Putting on a Bold Texas Face Against CV-19 - weekly column

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

Putting on a Bold Texas Face Against CV-19

My latest washable mask is from the skilled fingers of a local young woman artisan who crafted it with variations on our Lone Star Flag. When I drive into town on errands I’m not only doing my small part for the safety of others I’m also showing my loyalty to our Republic.

May God bless Texas and may He confuse all her enemies.

An axion of country life in Texas is that a man isn’t fully dressed without his pocketknife. So it was, so it is, so it will be.

And, no, a pocketknife is not a weapon, although as with any other tool (possibly not a tape measure) it can be used as such. A pocketknife is a tool for work, which is possibly what confuses the keyboard commandos and the perpetually outraged who want to ban everything they don’t understand.

Another tool without which a man is not fully dressed for the present is his face mask. Masks can be used by packs of unmanly losers who hide their cowardly mugs while robbing an unarmed store clerk, but that is not what masks are for.

A mask is not about the wearer at all; a mask is about a man’s protectiveness of those whose health is vulnerable to the That Bug (or whatever it is the tubers are calling it this week). Protecting the vulnerable is what men do, the whole “women and children first” thing.

If you think you look silly with a mask, well, that’s pretty much irrelevant because when you wear a mask, a sick child or a recent transplant patient or your Meemaw or Pawpaw along the chain of being will NOT die.

I look pretty darned silly without a mask anyway, so that’s another reason for me, at least, to wear one.

Surgeons wear masks, as do nurses, technicians, and the EMTs who came out to the house in the middle of the night when your mama fell. The masks aren’t for the health-care providers, who are in the peak of health; the masks are to protect your mama. You love your mama, don’t you?

A surgeon or EMT doesn’t argue against wearing masks based on some specious claim about some amendment, nor does he or she have any problem breathing and working and saving lives while wearing them. It’s about duty.

Look, I don’t like masks. I don’t like wearing them. I don’t like going back to the truck for a mask because I forgot it. Masks make my glasses fog. Masks smell funny.

And, sure, those are sorrows right up there with mass murder or mass starvation or desert warfare in Whosedumbideawasthisistan.

Yep, you probably look pretty silly in a mask. So deal with it. Suck it up. Saddle up. Man up. Ride to the sound of the guns. Wear your mask.

A little history re masks:

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/07/photos-influenza-masks-1918/614272/?utm_source=&silverid-ref=NTQ1Mjk2NDIyMjYwS0

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Praying for Rain on Saint Swithin's Day - poem

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

Praying for Rain on Saint Swithin’s Day

Oh, yes, there are pale necromancers still
Like poor Macbeth’s witches summoning facts
That rise like bloated corpses to the surface
Of strange electromechanical cauldrons

But we consult the winds, the clouds, the stars
Whose songs and shapes and brilliant silences
Allow us to savor all mysteries
The hymns of Creation from long ago

Some look into little cauldrons for the rain
But we look up expectantly to God

The Vain Hope of Ascending to Heaven Upon Clouds of Toilet Paper - Doggerel

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

The Vain Hope of Ascending to Heaven Upon Clouds of Toilet Paper

A Brief Discourse in Doggerel Verse Upon the False Hopes and Vanities of Hoarding

in Which it is Hoped that Young and Old Will Suffer Themselves to be Wisely Instructed

Upon Certain Errors and Perils. Amen.

We mourn the passing of poor Joe Draper
Crushed by falling cases of toilet paper

And though poor Joe had fever, ‘flu, and gout,
It was the toilet paper that wiped him out

A Pocket Notebook Found in an Old Coat - poem

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

A Pocket Notebook Found in an Old Coat

1. Memos to myself in the long ago:

McKuen asks me for my autograph
Cohen offers me one of his coolest hats
Or maybe that famous blue raincoat
Pushkin’s spirit challenges me to a duel

Book-signing in Harrod’s on Saturday
An invitation from the Bishop of Rome
For the same day as the Queen’s garden party
I need to find full-dress for the Nobel

2. Memo to myself now:

Well, maybe next year in Jerusalem -
I always keep my passport up to date

Woods Spider at Dusk - MePhone Photograph

The larger spider is about the size of an adult human's hand.  The next morning there were more small spiders, presumably the larger spider's offspring.

The Congress of Vienna Sausage - poem

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

The Congress of Vienna Sausage

How strange to find that we are Metternichs
Among a scape of crumbling institutions
Of cracked and weedy streets, with last night’s screams
Souring in the searing, soulless midday sun

Our dreams deferred, our works falling apart
The processes of being that seemed resolved
Now knotted and tangled beyond all knowing
Our spiritual compasses pointing back at us

But we are here, with shovels, buckets, and brooms,
Lifting the CAUTION tapes, and cleaning up

Again




https://www.historytoday.com/archive/what-was-congress-vienna
https://www.britannica.com/event/Congress-of-Vienna
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory2/chapter/the-congress-of-vienna/

The Centimetre-Worm - poem

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

The Centimetre-Worm

On a summer day

While harvesting the first sunflower seeds
I felt the shyest tickle on my arm
As if the smallest creature in the world
Wanted me to pay attention to it

And it was so – a centimetre-worm
Whose dream was to be an inchworm someday
Arching its little green self in a dance
Of nature: “Look at me too!” was its theme

And when its adagio was complete

I politely bowed the worm-in-training
Stage right onto a refreshing tomato leaf

On a summer day

In Honor of Hagia Sophia - poem

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

In Honor of Hagia Sophia

From A Liturgy for the Emperor

Our eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated:
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree -
Constantinople lives, now and forever

A Cup of Morning 'Possum - poem

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

A Cup of Morning ‘Possum

Or

The Great ‘Possum Invasion of 2020

A morning best begins with a cuppa joe
(insert an appropriate ad jingle here)
That first reflective cup of optimism
Given us by our beneficent God

But first I must take the nightly ‘possum away
Far into the woods, away from my tomatoes
The trap set every evening, and sprung every night
‘Possums day after ‘possum day, oh, yay

And so

The garden is at peace, the coffee is hot
The dachshunds are happy, the ‘possum is not

Another cup?



Note: Opossums / ‘possums are beneficent animals in so many ways (https://www.littlethings.com/possum-facts/) and should never be harmed, but if they find your garden vegetables delicious they (the ‘possums, not the vegetables) can be gently repatriated to the wild by way of any of the many types of no-pain, no-kill live-traps. After gardening season I trap them only to put them on the other side of the fence in order to keep them save from the dogs.

Your Job is Essential - Weekly Column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Your Job is Essential

Some say this is the age of the coronavirus (or whatever the deadly infection is being called this week). Perhaps it is, but more than that this is the age of incoherence. No one agrees on what the killer virus is, where it came from, whether it is a perturbation in nature (Macbeth 5:1), an accident of research, or a malevolent plot. No one agrees on masks or not masks, isolation or congregation, work or no work, medical ventilators or not, treatments, schemes, dubious medicines (Macbeth IV:I), numbers of deaths, or the utility of borders (Richard II II:1)

But there is one thing that is, as Shakespeare said, as constant as the northern star (Julius Caesar III.1): your job is essential.

An economy can no more shut down than a state – if it does, it dies. People will die. A parent does not shut down his or her family: “Sorry, kids, no more eating, no more breathing – just shut down. No complaints, please; just die quietly.”

Water does not come from a tap, electricity does not come from a little box in the wall, and food does not come from the store. All goods and services are based on the physical and intellectual endeavors of human beings. The sequencing of water from an undependable and unclean state of nature requires smart, industrious human beings to drill wells, build dams, establish reservoirs, construct pipelines, devise water pumps and tanks, analyze and clean and purify water, and develop a system of maintenance.

Farming and the delivery of clean, nutritious, edible food requires a complexity of physical and intellectual endeavor possible only with a highly developed and thus orderly civilization.

Every bit of honest work contributes to life, to humanity, to civilization: farming, welding, building trucks, driving railway trains, flying planes, delivering the mail, changing the baby, planting a garden, sacking groceries, filling prescriptions, cleaning the ditches for drainage and mosquito abatement, roofing the house, waiting tables, clearing foliage from power lines, building a fence, herding cattle, selling shirts, changing the oil, washing clothes, taking a grandchild fishing, buying, learning, selling, reading, writing, calculating tree volume with a Biltmore stick just as your vocational agriculture or math teacher taught you – all these endeavors feed, clothe, and shelter us now and help carry civilization from one generation to the next.

The Book of Genesis is clear that we humans must work the gifts given us, and that whatever God’s purposes for us, lounging in front of glowing screens and indulging in passive entertainments are not part of them. The Garden is there, yes, but if we don’t turn to and bear a hand, there’ll be nothing to eat.

I don’t have any solutions for the whatevervirus and the current discontents (wear your mask and maintain good hygiene and distance, though), but keeping people from working will – will – make things worse, not only for individual families who will lose their homes and their livelihoods, but for all of humanity. Categorizing any honest labor as nonessential is uncivilized.

Your job is essential.

          Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s   
          happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to
          see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

-Corin, As You Like It III.ii

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The Last Supper via Zoon - unsourced humor

I regret that I don't know the source of this excellent wheeze. If someone does know, please send the information so that I can give credit. Cheers!

Doctrine of Left-Handed Signatures - poem

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

Doctrine of Left-Handed Signatures

For each its purpose every plant is signed
Embedded by the Maker with intents
In willing service to Creation, then
Maybe we shouldn’t tell them how to live

Because if we humans are signed for plants
Embedded by the Maker with intents
In willing service to Creation, then
Maybe they shouldn’t tell us how to live

Dragging hoses for them, weeding for them,
Buying fertilizer – so who’s the boss?


(This is a bit of fun in homage to fictional Sergeant Hathaway in an Inspector Lewis episode, The Soul of Genius.)

Mushroom in a Pot of Mint - MePhone Photograph

Inactive Shooter - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Inactive Shooters

If only there were inactive shooters
And inactive shooting situations -
Cafes where nothing much is going on
And we forget to learn where the exits are

Terrorists too lazy to lock ‘n’ load
Bigots rising up only for another beer
Ku Klux Klankers taking a laundry day
Mad bombers playing barefoot among the flowers

A parking ticket making the front page -
If only there were inactive shooters




Previously published in a vanity anthology, Don't Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, available on Amazon as an e-book and as fragments of dead tree.

The Platonic Tree - poem

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

The Platonic Tree

(If Plato had considered a tree instead of a cave)

cf. Republic, Book VII

For a little child a tree is forever
It is as it was, and will always be
In a dreamy stasis beyond all time
True sunlight flickering pale shadows away

A tree is not a transient republic -
It is a monarchy, and crowned with green
For a royal fellowship ordained by God
This Summer Palace of princes and princesses

As royal children they rule over toys and dolls
Lizards and bees and beetles, dogs and cats
And little chameleons who sometimes pause
To count the coins in their pink moneybags

The ceremonies of ladies and their knights
Are properly observed beneath fair leaves
Upheld by arches and pendentives of oak
Through which sunbeams and magic daydreams fly

And when sweet summer’s children are quite old
Reduced to servitude in paying bills
And answering irrelevant messages
On shrilling importunate telephones:

They will cradle their cave-shadowy ‘phones

And remember that

For a little child a tree is forever

As St. Benedict Did Not Say: Work, Study, Prayer, and a Mask - MePhone Photograph

Sunday-Go-To-Meeting' Mask - Doggerel

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

Sunday-Go-To-Meetin’ Mask

Our faces adorned in baptismal white
We carefully approach the Altar of God
Touching each pew because the mask-y blight
Befogs one’s spectacles - awkward and odd

Because his eyeglasses are but a smear
Each obstacle thus is undetectable
The worshipper indeed approaches in fear
Each confusing visual dialectical

And then…

He falls in clumsiness undelectable
And makes himself an unholy spectacle!

Logging, July 2020 - MePhone Photograph

The Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Assistant Principal - poem

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

The Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Assistant Principal

(Well, three out of four, eh?)

For David Pitts,

Who Honors his Students

Of math the assistant principal spoke:
The elegance of a geometric proof
When it brightens the mind, the eye the sky
Completing a song of the universe

Of poetry a teacher rattled on:
The elegance of rhythmic verse that tells
Of dancing stars and dreaming mists and life
Completing a song of the seasons of man

Because

All learning is not only right and dutiful
It is a matter of
                           The Good, the True, and the Beautiful

Veterans Drinking Coffee at the Angkor Wat Happy Doughnut Shop on the Fourth of July - poem

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

Veterans Drinking Coffee at the Angkor Wat Happy Doughnut Shop

on the Fourth of July

Everything else was closed, so here we are
At the next table three textbooks are spread:
Physics, Algebra II, and Calculus
The owner’s kid, wiping counters today

Come-from-away children cook and clean, sweep floors
And in between their chores are at their books
The native-born are still abed, asleep
In a smart-phone hangover of lethargy

Last night a man rattled on about glory
He wasn’t with us on the Vam Co Tay