When Logic, Art, and Pronouns Do Their Jobs - Rhyming Couplet

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

When Logic, Art, and Pronouns Do Their Jobs

One person can be she, her, he, or him
One person cannot possibly be them

A Very Brief Review for GoodReads of Humphrey Carpenter's J.R.R. TOLKIEN: A BIOGRAPHY

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
by

Humphrey Carpenter

    

This is a nice little biography for those who love Tolkien and the Inklings. Humphrey Carpenter's several biographies are always well-researched and, even when alluding to awkward moments in the subjects' lives, infinitely kind and generous.

As for the recent film, it fails in every way, in structure, lighting, plotting, and the now-obligatory intrusions of razzle-me / dazzle-me computer cartooning. One longs for a movie free of electrons. The biggest failing, however, one which stamps a veto on the entire project (which does feature some good moments), is the filmmakers' dishonesty and violation of artistic ethics in deleting Catholicism from Tolkien's life. One need not approve or disapprove of Catholicism to understand the lack of integrity here; Tolkien's faith, one which he believed his mother to have died for because of family persecution, was the basis of everything he believed, lived, and wrote.

The young actors are fine in their roles; they certainly deserved better of The Suits (only I suppose now they are not The Suits but rather The Tee-Shirts).

Sunday Morning Tornado Watch - poem

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

Sunday Morning Tornado Watch

This is the only thing normal today:
A tornado watch on a Sunday in spring
I have shifted those famous Loose Objects
Into secure areas as best I could

Too bad we can’t shift the virus about
Stuff it into a rusted garbage bin
And set it out along the leafy lane
To wait for the men to haul it away

Liturgy on the telly, skies deadly grey -
How odd the things that are normal today

The Only Man in the World Who Knows Nothing about How to Cure the Coronavirus or the Economy Recuses Himself - poem

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

The Only Man in the World Who Knows Nothing about How to Cure the Coronavirus or the Economy Recuses Himself

“Twilight it is, and the far woods are dim”

-Masefield

The book is put aside, the cigar is lit
Old scotch rolled thoughtfully within the glass
As fireflies flit among the apple trees
And Cat carnivorously craves a careless bird

Sweet April’s evening air is exactly right
I could bring the portable radio outside
For a little light jazz – or maybe not
The firstling stars are musical enough

To accompany the memories, and, yes,
Masefield says it ever so much better

The Cherry Tree Who Visited an Apple Orchard and Decided to Stay - poem

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

The Cherry Tree Who Visited an Apple Orchard and Decided to Stay

In the blowing-wind dusk the cherry tree waves
Far more than the orchard’s Anna-apple trees
Into whose company it has intruded itself
This party-crasher who has somehow moved in

While the cherry tree waves its leaves about
A single cricket hidden in the grass
Chirrups an evening hymn of just one note
As the work-weary birds wing to the woods

The last sunbeams have climbed up and away
And winked goodnight to this cherry-tree day

Historic Sites Archaeology or Finding Neat Stuff in the Ground - weekly column

Lawrence (Mack) Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Historic Sites Archaeology

Or

Finding Neat Stuff in the Ground

Long, long ago in a land far, far away I took several courses in historic sites archaeology with Professor James R. Moriarty, historian, archaeologist, raconteur, and veteran of the Pacific campaign during the Second World War.

Dr. Moriarty and his merry band enjoyed access to Mission San Diego de Alcala and to San Diego’s Old Town, where we learned from him the discipline of the dig – excavating with soft brushes more often than with small trowels, and mapping everything, recording everything, labelling everything, photographing everything. With one slow, brief pass with a small blade one could find a Chinese coin, a fragment of a Spanish stirrup, human finger bones, and a good-sized chunk of glass from the headlight of a 1948 Hudson, all jumbled up by the accidents of history, gardening, and the busy actions of gophers.

This season’s gardening at my rural estate along Jasper County Beer Can & Garbage Dump Road 400 has been similarly rewarding in matters of archaeology, only without any human remains.

In tilling a little plot for the sunflowers I have so far found:

1. A Sylvania Blue Dot ™ flashbulb for photography, never fired. I don’t know how it got there. I don’t know how it survived heat and rain and frost for years. I don’t know how it survived the tines of the mechanical tiller two weeks ago.

2. A small hatchet head, possibly meant for camping, with part of the top deliberately curled by the owner for purposes unknown to me. Someone suggested a specialty modification by a roofer. An InterGossip search of Boy Scout hatches, box hatchets, roofing hatchets, and so on revealed nothing similar.

3. A fine collection of broken glass.

4. A finer collection of screws and nails of various sizes. Old people (cough) are given to saying, “They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” but it is true. Modern nails and screws are often degraded pot metal poured into molds in Shanghai. Old nails and screws are made of extruded steel wire, and even after decades in the earth are often more durable than the modern ****. I have a big magnet on a rope for searching for nails and other ferrous objects. Even if the found objects are not useful, I’ve saved the lawnmower blades. Several years ago I came up with a pocketknife, a good old Schrade-Walden rusted beyond use. I imagine its owner looked for it a long time before giving it up and going to Mixson’s Hardware or Sharbutt’s Feed Store to buy a new one, bemoaning the old one as better.

This summer I should, barring adventures with the weather and incursions by varmints, have a modest stand of sunflowers. Agricultural supply houses sell neat little gadgets for hulling them, and I might try that someday, but for now I harvest the heads, store them in that famous cool dry place, and put them out for the birds and squirrels in the winter.

As they grow, sunflowers are beautiful, which is its own reward. As heliotropes they follow the sun. Scientists and other Dr. Grundy types assure us that heliotropes don’t really follow the sun, that the sun’s rays stimulate cells that blah, blah, blah.

Any small child knows better – sunflowers follow the sun because they want to.

So there.

Life is good.

-30

The Darwinian Cat - poem

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

The Darwinian Cat

For Pepper-Cat,

Who brought us a Rio Grande Leopard Frog

(Rana Berlandier)

But then, all cats are dour Darwinians
Students of the evolution of creatures
Sometimes with the eyes of good scholars, yes
But mostly by killing and eating them

They like gophers and green lizards the best
Careless cardinals and poor baby squirrels
But never snakes or scorpions or such-like pests
Or stringy, door-knocking evangelists

They eat little animals who hide in the wood -
They would eat Darwin too, if only they could!

They Say There's Some Sort of Bug Going Around - poem (of sorts)

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

They Say There’s Some Sort of Bug Going Around

Wuhan virus Chinese virus Bat virus
Corona virus Coronavirus
CoronaVirus Covid-19
COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2

Cure it? With what? Yet more war metaphors?
(Newark), they can’t even agree what to call it

Herd Immunity Properly Practiced - Poem

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

Herd Immunity Properly Practiced

One wishes for immunity to the herd
Freedom from the expectations of others
From being slotted and characterized
From the duty to be happily so

“Defined a generation” is a lie –
A man defines himself as he thinks best
Owing obedience only to God
(and traffic lights; let’s not get stupid, eh)

Otherwise, individual and free -
Oh,
If only everyone were just like me


Line 5 – “Man” and “he” are gender-neutral.
Line 11 – The irony is deliberate.

We Read Poems Because We Don't Know Poetry - poem (well, yes...)

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

We Read Poems Because We Don’t Know Poetry

Which sounds a bit too precious, but bear with me
Or hamster with me, to avoid a cliché
The sundial says, “The Best is Yet to Be”
And so it is, each word-rich summery day

If we take a page from the busy bee
Then every day is a summery day
Taking those dream-infused pages you see
Teasing each line our own, working away

We read poems because we don’t know poetry -
It’s all a matter of dreamility

Squaddies Posted at the Tomb - poem

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

What Happened to the Guards Posted at the Tomb?

Maybe the duty officer had it in for them
Some privates, a corporal, maybe a sergeant
Grousing about pulling a night watch
And in a Jewish cemetery – why?

No one agrees if they were temple police
Or Romans, for special duty detached
What time they were posted, how many there were
Or how into silence they were bullied or bribed

And no one much cares because

While heroes and saints get written up in books
Poor squaddies get only disapproving looks

Couplets for Holy Saturday in the Virus-Time

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

Couplets for Holy Saturday in the Virus-Time

Sure, there are empty churches, but then
There are equally empty men

And empty hearts in the Upper Room
But oh, tomorrow – an empty tomb!

Mrs. Pilate Posts a Bikini Selfie - poem

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

Good Friday in the Virus-Time

“…forgotten as a nameless number on a list that afterwards got mislaid”

-Doctor Zhivago, p. 503

The Altar is bare; broken are the mysteries
Our Lord is buried deep within the pyx
A stone of shame is rolled against our hopes
The night is foul with evil whisperings

How do we know? It’s on the television
That’s all that's left to us – sharp images
Of Darwinians dancing on mass graves
While keeping a social distance of art

Mrs. Pilate posts a bikini selfie -
Broken are the mysteries; the Altar is bare

A Midsummer Mystery - weekly column

Lawrence (Mack) Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Midsummer Mystery

A friend was riffed from his job two weeks ago, and for those two weeks all his attempts to apply for unemployment compensation have been futile. When he telephones Workforce (sic) he is made to spend hours on hold, and often his call is simply dropped after hours of waiting. When he can get through to a functionary he is told that he needs to validate his employment for a period when he was not employed, which is a self-cancelling requirement. He has also been told that he needs to provide proof of having tried to find a job when (1) he has been told to isolate at home, and (2) almost 7 million workers have been forced out of their jobs.

Apparently the people who handle unemployment take their service model from the VA or from Kafka’s Das Schloss.

The concept of essential and nonessential employees and businesses is a curious one. How can there be nonessential employees? Do employers ever choose to hire nonessential employees? And no business is nonessential. Anyone who runs a business does so because that is his or her livelihood, and the livelihood of the employees. Even a one-week gap would be devastating to a business, depriving the owner and the employees of 25% of their monthly income. And this gap is into its second month.

I have no solution to the economic stasis, but the Big Noises in Austin and D.C. must remember that no worker is nonessential, and that without food, clothing, and shelter life ends.

A friend brought me lots of plants by way of another friend, so I have been busily digging holes for them. For the plants, that is, not for the friends. Friends are wonderful.

The tomato plants are putting out their first fruits as little green spheres. The plants were but seeds at the beginning of March, when the multi-named virus (Legion?) began to attract our attention. In illo tempore there were no lockdowns, separations, isolations, restrictions, masks, empty streets, closed shops. These things were not even considered. We could go to a café’ with friends, book a haircut, visit the dentist, buy toilet paper, attend church, host a birthday party, go to work, volunteer at the nursing home or at the school, and every way celebrate all the little joys of life.

Now we consider a half-hour at the grocery store a mission to be planned and then executed as quickly as possible before returning to the bunker.

We know what life was like when the tomato plants were seedling; what will life be like when the tomatoes are ripe and red under the midsummer sun?

-30-

Decolonize the Pequod! - mindless drivel about that stupid whale

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

Decolonize the Pequod!

Call me E-mail, and, yes, I cheered for the whale -
Is there anyone so hard in his heart
That he cannot shed tears of happiness
When the whale kills the crew? Oh, rapturous day!

They are required reading; it’s all their fault
And, after all, sperm whale and Moby Dick –
Should America’s children read this trash?
I think not. It’s not in the Bible, right?

There's no baptismal image, only a boat
And hey, psycho captain, do wooden legs float?

A Bonfire on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist - poem

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

A Bonfire on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist

On Midsummer Eve, sunset and moonrise
Soon, please God, when the melancholy clears
We will pile up all of our masks and gowns
Our gloves and caps and scrubs – and all our sorrows

We will pile them up in a summer field
All of our fears, our social distancings
The lines, the signs that told us what to do
No smoking, eh? Well, just stand back and watch –

Fiat lux

On Midsummer Eve, sunset and moonrise
We’ll sing a hymn of remembrance for our lost

On Midsummer Eve, sunset and moonrise
Militant, suffering, and triumphant

Dear Patrick Stewart - poem

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

Dear Patrick Stewart

Dear Patrick,
Or Mr. Stewart,
Or Captain,
Or Sir,

Thank you for reading us Shakespeare each day -
Sonnets from your balcony and from the stairs
Smooth flowing iambics from all your chairs
Precise pentameter to smooth the way

Dear Patrick,

You and Will visit so we’re not alone
But we have some questions, if you don’t mind:
What do you find awkward in Sonnet IX?
And
How many pairs of glasses do you own?

Dear Captain,

Thank you for the beauties of each page
For giving us the courage to say with you,
                                                                     “Engage!”


https://twitter.com/SirPatStew

More Body Bags - poem

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

More Body Bags

When I came home from Viet-Nam I thought
I’d never again have to consider body-bags
Great rubbery things with long crude zippers
Usually there were toes for the  toe tags
Not always

Palm Sunday 2020 - poem

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

Palm Sunday 2020

Palm Sunday – but there are no palms at all
Except the ones we are to wash frequently
Like Pontius Pilate singing “Happy Birthday”
While his Roman Jeeves holds a silver bowl

There will be no procession from the parking lot
And into the church, singing out of sequence
Because those in the back of the procession
Cannot hear those in the front to keep time

But time itself is out of time today
There is no triumph - except in being alive

Airline Bailout (no pun) Jokes of my Own Devising

(I can't explain the unfortunate formatting; the blogger-thingie sometimes does that.)


Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Airline Bailout (no pun) Jokes of my Own Devising

1. Part of the bailout funding will be paid by Americans who are to be charged for every extra suitcase they have in their closets at home.


2. While airlines are grounded they will provide customer service via telephone and on the InterGossip:


     #1 if you wish to be snarled at by a flight attendant for asking if there is any coffee.


     #2 if you wish to be snarled at by a flight attendant for asking if breakfast will be served ("NO!
     We ran out at aisle 12! You can see that!").


     #3 if you wish to be ignored by a flight attendant while she sits in the back and reads a Harry
     Potter book (this happened to me on a very real Air Canada flight).