A Texas Ranger on the Trail - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Texas Ranger on the Trail

 

For Ranger Brandon Bess

 

His steely eyes stare into the microscope

Following a bloody track of DNA

Across the scrubby badlands of the lab

And into computer analysis

 

His gun hand targets matching saliva swabs

With a hair-trigger spectrophotometer

Double-loaded with HLA-DQalpha

Against Minifiler STR at high noon

 

Say, pardner –

 

If you commit a crime in Texas, then you had best

Beware the Ranger with a Teichman test

Scheduling the Execution of a Friend - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Scheduling the Execution of a Friend

 

Oh, yes, that oak is a friend, a fine old friend

Happy companion of lazy summer days

When I sat in its shade and drowsed over a book

Gently fanned by the leaves in those dreaming hours

 

Home to the mourning doves and angry jays

Preening cardinals and shy chickadees

Flying squirrels by night and grey squirrels by day

Armadillos, opossums, and raccoons

 

But dying now upon its grassy lawn -

The tree service will come for it at dawn

Can Internet Service Providers be Saved? - not exactly a poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Can Internet Service Providers be Saved?

 

Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.

 

-Leonard Cohen

 

Multiple Voices from an ISP:

 

Our order support team reported back…

you had 2 work orders. Your work order with us

has been cancelled and the email you forwarded

to me is the installation group you will need

to contact about scheduling. Sorry…We have received

this work order that was already scheduled for 5/8

morning. There are no notes from any dispatcher

speaking to you and changing the appointment

date/time. Below are the notes on the account

and no appointment changes have been made.

Called to t/s modem; modem is offline…

t/s modem is offline…Upgrade for

the Unlimited Bronze 12…set expectations…

I do not know who this sales group is. They

do state you are scheduled for 5/4 but the work

order they sent to the 3^rd party installer

shows your [sic] scheduled for 5/8. We do not

have techs in your area tomorrow…I have sent

your account to the order support team…Your appointment

scheduled [sic] has been updated…Changes have been made

to your ViaSat account.

 

API INSERT (Note) 04/30/2021 11:01:56 AM CDT BEP scheduling work order during creation. API UPDATE (Schedule Date) 04/30/2021 11:01:56 CDT Unscheduled Unassigned API INSERT (Note) 04/30/2021 11:01:53 AM CDT

 

Installation notes…Our records indicate…

We need to confirm your appointment…Your appointment

schedule has been updated…as your preferred date

could not be accommodated. We sincerely apologize…

We have been trying to reach you with the number you provided…

We have received your work order and would like to confirm…

Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message

to the following address…Your Viasat Internet

payment failed…Payment has not been received…

If you do not make a full payment soon…

relaying denied…To avoid interruption

of your Viasat service…You may also call us…

agent assist fees may apply…

 

Thanks for being a Viasat internet customer!

About that Bicycle Leaning Against a Sunlit Wall - poem

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

About that Bicycle Leaning Against a Sunlit Wall

 

About that bicycle leaning against a wall

All artsy and stuff in the slanting sun

“Take my clear photograph!” it seems to call -

Nah, put away your Leica - it’s been done

Physician and Poet - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Physician and Poet

 

For Allan Pulliam

Texas A & M ‘21

 

I used to admire your poetry…I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections...it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it.

 

-Strelnikov in Doctor Zhivago

 

Don’t write to be approved by masters who

Wear Rolexes in the Name of the People

Don’t write to be approved by masters at all

But be your own authority and see

 

Your work, your words are nobler than manifestos

The latest noisy Guelphs and Ghibellines

All Power to the Constituent Assembly

One folk, one nation, one waffle with syrup

 

Write freedom through verses, and disobey

Anyone who wants to take your voice away

“Now This Ain’t No S---” - poem (of a sort)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

“Now This Ain’t No S---”

 

The old chief took a slug of coffee and said,

“What’s the difference between a fairy story

And a war story?

One of ‘em begins with ‘Once upon a time’

And the other with ‘Now this ain’t no s----'"

 

And it is so.

Kryptonite Rocks and Invisible Magic Coins - Weekly Column

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Kryptonite Rocks and Invisible Magic Coins

 

Most ideas are merely structures – things built on bits of knowledge and insight you already possess. If the knowledge you possess is in error, the structure will be flawed.

 

-John D. McDonald, “Reading for Survival”

 

 

In my youth comic book ads offered mail-order invisible helmets, sea monkeys, x-ray glasses, jet planes you could actually fly, kryptonite rocks, nuclear submarines, machine guns, army tanks, life-size moon monsters, hypno-coins, frontier cabins, silent dog whistles, time machines, and Count Dante’s Deadly Fighting Secrets, all really-real!

 

This was pretty stupid stuff, but it was directed at naïve children, and sold well for generations. An adult, of course, should see through such mummery.

 

Unfortunately, many do not. Adults continue to buy this century’s invisible helmets offered in new forms.

 

A modern variant of x-ray glasses and kryptonite rocks are invisible magic coins.

 

The sales patter is that modern fiat money has no value, and so we should all invest in invisible magic coins. These invisible magic coins are generated by computers grinding away in their circuitry for hours. After the computers have spun millions of numbers around within themselves they come up with things that don’t exist, and those who control the computers propose to sell to us these things that don’t exist.

 

And how does the awe-struck victim buy invisible magic coins? Why, with that worthless fiat money.

 

The victim fails to consider that if invisible magic coins possess value, and fiat money does not, then the possessor of the invisible magic coins would hang on to the invisible magic coins and leave everyone else to their fiat money.

 

You don’t need x-ray glasses to see through invisible magic coins because they don’t exist. They are magic beans, the emperor’s new clothes, a fortune teller’s readings, a political party’s promises, magic crystals, your rich uncle in Nigeria, the South Sea Bubble, the Great Texas Emu Bubble, the Dot.Com Bubble, Enron, and whatever Next Big Thing is being peddled this week.

 

You might as well invest in one of those old comic book hypno-coins; you’d at least have a disc of pot-metal or plastic with a swirly image. You could look into it and say to yourself, “You are getting smarter…smarter…smarter…get a job…a job…a job…”

 

-30-

 

 

 

A Footprint on the Road to Santiago - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Footprint on the Road to Santiago

 

A footprint on the road to Santiago

It has meaning - a footprint, and another

An indent from the ferrule of a stick

Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

 

Sin-weary and sunburnt, a pilgrim plods

Through weeds and dust and sometimes traffic lights

And idlers mocking from across the road

Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

 

Where free from sin and pain and blood and scars

He may at last find peace in that Field of Stars

He Just Walked in Front of the Train - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

He Just Walked in Front of the Train

 

He just walked in front of the train, they say

Off in the woods, the lonely woods, the night

The rails as screaming horror in his wild death

Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

 

He just walked in front of the train, they say

The black-box cameras will show something of it

But not the emptiness that chased him there

Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

 

He just walked in front of the train, they say

Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

A Polite Response to an Invitation to a Crawfish Boil - poem, but not a good one

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Polite Response to an Invitation to a Crawfish Boil

 

Aquatic roaches

Foul, malodorous decay

Exoskeletons

"Dear Valued Customer..." - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Poetry Magazine Responds

 

Dear Valued Customer We have received

your email and it has been assigned

to one of our e-commerce team members.

Should we require additional information

 

we will contact you. Otherwise please be assured

that your request will be processed in a

timely fashion. Sincerely, Customer Care Department

Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing

 

“…that led me to answer an advertisement in the Sunday Times and

take a job…with a correspondence school…”

 

-Elizabeth Bishop, “The U. S. A. School of Writing”

 

And a certificate!

 

The ad presented as a joke, only it wasn’t:

(Famous Name Brand School)’s Continuing Studies Program

Will make you Hemingway for eighty dollars

And there is a student testimonial

 

And a certificate!

 

Embrace the tools solidify develop

Accomplished authors craft tutorials

Dedicated dynamic cohort peers

Passionate instructors prestigious fellows

 

And a certificate!

 

Achieve the goal for which you have been aiming!

(And a certificate, suitable for framing)

 

Only eighty dollars

 

“The U. S. A. School of Writing had been raided by the police shortly after I left…”

 

-Elizabeth Bishop

 

 

Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry is rightly praised, but her prose, less often noted, is equally delightful in its construction and content.

Oath Peepers Security Cameras - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Oath Peepers Security Cameras

 

The security cameras around the house aren’t much

The cheapest available on Yarmuk.com

They take dim pictures of the UPS guy

And fuzzy grey shots of ‘possums at night

 

A problem is that they think they’re Army cameras

That the batteries they took never expire

That the science of optics has been betrayed

And that light is whatever they want it to be

 

Along the windowsills they belch and *art:

“Tina Modotti is a traitor to art!”

A Morning Cup of Coffin: No Straight Lines in Nature - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

No Straight Lines in Nature

 

That commonplace of art instruction is true:

From the rainbow to the tomato worm

And in the rhythms of our chambered hearts

Creation curves itself around our lives

 

A straight line is of the imagination

Repudiated even by that famous crow

Who flies as he will and not according

To the abstracts of mathematicians

 

Nothing in nature chooses graphed confines -

Of course the man-made coffin – that features straight lines

Spring in the Air, Springs in the Air, and a Brick - weekly column re spring wind and hail and wreckage

 

Mack Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Spring in the Air, Springs in the Air, and a Brick

 

There will be no firewood shortage this coming winter. A tree-shaded lawn is a homeowner’s dream, a tree in repose across the lawn less so, along with trees across the roads, trees taking down power lines, trees fallen across the children’s swing sets, trees crushing the lawn chairs where the old people sit on pleasant mornings, trees, trees, trees, and shoals of hail that did not thaw until evening, all set picturesquely among a landscape litter and debris.

 

Along the highway I saw a trampoline upside down, blown through the air at least hundreds of yards because there are no houses nearby. It was an occasion not only of spring in the air but springs in the air.

 

Among all the debris at my country estate was a brick on the lawn. A brick. It had been blown about thirty feet from a pile of brick and concrete bits.

 

A heavy steel chair of the sort one used to see in barber shops (along with those delightful pictures of poker-playing dogs) was blown about forty yards into the field, although small, light objects on a patio table at the chair’s point of departure had not been disturbed at all.

 

And there was the loss of two of my apple trees. Well, more firewood.

 

The song of the chainsaw is heard again in our land, following nature’s rhythms of winter ice storms, spring hailstorms, and summer tornados. It’s how we live; it’s what we do. These rhythms keep us humble, and remind us how aesthetically pleasing are the words “JASPER-NEWTON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE” spelled out in a festive green or “PRECINCT 3” in subdued black on the sides of bucket trucks and pole trucks and crew trucks and truck-trucks. Their dignified progress along our mucky roads is as joyful as a religious procession.

 

Here along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension the power was out for about seventeen hours because the winds and trees took down at least one pole and transformer and any number of lengths of power line. And that was just one or two miles of the hundreds of miles of lines in our service area.

 

As in February’s ice storm, Mr. Bialetti served our morning coffee.

 

The Bialetti coffee maker is a work of Italian genius in function and art, and still made in Italy. Designed almost a hundred years ago, the Bialetti is elegant in thick aluminum, and consists of only three parts. The base is the water chamber, and when the water is just the right heat the physics of the matter bubble it up through the aluminum coffee filter and into the upper chamber, which is the coffee pot proper.

 

The Bialetti is not decorated with “PRECINCT 3” OR “JASPER-NEWTON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE”, although those would be nice too, but with a picture of natty little man with a natty little moustache, Signor Bialetti himself.

 

The Bialetti is designed for a stove top, of course, and it works fine on a camp stove (OUTSIDE; OPEN FLAMES INSIDE ARE NEVER A GOOD IDEA).

 

Before you start cleaning up the windfall, you need a cup of coffee served by Mr. Bialetti.

 

-30-

Morning Coffee with Signor Bialetti - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Morning Coffee with Signor Bialetti

 

Wreckage is everywhere, two apple trees down

Limbs and leaves and litter, shingles and wood

The lawns are white with shoals of springtime hail

The lines are down and the power is out

 

But Signor Bialetti from Italy

A super-hero in aluminum

Is pleased to take his place on the camping stove

Twirl his moustache and stride through Sterno fire

 

Singing songs from his favorite libretti

While making us coffee – O brave Signor Bialetti!

Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-olds - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-Olds

 

“You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

 

-Holmes’ first words to Watson in

A Study in Scarlet, 1887

 

Ghosts shriek in the wind from the Hindu Kush

Falling upon the lowlands in despair

Of any reality beyond death

In the blood-sodden sands where sinks all good

 

Walls, monuments, souls, hopes – all blow away

In the wreckage of long-fallen empires

Their detritus trod upon by tired men

Whose graves will be the howling dust of time

 

And yet the empire masters will return

And leave fresh offerings of more young men:

A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,

A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull

 

 

From The Road to Magdalena, Lawrence Hall, 2012, available via amazon.com

 

“Afghanistan, graveyard of empires” is a common saying whose source is unknown.

 

Awarded the Chair of Poetry - poem (he said without irony)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Awarded the Chair of Poetry at a Leafy Rural Tree

 

Among its ancient gifts are acorns and leaves

But the most generous stipend is peace

Oh, sure, we have our academic rivalries –

Just last night a raccoon occupied the chair

 

And the cardinals and jays squawk a bit

Mostly about seeds, seldom about verse

For arguing with Keats and Yevtushenko

Is my great pleasure and duty, not theirs

 

Who knew –

 

That an old steel chair dragged onto the lawn

Could be a center of civilization?

Moo. Herd Immunity. Moo. - poem (of a sort)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Moo. Herd Immunity. Moo.

 

"I don't know what herd immunity is, but when you add that to the people who have acquired immunity, it looks like it could be very close to herd immunity.”

 

-Texas Governor Greg Abbott,

as quoted by the Washington Post via The Houston Chronicle

 

 

Moo. Herd immunity. Moo. Simple math.

Moo. Very close. Moo. Vigilant. Moo. Proactive.

Moo. Efficacy. Moo. Calculation.

Moo. Dashboards. Moo. Trackers. Moo. Asymptomatic.

 

Moo. 70% Moo. 80%.

Moo. Fourth surge. Moo. Waves. Moo. Gaps. Moo. Pockets.

Moo. Complications. Moo. Misunderstandings.

Moo. Factors. Moo. Threshold. Moo. Duration

 

Moo. Emerging. Probable. Moo. Data.

Moo. Equation. Moo. Very close. Moo. Died.

 

“I don’t know what herd immunity is…”

 

Moo.

 

 

Texas governor says state is 'very close' to herd immunity. The data tells a different story. (chron.com)

Our Antikythera Mechanisms - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Our Antikythera Mechanisms

 

Chariots of the odds and ends of life

Wooden boxes of bronze mechanisms

By which we navigate the memories

Of all the golden islands of our youth

 

The hidden anchorages of lost love

And barefoot beaches of youth’s innocence

Beneath bright sunlit hills of wild must grapes

That taste of our desires in dreaming hours

 

All lost, alas, fallen into the sea

The sea of remembrance, eternally