Did Churchill Destroy His Secret Underground War Room Computers in 1945? - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Did Churchill Destroy His Secret Underground War Room Computers in 1945?

To be chanted whenever the O Machine 1 fails:

Rumor has it that the Enigma
Was to Churchill a foul stigma

And that the ancient, creaking Babbage
It was to him but so much cabbage

Colossus One and Colossus Two
Those gadgets too he began to rue

They say he let them rust and rot -
The pity is that he did not


(I checked with the Lizard People on this – Churchill’s secret Second World War computers, powered by a primordial Lemurian source of energy so dangerous that even speaking its name in the ancient language of the Atlanteans is said to be fatal, are secured in a locked vault on Oak Island and guarded around the clock (set to Martian time) by the Trilateral Masonic-Vatican Continuum of deadly albino flying fish.)

1 E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” 1909, Much-anthologized

Scenery Shifting Beyond Life's Windows - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Scenery Shifting Beyond Life’s Windows

Once upon a time each morning began
With a ventilation shaft and the night’s
Foul fall of dreams, drama, and downed debris
Dammed and maybe damned against the window screen

And then an apartment window so high
I could see only the San Diego sky
Train windows, the Mojave through the glass
Then only for a little while
                                                  there was you

The scenery keeps shifting, and that’s okay
Life is a John Ford movie every day

There will be BLOOD (But Just a Few Milliliters) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

There will be BLOOD (But Just a Few Milliliters)

Please consider the seeming illogic
The seeming illogic of paying a man
A good and wise and educated man
To poke his finger upwards in your ***

After a visit to a wizard’s lab
Where a pleasant, professional young woman
Attaches a vampire butterfly to your wrist
And sucks your blood into a little phial

“Now you might feel a little pressure, okay?”
And then consider the happy logic
                                                          of staying alive

Listen to the The Rythm of the Massey-Ferguson 35 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Listen to the Rhythm of the Massey-Ferguson 35

With its four-beat
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Continental rhythm
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It pulls and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plants and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It digs and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It mows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It rakes and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It bales and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A little oil, a little gas
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A sweet machine
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Upon the grass
Putt-putt, putt-putt
When all is done
Putt-putt, putt-putt
And all is said
Putt-putt, putt-putt
There’s nothing like
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Massey-Ferguson red
Putt-putt, putt-putt!

What Happens to the Thousands of Naked Lady Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Happens to the Thousands of Naked Lady Ballpoint Pens

Manufactured Every Day?

No high school sophomore ever grew up without
A naked lady plastic ballpoint pen -
Those furtive giggles in geometry class
Were not about theorems all risqué

After the FFA trip to the rodeo
Or the band trip to sunny Galveston
A pretty lady with a 1940s do
Loses her swimsuit over and over again

Upend the pen, and she’s nekkid in the sun -
Whoever thought writing could be such fun!

What Happens to the Millions of Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Happens to the Millions of Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day?

No writer ever seems to exhaust the ink
That oozes from extruded plastic tubes
Made by machines and chemicals that stink
The crowded banks of the fetid Huangpu

Cheap plastic pens are given, shared, and sold,
Tapped and gnawed, pocketed, stolen, lent, and lost
Drying and dying after they grow old
Misplaced, mislaid, decayed, but seldom tossed

A ballpoint helps us with our thoughts to think
But no one ever seems to exhaust the ink

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall4618@aol.com

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Like the little children that once we were
The midnight thunder has us burrowing
Down further into the primordial covers
For fear of the rain and cold outside

Our wool and cotton caves cocoon us from
The timbers creaking through the pounding wind
The raindrops at the window wanting in
But after dawn the morning the news reports

A homeless man dying a dumpster-death
Lost his last hope with his last lonely breath

Installing Software in "Just a Few Moments" - a wry observation

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Installing Software in "Just a Few Moments"

Enter a valid email next cancel address Enter a valid email address next cancel Enter a valid email address next cancel Get back into your account Who are you? to recover your account, begin by entering your user ID and the characters in the picture or audio below User ID can’t access your account the description for this page Templates Thousands of templates to jump start your Word · Excel · PowerPoint · Business · Flyers Products Office 365 is a cloud-based subscription Office Products · See All Home · Office Online Sign in to Manage Your Offic…Manage your Microsoft account, update your password, set additional security settings, …See results only from office.com Office 365 Login | Microsoft Office https://www.officeppe.comCollaborate for free with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, in OneDrive. Share them with others and work together at the same time https://outlook.office365.com We can't sign you in :-(Your browser is currently set to block cookies. You need to allow cookies to use this service. Cookies are small text files stored on your Sign in to your Services and subscriptions with your Microsoft account. If you have more than one Microsoft account, make sure you're signing in with the one that applies to the subscription you want to change. If you're updating your child's subscription, make sure you sign in with their account, not yours. Find the subscription in the list, and then select Change how you pay. If you don't see Change how you pay, it could be because recurring billing isn't turned on. You won't be able to change how you pay if recurring billing is off, because the subscription has already been paid and will end when its duration expires. If you have a past-due balance, select Pay now. You'll have to pay that first before changing how you pay. Get info about paying for a past-due Microsoft subscription. Did you buy your Office 365 subscription through a third party? See Manage your Office 365 subscription purchased through a third party. Selecting Change how you pay gives you a list of your current payment options. If you don't see the option you want, select Add a new way to pay from that list and follow the instructions. Check with your bank if you get an error message when trying to add a new way to pay, To use a prepaid subscription code, turn off recurring billing on the old subscription. When your old subscription expires, go to Redeem a gift card or code to your Microsoft account and follow the instructions. To cancel or turn off recurring billing on your subscription, follow the instructions at Cancel or turn off recurring billing on a Microsoft subscription.

A Crude, Vulgar, NSFW Message to TeleCheck

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

A Crude Vulgar, NSFW Message to Telecheck

Hey, Telecheck:

T

H

I

te S le

 



 

 

 

 

TeleCheck doesn't know a perfect credit score from Shinola. 

 

They say we can discuss it if I send them my bank account information and my driving license number, the information we are constantly advised not to give out to strangers (like TeleCheck).

A Summer Afternoon in Which, by the Grace of God, Nothing happens - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Summer Afternoon in Which,

by the Grace of God, Nothing Happens

Old chairs just anyhow across the lawn
This morning mown by a grass-proud old man
Who with his book and chair and pipe and dog
Rules his demesne with glasses of iced tea

In this an afternoon of indolence
And as the shadows shift to mark the hours
Even Poirot relaxes his little grey cells
And merely strolls to apprehend the thief

Oh, happy summer, tea or lemonade,
And lazy hours just dreaming in the shade

Whatever Happened to the Tank Commander Who Disobeyed Orders? - poem about Tiananmen Square

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Whatever Happened to the Tank Commander Who Disobeyed Orders?

A brave little man with a shopping bag
Defiantly stood before an army tank
A foul machine designed to grind free men
Into bloody scraps to be hosed away

Two unknown men - it was not the tank that stopped
It was the tank commander who stopped the tank
All that is left is old videotape:
Two bullets made all problems disappear

A brave little man with a shopping bag
Another brave man with a battle tank:

They stopped -
                        And, yes, someday China will be free

The Annual D-Day Commentaries by Laddie-Boys Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Annual D-Day Commentaries

by Laddie-Boys Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training

My dad was on Omaha Beach but he
didn’t talk much about it so now
I’m going to take the rest of the day
to tell you all that he didn’t much talk about
we broke the Enigma code yeah we did
you can always tell a real veteran by
his thousand-yard stare, yessir, I know stuff
we kicked the Germans’ butts but he didn’t talk
much about it if not for us the French
would be speaking German yeah man yeah
when I was in graduate school but he
didn’t talk much about it we saved the world
when I was in graduate school when I
saw Patton those liberals in academia
he had this thousand-yard stare them snowflakes
wouldn’t hit Omaha Beach now they’d be browning
their pants when I was in graduate school
but he didn’t talk much about it yeah
that M-1 was the best battle implement
ever devised I got me one and boy
it’s got some serious stopping power yessir
I just love to go out to the range and pop some caps
with that bad boy the French are cheese-eating
surrender monkeys we can’t depend on the Italians
but he didn’t talk much about it when I
was in graduate school thousand-yard stare
my dad was there he didn’t talk much about it
here is a youtube about it if only
those snowflakes would watch Patton they’d learn something
left-wing academia he didn’t talk much about it
when I was in graduate school yeah man
I seen it on Band of Brothers liberal elites
Macron Macron Macron first front second front
‘cause I know stuff I got a whole liberry
but he didn’t talk much about it if not
for us yeah you’d all be speaking German
we saved France’s butt when DeGaulle told us
he wanted all American soldiers out of France
we asked him if that included the thousands
of American soldiers in French cemeteries
and that sure shut him up ha ha ha
bet you never heard that before and then
there was these old veterans at the airport
and this Frenchy asked them for their passports
and this old man had to look for his
and this Frenchy asked this veteran if he
had been in France before and this veteran
said he had and then this Frenchy he said
then you know you need to have your passport
ready and this here old veteran said that he
was at Normandy and there wasn’t no Frenchies
to give it to and you could hear a pin drop
ha ha I bet you never heard that one before
When I was in graduate school when I
was on my gap year but he didn’t talk much about it
snowflake liberal elites in academia
I love me my AK-47 that son
spits out some serious lead but he didn’t
talk much about it…


Me? Like, I had this deferment, my feet,
but I know all about it ‘cause I watch John Wayne
and my dad was in it so I guess he ought to know
and he was in a real war; you were only in
like you know them A-rabs and stuff…

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above a Rural Church (as Wordsworth almost said)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above a Rural Church 1

No picturesque ruins will remain for us
To wander through with our sketchbooks and pens
For drawing pictures or writing blank verse
About bare ruin’d 1 air-conditioning ducts

The baptismal font will be repurposed
As a bird-bath (with a plastic Saint Elvis)
And the stained-glass windows will be sold off
As fashionable bathroom accessories

The crucifix of deplorable design 2
Will be stored in the back of someone’s garage
Until the girls carry it off to the woods
And laughingly use it for target practice

A rubbly field will serve as a soccer pitch
Until seventy years 3 have passed away


1 Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
2 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
3 Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
4 Daniel 9:1-2

A Cucumber-Cool Cave of Green but without any Cucumbers - a poem for June

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Cucumber-Cool Cave of Green but without any Cucumbers

A Poem for June

Just why a cucumber should be so cool
Eludes the logical; a cucumber’s just
A vegetable a-lying on the ground
Awaiting consumption. But let’s accept
This vegetarian cliché’ simply
To get on with this cool descriptive task:

Whatever’s cool in the falling June sun
Descends through oak leaves, dark and summer green
And dancing down the air falls happily
Upon this cool cucumber cave where sits
Upon a wooden bench a lazy man
Who should be taking now another turn
With lawnmower, shovel, or shears against
The wild greenness of happy midsummer.

But, oh! Persephone surely won’t mind
If her allotted garden tasks are paused
By her appointed minion rustic who
Takes now his ease in her delightful shade.
For summer after all is more than work;
She calls for dozing too, and dreamily
Watching busy bees buzz among the flowers,
Like fussy matchmakers arranging marriages,
And hummingbirds humming in and out of leaves,
Their sanctuary leaves, to argue at
The nectar-feeders, as if there weren’t
Enough for all. The squirrels in the trees
Would never condescend to chitter there;
They glare at humans disapprovingly,
Like old teachers unhappily aware
That, oh, somewhere, somehow a child might be
Enjoying life, and that would never do!

Even the ribbon of smoke from the morning’s
Trimmings and cuttings and sawings appears
To be taking a nap in the summer noon,
There gently snoring up wisps of ashes
Instead of roaring, hissing manfully
As it did in the early hours.
                                                      The bench
Along the fence where the tired old man sits
Creaks as he shifts his weight, and watches
His backyard world doze in the leaf-laced sun;
He lights a well-deserved cigar, and sees
Its soothing smoke join with the rubbish fire
Ascending heavenward with peaceful thoughts.

Tablets, But Not From Mount Sinai - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Tablets, But Not From Mount Sinai

There is no darkness to our restless nights
Even the trees are lit by an industrial glow
One’s room is a mystery of little lights
Hovering like fairies putting on a show

Mostly blue, a yellow one here and there
Some reds and greens, as boxes take on power
Our masters’ eyes and spies, colouring the air
While watching, listening, hour after after hour

You wake, you listen - a moving finger writes
There is no darkness to our restless nights

The Fellowship of Ironmongery - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Fellowship of Ironmongery

An ironmonger is a but a hardware store
And equally inaccurate both ways
For not nearly all that is mongered is iron
Just as not all that is hardware is hard

At the ironmonger one finds toilet seats
Hammers and saws, water valves, mosquito spray
Welders’ caps and leather gloves, wrecking bars
And hunting licenses against the fall

Coffee in paper cups, men vested in jeans
Stained with the work of tending the Garden
Chanting the liturgies of field and shop
Of pump and plow and press, piston and plane

Cups empty, then, their Ite, missa est:
“Well, boys, I got to go now; y’all be blessed”

Chopping Down George Washington's Cherry Tree

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Chopping Down George Washington’s Cherry Tree

Just like old Parson Weems’ young naughty George
I took my little chainsaw and I chopped
Or, rather, sawed, a cherry tree, down, down
Onto the ground, with leaves and limbs all ‘round

And I am sorry for the tree, each bee
That fed upon its blossoms, and each bird
That fed upon its summer fruit, but it
Was jammed into an apple tree, and so

It had to go. There is no message here
Though for this tree you might well shed a tear

A Memorial: Constantinople, 29 May 1453

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Memorial: Constantinople, 29 May 1453

From A Liturgy for the Emperor

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem

No Topic Sentences or Solving for X - the First Day of Summer

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

No Topic Sentences or Solving for X - the First Day of Summer

Every farm boy knows that the first day of summer
Is that morning, that happy, glorious morning
In May when writing topic sentences
And solving for X are but fading ghosts

He’s up at dawn without being called even once
And pulling on his jeans and and boots and tee
He greets his fishing rod upon the rack
And Grandpa’s tackle box, which was left to him

Because

After breakfast and getting up the cows
For milking, he is the king of all his world

Oh, Yes, There are Dragons - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Oh, Yes, There are Dragons

Oh, yes, there are dragons, and pixies too
Dragons at dusk at the far end of the lane
And pixies at noon, among the orchard trees
Where the early apples ripen and swell

All through the drowsy, dreamy, bees-y hours
While Fair Folk frolic unseen by the old
Whom Hypnos has given a lesser gift
Thus we are free to dance among the leaves

Oh, yes, there are dragons, and pixies too
Elusive and teasing - but look for them