Young Wasp in Spring - Appropriate Respect for Life Forms - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Young Wasp in Spring

The spring morning was chill when from its nest
A young wasp fell, helpless and young
Upon the ground, needing the warmth of the sun
To spread its tiny dragon’s wings into new life

A creature of God, needing only an hour
To gain its strength, and so to live the life
Destined for it, its appointed mission
In the unknowable Plan of Creation

It seemed to beg for mercy with each desperate breath
And so with great care I crushed it to death

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Saint Joseph's Day - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com


Saint Joseph the Just

Saint Joseph in a dreary winter night
Took to himself a newborn not his own,
Who yet is always his, the Child of Light
Whose crib Saint Joseph knew to be a throne

Saint Joseph shows men truth: each child is ours,
Adopted by each good man upon birth;
True fatherhood ordained in starlit hours
And ratified in Heaven and on earth.

Saint Joseph is the man who looked into
The eyes of Mary in her happy youth;
This strong man looked into her eyes and knew
She bore within her all eternal Truth.

Our witness is Saint Joseph, ever just:
God calls each man to take each child in trust.

Monday, March 18, 2019

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Mission Beach and a Blue Bikini

Your grandmother and I are the only ones
Who listen still to Rod McKuen, and dream
Of Mission Beach ‘way back in ‘68
Or maybe not so far back after all

The sands still sing of sea and salt and seals
There are no watchful clocks to time our hopes
No calendars to tell us we are old
As we slow dance to a tiny transistor

But not with each other, not any more
For I had my orders, and she had hers

Sunday, March 17, 2019

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Porch Light Flickers in Parental Disapproval

Sweet music on the Mustang’s radio
We’re sitting in her parents’ driveway

And sort of talking about the movie
And sort of talking about poetry and life

Frost is settling on the hood of the car
But all is warm in our bubble of love

Until

Our kiss is interrupted by the flickering
Of the parental, watchful front porch light

We sigh. We kiss. The censorial eye -
It orders me away - “That’s all! Bye-bye!”

(Oh, flick that porch light anyway!)

Saturday, March 16, 2019

A Contemporary Vocabulary fro Writers and Artists - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Contemporary Vocabulary for Writers and Artists

As culled from an art magazine, 13 March 2019
 
Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.
 
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry

collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted
members of the creative community
Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization

Friday, March 15, 2019

The 15th of March, 1917 - poem (from last year)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The 15th of March, 1917

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day




(2 March 1917 O.S.)

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Texas Standard Time - WHOOP! - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Texas Standard Time - Whoop!

Our Texas State Representative, James White, has proposed a constant Texas Standard Time independent of any other time ordered by any other state or by any federal agency. This is a fine idea.

Like Texans themselves (except for some of the in-laws over in Newton County), Texas Standard Time would be steady and dependable. People everywhere, when asked the time, would check their custom Texas A & M watches and say, “Well, I’m not sure about here, but in Texas it’s half-past Bevo…”

Texas Standard Time would be the standard for the world. In Greenwich the Royal Observatory would be shut down and a memorial plaque posted on the door as a remembrance of when Greenwich Mean Time meant something.

I know that Representative White is anxious to hear my suggestions in the matter of Texas Standard Time, and so I make the follow suggestions for designating Texas State Hours:



Midnight - As Mickey Gilley says, the girls get prettier at closing time.

0100 - Goodnight, Moon. Say, that would make a great book title.

0200 - All-night truckers and shift-workers reach for another cuppa coffee.

0300 - Reveille, reveille, reveille! Rise and shine! It’s a great day to serve the United States Navy! Or, better yet, the Texas Navy. Coffee.

0400 - Time for some to get up and go milk the cows. Coffee.

0500 - Time for others to get up and get ready for work at the shop or the office. Coffee.

0600 - Get the kidlets ready for school with a real breakfast. The naughtiest of the kidlets will, on the way out the door, present Mom with a teacher-note to be signed. Coffee.

0700 - The Belle-Jim on the courthouse square in Jasper serves breakfast and enlightening conversation that Plato and Socrates might envy. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0800 - The school-zone flashers switch off; however, beware the Mad Momma turning into elementary school driveway on two wheels without any lights or turn signals, with a cell ‘phone in one hand, a bottle of that Fuji water in the other, and yelling at the kids in the back seat. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

0900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1000 - the public library opens for the day. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Coffee.

1100 - Clients and customers are waiting impatiently. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea (pronounced “icetea”).

1200 - You’d like to go for lunch, but the boss says… There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1300 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1400 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Dang, this iced tea is old.

1500 - This is the hour you desperately need a cup of coffee but the guys and gals who seem to hang out by the coffee machine all day drank it all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

1600 - Time to milk the cows again. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Fresh iced tea.

1700 - “Junior, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1800 - “Missie, do you have any homework?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1830. The Wheel. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

1900 - There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number. Iced tea.

2000 - In a civilized world, Gunsmoke would air on CBS. Someone’s used all the hot water. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2100 - So the dog isn’t quite house-trained after all. There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2200 - “Mom! Would you help me with this homework I forgot?” There’s a sales cold-call from some crook piggybacking on a local telephone number.

2300 - What? Are you still up?

All funnin’ aside, we are blessed in our state representative, James White; our state senator, Robert Nichols; our U.S. Representative, Brian Babin; and our U.S. senator, John Cornyn. I’ll say something nice about Senator Cruz after he shaves. Dang, Ted, what are you thinking?

-30-

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Less-Than-Universal Declaration of the Wrongs of Man

To make the worship of a state the source
Of all the aspirations of a man
Of all his duties and of all his arts
Is not to be a man or artist at all

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Penguins and Oxford Blues - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Penguins and Oxford Blues

Poor sailors and poor students parse the past
Between the paper covers of poor Penguins
Poor crumbling pages and crumbling civilizations
Held together with rubber bands and Scotch tape

And when in middle age The City of God
At last succumbs to the barbarians of time
A fresh one is built up in Oxford blue
By Vivian Ridler, who saved for us the words

And yet - the arguments of several Romes
Were somehow fresher at $3.75

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

"The F*g with the Bow Tie" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“The F*g with the Bow Tie” 1

“Only in Russia is poetry respected – it gets people killed.
Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”

-Osip Mandelstam 2

Spain. Poetry got people killed in Spain -
And still wherever tyrants of delicate nerves
And artistic sensitivities hear
Whispered rumors of whispered disapproval

And so an innocent, fearful and trembling
Must be motored away to a moonless death
Upon orders spoken, written, tweeted
Telephoned, telegraphed, or teletyped

One prays he has a moment to adjust his tie
Perfectly - as an honor to Poetry




1 The slur is attributed to Federico Garcia Lorca’s murderers:
https://lithub.com/dictators-kill-poets-on-federico-garcia-lorcas-last-days/

2 Quoted by Yevgeny Yevtushenko in 20th Century Russian Poetry

Monday, March 11, 2019

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Flight of iMet-4 #21598

There is perhaps a certain indignity
In grounding back on earth among some weeds
Your late balloon a fragment of itself
Your parachute all damp and limp and still

But, oh! what an adventure you have lived!
Scuffy the Tugboat might well envy you
Your day and night in scientific flight
With helium instead of pixie dust

Like Peter Pan you sailed along the wind
Straight on until morning, then home again