Someday a New Arthur – Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Monday, September 19, 2022
You Did It! - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“You Did It!”
As Colonel Pickering might say
On occasion my wristwatch reads, “You did it!”
At first I appreciated the congratulations
Though I wasn’t sure of the diddly-did I did
Until I sinked or synched the watch to something else
Whereupon I learned that my watch was praising me
For somehow managing to stand on my feet -
High praise for a drunk or an invalid (may I say so?)
But since so little praise comes to me, I accept it
I imagine standing before the King of Sweden
Who awards me the Nobel for standing at all
Sunday, September 18, 2022
The Queen's English and a Strong WiFi Signal - weekly column, 18 September 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Queen’s
English and a Strong WiFi Signal
When I was young I was curious about the cover of my big
brother’s high school English book. On it was a color photograph of a young
woman whom I knew to be the Queen of England (you mustn’t say “England” now;
you must say “Britain”). She was very small in the picture and was visually overwhelmed
by the throne and by a huge assemblage of red tapestries that took up most of
the picture.
Eisenhower was our president, the United States was the bestest
nation in the world, God was a Methodist, and children were taught that the
English were the baddies (you may still use “English” and “baddies” in the same
sentence) from whose oppressive rule we (although I had nothing to do with it) had
rightfully freed ourselves.
And yet here was an American high school literature book with
a picture of the Queen on its cover and entitled Adventures in English
Literature. What was all that about?
Although I was a wide reader from the third grade I was
never a disciplined one and read any book that appealed to me: Robin Hood,
Christopher Columbus, Assignment in Space with Rip Foster, all the
Robert A. Heinlein boys’ books, Zane Grey, King Arthur, all the Tarzan yarns, hot
rod stories, hunting and camping tales, Walden, Kipling, Hemingway, J.
Frank Dobie, Nordhoff and Hall’s sea stories, pirate stories, The Red Badge
of Courage, and other books once commonly read by American boys.
I would not have touched poetry with a ten-syllable line
of blank verse. The twelve-year-old-me would have disapproved of the
cough-cough-old me and my fondness for Byron, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and Yevtushenko, but, hey, old men are boring.
And I still like the adventure yarns of my youth.
I did not care about national origins, identity politics,
gender-obsession, or neo-post-whatever-colonialism, and I still cringe at any
obsession with Deeper Meaning, even when it’s there. I liked a good story, and
still do.
Yet here was (and is; I have a copy) a book of poems,
essays, short stories, biographies, hymns, excerpts from the King James Bible,
excerpts from novels, ballads, sermons, speeches, letters, and plays (Macbeth,
Pygmalion, Riders to the Sea, and The Old Lady Shows her Medals).
All of this book’s contents are in some way English.
Although there are selections from Scotland, Africa, Wales, Ireland, and India,
everything centers on England. People of English ancestry were never a majority
in what would come to be the United States, but English organically became the
Ur-culture for the first two centuries of our history. Because of the Empire (shall
we pause for an Orwellian two minutes’ hate?) English literature was an
academic and popular culture core in the U.S.A., Canada, India, Kenya,
Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, and wherever else the sun famously never
set.
All civilizations fail, but the collapse of England /
Britain within a generation was stunning. With the failure of power came the
failure of influence, and though the Beatles and James Bond briefly made England
cool, that’s mostly over. The Anglo-centric world is in decline everywhere. “With inky
blots and rotten parchment bonds / That England that was wont to conquer
others / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself” (Richard II). Adventures
in English Literature was published in America for some three decades, and
now it is merely a historical curiosity.
For all its flaws, some real but most merely perceived,
English literature was a unifier. If a man from Zimbabwe was seated next to a
woman from New Zealand and topics of conversation lapsed they could always talk
about whether modern readings of Henry II’s Band of Brothers speech are literal
or ironic. Now they probably would discuss only whether the plane had WiFi
access.
The Soviets meant for the Russian language to be successor
world language, which didn’t work, and now Xi and his un-merry men are re-colonizing
Africa and planning for Mandarin to be the world language.
Domestically, language and literature have become politicized,
weaponized, and even demonized, and one dare not write even a brief note on the
InterGossip (“Stop by the store for a gallon of milk on your way home.”)
without vetting it carefully for fear that even a grocery list will someday subject
its author to prosecution for some offense against sensitivity, inclusiveness,
and the rights of Holsteins to sustainable grass.
We might miss that picture of the Queen.
-30-
Saturday, September 17, 2022
An Artless Meditation on the Joyful Mysteries - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Artless
Meditation on the Joyful Mysteries
I. The Annunciation
May we all hear the Angel’s silver voice
In spite of ourselves
II. The Visitation
May we all help each other along the way
In spite of ourselves
III. The Nativity
May we all wait in the cold outside the Stable
In spite of ourselves
IV. The Presentation
May we all be presented in the Temple some day
In spite of ourselves
V. The Finding of the Child in the Temple
May we all be found in the Temple some day
In spite of ourselves
Friday, September 16, 2022
A Poem is not a Helicopter - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Poem is not a
Helicopter
For Al Duquette
A helicopter is not a poem
A helicopter flies in three dimensions
If all of the systems are fitted just right
Otherwise, it does not fly at all
A poem is not a helicopter
A poem flies only metaphorically
If we rearrange the parts aesthetically
The poem might fly much better than before
One carries our friends wherever they want to go
The other carries our love to our friends
Thursday, September 15, 2022
We Need You. All of Us: We Need You - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
We Need You. All of Us: We Need You
There are many around you who need you
And there are some whom you have never met
Who also need you; they just don’t know it yet
But someday they will know –
and
you will too
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
The Trump Minutes' Hate - too vituperative to serve either as art or as an argument (maybe an ague-ment?)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Trump Minutes’
Hate
“A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness…”
-Orwell, 1984
In an ordinary conversation among men
Let someone mention the name of that man
And all his servile obedientiaries
Will ‘change good fellowship for slogans and sneers
Bitter, with neither dialectic nor discourse
Nor sources beyond the Q and other old men
They then attack even those who agree with them
For under the Red Flag there is no trust
Each chants with each as comrade and brother
But in truth they don’t even like each other
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Half-Awake in Moonlight - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Half-Awake in
Moonlight
No one is fully awake in this strange moonlight
The magic won’t work if we think of it
Pirate ships can’t fly if there’s logic about
And lovers would never touch hands
For lovers and pirates are always stealing something
Kisses and treasures and sometimes hearts
And we have all been lovers and pirates at times
And even now when moonlight magics our dreams
And we are richer than a treasure’s worth
When our silver kisses flutter over the earth
13 September 2022
Monday, September 12, 2022
For the Sullen Old Grump Waving a "REPUBLIC NOW" Sign
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
For the Sullen Old Grump Waving a “REPUBLIC NOW” Sign
A republic
Guillotines, cronies, self-mutilations
Tossers rioting with glowing smart-phones
Books and art banned according to The People’s will
Rolex evangelists commanding through fear NOW
A republic
Oligarchs who never busted a sweat
Except on the golf course or while working a tan
Illiterate graspers in tailored suits
Protecting us from thinking for ourselves NOW
A republic
Purging all beauty and leaving us only
A desolation of gossips and grievances NOW
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Queen Elizabeth and Big-Mouth Billy Bass - weekly column 11 September 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Queen Elizabeth
and Big-Mouth Billy Bass
Forty years ago Chuck and Di coffee cups, tea towels,
posters, dolls, and other made-in-China stuff were big sellers. I don’t think
we will now find Chuck and Camilla mouse pads on neches.com, but I could be
wrong.
And, really, has anyone ever referred to King Charles III
as “Chuck?”
Souvenirs of kings, queens, princes, and princesses are popular
tourist take-homes and as Ken-and-Barbie variants for children on their
birthdays and at Christmas.
Little girls want Princess Barbies, not Senator Pelosi
Barbies (accessories include a stainless-steel refrigerator stocked with of ice
cream of the kind you can’t afford), and as Orwell famously said, no little boy
ever sat on the floor before the fire and played with little toy pacifists.
There are no souvenirs of Communists or other tyrants. There
is no Vladimir Putin Ken doll, though a Dobby-the-House-Elf from a Harry Potter
playset would do. Pull the string and it says, “I love to send 19-year-olds to
their deaths for the greater glory of me, me, me.”
Children hug Paddington Bear, not dolls representing the
Communist murderers at the Siege of Sidney Street.
Can you imagine Lenin and Krupskaya as part of a series
of Cute Kremlin Couples™ collectible cups and saucers?
Or Hallmark Ho Chi Minh Christmas ornaments?
No high school homecoming celebration features a Comrade
Homecoming Commissar and a Comrade Homecoming Co-Commissar slowly circling the
football field sitting atop clapped-out Ladas while the band plays “The
Internationale.”
An odd thing is that we Americans, while professing to be
republicans-with-a-small-r, are quite taken with royalty and with titles of
nobility. Further, many of our federal officials are eager to be perceived as
just-plain-God-fearin’-workin’-folk but enjoy indulging themselves in
high-falutin’ luxuries such as seemingly unlimited access to luxury government
aircraft, gated communities, armed guards, luxury rides, servants, and the
power to raise their own salaries and budgets.
Maybe Americans are fascinated by royalty as a
wish-fulfillment alternative to the political class of graspers Yevtushenko
referred to as “the brief-case politician in his jeep.”
But let us return to the topic of royalty. Numerous
sources on the InterGossip report that Queen Elizabeth, of happy memory, had a Big
Mouth Billy Bass™ on her piano at Balmoral. I don’t know if that’s true, but it
ought to be.
-30-
Saturday, September 10, 2022
A Question about the Monarchy - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Question about
the Monarchy
The question is not
Whether the monarchy is relevant to modern times
But whether modern times are relevant to the monarchy
Friday, September 9, 2022
Someone's Beating on the Door of the Gospel Radio Station - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Someone’s Beating
on the Door of the Gospel Radio Station
I switched on the scanner when the weather turned foul
Hailstones and lightning, and clouds in rotation
Through the static came a voice in a cop-speak growl:
“Someone’s beating on the door of the gospel radio
station”
I tuned then to Jesus on the radio dial
Wondering what drama I might happen to hear
I listened to the three-chord commandos awhile
But never learned the cause of the caller’s fear
Maybe for the music, or from fear of damnation -
Someone wanted in at the gospel station
Thursday, September 8, 2022
The Passing of the Queen - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Passing of The
Queen
Regina Dei Gratia
Few constants obtain in our shifting world
And even those few constants must leave us at last
Even as the mists of September obscure
The golden days of a summer now past
It is not only the Queen who has passed today
But rather the passing of something in us
Who stand to our duty as she led us to do
Each of us made better because she served
God save the Queen
God save the King
A Quote from C. S. Lewis about the Monarchy
“Monarchy can easily be
"debunked", but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the
debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut -- whom no
rumor of the polyphony, the dance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a
row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they
cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor
millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead -- even famous prostitutes or
gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served -- deny it
food and it will gobble poison.”
Quote by C.S. Lewis: “Monarchy can easily be
"debunked", but watch th...” (goodreads.com)
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
A Full Moon Every Night - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Full Moon Every
Night
I’d like a full moon every night. But why?
The cycles, the dance of the solar calendar
The dance of the shadowing lunar calendar
The stern regulae of the liturgical calendar
All swing in orbits through the universe
Orbits that vary wildly yet keep returning
Returning to each other in sacred waves
That in their seasons send the moon to us
But I’d like a full moon every night anyway
And why?
Because she’s pretty
Monday, September 5, 2022
A Note about Greeting Even the Most Beneficent Reptiles - haiku
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Note about
Greeting Even the Most Beneficent Reptiles
I speak to them softly
But the tree frogs look at me
Disapprovingly
Sunday, September 4, 2022
The United States Door-Opener Corps - weekly column, 4 September 2022
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The United States
Doormen
United States Marines should not be employed as doormen.
There is of course everything right with being a doorman
in civilian life. They serve in hotels, private institutions, corporate
offices, and private homes not only in the matter of opening doors but also as part
of the concierge staff.
However, the United States Marines are the premiere
fighting force of this nation, well-trained, well-disciplined, and fighting
fit. They are trained in all sorts of weaponry, both ours and theirs, and in
tactics as individuals and from the squad level up. Although each Marine is
exceptionally well-trained in and focused on a specialty, all Marines are well-rounded
multi-taskers who can perform a multitude of combat, technical, and leadership
tasks when needed. A Marine never says, “That’s not my department”; he or she
says, “Follow me.”
The “follow me” is not to the butler’s pantry to polish
the silver.
A Marine will, as would any well-brought-up individual, open
a door for a frail, elderly gentleman. That is ordinary courtesy, however, not a
military specialty.
There is something inappropriate about United States
Marines being posted to opening doors for people at the White House. After all,
we are a republic and the White House is each elected president’s temporary
home and office, not a Habsburg palace.
In an aside, the answer to the democracy / republic
question is “yes.” We are a democracy because we vote on those who represent us
in the House and Senate; we are a republic because those whom we elect establish
the laws for us. They also take very good care of themselves, but that’s
another matter.
Similarly, United States Navy officers (apparently
enlisted won’t do) should not be hired as social aides – that is their title –
in the White House. We understand that the presidential teacups and the
presidential flowers won’t arrange themselves, but a commission as an officer in
the Navy is hardly necessary for ordinary household tasks.
Several of our recent presidents appear to have had a
fascination at playing with real military men and women just as little children
play with toy soldiers. Our presidents want to be associated with the military,
to be seen with them, set them to opening doors and handing out menus, and positioning
them as decorations.
That happens in President-for-Life Putin’s gilded and
mirrored palaces; it shouldn’t happen here.
Military men and women employed in domestic duties in the
White House should be returned to their units for training and deployment. The
president can then have a secretary contact a local employment agency for
civilians to show visitors where the guest restrooms are.
The thought occurs to some that our senators and
congressmen could be gainfully employed as domestic staff, but since they won’t
even clean up their own houses and demonstrate a poor work ethic they would not
make good hires.
-30-
A Pebble, a Pine Cone, a Mystery - haiku
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Mysteries for the
Day
Mysteries for the day
A pebble and a pine
cone
They are enough
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