Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Job Interview II: As Built
It’s not usually this wild around here
Acronyms chaos claustrophobia
Computer access down FERPA
File boxes on the floor fluorescent lights
It’s not usually this wild around here
CWE PIA RFP see
RFQ 19.5 hours a week
Monday through Thursday CRT EMAT
It’s not usually this wild around here
No…wait…we really wish you’d change your mind…
Friday, March 6, 2020
Thursday, March 5, 2020
A Job Interview - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Retired, right? A little Social Security
And a meagre monthly more from the shop
Where everyone I knew left long ago
But still my name is in the books and files
And someone called, and I am wanted anew
For a part-time gig four mornings a week
My resume’ is older than my clients
Who have never worn a tie, but I’m game
For guiding and counseling the gone-astray
A little inside work for little pay
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Job Interview
Retired, right? A little Social Security
And a meagre monthly more from the shop
Where everyone I knew left long ago
But still my name is in the books and files
And someone called, and I am wanted anew
For a part-time gig four mornings a week
My resume’ is older than my clients
Who have never worn a tie, but I’m game
For guiding and counseling the gone-astray
A little inside work for little pay
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
"So, Basically..." - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
So, basically
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
So, basically
“So, basically” is NOT the beginning of clarity
Basically so
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“So, basically…”
So, basically
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
So, basically
“So, basically” is NOT the beginning of clarity
Basically so
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
The Note on the Map Says You Are Not Here - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Maybe the map is downside up – it says
“Traveler, Kindly Note That You Are Not Here”
As an astrolabe turns back on itself
And a compass looks to that second star
Pale pages crawl across shy words that sneak
Most carefully into a telescope
Wherein great mysteries are to be felt
With a gentling ear that judges not
How beautiful the stars this moonlit day
And would you make life any other way?
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Note on the Map Says You Are Not Here
Maybe the map is downside up – it says
“Traveler, Kindly Note That You Are Not Here”
As an astrolabe turns back on itself
And a compass looks to that second star
Pale pages crawl across shy words that sneak
Most carefully into a telescope
Wherein great mysteries are to be felt
With a gentling ear that judges not
How beautiful the stars this moonlit day
And would you make life any other way?
Monday, March 2, 2020
A Candidate's Presidential "We" - Rhyming Couplet
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
When a candidate rolls his thunderous “we”
He doesn’t include either you or me
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Candidate’s Presidential “We”
When a candidate rolls his thunderous “we”
He doesn’t include either you or me
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Transfer to Mission Beach - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A transfer to Mission Beach. Will she be there?
The transit bus passes all the old scenes
The U.S. Grant Hotel, the Navy pier
The training base with white-capped squids lined up
And on to Mission Beach, where there is no mission
Except the wooden roller-coaster and the bars
Where strangers seek out hope in others’ eyes
And finding nothing in them choogle on
Will she be there?
The long-haired girl with the dime-store guitar
A year before:
Cheap wine and cigarettes, a shabby room
With a Jefferson Airplane poster on the wall
My buddy got lucky, I didn’t, poor me
(He got the clap, I didn’t, oh, lucky me)
But early in the morning I strolled the beach
Feeling quite sorry for myself, and then
I saw a pretty girl sitting alone in the sand
Alone beneath the clouds, embracing her guitar
She was herself, I an accessory
Probably unseen, for she was herself
Working out her own hopes and mysteries
In an exile’s sweater, she was herself
The sea followed her chords, and so did I
From a shy distance in the morning cold
The seals looked at her, and at me, and splashed
Back to their singing sea, and swam away
I hadn’t the courage to speak to her
She probably wanted to be alone
With her aeolian meditations
And maybe she wrote dream-poetry too
Free-verse poetry about beach-crossed lovers
Passing in the dawn as the lights wink off
And the café up along the street opens up
With the comfort of coffee, 25 cents
And a year or so later:
The bus lets me off at the same old corner
With the mom-and-pop grocery shop below
And the empty windows in the room above
Which I rented and abandoned a year ago
And behind it the morning sand, and the sea
Sighing as it always does, for the lovers
Who never were, and who never will be
And there were only the same seals and clouds
It’s all negative capability
A transfer to Mission Beach
I returned to Mission Beach
But it wasn’t there
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Transfer to Mission Beach
A transfer to Mission Beach. Will she be there?
The transit bus passes all the old scenes
The U.S. Grant Hotel, the Navy pier
The training base with white-capped squids lined up
And on to Mission Beach, where there is no mission
Except the wooden roller-coaster and the bars
Where strangers seek out hope in others’ eyes
And finding nothing in them choogle on
Will she be there?
The long-haired girl with the dime-store guitar
A year before:
Cheap wine and cigarettes, a shabby room
With a Jefferson Airplane poster on the wall
My buddy got lucky, I didn’t, poor me
(He got the clap, I didn’t, oh, lucky me)
But early in the morning I strolled the beach
Feeling quite sorry for myself, and then
I saw a pretty girl sitting alone in the sand
Alone beneath the clouds, embracing her guitar
She was herself, I an accessory
Probably unseen, for she was herself
Working out her own hopes and mysteries
In an exile’s sweater, she was herself
The sea followed her chords, and so did I
From a shy distance in the morning cold
The seals looked at her, and at me, and splashed
Back to their singing sea, and swam away
I hadn’t the courage to speak to her
She probably wanted to be alone
With her aeolian meditations
And maybe she wrote dream-poetry too
Free-verse poetry about beach-crossed lovers
Passing in the dawn as the lights wink off
And the café up along the street opens up
With the comfort of coffee, 25 cents
And a year or so later:
The bus lets me off at the same old corner
With the mom-and-pop grocery shop below
And the empty windows in the room above
Which I rented and abandoned a year ago
And behind it the morning sand, and the sea
Sighing as it always does, for the lovers
Who never were, and who never will be
And there were only the same seals and clouds
It’s all negative capability
A transfer to Mission Beach
I returned to Mission Beach
But it wasn’t there
Saturday, February 29, 2020
PTSD on the Promenade Deck - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Some are quarantined upon the ocean’s foam
Aboard a luxury ship trimmed all in chrome
The steward brings their meals (his name is Guillaume) –
The rest of us must die humbly, at home
1 https://thomasmorestudies.org/quotes.html
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
PTSD on the Promenade Deck
“We cannot go to heaven in featherbeds.” 1
-Saint Thomas More
Some are quarantined upon the ocean’s foam
Aboard a luxury ship trimmed all in chrome
The steward brings their meals (his name is Guillaume) –
The rest of us must die humbly, at home
1 https://thomasmorestudies.org/quotes.html
Friday, February 28, 2020
Coronavirus, and Yet... - poem in the virus-time
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Coronavirus - and yet the azaleas
Appear to leap into the morning light
Laughing against the latest northern winds
Who drive the cold and the shoaling liveoak leaves
Coronavirus - and yet the azaleas
Merrily prophesy the coming spring
For even now the naughty bees seek out
Soft open petals for their rites of love
Coronavirus - and yet when I die
I will live, and the azaleas will leap
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Coronavirus, and Yet…
Coronavirus - and yet the azaleas
Appear to leap into the morning light
Laughing against the latest northern winds
Who drive the cold and the shoaling liveoak leaves
Coronavirus - and yet the azaleas
Merrily prophesy the coming spring
For even now the naughty bees seek out
Soft open petals for their rites of love
Coronavirus - and yet when I die
I will live, and the azaleas will leap
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Absolute Complete Dumpster Fire Clown Show and Some Russians - Weekly Column
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
27 February 2020
Almost as illogical as the debates are some of the comments on the InterGossip:
1. Complete / total / absolute dumpster fire – “Dumpster fire” was a fresh, effective metaphor decades ago; it’s tired now, so let it go to its reward. Further, a dumpster fire cannot be complete, total, or absolute. Some events need no modifiers.
2. Complete / absolute clown show – First, what is a clown show? When we visit the circus there are clowns, but is there an entertainment featuring only clowns? If so, it can be said to be complete when it is finished, but how can it be absolute or not absolute?
3. DemonCrats and variants – neither original, amusing, nor useful.
4. RepubliCraps and variants – neither original, amusing, nor useful.
5. The third-rail of politics – what are the first and second rails? The metaphor is based on electrified underground railways, which applies to very few Americans. No one in Texas takes a subway to work. A Massey-Ferguson tractor, yep.
6. Trumpf, Dumpf, Trumpsuxx, Killary, JoeBiteMe, crudities re the mayor of South Bend, Burnie, Fauxahontas, and all the other silly, sarcastic misspellings of names are counter-productive. And, anyway, we the people should be more mature than the candidates.
7. A rhetorical question followed by a pause and then “Oh, wait…” No. Please. No.
8. Hermione Grangering – now that is a fresh new metaphor. In ten years it won’t be, but people will still use it.
9. ROFLMAO – yeah, well, so’s your dog.
10. The Russians – Always the Russians. The Russians control the Democrats. The Russians control the Republicans. A cabal of Russian oligarchs control all the casinos in Dime Box, Texas. The Russians ate my homework. The Russians left the refrigerator door open last night. The Russians stole the tv remote control. The Russians are responsible for that one sock lost in the laundry cycle. I’m late for work because the Russians hacked my alarm clock. The radio mast at the big truck stop down the road is part of a Russian spy ring sending all our truck secrets to Russian albino monks in an underground bunker in the woods near Ekaterinburg. Yevtushenko’s poems are coded messages for taking down all our Ford Trimotor airplanes through modified AppleWorks programming. Vladimir Putin and the boys at the Moscow Kremlin monitor your doorbell cameras for laughs. The Russian navy sent a bunch of commandos ashore at Sabine Pass last week but they were all eaten by Texas Department of Public Safety attack alligators. Dostoyevsky was not a Methodist. Russians are infiltrating our school boards so that they can sneakily replace Hank the Cow Dog with Ruslan and Ludmilla. Only half the American electorate vote in presidential elections and somehow that’s the Russians’ fault. Moles that dig up the lawn because, hey, Russian moles, right? Boris and Natasha were looking over my shoulder and bullying me when I voted and the election judge wouldn’t do anything about them when I held up my hand like the presidential candidates. Sniff.
The Russians aren’t the problem. As Pogo said (does anyone remember Pogo?), riffing off Commodore Perry, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
27 February 2020
Absolute Complete Dumpster Fire Clown Show and Some Russians
Almost as illogical as the debates are some of the comments on the InterGossip:
1. Complete / total / absolute dumpster fire – “Dumpster fire” was a fresh, effective metaphor decades ago; it’s tired now, so let it go to its reward. Further, a dumpster fire cannot be complete, total, or absolute. Some events need no modifiers.
2. Complete / absolute clown show – First, what is a clown show? When we visit the circus there are clowns, but is there an entertainment featuring only clowns? If so, it can be said to be complete when it is finished, but how can it be absolute or not absolute?
3. DemonCrats and variants – neither original, amusing, nor useful.
4. RepubliCraps and variants – neither original, amusing, nor useful.
5. The third-rail of politics – what are the first and second rails? The metaphor is based on electrified underground railways, which applies to very few Americans. No one in Texas takes a subway to work. A Massey-Ferguson tractor, yep.
6. Trumpf, Dumpf, Trumpsuxx, Killary, JoeBiteMe, crudities re the mayor of South Bend, Burnie, Fauxahontas, and all the other silly, sarcastic misspellings of names are counter-productive. And, anyway, we the people should be more mature than the candidates.
7. A rhetorical question followed by a pause and then “Oh, wait…” No. Please. No.
8. Hermione Grangering – now that is a fresh new metaphor. In ten years it won’t be, but people will still use it.
9. ROFLMAO – yeah, well, so’s your dog.
10. The Russians – Always the Russians. The Russians control the Democrats. The Russians control the Republicans. A cabal of Russian oligarchs control all the casinos in Dime Box, Texas. The Russians ate my homework. The Russians left the refrigerator door open last night. The Russians stole the tv remote control. The Russians are responsible for that one sock lost in the laundry cycle. I’m late for work because the Russians hacked my alarm clock. The radio mast at the big truck stop down the road is part of a Russian spy ring sending all our truck secrets to Russian albino monks in an underground bunker in the woods near Ekaterinburg. Yevtushenko’s poems are coded messages for taking down all our Ford Trimotor airplanes through modified AppleWorks programming. Vladimir Putin and the boys at the Moscow Kremlin monitor your doorbell cameras for laughs. The Russian navy sent a bunch of commandos ashore at Sabine Pass last week but they were all eaten by Texas Department of Public Safety attack alligators. Dostoyevsky was not a Methodist. Russians are infiltrating our school boards so that they can sneakily replace Hank the Cow Dog with Ruslan and Ludmilla. Only half the American electorate vote in presidential elections and somehow that’s the Russians’ fault. Moles that dig up the lawn because, hey, Russian moles, right? Boris and Natasha were looking over my shoulder and bullying me when I voted and the election judge wouldn’t do anything about them when I held up my hand like the presidential candidates. Sniff.
The Russians aren’t the problem. As Pogo said (does anyone remember Pogo?), riffing off Commodore Perry, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
-30-
Macbeth and His Lawnmower - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
My day of mowing has fallen into the sere
The yellow leaf, the brown leaf, still more leaves
Leaves, leaves, leaves, heaps of leaves, Birnam leaves - aaaaargh!
I look toward Birnam – weeds begin to move!
And that mowing which should accompany old age
I must not look to have; the mower won’t start -
Curses, both loud and deep, against false starts
The carburetor-breath which mocketh me
My day of mowing has fallen into the sere –
Methinks – methinks me’ll haveth another beer
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Macbeth and His Lawnmower
My day of mowing has fallen into the sere
The yellow leaf, the brown leaf, still more leaves
Leaves, leaves, leaves, heaps of leaves, Birnam leaves - aaaaargh!
I look toward Birnam – weeds begin to move!
And that mowing which should accompany old age
I must not look to have; the mower won’t start -
Curses, both loud and deep, against false starts
The carburetor-breath which mocketh me
My day of mowing has fallen into the sere –
Methinks – methinks me’ll haveth another beer
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Giving Up Catholics for Lent - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Every Lent of our lives we have been told
That Lent is not about giving up things
That instead of giving up things we should
Give away love, especially for some cause de jour
Every Lent of our lives we have been told
That we’re doing Lent wrong, whatever we’re doing
That what we did last year is wrong this year
We have always been wrong, but now we’re right
Oh, let us ignore the whine of Catholics online
And
Focus on penance and prayer, Host and Cup
(And may all us Catholics just shut up)
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Giving up Catholics for Lent
He(ck) hath no fury like a Catholic with an InterGossip site
Every Lent of our lives we have been told
That Lent is not about giving up things
That instead of giving up things we should
Give away love, especially for some cause de jour
Every Lent of our lives we have been told
That we’re doing Lent wrong, whatever we’re doing
That what we did last year is wrong this year
We have always been wrong, but now we’re right
Oh, let us ignore the whine of Catholics online
And
Focus on penance and prayer, Host and Cup
(And may all us Catholics just shut up)
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
The Fifth Luminous Mystery - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
But we are invited to a rented hall
And who paid for the cleaning deposit?
I’m a little nervous; do I look okay?
Because I’m not anybody special
But the Host makes everyone feel welcome
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Fifth Luminous Mystery
But we are invited to a rented hall
And who paid for the cleaning deposit?
I’m a little nervous; do I look okay?
This is a big deal. I’m not even Jewish
But I’m honored to have been invitedBecause I’m not anybody special
But the Host makes everyone feel welcome
I know that no one is worthy of this
But still I ask myself – am I Judas?Monday, February 24, 2020
The Amazing Accidental Spy State - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
There are precedents: Orwell’s Airstrip One
Zamyatin’s One State, Jonestown in Guyana
Rand’s Council of Vocations, Spectre, Smersh
And of course Patrick McGoohan’s The Village
(Six of one, half a dozen of the other)
Mass Surveillance, OGPU, SMERSH, KGB
MI6, Gestapo, Bundeswehr, Red Guard
Abwehr, Stasi, DGI, SS, Cheka, COINTELPRO
FBI, Cheka, Special Branch, Okhrana
(and a spy drone in a pear tree)
But the spy cameras looking in on me
I installed myself - my idea, you see!
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Amazing Accidental Spy State
The Famous Doorbell Cameras
Which are Sometimes Found in Doorbells
There are precedents: Orwell’s Airstrip One
Zamyatin’s One State, Jonestown in Guyana
Rand’s Council of Vocations, Spectre, Smersh
And of course Patrick McGoohan’s The Village
(Six of one, half a dozen of the other)
Mass Surveillance, OGPU, SMERSH, KGB
MI6, Gestapo, Bundeswehr, Red Guard
Abwehr, Stasi, DGI, SS, Cheka, COINTELPRO
FBI, Cheka, Special Branch, Okhrana
(and a spy drone in a pear tree)
But the spy cameras looking in on me
I installed myself - my idea, you see!
Sunday, February 23, 2020
The Broom That Stood by Itself When the Moon was Just Right - Doggerel
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I raised a broom up – and it stood alone!
But then I realized, with a gasp and a groan
There would be big trouble; it wasn’t my own -
‘Twas the broom my teacher rode to school on!
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Broom That Stood by Itself When the Moon was Just Right
I raised a broom up – and it stood alone!
But then I realized, with a gasp and a groan
There would be big trouble; it wasn’t my own -
‘Twas the broom my teacher rode to school on!
Saturday, February 22, 2020
Just Put "Sapphic" in the Title - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Erinna popped over for a cup of tea
With Sappho, maybe a cigarette or two
And a chat about hendecasyllables
Then she walked home
Please forgive my poor attempt at a Sapphic stanza, but that’s part of my equally poor joke about expectations.
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Just Put “Sapphic” in the Title
Erinna popped over for a cup of tea
With Sappho, maybe a cigarette or two
And a chat about hendecasyllables
Then she walked home
Please forgive my poor attempt at a Sapphic stanza, but that’s part of my equally poor joke about expectations.
Friday, February 21, 2020
"Your Guys Were Chained Out This Week" - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Even under the lowering overcast
The perimeter’s razor wire shines bright
While the headlights of the roving patrol
Search carefully across the parking lot
I show my driving license and my face
To a camera, and pass the clicks and clanks
Of gates and bolts – but no further this day:
“The last of your guys were chained 1 out this week”
May God watch over them, wherever they are –
They know the lessons far better than I
1 “Chained” is the in-house pronunciation of “changed,” meaning transferred. No one is in fact chained.
This poem is not a criticism of anyone; prisoners are frequently transferred for reasons of education, health care, therapy, pre-discharge services, and in this instance the conversion of the facility from a general population unit to a drug-rehab program.
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“Your Guys Were Chained Out This Week”
Prison Volunteer
Even under the lowering overcast
The perimeter’s razor wire shines bright
While the headlights of the roving patrol
Search carefully across the parking lot
I show my driving license and my face
To a camera, and pass the clicks and clanks
Of gates and bolts – but no further this day:
“The last of your guys were chained 1 out this week”
May God watch over them, wherever they are –
They know the lessons far better than I
1 “Chained” is the in-house pronunciation of “changed,” meaning transferred. No one is in fact chained.
This poem is not a criticism of anyone; prisoners are frequently transferred for reasons of education, health care, therapy, pre-discharge services, and in this instance the conversion of the facility from a general population unit to a drug-rehab program.
Thursday, February 20, 2020
But Who Makes the Candidates' Beds? - Weekly Column 20 February 2020
Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Once upon a time there was, and presumably still is, a retired admiral who wrote a book telling us to make our beds. The book apparently sells well, for it is still on display in the bookstores.
Make Your Bed – yeah, that’s a big seller among teenaged readers.
The irony is that admirals do not make their beds; they have servants – formerly called stewards but now folded with other service workers into the catch-all “culinary specialist” rating - to do that for them.
One wonders if the fellows who made the admiral’s beds for him have read the admiral’s book on the making of beds. Maybe they asked him to autograph their copies.
The matter of the making of beds connects with the presidential candidates we heard rattling their dentures, hearing aids, and outrage at each other in Las Vegas the other night.
Does Bernie (such a cozy, cuddly name) Sanders make his bed in the mornings? Does Amy Klobuchar? Does Senator Biden make his bed or does he just give it his patented weird stare? Does Senator Warren break into PTSD tears when she recalls once having seen a poor man making his bed?
Michael Bloomberg thinks farmers and plumbers are stupid, indicating both a lack of humility as well as of perception of reality, so one does not imagine him meditatively making his bed before toddling off to a day of wheelbarrowing his billions of dollars about like Donald Duck’s Uncle Scrooge.
Almost all presidential candidates babble patronizingly about The People, The Little People, The Working People, Les Deplorables, arrogantly stamping our lives with rows of adjectives: black, white, the cringe-worthy “people of color” thing, brown, working-class, female, Joe Sixpack, male, soccer mom, straight, LBGTQ-and-a-partridge-in-a-pear-tree, rednecks, young, middle-aged, old, evangelicals, and on and on.
When a presidential candidate looks at you and me, I don’t know that she or he (one candidate cannot be “they”) sees you and me; she or he sees a stereotype, a vague blur in a voting bloc that must be group-addressed from a catalogue of cliches. To the candidate class we are not individuals, but only cardboard figures that decorate the sets of the Potemkin Villages of their bubbled minds.
Consider the line-ups of presidential candidates in either of the dominant political parties: who makes their beds, drives their cars, makes their morning coffee, cleans their floors, screens their calls, repairs their plumbing, serves their meals, and carries their briefcases?
Will those who make the candidates’ beds vote for them?
Now about your bed: when the moon is aligned with Mars and the Secret Hidden Planet Cucucucu you can stand your mattress on end and it will make itself. Really! NASA said so! You can look it up on the InterGossip!
That’s about as believable as the fantasy that admirals make up their own beds.
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
But Who Makes The Candidates’ Beds?
Once upon a time there was, and presumably still is, a retired admiral who wrote a book telling us to make our beds. The book apparently sells well, for it is still on display in the bookstores.
Make Your Bed – yeah, that’s a big seller among teenaged readers.
The irony is that admirals do not make their beds; they have servants – formerly called stewards but now folded with other service workers into the catch-all “culinary specialist” rating - to do that for them.
One wonders if the fellows who made the admiral’s beds for him have read the admiral’s book on the making of beds. Maybe they asked him to autograph their copies.
The matter of the making of beds connects with the presidential candidates we heard rattling their dentures, hearing aids, and outrage at each other in Las Vegas the other night.
Does Bernie (such a cozy, cuddly name) Sanders make his bed in the mornings? Does Amy Klobuchar? Does Senator Biden make his bed or does he just give it his patented weird stare? Does Senator Warren break into PTSD tears when she recalls once having seen a poor man making his bed?
Michael Bloomberg thinks farmers and plumbers are stupid, indicating both a lack of humility as well as of perception of reality, so one does not imagine him meditatively making his bed before toddling off to a day of wheelbarrowing his billions of dollars about like Donald Duck’s Uncle Scrooge.
Almost all presidential candidates babble patronizingly about The People, The Little People, The Working People, Les Deplorables, arrogantly stamping our lives with rows of adjectives: black, white, the cringe-worthy “people of color” thing, brown, working-class, female, Joe Sixpack, male, soccer mom, straight, LBGTQ-and-a-partridge-in-a-pear-tree, rednecks, young, middle-aged, old, evangelicals, and on and on.
When a presidential candidate looks at you and me, I don’t know that she or he (one candidate cannot be “they”) sees you and me; she or he sees a stereotype, a vague blur in a voting bloc that must be group-addressed from a catalogue of cliches. To the candidate class we are not individuals, but only cardboard figures that decorate the sets of the Potemkin Villages of their bubbled minds.
Consider the line-ups of presidential candidates in either of the dominant political parties: who makes their beds, drives their cars, makes their morning coffee, cleans their floors, screens their calls, repairs their plumbing, serves their meals, and carries their briefcases?
Will those who make the candidates’ beds vote for them?
Now about your bed: when the moon is aligned with Mars and the Secret Hidden Planet Cucucucu you can stand your mattress on end and it will make itself. Really! NASA said so! You can look it up on the InterGossip!
That’s about as believable as the fantasy that admirals make up their own beds.
-30-
"Inside Pentagon's Secret UFO Program" - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Speculation:
Heading the secret UFO program
Is a brittle colonel with crystals and spheres
Magic pyramids on a desk at home
And a diploma from M.I.T. on the wall
A Captain Picard doll, essential oils
Once posted an indiscretion to Afghanistan
Where it discreetly died, and blocks promotions
For the enlisted men who do the work
Plays Elvis at night to the Taos Hum
Begging the outer-space aliens to come
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“Inside Pentagon’s Secret UFO Program”
-Drudge
Speculation:
Heading the secret UFO program
Is a brittle colonel with crystals and spheres
Magic pyramids on a desk at home
And a diploma from M.I.T. on the wall
A Captain Picard doll, essential oils
Once posted an indiscretion to Afghanistan
Where it discreetly died, and blocks promotions
For the enlisted men who do the work
Plays Elvis at night to the Taos Hum
Begging the outer-space aliens to come
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