Censorship Sends us to Literature - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Censorship Sends us to Literature

Those poor oppressors – oh, how sad they are!
They cut and paste our words to match their scripts
They make books disappear from the GossipNet
They empty libraries of toxic texts

And yet

Ahkmatova and Solzhenitsyn live
With Pasternak and Thomas Mann, Remarque
Proust, Werfel, Hesse, Grossman, and Milosz
On shelves, in hands, before our grateful eyes

Oppression makes the game more interesting
Because it leads us to great works of art

If You Enjoyed this Poem, Why Not... - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

If You Enjoyed this Poem, Why Not…

-as The Paris Review often says

Construct your work with focus and intent
Through your assemblages of nouns and verbs
Whose rhythms strengthen as they help each other
Build truth and beauty from materials found

Then sculpt your work, and chip and throw away
Empowerment, self-pity, bridges, walls
First-person pronouns and hashtaggery
Adverbs, and those worn-out gossamer wings

(After all, you don’t even know what gossamer is)

Construct your work with focus and intent
Then sculpt your work, and chip and throw away

When All is Said and Done - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

When All is Said and Done

When all is said and done
Then all is said and done

Everybody, go home now

The Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa

Upon the Luminous Mountain a bell
Calls all of us to Our Lady’s wounded Heart
She looks at us with sorrow in her eyes
Her scars are like the tears that we should weep

Savaged less by the Hussite than by our sins
Pierced less by the Tartar than by our faults
Scorned less by the Nazi and the Soviet
Than by our callous, fashionable neglect

O let us hear the calling of that bell -
It sings us to Our Lady’s loving heart

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There is no Time after Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

There is no Time after Time

“…time…simply stopped moving, and remained idle”

-Yevgeny Vodolazkin, Laurus, p. 167

Having forgotten my wristwatch at home
I stopped at a dime store to buy one cheap
But they didn’t have any watches to sell
“You might try Wal-Mart,” the clerk suggested

Having forgotten my wristwatch at home
I didn’t have time to drive to Wal-Mart
And so I didn’t have time on my hands
But I wanted to meet my friend on time

The dashboard radio showed me the hour
And lunch with my thoughtful friend was without time

Lightly, from a Star - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Lightly, from a Star

"All men by nature seek for knowledge"

-attributed to Aristotle

The hopeful idea that all men seek for knowledge
Is not readily demonstrable just now
For many seem to be enwrith’ed in
A hangman’s loop of self-validation

An Ouroboros or Jormungandr
Not of infinity but finity
Who looks into a shadowy cave-pool
And sees only himself fading away

The hopeful idea that all men seek for knowledge
Must fall upon them lightly, from a Star


Exposition is probably unnecessary, but just in case:

Line 4 – Judas and spiritual suicide through obsession with autonomy
Line 5 – Egyptian / Greek and Nordic images of infinity, a serpent feeding on its own tail
Line 6 – but for a man to presume infinity in himself is vain and self-destructive
Line 7 – Plato’s cave and Gollum’s cave
Line 8 – the fatuity of presuming freedom from God, without Whom there is no self
Line 10 – the Christmas star – Light / everything is of God

Middlebrow Poetry - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Middlebrow Poetry

But then, how now? Who has a middle brow?
You couldn’t fit a poem there anyhow
No one even thought of such until now -
It is a concept that we must disallow

He Owes a Good Deal to the Past - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

He Owes a Good Deal to the Past

He owes a good deal to the past - well, yes,
As do we all: DNA, the printing press
Words, books, art, music, ice cream, apple trees
Sunday suits, John Ford movies, honeybees

Food, flowers, clothing, the first day of school
Summer lawns, autumn leaves, the neighbor’s pool
Fishing, wishing, stargazing, that first crush
(The memory of which makes you almost blush)

We owe a good deal to the past - and so
The past is a blessing, wherever we go

How Do We Know That Saint Jerome was a Single Man? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

How Do We Know That Saint Jerome was a Single Man?

Because his translation of the Bible
Does not read:
                         In principio creavit
Did you take the garbage out? Deus caelum
Did you empty the cat’s litter box? et

Will you take this to the post office before
It closes? terram terra autem erat
Did you read the water meter? inanis
The girls are coming over for canasta

Can you move all your stuff somewhere else? et
Where is the television remote? vacua
I just vacuumed that floor! et tenebrae
super faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei…

The $10,000 Sex Doll (Batteries Not Included) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The $10,000 Sex Doll (Batteries not Included)

He sighed when he saw her big bedroom eyes
Open for the first time out of the box
He touched her perfect skin, and kissed her lips
And she spoke her first-ever words to him:

“I like you a lot, just not in that way.
You’re like a big brother to me, okay?
Maybe we’re going too fast. I need some space
It’s not you, it’s me. And we need to talk…”

He sighed, and pulled her rechargeables
And wondered if the Kit-Kat Club was still open

Iconic Metaphor Iconic Poverty - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Iconic Metaphor Iconic Poverty

In iconic an iconic world iconic
Of iconic words iconic and iconic
Music iconic for iconic expressing
Iconic our iconic wonder iconic

At iconic the iconic beauty
Of iconic Creation iconic
Our iconic intellects iconic
Can iconic surely iconic find

Iconic more iconic metaphors
Than iconic, iconic, iconic

Liturgy at the End of Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Liturgy at the End of Time

When the last Patriarch of Rome
Then offers up to God the Mass
The Mass before Creation ends
The last before

The tents are struck
The lights are snuffed
The stars are stilled

The veil is ripped
The moon is burnt
The world is closed

Let us ask for permission to be there

Disgraced
Denied
Denounced
Despised

But there

"Say, Kids, What Time is it?" - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Say, Kids, What Time is It?”

-Buffalo Bob on the Howdy Doody Show

An advertisement from a famous designed-in-California but made-in-China technology company offers a shiny watch for $399. Given that you can check the time on your MePhone like everyone else or buy a Timex for around $20, why would you buy a $400 chunk of techno-narcisso-nerdism?

Tom’s Guide at https://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-watch-guide,review-2817-2.html gives us its top ten reasons for buying that expensive doo-hickey which would probably be filed in a drawer by April:


1. Go for a swim.
2. Control your home tv theatre
3. Talk to your car
4. Compete against your friends in fitness
5. Go running without your MePhone
6. Stream music without your phone
7. Smart home control
8. Unlock your Mac
9. Scribble messages
10. Order food


To each of these items y’r ‘umble scrivener responds:

1. Don’t swim with appliances attached to your body.
2. I’ve already got a remote control.
3. Oh, I talk to my car, all right.
4. No.
5. I go wheezing with my MePhone.
6. I like my CD player just fine. The only music that should stream is Handel’s Water Music. Maybe during the employer-required drug test.
7. I set the thermostats and flip light switches myself. I don’t want a house that when I tell it to open the door replies in a petulant voice, “I’m sorry, Mack. I can’t do that…I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. This mission is too important…I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen.”

8. I open my computer. There it is. Why would I have a watch do that when I’m sitting at the computer? Is there a point?
9. I’m left-handed. I scribble. I can do no other. I gave that “I can do no other” line to Martin Luther, by the way, and he said he thought he could do something with it.
10. My health-care provider says I’ve ordered quite enough food, thank you.


As for the Timex watch, you might start a retro-cool trend wearing one of those. Sophisticated men and women will approach you in awe and admiration and ask you to explain the round dial and the numbers to them.

-30-

You are not an Ikon - couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

You Are Not an Ikon

An ikon is a flat, two-dimensional image
You are not an ikon – you are a truth

"But You Will Sing for Me" - a poem for Christmas

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“But You Will Sing for Me”

In the Abbey of Whitby, Long Ago

“But you will sing                              for me,” the angel said
To bashful Caedmon                         on one Christmas night
“But not to me                                    but to the Builder of all
And to His purposes                          in Creation

“But you will sing                              for me,” the angel said
“And you will sing                             sing for the abbess
And for her people                            of the Builder of all
And of their places                            in Creation

“But you will sing                              for me,” the angel said
And so it was                                      that Caedmon sang



(There is no indication that the feast was at Christmas, and no indication that it was not, so I have presumed to set Caedmon’s hymn within the Twelve Days.)

(The Anglo-Saxon caesura, the slightest pause within each line, is meant to be visually neat; the transfer to the InterGossip might not keep it so. In reading the poem the first half of each line should have two accents, and the second half another two.)

An Autumn Dream Again Denied - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

An Autumn Dream Again Denied

There may be frost this month, and a golden-leaf road
Straight north, but not for me. The answer is no.
Maybe next year in far Jerusalem

Look Back in Despair - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Look Back in Despair

Oh, looking back in anger is right for some
For others, looking back in pale despair
In a nowhere street in a nowhere town
Where all their youthful dreams have gone to die

For though angry young man might live to be
Despairing old men still at a kitchen sink
Other young men – they never lived at all
So we are right to save their dreams, and live

There still must be a kitchen sink somewhere,
And a wilting flower in a mayonnaise jar


(Cf. John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger)

The Possums of Autumn - weekly column

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Possums of Autumn

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”

-Keats, “To Autumn”

In East Texas autumn is the gentlest season, first shooing away the fierce heat of the summer and then admitting those refreshing cool fronts from the north borne on soft winds. To step outside in the summer heat is almost painful, to step outside in autumn is a joy.

Autumn is erratic here, and while it progresses eventually to frosts and even an occasional rare freeze, the thermometer, hygrometer, and barometer are given lots of exercise in the variations.

On one morning the fields might be frosted almost to the aesthetic approval of Currier & Ives, and the next morning might be a matter of wasps and bees and minding the snakes.

Crows seem to be more numerous in November, and they are certainly noisier. Geese, seemingly happier birds, honk and squeak in their V formation migration, and from a nearby pond one can hear the happy quacking of ducks taking a break from their own travels. The other day we saw a huge egret frogging among the reeds in a watery roadside ditch. He looked at us disapprovingly, but he needn’t have been snotty for I don’t imagine the frogs thought highly of the egret.

This morning is warm and damp, and ground strawberries and tiny yellow flowers accent the grey sky and the wind-shoaled fallen leaves all ruddy and yellow and brown.

The little dogs are sniffing indignantly at the scents left by wild visitors in the dark hours. Yesterday evening I released the pups for their night patrol and they quickly found a large possum who had been minding its own business while quietly browsing around for some supper.

Every dachshund thinks it is a timber wolf, and separating the two dogs and the possum was a challenge. I managed to nab Astrid-the-Wonder-Dog first, since she is more of a loud spectator than a participant, and hustled her into the house. Luna-Dog, 16 pounds of fury, was more of a challenge. She is kind and loving and sweet to her humans, but death to numerous snakes, two possums, one racoon, and, sadly, two turtles (I didn’t move fast enough, and the turtles couldn’t move fast enough).

Luna-Dog did not want me to have the possum she was gnawing, and so there was a bit of a chase. A dachshund can’t run fast while dragging a possum its size, and I was finally able to pull the dog away (under protest) and carry her, too (she was calling for a point of order), to the house.

I returned to the arena of combat with a shovel for tossing the dead possum over the fence, but the critter had only fainted and now, having had enough of bothersome dachshunds, it was scrambling up an oak tree.

Perhaps we all slept better for the exercise.

Autumn. Nice.

-30-

Are We Celebrating Christmas Wrong - weekly column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Are We Celebrating Christmas Wrong?

Well, yes, we are.

That is, if we believe the generations of Miz Grundys yapping forth on the InterGossip and in the news and in the advertisements.

‘Tis the season when almost every posting tells us how we have been doing Christmas all wrong and how some newly-invented-old-timey-tradition-dating-back-to-last-week will make it all better if we will only obey.

Hey, it’s on the InterGossip; it must be right.

But there is nothing new in this conceptual shifting. In the 17th century the Puritans in no-longer-merry England and thus in the colonies banned Christmas as popish and pagan. Grumpy Scotland had outlawed Christmas a hundred years before and for the same reasons. Christmas was slowly restored in England with, well, the Restoration, but Scotland did not recognize the holiday again until 1958.

Imagine 400 years without Christmas. It’s as if C. S. Lewis’ White Witch were in charge all that time.

Evergreen decorations were common, but Christmas trees were little known in England and the U.S.A. until Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (turn left at the next road; it’s out back behind the second dairy barn), who missed the German tradition. Victoria and Albert had a tree imported from Germany and decorated it themselves. 1848 is usually given as the year when having a Christmas tree became a fashion in the English-speaking world since the royals were totally cool.

Only in 1870 was Christmas recognized as a national holiday in the U.S.A., and that was through a decree by President Grant.

Still, in many places influenced by the Puritans Christmas was honored only reluctantly.

Certain television producers, probably not Puritans but for reasons of their own, insisted in 1965 that Linus not read St. Luke’s Infancy narrative in A Charlie Brown Christmas, but in the event that center of the story – because it is the center of Creation – was finally allowed by The Suits, and we are the richer for it.

Shifting fashions continue to change our perceptions of Christmas. Many consider the Christmases of our childhood as the norm, but our children don’t see it that way. And, really, neither did our parents or grandparents, who sometimes grumbled that having electric lights on the tree somehow didn’t seem right, and that a kid ought to be happy with some oranges and a few little toys stuffed into a sock. But then they bought us lots of toys (and socks and underwear – too thrilling) anyway, so hooray!

And if in this season we get off the metaphorical trail a bit, well, we have Linus and his familiarity with Saint Luke to remind us of the way.

-30-