Trickle-Down Prosetry - not exactly a poem

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

Trickle-
Down
Prosetry

Writing
A
Sentence
Top
To
Bottom
One
Word
On
Each
Line
Does
Not
Make
A
Poem

Your vision flies upon poetic wings

All the Toilet Paper Has Been Wiped Out - poem in the virus-time

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

All the Toilet Paper Has Been Wiped Out

We are told:

For the sake of others, we must work from home.

Don’t worry about toilet paper – they’ll make more.

We must ask:

Do toilet paper workers toil from home?

Notre Dame de Purell - poem in the virus-time

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

Notre Dame de Purell

A furore virus coronam libera nos, Domine

The holy water fonts have been withdrawn
And in their places bottles of Purell
Blessing ourselves with scented alcohol
To remind us of baptismal promises

For now we must not shake each other’s hands
Don’t kiss, don’t touch (don’t even breathe too much)
Or receive Our Lord from the blessed Cup
Nor yet again receive Him on the tongue

But still, not even a bishop can stop:

The pinchings exchanged by sisters and brothers
Followed by futile shushings from their mothers!

Does Baby Yoda have Coronavirus? - poem early in the virus-time

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

Does Baby Yoda have Coronavirus?

A student with a Yoda pen 1 might write
In a Yoda notebook 2 in bed at night
($6.99 at the mall or online)
Soft sensitive thoughts about me, my, mine

A shivering child locked behind the wire
Amid the winter cold and muck and mire
Is sternly kept to a crowded workbench
Among toxic chemicals, glue, and stench

An American child, a girl or boy
Cuddles a fluffy little Christmas toy 3
A Uighur child, poor little exhausted soul
With bleeding hands cuddles
                                            an empty bowl


1 $19.72
2 college-lined, just like at Oxford University, eh?
3 “Baby Yoda Stuffed Animal Plush with Necklace, Baby yoda mandalorain Toy The Child Soft Action Figure Birthday Children’s Day Gift Fans Collection $19.98 $19.98 $2.00 coupon applied. Save $2.00 with coupon $3.00 shipping”


(And so it is with the computer upon which this is written, and so it is with the computers on which this is read. None of us is clean.)

To God, Who Gives Joy to Our Youth - poem (a re-post, with mods, from last year)

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

To God, Who Gives Joy to Our Youth

For Reverend Raphael Barousse, OSB

Father Raph - Uncle Bubby - on His 90th Birthday

Introibo ad altare Dei

Ad Deum qui laetificat juvenitutem meam


You look into the mirror and ask yourself
“Who is that old man staring back at me?”
Your friends tell you you’re lookin’ good - for your age
And your uncooperative body in protest creaks

But you and all of them are wrong because

You still approach the Altar as a child
As you once were, and are, and will be forever
For God will have it so, will have you so -
Enchanted by His magic - a little boy

A little boy in Sunday shoes and shirt
Who hears his Mama whisper to him, “Don’t squirm!”
As the Mass hums through a summer morning
Until that moment when you encounter Him:

The universe spirals through its sunlit dance
Creation spins around, in, and down
Eternity circles the paten and cup

Miraculum

Eternity circles the paten and cup
Around and out and up, Creation spins
Through its sunlit dance the universe spirals

And only little children understand that
And only little children are invited
And so God gives joy to your forever-youth
And your forever-youth gives joy to God

A Job Interview II: As Built - poem

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…

A Job Interview - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

"So, Basically..." - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

The Note on the Map Says You Are Not Here - poem

Lawrence Hall
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?

A Candidate's Presidential "We" - Rhyming Couplet

Lawrence Hall
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

Transfer to Mission Beach - poem

Lawrence Hall
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

PTSD on the Promenade Deck - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
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

Coronavirus, and Yet... - poem in the virus-time

Lawrence Hall
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

Absolute Complete Dumpster Fire Clown Show and Some Russians - Weekly Column

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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-

Azaleas, February 2020 - MePhone Photograph

Macbeth and His Lawnmower - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall
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

Dusk, Ash Wednesday 2020 - MePhone Photograph of Luna, Venus, and a Satellite Dish

Giving Up Catholics for Lent - poem

Lawrence Hall
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)

The Fifth Luminous Mystery - poem

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

The Fifth Luminous Mystery

 

Passover. Romans patrol all the streets
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 invited
Because 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?

The Amazing Accidental Spy State - poem

Lawrence Hall
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!