Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Joyful Mystery
May we all someday
Be presented in the Temple
In spite of ourselves
Sunday, May 9, 2021
A Joyful Mystery - haiku
Saturday, May 8, 2021
He was Hollerin' Jesus on Nowhere Street - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
He was Hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street
The madman shouted in the market place. No one stopped to
answer him.
Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible.
-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings,
12.22.57
He was hollerin’ Jesus on
Nowhere Street
At the Corner of Life and
Death, ‘way gone
Where there was a grocery
store when we was kids
Next to a soda fountain
with pinball machines
He was hollerin’ – sinners
can’t hear, I guess
And beatin’ on his Bible and
dancin’ about
Like a man with a devil in
his soul
And that ol’ devil was
wearin’ him down
He was hollerin’ among the
ruins, a shame
When he looked at me
and hollered my name
Friday, May 7, 2021
We're Here for Nancy Pelosi's Laptop - mindless doggerel
Disclaimer: I have no idea
if anything reported is factual; we have no Edward R. Murrow, only conflicting
ideological sites purporting to report the news.
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“We’re Here for Nancy Pelosi’s Laptop”
This is Homer, Alaska, Ed Murrow reporting. Homer, which is no stranger to bad tidings,
received news today that that Nancy Pelosi’s laptop is still missing…
-as Edward R. Murrow did not
say in 1940
Up pops the F.B.I., bashing
down the door
Guns drawn, handcuffs out,
better hit the dirt
Laptops taken, closets
searched, they want more -
Maybe Hunter’s pix, or Tom
Brady’s shirt
Up pops the F.B.I.,
warrants locked and loaded
Looking for rightista
revolutionaries
With secret maps all
Q-Anon coded
Bound in bamboo ballots
from Buenos Aires
Up pops the F.B.I., yes, pop,
pop, pop:
“We are here for the
senator’s laptop!”
“Here in Alaska?”
“I dunno; I’ll ask her!”
6 May
2021
Search warrant reveals why the FBI
raided an Alaska couple’s home (msn.com)
Alaska woman says feds searched home
for Pelosi's laptop (apnews.com)
Thursday, May 6, 2021
A Texas Ranger on the Trail - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Wednesday, May 5, 2021
Scheduling the Execution of a Friend - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Tuesday, May 4, 2021
Can Internet Service Providers be Saved? - not exactly a poem
Lawrence Hall
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 3rd
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!
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
About that Bicycle Leaning Against a Sunlit Wall - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Physician and Poet - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Monday, April 26, 2021
“Now This Ain’t No S---” - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall
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.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Kryptonite Rocks and Invisible Magic Coins - Weekly Column
Lawrence Hall, HSG
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
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
Saturday, April 24, 2021
He Just Walked in Front of the Train - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Friday, April 23, 2021
A Polite Response to an Invitation to a Crawfish Boil - poem, but not a good one
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Polite Response to an Invitation to a Crawfish Boil
Aquatic roaches
Foul, malodorous decay
Exoskeletons
Thursday, April 22, 2021
"Dear Valued Customer..." - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Wednesday, April 21, 2021
Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing - poem
Lawrence Hall
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.
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Oath Peepers Security Cameras - poem
Lawrence Hall
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!”
Monday, April 19, 2021
A Morning Cup of Coffin: No Straight Lines in Nature - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Spring in the Air, Springs in the Air, and a Brick - weekly column re spring wind and hail and wreckage
Mack Hall, HSG
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
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!
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-olds - poem
Lawrence Hall
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.
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