Does Your Dog Carry its Hunting License? Weekly column, 8 August 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Does Your Dog Carry its Hunting License?

 

Around dusk one day last week Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund was struck during a scrap with a snake, leading to several days of pain and grotesque swelling for the pup.

 

We immediately gave the dog a couple of eyedroppers of liquid Benadryl, which we keep for that purpose, and after a rough night took Astrid to Dr. Leah. With injections and take-home meds, the dog improved rapidly and is back to her usual spoiled, demanding, insolent, dachshund self.

 

In the light of day I found a scrap of snake skin (Astrid’s pal Luna-Dog is a mighty warrior, and takes no prisoners) and identified the reptile as a copperhead, one of the most common of poisonous pit vipers.

 

I looked up copperheads on the InterGossip and learned that “The copperhead is not a protected species in Texas and can be legally collected with a hunting license” [Southern Copperhead (A Guide to Snakes of Southeast Texas) ·iNaturalist].

 

Luna-Dog does not have a hunting license. I have one, but I never thought it was necessary for killing an unprotected species whose bite can be fatal to children and small animals, and in some circumstances to an adult [Can a Copperhead Snake Kill a Human? (snakesforpets.com)].

 

What committee of the ill-educated whose knowledge of animals comes only from Disney cartoons decided that a hunting license is necessary before protecting children and pets from a dangerous snake?

 

As the overworked, overtaxed, and underpaid boatman says to Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons, “whoever makes the regulations doesn’t row a boat.”

 

I had looked up the species of snake for my own safety’s sake because the Wise Ones in Austin sometimes seem to care more for the wellbeing of alligators and some deadly snakes than they do for our children. The copperhead, happily, is not protected except for the necessity of a hunting license and so I am free to congratulate Luna-Dog for killing the beast.

 

Another article on the InterGossip detailed ways of live-trapping copperheads and other poisonous snakes so that they can be relocated to the wild.

 

Yes, Friend Reader, I’m thinking the same thing as you. Saint Matthew says that we shouldn’t call anyone a fool, but apparently there are exceptions.

 

Recently some of our Austin Wise Ones avoided their duties and fled to D. C., purportedly because they felt (hardly thought) that the right to vote is endangered in Texas. Two of these Wise Ones then decided to work courageously for Texas on the beaches of Portugal [Where in the world are Texas Democrats Julie Johnson and Jessica González? (dallasnews.com)] and  [2 Texas Democratic legislators are vacationing in Portugal after fleeing the state over GOP elections bill: report (msn.com)].

 

And if that isn’t the good old fighting spirit of Texas, I don’t know what is.

 

Perhaps while they are fighting the good fight in Portugal for the rights of Texans they will also spare a thought for correcting some of our fatally misguided game laws.

 

Ours, not Portugal’s.

 

-30-

 

The Emperor's New Kafka - Poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Emperor’s New Kafka

 

When an insect woke up one morning he found

Himself changed into a politician

And thus gatekeeper to Das Schloss, key clam

Through whom all arrival applications must pass

 

All shipping boxes to be checked for ticks

In a village that cannot be surveyed

Unescorted thinkers may not be seated

At corner tables in the Herrenhof

 

Many are desperate to be admitted

But few are desperate to be committed

Wear Leather Gloves While Working with Poetry (There Might be Adverbs and Snakes)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Wear Leather Gloves While Working with Poetry

(There Might be Adverbs and Snakes)

 

Much of being is chaos; we try to shape it

Into meaning, not artificial constructs

But the meaning that is, already is

But tumbled through the weeds and brokenness

 

Clearing aside the brush and adjectives

Burning all adverbs as the rubbish they are

And reconstructing the fallen away into

Fresh celebrations of transcendency

 

(Wear leather gloves from the Tractor Supply –

Among your ideas there might be snakes)

Slogging Through the Cantos - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Slogging Through the Cantos

 

A feral howl of sustained malevolence

The souring stench of anti-Semitism

Random ideograms scattered about

Appropriating a touch of Chinese cool

 

Defining tainted chic at Rapallo

Free verse scattered like post-war hopes shattered -

And did he take a splash of Mussolini

With his death-in-the-afternoon denials?

 

How awkward for those whose poetic sage

Was but a mad relic of a tattered age

 

(Death in the afternoon was a fashionable cocktail)

Darwinians Infected with Cognitive Dissonance Visit Gettysburg on July 5th, 1863 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Darwinians Infected with Cognitive Dissonance

Visit Gettysburg on July 5^th, 1863

 

They consider the news in several editions

Ignore the diagnoses of learned physicians

Number the dead at the local morticians

 

And conclude:

 

“They must have had pre-existing conditions”

What About that Kid with the Loaves and Fishes? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

What About that Kid with the Loaves and Fishes?

 

There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves, and two

small fishes; but what are these among so many?

 

-St. John 6:9

 

About that kid with the loaves and fishes –

Who was he? And what was he doing there?

Maybe he was selling snacks to the crowd

Or he was on his way to the fields with his lunch

 

But his plan for the day was interrupted

And he was chosen for a moment in time

When bread and fish and grass and rocks and sky

Were made for us much more than they appeared

 

When his basket was made an altar, and he -

Like most of us, was more than he seemed to be

All Quests Lead to Jerusalem - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

All Quests Lead to Jerusalem

 

Veritas et Scientia

 

-University of San Diego

 

Some find infinity in sequences

Of numbers following in slow ascent

Elusive knowledge along a pilgrims’ track

Like rosaries that count ideas

 

Some find infinity in sequences

Of letters following in slow ascent

Elusive beauty along a pilgrims’ track

Like rosaries that count our dreams

 

And all of this is true, each quest is true

If the track is mapped to Jerusalem

Chuck Lorre is Shakespeare with a Laptop - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Chuck Lorre is Shakespeare with a Laptop

 

Chuck Lorre is Shakespeare with a laptop

Bill Prady is Wodehouse at a whiteboard

Their Pasadena is the Forest of Arden

Or Totleigh Towers at a city bus stop

 

They have built for us an unfallen world

Of Woosterian plots and app-crossed lovers

At play in the laboratories of the Lord

Where the magic works but the elevators don’t

 

Chuck and Bill’s stories are always well-wrought

And they end each one with a provocative thought

 

 

(Nothing rhymes with “l’envoi.”)

Your Career in Television Repair - weekly column, 1 August 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Your Career in Television Repair

 

Once upon a time a television set offered three controls: (1) an on – off switch,  (2) a dial for changing thirteen channels, (3) a dial for the volume, and maybe an add-on electrical gadget for turning an outside antenna.

 

A television set worked for years. When it finally failed you could take it to a radio and tv repair shop (yes!) where a man sitting at a bench covered in tools and parts took the television apart, tested all the vacuum tubes, and replaced those that no longer worked.

 

And Matt Dillon rode again.

 

Zenith, RCA, Emerson, Admiral, General Electric, Sylvania, Magnavox, Philco, Sears, Westinghouse – all made in the USA and all their images were in glorious black-and-white, sometimes an odd green-and-white.

 

In those quaint times manufacturers thought it their job to manufacture and sell televisions and broadcasters thought it their job to send signals paid for by advertisers. They didn’t expect the customer to do their job for them.

 

In our progressive era televisions are made elsewhere, are cheaper to purchase, and when they do work the images are so clear that you can make out the pores on Gilligan’s nose. The signals are no longer free, though; you must pay almost a car note every month in order to watch well-coiffed but poorly clad, poorly-shaven, and ill-informed people babble inanities. And that’s the network news.

 

The really strange part is that the manufacturers now expect the purchaser to do most of the work in making the television function.

 

Manufacturers and service providers work hard only at avoiding doing any work at all, sort of like those big-box stores in Beaumont. If you do manage to connect with Tiffany or Bambi they first assure you of their good wishes and then manage to ignore what you are telling them.

 

My less-than-a-year-old smart television set is little interested in waking up with the news and weather. It now has its own dedicated paper clip for (1) a soft reset, (2) a hard reset, or (3) a factory reset, only I have to accomplish the resetting and reprogramming because the factory didn’t.

 

Look, I’m not the I.T. guy except by default. When I suggested to Famous Name Brand via the InterGossip that they should repair or replace the tv they didn’t build very well in the first place I received in return this lengthy document:

i. When did you start noticing the issue?
ii. Does the issue happens on all inputs (ex. cable tv, live tv) and/or streaming channels?
   • If only on streaming apps what are the apps you checked that are affected?
iii. How often does the issue occur?
iv. Are there other devices connected to the TV? 

To help resolve the issue, please follow the steps below and observe the unit.

1. Perform a system reset.
   a. Select Settings.
   b. Select System.
   c. Select Power.
   d. Select System reset.
   e. Press OK on reset.
2. Disconnect all external devices (if there is) then perform a System Update.
   a. From the home screen, select Settings.
   b. Select System.
   c. Press OK on System Update.
   d. Select Check Now. 
3. Drain the power of the TV.
   a. Turn the TV off and unplug from the outlet.
   b. Press and hold the TV Power button located on the bottom surface of the TV (underneath the [Name] logo) for 15 seconds while the TV is unplugged.
   c. Plug it back in and turn the TV on again.
   d. Check if the problem still persists.
4. Perform a factory reset. Please take note that this resets the TV to its factory default and clears the [Name] account in the TV.
   a. From the Home screen, go to Settings.
   b. Select System.
   c. Select Advanced System Settings.
   d. Select Factory Reset.
   e. Select Factory Reset Everything.
   f. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the reset.
   g. Set up the TV again and check if the problem still persists.

 

Please let us know if the issue still occurs even after performing all the steps.

We're looking forward to your response.

Thank you!

[Jazzika]

Customer Support Team

 

Customer Support Team - that’s right down there with “your call is important to us.”

 

When I replied to Customer Support Team that all this stuff was pretty much my morning routine already, the only reply from [Mountain Rose] was a repeat of all the (stuff) above.

 

Someday some clever young American entrepreneur is going to design, build, and sell a television set with three or maybe four controls. When he or she does, I’m going to buy it.

 

Until then, Communist China wins.

 

-30-

Enter Orlando - or you - with a Paper - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Enter Orlando – or you - with a Paper

 

                    …these trees shall be my books

And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character

 

-Orlando, As You Like It, III.ii.5-6

 

To write a poem and send it to the world

Is not unlike leaving it in a tree

For Rosalind, your Rosalind, to find

(Even at the risk of being scorned as an acorn)

 

Putting it out there can be dangerous

Art cannot be art unless it is shared

And Rosalind, your Rosalind, might not like it

(And then there’s that thing about a fallen acorn)

 

Oh, take the risk: for Rosalind, your Rosalind

Probably won’t conclude that you’re an acorn

To Always be Splitting Infinitives - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

To Always be Splitting Infinitives

 

Those who neither know nor care

 [about split infinitives]…are a happy folk…

 

-Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 1926

 

I seem to always be

Splitting infinitives

And between you and me

These are definitives

In the Season of the Perseids - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

In the Season of the Perseids

 

Most people find beauty in everything:

An old Peterson’s pipe, crickets, Irish coins

Fire trucks, fountain pens, a favourite old book

Cattails growing in ditches along the road

 

Short strings of words that breathe and sigh as songs

Sunflowers fainting in the afternoon

A treefrog pulsing on the windowpane

Ladybugs drowsing on a tomato leaf

 

Even so, how hard it is to feel beauty

In late July’s wearying, withering heat

Paper Sacks I have Known - 2

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Paper Sacks I have Known – 2

 

Like a block of marble waiting to be carved

A paper sack is art waiting to be made

Because after Mom puts the groceries away

The empty sack is full of possibilities:

 

A royal crown with construction-paper jewels

A Robin Hood hat if you fold it just right

A Halloween mask for a scary trick-or-treat

(Smell my feet; give me something good to eat!)

A boat

A puppet

A pinata

A brave knight’s armor

A cat toy

A three-year-old-daughter toy

A pony express rider’s mail pouch

A kite (I could never make mine fly)

A book cover without adverts

A canvas for crayon art

A luminaria

A matte to be cut out, crayoned on, and framed

 

And after your art is sent into the world

That tuckered-out sack, that sleepy little sack

Is tucked into bed in the warm garden soil

To awaken in the spring as flowers for you!

 

Childhood - no batteries or programming required

Paper Sacks I have Known - 1

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Paper Sacks I have Known - 1

 

When I was a lad I was a sack boy at Mixson’s

I stacked and sacked coffee and corn and beans

To carry out to cars along the street

In a little town that no longer exists

 

Sacks in three sizes were my tools of trade:

The little ones for Papa’s cigarettes

The mediums for tonight’s milk and bread

The big ‘uns for the Saturday in-towns

 

Mixson’s is closed, as is my little town

And paper sacks, too, just cannot be found

Cardiac Clinic Consulting Room - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Cardiac Clinic Consulting Room

 

One’s bubble goes off-bubble a few degrees

For now there is nothing to do but sit and wait

No longer in control of anything

“Is there in your family any history of…?”

 

Pleasant young people in scrubs come and go

With papers and charts and machines that buzz

And in between the book is open but unread

While silent morning light louvres across the walls

 

The doctor enters with paperwork and optimism:

There are still possibilities in life

Abject Horror in the Microwave - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Abject Horror in the Microwave

 

There are few crimes more likely to drive a man

A man, a sensitive man, a thinking man

To existential despair

Than the foul stench of cooking broccoli

Pre-Existing Conditions - weekly column, 25 July 2021

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Pre-Existing Conditions

 

The topic of trust came up the other day when one of the prisoners I visit each week remarked on the challenge of knowing how to find reliable information about the Virus-of-Many-Names.

 

Trust is a big deal – after all, Jesus was murdered because a provincial governor believed gossip. And it may be that some governors still fail to think critically. 

 

When I was a small boy I did not know that the key to a car or pickup was removable. I understood that the key was a part of the magic that made the engine go, but I thought it was a fixed part of the vehicle, like the starter switch on the floor and the gearshift on the steering column.

 

I was surprised when in a movie at the Palace Theatre of happy memory I saw a driver park his car and remove the key, and I asked my parents about that curious behavior.

 

My father explained that in cities people stole things from each other and the character in the movie removed his key so that wouldn’t happen.

 

When some years later my parents decided that locking the house when they were gone had become a necessity, they had to look for the door keys. That was also about the time they began pocketing the key to the pickup truck.

 

The trust was broken.

 

When later in life I had occasion to visit London with my mother and daughter we noticed that because of the compactness of so many shops young mothers often left their babies in prams at the door, along with the occasional dog. This was surprising, and especially troubling to my mother, who asked someone about that. A nice lady assured her that the children were in no danger because everyone who walked by was as a matter of routine looking at each baby to see that all was well.  

 

We observed for a few minutes, and yes, that was exactly what happened – everyone walking along – teenagers, men in overalls, men in suits, rough-looking lads with cigarettes and attitudes, women dressed for business, shop girls, hippie chicks – gave each child a visual check while passing.

 

Which is the way it’s supposed to be.

 

This is no longer a practice in London; indeed, children everywhere are the targets of knifings and shootings and abductions. When we read of a child being shot because one group of idiots chooses to shoot at another group, the topic of trust is far beyond car keys.

 

Which is not the way it’s supposed to be.

 

As for the question of the Virus-of-Many-Names, my response, as always, is that the best source of knowledge is the MD or NP sitting across from you in a consulting room. 

 

“I saw a doctor on tv, and she said…” won’t do.

 

“I saw a doctor on the news, and he said…” won’t do.

 

“I read on a reliable site on the InterGossip that…” won’t do.

 

“My buddy said that his doctor said…” won’t do.

 

“My favorite guy on the Hamster Network said…” won’t do.

 

“All my friends at work said…” won’t do.

 

“My cousin in Houston who almost finished nurses’ aide school said…” won’t do.

 

What will do is the MD or NP whom you know and who knows you. And then you must put on grown-up thinking skills – not feelings or trends or moods - and make an adult decision about what’s right, not for you but for MeeMaw, babies, children, and other vulnerable people around you.

 

Sometimes you get the idea that there are among us some who, if they were transported back in time to July 5^th, 1863 to see the 50,000+ dead on the fields around Gettysburg, would dismiss all those young men with, “Well, they must have had pre-existing conditions.”

 

-30-

Too Much Coffee Can Cause Your Brain to Shrink - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Too Much Coffee Can Cause Your Brain to Shrink

 

(Hey, it was on the InterGossip; it must be true)

 

Coffee causes your heart to beat too fast

Coffee causes your heart to beat too slow

Coffee causes your heart to beat just right

Coffee alters your DNA and your mind

 

No, it doesn’t!

Yes, it does!

Doctors say…!

Studies show…!

 

Say yes, say no, say so, whaddaya know?

Now pour me another cuppa that joe!

Texas, Our Texas, All Hail the Secret State - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Texas, Our Texas, All Hail the Secret State

 

"The Biden administration is not being transparent…”

 

-Governor Greg Abbot

 

Governor Abbot so loves his Texas folk

That he orders state troopers to keep them away

He surrounds himself with a security cloak

And with his good ol’ boys, the ones who pay

 

God forbid that the people who voted for him

Should forget their place, and dare to approach

The corporate hangar guarded against them

And risk his Praetorians’ stern reproach

 

Even the press is locked out, alone and lonely –

 

The government of Texas is for Members Only

 

 

Abbott accuses Biden admin of 'not being transparent' about health of unaccompanied minors at border | Fox News

 

Governor Abbott comes to Jasper | Local News | kjas.com

The Last Time I Saw Van Horn, Texas (this one's a trifle naughty)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Last Time I Saw Van Horn, Texas

 

Van Horn, Texas is a penile colony

Eruptions delivered through a cosmic gap

Woo-hoo emissions into curvy space

And then limply falling back down, down to earth