Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
My Friend Joined
the NRA and Received a Communist Pocketknife
To prove your patriotism there’s nothing finer
Than to sport an NRA knife made in China
Saturday, June 4, 2022
My Friend Joined the NRA and Received a Communist Pocketknife - doggerel
Friday, June 3, 2022
The Great Replacement Theory - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Great Replacement
Theory
But of course we will all be replaced
We sit outside at dusk with single-malt and cigars
Low voices remembering the challenges we’ve faced
Our loves and losses, children, careers, and wars
Yes, of course we will all be replaced
Others will sit on this lawn and watch the stars
Perhaps in these same chairs, carelessly spaced
And ask each other: Is that Venus? Or Mars?
For you and I will return to dust, old man –
As must everyone in God’s great Plan
Thursday, June 2, 2022
Your Hair is Like a Flock of Goats - a wheezy bit of doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Your Hair is Like
a Flock of Goats
(Y)our
hair is like a flock of goats
Frisking
down the slopes of Gilead
-Song of Songs, 4:5-6
Even in a farming community
That awkward compliment you’d better keep
So ask her this joke (if she grants you immunity):
Do goats have mohair than sheep?
(“Do goats have mohair than sheep?” is an old, old, old
joke.)
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
The Natural Voice of Poetry - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Natural Voice
of Poetry
The
modern kings will throttle you to greet
The
piping voice of artificial birds
-Claude McKay, “To a Poet”
We love the natural voice of poetry
Sung through parking lots and lonely rooms
In low, soft winds that sigh through empty cans
Discarded on the banks of the River Lethe
But we must suffer those artificial birds
Against whom we were cautioned by friend McKay
Who landed in New York and made it Jamaica
There through the natural voice of poetry
By him the artificial birds were set to flight
And the songs of exiles given harmony and light
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
The Last Literary Magazine I Will Ever Buy - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Last Literary Magazine
I Will Ever Buy
A weighty enough tome for fourteen dollars
Guest-edited by a famous visiting poet
For that much money there should be more hollers
But it’s mostly free verse, wouldn’t ya know it
Self-pitying free verse (oh, how I have suffered)
First-person pronouns shattered and scattered about
From each other with white space well buffered
Each polemic a sustained, censorious pout
The thesis of each yelp in this literary gong?
All that we say and do and think is wrong
Monday, May 30, 2022
The Road, The Tao, The Way - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Road, The Tao,
The Way
“The road goes ever on and on”
-Tolkien
There is of course the Road, the Tao, the Way
And traveling it grows difficult with age
Or maybe now it travels more for us
But still the Road, the Tao, the Way leads on
When I was young over my shoulder I slung
A canvas bag with a toothbrush and a book
A pen, some poems, and dreams that wrote themselves
And I smoked my pipe and sang as I marched
Some have walked with me, and I with others
Most of them have walked ahead, and are gone
I think they are waiting for me among those stars
Who lighten and brighten as the sun sails away
At dusk Yeats and I talked about the Road
He said he thought there might be a poem
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Donnie and Wayne Celebrate the Massacre of the Holy Innocents - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Donnie and Wayne Celebrate
the Massacre of the Holy Innocents
While Donny dances for Wayne, dances upon the dead
Celebrating
The latest Massacre of the Holy Innocents
We sit and try to write away the pain
And can’t
We try to shape this chaos into words
And can’t
We are determined to protect the children
And will
We will repudiate the worship of death
We will
While Donny dances for Wayne, dances upon the dead
Celebrating
The latest Massacre of the Holy Innocents
Civilization Begins at the Barn - weekly column, 29 May 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Civilization
Begins at the Barn
A large truck stopped in front of my country estate here
along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension. The big red tractor was pulling
a big long trailer carrying lots of wood and prefabricated roof trusses. I
visited with the driver, who was trying to find an address that apparently did
not exist. The bill bore little more than the first name of the seller, the
items on the truck, and the Neverland address.
With my mental acuity that would impress even Detective
Monk I suggested that we switch around the physical address and the county road
number and plug those into the electrical map on the MePhone, and that did
indeed give us an address that exists, a farm only a few fields over. I gave
the driver directions and we shook hands, though I don’t know how his adventure
ended.
But the cargo was interesting: roof trusses, probably for
a barn, and a miscellaney of milled wood.
Barns are good. In our times of destruction and violence
the idea of raising a barn is a vote for civilization.
The barn is the heart of a farm, the world headquarters
of the business and the art and liturgy of growing crops and animals. The day’s
work begins there, almost always before dawn, and ends there, almost always
after dark. The good old tractor spends its nights there, along with plows,
rakes, mowers, tillers, barbed wire, rope, pulleys, machine tools, gardening
tools, carpentry tools, sacks of feed, mineral blocks, hay, feed, animal
medicines, a work bench, fertilizer, and lots more impedimenta, all of it
expensive, necessary for raising animals, prepping the fields, establishing plantings
and pastures, sowing, maintaining, and harvesting.
Depending on the animals and seasons, the barn also hosts
critters large and small with the various pens and stalls necessary for their
shelter and safety.
Other life forms, not at all welcome, reside there too:
rats, mice, snakes, and maybe a skunk burrowing under the foundations for the
winter. Raccoons, ‘possums, and coyotes regard the barn as a midnight diner.
Thus, the farmer will establish a resident dog, probably named Hank, and a cat,
probably titled Simba, King Cat and Killer of Rats. With fresh water and just
enough good animal food they will strike at the unwelcome intruders with fang
and claw, and in return expect only an occasional scratch behind the ears. A barn owl might find a cozy spot among the
rafters and from there he too will wing silently to prey upon rats and mice and
the occasional careless bunny.
If the farm is blessed with children they will work their
4H and FFA projects from the barn: gardens, rabbits, chickens, goats, pigs, and
other crops and critters in any combination.
The adults and the kids will post calendars with lots of
penciled-in information about crops and seasons, and the business cards of
veterinarians, farm supply houses, and tractor dealers will grow around it. A
feed store thermometer and a barometer on the wall will do their duty for years
to come, along with a rain gauge on a fence post, although there are only four
categories of farm weather: (1) too darned hot, (2) too darned cold, (3) too
darned wet, and (4) too darned dry.
Just inside the big door, or perhaps outside if there is
some shade, a bench and some old chairs will be positioned for those rare
occasions when folks will be able to rest from their labors a while with a
meditative chaw or cigar to sit and think and talk, and sometimes just to sit
and think, and sometimes, as the old saying goes, just to sit. The setting sun
and the sweet scent of a new-mown field are the light and the incense for that evening
hour of Vespers.
Anyway, that’s where I think that truckload of wood and
the friendly driver from Louisiana were going. I hope so. We need more foresters
and truck drivers and farmers, and fewer strident men of destiny who wear
expensive suits and uniforms while giving their underlings orders to destroy
the land and kill foresters and truck drivers and farmers for the greater glory
of whatever.
-30-
Saturday, May 28, 2022
Kenneth Branagh Attempts to Murder Agatha Christie - doggerel
Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Kenneth Branagh Attempts to Murder Agatha Christie
Mr.
Branagh, we’re watching your reputation die
Garishly
coloured in the worst CGI
In
your first Poirot you made a formless mess -
It was
the audience who died on the Orient Express
And
then you continued without any style
And
lost the plot on your sad cartoon Nile
Do
whatever you want; have it your way
But we
are sticking with David Suchet
For it
is obvious to our great sorrow
That
you are a flop as Hercule Poirot
Friday, May 27, 2022
President Trump Splits Two Infinitives and Botches a Number of Subject, Verb, and Adjective Constructs While Proposing the Arming of Teachers - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
President Trump
Splits Two Infinitives and Botches a Number of Subject, Verb, and Adjective Constructs
While Proposing the Arming of Teachers
“...it's
time to finally allow highly trained teachers to safely and discreetly
concealed carry, let them concealed carry.”
-Former
President Donald J. Trump to the National Rifle Ass., 27 May 2022
All teachers trample the Constitution
All teachers promote contempt for the Flag
All teachers should be in an institution
All teachers are weird (and that one’s a f*g)
All teachers despise the military
All teachers should be slowly microwaved
All teachers hate meat; they’re vegetary
All teachers hate Jesus; they can’t be saved
All teachers are evil; the children are harmed:
And thus, they say, all teachers should be armed
Previously published as “Texas’
Proposed Concealed Carry Law” in Dispatches from the Colonial Office,
2018, available from amazon.com.
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Will No One Friend Me on MyFaceSpaceBookToc? - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Will No One Friend Me on MyFaceSpaceBookToc?
“Hitherto at least I have stood in the front ranks of
all that is progressive in Europe,
and here the new generation positively ignores me.”
Pyotr Miusov
in Part I, Book II, Chapter V of The Brothers Karamazov
Oh, let it go,
Miusov; we are the old men
We used to laugh
about when we were young
Though getting
old was not part of my master plan
I seem to have
grown old – and you did too
We attended
secret meetings and scribbled free verse
Whispered “What
is to be done?” to each other
Pitied the Proletariat
over our wine and cigars
And scorned our
elders – we thought ourselves clever
Yes, let it go,
Miusov; we are the old men
Left here remembering
what might have been
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Guns 'N' Babies - Doggerel for our Third-World Country
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Guns ‘N’ Babies
Racks of guns and shelves of ammunition
But almost no formula for our babies’ nutrition
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Rachel Weeping for her Children - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Rachel Weeping for
her Children
This is spring
There should be inattention in class:
Summer plans for camping and for play
When each sunny day is a barefoot day
Splashing in the stock pond, annoying the cows
Instead of
Chain-link fencing, sagging gates, gunfire
Black rifles, screams, ambulances in lines
Yellow plastic tape, detailed narratives
Telephoto camera lenses, MePhones
And tiny little bodies plastic-wrapped
Carried one by one to refrigerated vaults
(Hey, stud, preach to them about your Second
Amendment)
Monday, May 23, 2022
A Constitutional Argument for Disarming the Secret Service - a limerick
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Constitutional
Argument for Disarming the Secret Service
They are a disordered militia
Whose ethics are silly and superficia
From their mischief God preserve us
Our drunken old Secret Service -
Go away, boys; we won’t miss ya
Sunday, May 22, 2022
A Theological Wristwatch - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Theological
Wristwatch
At bedtime my watch suggests to me
That I should meditate with gratitude
For someone who is important in my life
Who gives a deeper meaning to each day
And so I stare at the lava-lamp effect
On the face of my watch, as if it were
An artifact from McGoohan’s The Village
Wanting information, not meditation
And I am grateful; it’s just that the watch
Suggests only For What, and not To Whom
The World Wide Wordle Word - weekly column, 5.22.2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The World Wide Wordle-Word
WORDLE has become as essential to the morning ritual as a
washup and a cup of coffee. Thought up
by Welsh software engineer Josh Wordle in 2001, in 2002 he sold the game to the
New York Times for lots and lots of money.
WORDLE is entertaining, thoughtful, and usually brief,
although you can leave it at any time and come back to it throughout the day. Many
people enjoy word games, and crosswords, scrambles, word searches, and other entertaining
mind exercises have long been a popular feature in newspapers and magazines. Although WORDLE is played on an Orwellian
telescreen via a desk computer or a MePhone and so is technically a video game,
it continues the intellectual tradition of other word games.
Playing WORDLE is so simple that even a liberal arts
major can learn it in a few minutes. The screen presents six rows of five blank
spaces. The player’s challenge is to discover, without any initial clue, the
five-letter word assigned for the game of the day. There is only one WORDLE
word around the world, making each day’s word the World Wide Word.
Thus, on the first line the player types in any common
five-letter word and then the little boxes change colors to indicate that any
given letter is (1) part of the answer and in the right place, (2) part of the
answer and not in the right place, or (2) not part of the answer.
The results of the first word, which is a guess, provide
useful information for the second word, which provides more useful information
for subsequent words.
The game begins with a guess and then become really thinky.
The official WORDLE offers only one game each day,
although there are many unofficial imitators if you want another match with
another word.
Friends often agree upon a beginning word for the next
day’s WORDLE in order to generate a friendly competition. The first competitor
to find the word of the day wins the match. For me, I choose to make my own
rule for winning – the higher number is the winning number. In using this rule
I win lots of games.
-30-
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Where the Fairies Hide - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Where the Fairies
Hide
In the dreary weary heat I crawled
Burrowing deep within a thickety bush
To saw and cut and clip away the growth
That had long formed a formless cloud of green
There might be little elves or fairies, I hoped
Long hidden away among broken bits of pots
In a childhood world of secrets and dreams
Among dappled shadows dizzying me
I thought I heard soft giggles and soft feet
But maybe it was only the dreary weary heat
Friday, May 20, 2022
I Never Met a Harvard Graduate in Viet-Nam - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I Never Met a
Harvard Graduate in Viet-Nam
“Now, soldiers, march away...”
-Henry V IV.iii.140
I wasn’t the first to notice that salient fact
For except in matters of feed, seed, and soil
Farm boys weren’t aware of critical thinking -
We trusted our government to get things right
And still...
The children of oligarchs play in law school
Or sun themselves while on perpetual holiday
While the much-deceived children of the poor
In their patriotic obedience die
And still...
Now, soldiers, march away
Your betters are at play
On Daddy’s yacht today
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Blessed by a Former Student - poem
Blessed by a
Former Student
Adveni fui in terra aliena
-Exodus 2:22
A smiling young man I didn’t know
Hugged me with enthusiasm, almost in tears
And told me with joy how I had inspired him
When I was his teacher some years ago
I was some moments realizing that
He was Amanda. I hope she is happy
For she was a joyful child, tho’ I confess
That I can sort out neither the pronouns
Nor the century – I am a stranger here
But the folks are friendly, and the coffee’s good
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
A Finely Crafted Swiss Frog - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Finely Crafted
Swiss Frog
Its crystal is the windowpane
Through which its tiny heart is seen
And its splayed and spatulate toes
Grasping securely the eternal
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