Post Office Trash Can and Priority Mail Tape - a metaphor?

The Poets are Remarkably Silent on the Subject of Portable Generators - weekly column

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

The Poets are Remarkably Silent

on the Subject of Portable Generators

-as G. K. Chesterton did not say

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has nothing to add to the many Hurricane Laura narratives except gratitude:

1. To the Jasper-Newton Electric Co-Operative, who had the power up again within a very few days despite the multiple failures of large feeder lines and the many localized windfall line breakages.

2. To the Jasper-Newton Rural Water Co-Op, who through their professionalism and anticipation kept the water flowing.

3. To all the coppers and first responders and volunteers and charities and church groups who provided food and water and showers and support for the refugees and for those without resources during this bad time.

4. To the National Weather Service and to our local television and radio stations who gave us good, accurate, no-nonsense, timely information on the progress of the storm.

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has a criticism:

The well-paid, well-fed, loud-mouthed afternoon radio boys, who never pushed a verb against a noun without trying blow up something (Inherit the Wind) faulted the NWS and other weather services for creating unreasonable fear through hyperbole. Nonsense. And other words. The public and private weather services called it right. The storm was just as destructive as anticipated, only in a smaller area. As for survivability, in Louisiana they haven’t finished counting the corpses.

Y’r ‘Umble Scrivener has a wish:

I wish that a certain pompous jack-ass (am I permitted to say that?) who postures and pesters and prattles and pontificates for a corporate weather service that will remain nameless but not shameless, would, while standing in the wind and gassing off like a Dan Rather manque’ (and the original is tiresome enough), be hurled off his feet by the storm and sent skidding on his as(ininity) a block or two down the street. One wishes no real harm to him, of course, only a needed lesson in humility and professionalism.

As for your ‘umble scrivener, he bugged out to Midlothian (Dallas, not Scotland) with the extended family, including two dachshunds and two cats (and tooooooooo thrilling) for two comfortable nights at the Marriott, whose kind and patient staff are much to be praised.

One of the desk clerks is Leto, pronounced “Plato” only without the “P.” He is a juggler and entertainer, and one of the many Marriott staff who did so much for all of us.

Upon return I was happy to note that the new portable generator worked as advertised. No one was happy to note that the old window air-conditioner failed, and so we miseried through a couple of hot nights with only electric fans. But, hey, we had electric fans, and a lot of people in Jefferson County and in Louisiana southwestern parishes don’t have fans or electricity or water or any certainty about the future.

When on Sunday the preacher-man asks for a second collection for the displaced, give. GIVE. People are suffering.

Peace.

-30-

Dreams / Limit Three Per Customer, Please - poem

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

Dreams / Limit Three Per Customer, Please

For a Supermarket Worker

We passed in the market, next to the frozen foods
Shelves mostly empty; she was checking a list
I asked her how she was doing; she paused
Then wearily sighed, “I’m just living the dream”

We are all weary, evacuation-weary
Virus-weary, and hurricane-weary
Weary from the heat and damp and rot
Weary from the motions, weary from unpaid bills

Weary from the crises that wrecked many a plan -
And some were weary before all this began

The Juggler of Midlothian as Written in This Poem

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

The Juggler of Midlothian

He steps away from Cicely, Alaska
He steps away from the reception desk
He steps into the center of the lobby
He steps up and sends into inner space

Tennis balls      Tennis balls                              Tennis balls
             Tennis balls

                                         Tennis balls

                    More tennis balls

TennisTennisTennisTennis balls

And calls them back into his hands again

His name is Leto, pronounced like Plato
Only without the P; his text is Dune
Frank Herbert’s Dune, and he is Leto
The Emperor, in exile for a time

The tennis balls evoke the worlds he dreams
And this one too – nothing is as it seems


(I’m a plodding Dostoyevsky man meself)


Note: Leto is a desk clerk at the Midlothian (Texas, not Scotland) Marriott, who welcomes early-rising exiles with merriment, wisdom, and orbiting tennis balls.

That's Not Where Sunscreen Goes - InterGossip Capture

Not-a-Haiku about Haiku - poem

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

Not-a-Haiku about Haiku

Only a Japanese master can shape happy words

To fall upon the earth like soft spring rain

Choreographing merry rivulets

Through which Ame-no-Usume dances the dawn

Only a Japanese master can take a leaf

As a page of the Emperor’s great book

And taste it, hear it, touch it, sing of it

And in it see the completion of the world

Only a Japanese master can wield

Kireji, On, and Kigo as a sword

(In this context “master” is gender-neutral)

United States Postal Service - Someone Has Peeked

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms! - poem

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

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms!

(It’s a Navy thing)

If you think you’re too special to sweep the deck
Well, you’re not; get over yourself and turn to
But if someone hands you a broom and a ‘tude
That Irish pennant needs to get over himself

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation - poem

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

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation

“…and that the fury of the storms may pass away.”

-Missale Romanum, p. 1612

The temperature is 97

The hummingbird feeders must go up first

The humidity is 77

The feeder for the birds and squirrels is next

The temperature is 97

The outside cats are nowhere to be seen

The humidity is 77

But food and water are waiting for them too

The temperature is 97

The largest oak has lost much of itself

The humidity is 77

Red oak – more firewood for the winter

The temperature is 97

The electrical lines are down – how long?

The humidity is 77

But happiness - the house itself seems okay

The temperature is 97

Leaves shoal across the lawn and against the walls

The humidity is 77

Insulation from lost houses reef the fields

The temperature is 97

Debris, human and natural, debris

The humidity is 77

The world is covered with a litterfall

The temperature is 97

The generator coughs and barks and starts

The humidity is 77

We will sleep under electric fans tonight

The temperature is 97

Electric cords slither across the floors

The humidity is 77

The refrigerator takes turns with the coffee pot

The temperature is 97

The window unit that worked two weeks ago

The humidity is 77

Failed – everything is damp and hot and still

The temperature is 97

The damp and rot make sleep impossible

The humidity is 77

Dawn is but headaches, heat, dampness, and despair

The temperature is 97

Shifting fallen limbs from the driveway and lawn

The humidity is 77

And breathing heavily in the soggy heat

The temperature is 97

The road is blocked down at the other end

The humidity is 77

Strangers back up to my lane to turn around

The temperature is 97

We share information, rumors mostly

The humidity is 77

And wish each other well in this fallen time

The temperature is 97

The cats return, shyly, and one by one

The humidity is 77

From among green cover new to them

The temperature is 97

I sit in the shade and drink lots of water

The humidity is 77

And sweat and stink and try to catch my breath

The temperature is 97

An insolent hummingbird buzzes me

The Humidity is 77

He wears a green coat and a bright red tie

The temperature is 97

The bees are back at their freshwater pool

The humidity is 77

I poison the ants who are invading the house

The temperature is 97

Day after day, like The Ancient Mariner

The humidity is 77

Becalmed for days on a sunbeaten sea

But then: today, to everyone’s great joy

The electrics were restored by the rural co-op

And I stopped cleaning up the yard and house

To kill the generator and roll up cords

And to write to you to say that all is well
At our little house

Because we have houses to live in, you and I,

And lots of people don’t, and that’s easy to forget

At the foot of the thermostat

Peace especially for the homeless and for exiles
And for you too

The Juggler of Midlothian (Midlothian Marriot Courtyard, Desk Clerk Leto)

An enjoyable stay while in exile from Hurricane Laura. All the staff at the Midlothian Marriott Courtyard are very friendly and helpful. I was up at dawn for that first cup of coffee and met Leto, one of the many nice folks who work in this hotel.

"Now Tell Me Again the Things We're Against" - poem

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

“Now Tell Me Again the Things We’re Against”

She told us that she had truly been saved
Her new life of freedom had now 
          commenced
Then she turned to a co-religionist and 
          raved
“Oh, tell me again about the things we’re
          against!”

"Make Sure all Your Devices are Fully Charged" - poem

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

“Make Sure All Your Devices 
are Fully charged”

Nothing about a storm respects our trifles:
A flashlight is no good against the rain
A MePhone cannot block a falling tree
A watch cannot divert wild thunderbolts

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

A wireless doorbell cannot stop the wind
A radio cannot swim to save its life
A tablet cannot operate a boat
A laptop is quite unable to float

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

That’s thin advice when facing the eternal:
Nothing about a storm respects our lives

What Toppings Would You Like on Your Hurricane Cone? - poem for 23 August 2020

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

What Toppings Would You Like 
on Your Hurricane Cone?

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Two cones? I’d rather just one. Vanilla
And Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence was 
          fun
I had to sort out conic sections in math
But cones like that are lacking in good 
          taste

And now two cones are moving up the 
          coast
Maybe tomorrow they’ll move back down 
          again
While we stack toilet paper and MREs
Perhaps the ice cream truck’s an ice cream 
          float

No one knows if the cones are there or 
          here –
That’s pretty much a metaphor for this 
          year

John Milton Title Page, MePhone Photograph

Of your kindness please pray for the repose of 

Professor Huston Diehl

of happy, happy memory -

A true scholar and a wonderful teacher

University in the Virus-Time - poem

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

University in the Virus-Time

The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him.

-C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I don’t know if you should put down your 
     glass
Or even stub out that late-night cigarette
But please know that a more rebellious 
     vice
Lies in an understanding of Paradise Lost

(Although blind Milton was genocidal…)

And it takes courage and humility
To get all naughty with quadratic 
     equations
Or slip between the sheets and cuddle up
With Augustine, Euclid, Plato, or Keats

(I would never date a math course, of course…)

Many are called to university
But few are chosen – so choose to learn 
     yourself 1

(Pssssst – Cliff’s Notes, okay? Just don’t tell anyone...)


1 That there are three meanings is deliberate

What's the Buzz? - rhyming doggerel

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

What’s the Buzz?

Mosquitoes at humans must smugly smirk
They plot all day long and hide in the mud
Then as the sun sets, in bushes they lurk
And when you pass by, they drink all your 
     blood!

Yevtushenko, Book Cover, 20th Century Russian Poetry

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself - weekly column

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

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself

Only in Russia is poetry respected –

it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else

where poetry is so common a motive for murder?

-attributed to Osip Mandelstam

Recently I finished a book only half-remembered from my youth, Yevtushenko’s A Precocious Autobiography.

I had no idea that a poet I had long admired was such a, well, jerk. He claims to have been a championship table-tennis player, that he could have been a professional soccer player, that he mastered ju-jitsu and can beat anyone up and that he is afraid of nothing, that everyone failed to understand his brilliance as a poet while simultaneously admiring him for his brilliance, that the Soviets picked on him even while flying him all over the world to represent the Soviet Union and proudly assert his Communism, and that he who would later earn lots of money and own at least two homes airily disapproved of money like a good comrade.

A photograph in the book is labeled “Yevtushenko and Galya at the home of the former Luftwaffe General Huebner” but an admittedly quick search through the InterGossip does not indicate that there was any such person.

The famous first line of his autobiography is “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry.”

Yevtushenko accuses Arthur Rimbaud of having been a slave trader when in fact there is no evidence for it (Rimbaud was certainly bad enough in other ways, including being an arms dealer). Yevtushenko also claims to be a sophisticated art critic and patronizes other cultures and peoples in unfortunate and sometimes offensive language. He faults Western nations for their failings (and fair enough) but ignores the seventy years of horror and mass executions and mass incarcerations and the genocidal mania of the Communist Revolution. Oh, and Lenin was a good fellow; Communism would have worked had not Stalin betrayed the Revolution.

And so it goes, for 124 self-serving pages.

Perhaps Yevtushenko’s most famous poem is “Babiy Yar” (there are variant spellings in English even by Yevtushenko himself), admitting the Russian / Ukrainian silencing of the Nazi massacre of some 34,000 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev in two days in 1941, with thousands of more Jews as well as Roma, prisoners of war, Russians accused of partisan activity, the mentally ill, and others. Possibly some 100,000 people were murdered there in the Nazi time, and there may have been Russian / Ukrainian compliance. After the war the Communists downplayed the Jewish focus. Yevtushenko is praised for his courage in bringing up the matter, but the reality is that he could not have published that poem without the permission of the Communist government, and perhaps on their orders.

In this short poem Yevtushenko refers to himself in first-person pronouns at least 27 times, making Babi Yar about himself.

Given all this, I recommend the book highly. Yes, it really is interesting, but as with the most gaseous old man in the corner down at the diner you can’t rely upon his veracity.

Beyond that, Yevtushenko’s poetry is fascinating. I have no Russian, and while the standard for Russian poetry is rhyming iambic tetrameter, I don’t know how he structured it, but the content is brilliant.

Also brilliant is his anthology, 20th Century Russian Poetry (he doesn’t neglect to give himself lots of space in it).

Yevtushenko admires himself, but, yes, there is much to admire.

Peace to you, Yevgeny, you old rascal; you’ll always be one of my favorites.

-30-

An August Day - But on What Planet? - poem

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

An August Day – But on What Planet?

An August day of dragging hoses, washing 
     dishes
Watching hummingbirds while doing the
     laundry
Pulling up the last exhausted tomato vines
Feeding the dogs and cats, mowing the 
     lawns:

The summery hours of heat and work and 
     sweat
Considering the clouds and praying for 
     rain
Enjoying the way the light falls on the 
     grapes
And marveling how green the grass still is

And in the evening a glass of iced tea
And then the news –
                               What planet are they on?

"The days are gone / When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory" - SEAFARER, Anglo-Saxon, anonymous, trans. Burton Raffel