Eternal Condemnation and Summer Muscadines - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Eternal Condemnation and Summer Muscadines

We were admiring the summer muscadines
I mentioned that my one experiment
In making wine resulted in only
A series of dramatic explosions

And he spake unto me:

Better that, far better, than to be Condemned
Grapes are for jelly, or you’ll be Condemned
Not for Strong Drink, no, or you’ll be Condemned
If you use grapes for wine you’ll be Condemned

He said on a hellishly hot summer day
Then he returned to baling my Catholic hay

The Blessed Sacrament, a Beer, and Miss Swivelly Hips - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Blessed Sacrament, a Beer, and Miss Swivelly Hips

I.

“No One was Before the Blessed Sacrament

Between the Hours of 8:00-9:20, 10:20-11:45, & 1:10-1:50”

-the parish bulletin

And yet we are always before something:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips in her kinky-boots

But still, the small red lamp alone in the dark
Shines on for us, for Miss Swivelly too
Throughout the careless hours when we neglect
Duty for the fellowship of the pub

“No one was before the Blessed Sacrament…”
And yet we are always before something

II.

“No One was Here for the Weekly Darts Tournament”

-the old geezer in the corner

And yet there is much to be said for the pub:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips – but we have mentioned her

That fluorescent beer ad’s a kind of red
The old geezer’s cheeks shine, especially when
Miss Swivelley-Hips flirts him for a beer
There is an honest joy in fellowship

“No one was here for the darts tournament”
(Maybe they were before the Sacrament?)

They Say the Prisoner Hanged Himself - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

They Say the Prisoner Hanged Himself

With references to Article 58, Senator McCarthy, and Casablanca

He’s one of them
That is, he was
And now he’s dead

If he’s not safe
Then you’re not safe
It only takes
An accusation

They have a list
It’s on the ‘net
You’re on the list
You’re on the ‘net
They’re at your door

You didn’t do it?
You all say that

They haven’t decided
If you will suffer
A heart attack
Or die while trying

To escape

What Can We Do About Violence? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Can We Do About Violence?

They may break our bodies…but they need not dominate our minds.

-C. S. Lewis

Every book we read to a little child
Every kindness we work for another soul
Every bowl we fill while serving the poor
Every prayer whispered, spoken, or dreamed

Every cup of coffee shared with a pal
Every wheezy old joke about Pat and Mike
(Or, to be fair, about Trevor and Neville)
Every small joy sung to the universe

Is a beginning

"Your Time is Up" - weekly column about political debates

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

“Your Time is Up”

Moderator: “Candidate Number One, have you ever played golf? If so, and if you are elected president, do you promise to abstain for the duration of your time in office?”

Candidate Number One: “So, well, like, you see, the working people…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Two, what is your position on why the Federal Communications Commission allows sales calls to dominate our telephone service?”

Candidate Number Two: “As senator for the working people of Margaritaville I have an I.T. staff who…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Three, how would you, as president, connect with the poor people of this nation?”

Candidate Number Three: “As one of the working people, when I was touring Switzerland during my gap year between St. Swithin’s Academy and Harvard I actually saw some poor people…”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Four, most nations do not tax bank savings accounts. Do you think the bank savings of ordinary Americans should be taxed?”

Candidate Number Four: “For the working people I consulted my Ouija board on that very topic…”

Moderator: “Your time is up…”

Candidate Number Seven: “Just let me say that Candidate Number Nine is a poopy-pants and no friend of the working people!”

Candidate Number Nine: “I am not a poopy-pants! I wrote the dar(n)ed book on poopy-pants and the working people!”

Candidate Number Four: “My working-class tarot cards say that Candidate Number Nine is a racist!”

Moderator: “Thank you, thank you, now please, please, let’s all focus. Candidate Number Five, you have won half of a car, so if you’ll just pick up that plaque and wave it around and look cute, yes, just like that. Now, then, Candidate Number Five, what is Vanna wearing tonight?”

Candidate Number Five: “In this great nation, why hasn’t any president ever asked in the name of the working people what Pat Sajak is wearing…?”

Moderator: “Your time is up. Candidate Number Six…oh, there’s the official Dallas Cowboys buzzer. I’ll spin the wheel one last time…”

Candidate Number Six: “For the sake of the working people I demand a senate investigation! Wheel of Fortune has been infiltrated by the Russians…!”

Candidate Number Eight: “Well, you’re old!”

Moderator: “Now, now, let’s all concentrate on our marvy set with all the glowing and flickering lights. In order to help save the planet this set is going to be repurposed for next season’s Vote the Bachelorette with the Most Fascistic Tendencies off the Island! Now if you will all look under your seats, yes, you’ll find a marvelous gift for each of you – an autographed picture of a great Chinese industrialist! Let’s give a great big hand for CNN, and America, and world peace, and Greenpeace, and green peas!”

In November of 2020 at least one voter will, in the privy-like privacy of the booth, consider the names of all the candidates of the two dominant political parties and think for himself: “Your time is up. All of you – your time is up.”

-30-

Pat and Mike and Some Old Words - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Pat and Mike and Some Old Words

Over lunch last week a friend and I discussed words which in our youth we encountered in the King James Bible and in our lifetime reading. Here are some words not in common use now (indeed, they would frighten tweeters), and of course most words have multiple meanings that can only be sorted out in context:

Anathema – cursed or da®ned

Art – are

Centurion – the leader of a century in the Roman army, that is, a hundred soldiers, and so the equivalent of a company commander

Degree – social status

Dost – do

Doth – does

Ere – before

Hast - have

Peradventure – perhaps

Saint Swithin – Robin Hood often alludes to Saint Swithin, a bishop of Winchester (the diocese, not the deer rifle) who died in AD 862. His feast day is 15 July, and he is famous for the doggerel farmers said about him:

"St Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days will rain na mair"

We would now verify the rain forecast with Greg Bostwick on the radio.

Unction – anointing

Verily – an adverb meaning truly; it can also serve as an amen.

Vouchsafe – to grant a favor or request

Watch – in a clockless society the night was divided into three watches. This concept survives in the Navy

Wast – was

Whence – from where

Wherefore – why

But of course not all lunchtime conversations are frivolous games in etymology. We concluded our meal with a serious study in Pat and Mike jokes:

Pat’s old dog Eamon died, and so he and his pal Mike went to see the parish priest.

“Father Muldoon,” said Pat, would ye be after sayin’ a funeral mass for my poor ol’ dog Eamon.”

“Yes,” said Mike, “Eamon was the bestest dog ya ever did see, sure.”

“A funeral mass for a dog!” thundered Father Muldoon. “Faith an’ begorrah, sure, and we’re good Christian folk in this parish. I’ll not be sayin’ a funeral mass for a dog.”

“Then what can we do?” asked Pat. “A dog this wonderful deserves something special at his death.”

“Well,” said Father Muldoon, “ye might take ‘im down th’ road to th’ godless Anglicans; they don’t seem to believe in much of nothin’, sure.”

“Thanks, Father,” said Pat. “An’ d’ye think a hundred pounds is enough for an offerin’ for them to say the obsequies over poor Eamon?”

“A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Father Muldoon. “Sure, an’ why didn’t ye tell me the good old dog was a Catholic!”

Cheers!

-30-

The Heat of August is an Emptied Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Heat of August is an Emptied Man

The heat of August does not rise; it sinks
Space-planting on the earth like hopes collapsed
Guarding the air against all happiness
With damp and rust and rot and air-thick sighs

The heat of August does not heal; it stinks
Of everything gone wrong at once, of either
Stepping outside to a witch-slap of pain
Or lurking inside with headaches and ennui

The heat of August is an emptied man
On a Sunday afternoon when love has died

"Our Poisoned Chalice" (I wish I could think of a catchier title) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Our Poisoned Chalice”

-Macbeth I.vii.10-12

We commend each other with curses exchanged
Between a cop and a hard place in space
Red MAGA caps against Commie berets
All of these accessories China-made

Our battleground an asphalt parking lot
Our forward first-aid post a coffee shop
Where Communists glare over their nitros cold
And Fascists froth their frappuccinos hot

We commend each other with a chalice defiled
Over the broken body of a Child

Occasionally Facetious - A Repudiation of Both Miz Grundy and Comrade Grundy

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Occasionally Facetious – A Repudiation of Both Miz Grundy and Comrade Grundy

You can’t be serious all of the time
Because there are bellowing tyrants around
Who bully and demand, who preach and screech
Whose arguments are threats and censorship

Recusancy is their worst enemy
A casual indifference to their demands
A refusal to wear their branded livery
And clenching one’s fist around only

A brush
A pen
A wrench
A book
A thought
A hope

If all you do is to react, they win
You can’t be serious all of the time

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined Only Those Who Accepted Being Define

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Woodstock: Three Days That Defined Only Those Who Accepted Being Defined

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS
Are pleased to announce that Woodstock defined
A generation. In reality,
Generations are not defined at all:

My argument is that women and men
Of conscience, courage, character, and class
Define themselves, and stubbornly refuse
To be counted, conned, or categorized

And only followers would acquiesce

To

Ill-lettered functionaries at PBS

A Five-Dollar Garage-Sale Record Player - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Five-Dollar Garage-Sale Record Player

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
A five-cent-piece Scotch-taped onto the arm
A plastic K-Mart special from long ago
A groovy thing for a junior high kid

But he was a thirty-something day-laborer
And in the silent cell of his solitude
Wanted to spin some tunes in the darkness
Just like he did when he was a junior high kid

A five-dollar garage-sale record player
Wagner, Sinatra, McKuen - and hope

Bulletproof School Backpacks for Children - DeLuxe Models with Emojis

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Bulletproof School Backpacks for Children

DeLuxe model with emojis and a charging port

School days, school days
Dear old shooting drill days
Coding and walkouts and smart pad functions
Taught to a federal court’s latest injunctions
You were my queen in tats (Day-Glo®)
I was your Trump at every gun show
You carved in my skin “i luv U ‘n’ Che Guevara so”
When we were a couple of latch-key kids


As of 3 August 2019 bulletproof backpacks were not on the approved list for the Texas Comptroller’s tax-free school supplies weekend; bulletproof vests are on the list as taxable (https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/publications/98-490/clothing-footwear.php).

A Three Years' Child in Church - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Three-Years’ Child

She was restless in Mass, a three-years’ child
And in her patient father’s loving arms

She wriggled
She squiggled
She giggled

And then she lay ‘way back and looked ‘way up

What went she into the desert to see -
A light fixture? An air-conditioning vent?

Oh, no

Her eyes were large
Her lips were still
Her breaths were soft

- she saw much more

She was happy in Mass, a three-years’ child
And from her father’s arms something she saw…

What?

Who?

She smiled


(And of course she may have been delighted with the vision of an air-conditioning vent after all; a small child’s learning curve is more open to joy than ours)

"Fruit of the Vine and Work of Human Hands" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"Fruit of the Vine and Work of Human Hands"

Grapevines are the first songs of civilization
Their leaves, their tendrils, their late-summer grapes
As given in the Mass: fruit of the vine
And work of human hands, of human love

But when a vine neglects its ancient realm
And reaches out to grasp and colonize
Its peaceful neighbors, privet and rose and oak
It must be brought to heel with sweat and steel

And in its healing recover its purposes:
Grapevines are the first songs of civilization

A Poem Slouching Like a Civilian - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Slouching Like a Civilian

From an idea suggested by Robert Graves in

On English Poetry

I. Thesis

Formalist poetry to attention stands
In ordered meters, ranks and files and lines
Of scansion as determined by disciplined minds
And set in place through skillful strategy

II. Antithesis

Other poetry slouches indolently, insolently with its louche trilby askew
Sleeping late, smoking cigarettes,
                                                        sauntering off
                                                                                  for a beer
Through scansion as admitted by the heart or the pancreas or something
And seldom set in place at all unless it just sort of happens

III. A Perhaps Unnecessary but Useful Conjunction

But

IV. Synthesis

All poems ramble the same neighborhood
In quest of the true, the beautiful, the good

In August Falls the Magic - All Major Credit Cards Accepted

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

In August Falls the Magic

All Major Credit Cards Accepted

No meaning obtains in calendars and clocks
High on a wall, beyond a small boy’s reach
A childhood summer shimmers out of time
July is but another butterfly

To dance and play among young apple trees
A re-Creation thus remembering
Before-Time when we danced among the stars
And played with them like little fairy-lamps

In August falls the magic when, stained with scales,
Foul Satan hisses to us: “Back-to-school sales”

I Wish I Wuz a Sheriff's Deputy - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Wish I Wuz a Sheriff's Deputy

I wish I wuz a sheriff’s deputy
The traffic laws would mean nothing to me

I’d cruise through the red lights and all them stop signs
But give everyone else lots of tickety-fines

At the café’ I’d park in the handicapped zone
Then drive by the school yakking on my cell phone

Turn signals for me? A thing of the past!
And when scooting through town I’d drive real fast

Yeah, if I wuz a sheriff’s deputy
The traffic laws would mean nothing to me

I will Re-Name this 'Blog in the Next Few Weeks

30 July 2019

Dear Friends,

In the next few weeks I will re-name this 'blog. I propose to call it

Lawrence Hall.blogspot.com

If this does not appear by that name by mid-August please email me at mhall46184@aol for a new name that blogspot has found acceptable.

When I began this web presence several years ago I meant it to be storage and backup for my scribbles as well as a way of sharing my poetry and weekly columns with you.

The current title, Reactionary Drivel, is a humorous allusion to something Evelyn Waugh wrote in one of his books or stories (which I cannot now find); however, in our humorless times, Reactionary Drivel has on occasion offended political partisans (or, rather, dimwits), both Righty-Tighty and Lefty-Loosey. 

In my youth I identified as a Republican in the tradition of William Buckley and Ronald Reagan because of their even-handed patriotism, their intellectual endeavors, and their generosity of spirit. I also perceived this same love of our country and our many peoples in President Reagan's good adversary and good friend, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill.  In illo tempore both of the dominant political parties shared love of country and a determination to do what was right for all the people despite disagreeing - disagreeing, not screaming with fists clenched - on how to make it so. They also loved a glass of Irish whiskey, good conversation, and a good joke.

Such does not obtain now, and I do not identify with any political party or sub-group. Because the innocent joke about reactionary drivel offends both metaphorical Mensheviks and metaphorical Bolsheviks, I am retiring it, even as, for the past twelve years, I have retired my identification with a political party that I did not leave, but which, as President Reagan once said in another context, has left me.

Jay Parini, in his otherwise interesting and useful Why Poetry Matters, lapses surprisingly when he argues that "all poetry is political," and proceeds to make an implied argument that poetry must always be propaganda (Pp. 20, 21, and 121). 

Poetry can be political, but then it ceases to be a free thought because of its servitude to a cause. That poetry is and must be political is a thesis of tyrannies, and I repudiate it. 

I choose to pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful with you, and will not subject my poor attempts at writing to any ideology.

Cordially,



Lawrence Hall

Partissssssssan Politicssssssssss - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Partisssssan Politicssssssss

Snakes fighting in a rutted logging trail
A chicken snake against a rattlesnake
Whipping the dust with their reptilian lust
For death among the ridings of despair

The rattlesnake is an endangered species
The chicken snake is okay with that, and strikes
The thrashers poise and pounce, loathsome and foul
Until the chicken snake slowly takes the rattler

Through peristalsis down into its maw

the poor rattlesnake

Writhing desperately for a forced recount

The Doomsday Wristwatch and Fitness Tracker - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Doomsday Wristwatch and Fitness Tracker

Since Mickey’s hands are now at two ‘til twelve
Let’s pour our poor doomed selves another glass
We’ll have only our ashes then to shelve
When that great big explosion comes to pass

And as that big bang bangs I’ll kiss my kvass
Goodbye. My watch needs charging anyway
The Gotterdammerung should give it some gas
To tell the time on that Wagnerian new day

Oh! Mickey’s hands are now at that midnight -
Farewell, dear friends; it’s been a wild delight!



(What? Are you still here…?)