Flying to London on Nitrous Oxide - poem

 Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Flying to London on Nitrous Oxide

 

For Dr. Armstrong

 

Doctor A. has dropped a black cloth over my eyes

As if I were facing a firing squad in a vinyl chair

An uncomfortable vinyl chair

The firing squad is not in the chair; I am

 

How silly to think of a firing squad in a vinyl chair I mean how would they all fit, eh

 

I give the finger to an oxygen thingie

And air is piped into my itchy nose

scratch scratch

“I’m turning the nitrous on now, just let me know…”

What shall I think about during dentistry…?

 

A holiday in London long ago

I’m walking along crowded Oxford Street

A motor-scooter cop is writing a ticket

For a tiny little car that’s double-parked

 

Across the street is a used-book shop

I want to browse the old Oxford editions

(OUCH!)

But first I’ll find breakfast

I’ll find breakfast

I’ll find breakfast

(oh that one’s only a little ouch)

And what a happy breakfast!

In this little café with windows all steamed

And I find a seat among the shoppers and workers and shoppers and workers and the nice English waitress is from Viet-Nam and I was in Viet-Nam and she is still from Viet-Nam I was only in Viet-Nam and she is very English and writes on a pad eggs and sausages and toast and eggs and sausages and toast and after breakfast I’ll walk across Oxford Street for Oxford Books I can see in the dusty window and the nice English waitress takes my order for eggs and sausages and toast and somehow I never get across Oxford Street to browse the Oxford books because “I’m switching you back to Oxford oxygen now and you’re all done just sit there for a few minutes” and she wipes the drool off my chin and the ordinary air hisses through the nasal cannula and I feel a little fuzzy and I’m not in London and there are no eggs and sausages and toast but yes I can stand now and yes just go see Erin at the front for the paperwork and then I’ll ride in the passenger seat to Jack in the Box for some sort of golly-gee-whiz breakfast swaddled in paper and coffee in a paper cup which I will have to chew and swallow on the right because my left is all numb and I’ll dribble on myself and I wish I were in London but I’m not but coffee from Jack in the Box after being NPO after midnight is okay too…

General Flynn and His Reichskirche - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

General Flynn and His Reichskirche

 

The Putsch Began at the Spooky Nook Sports Complex

 

Saint General Flynn demands ein Reichskirche

President Trump fantasizes about prison rape

Marjorie Taylor Green toys with her Jewish space laser

And the Party obsesses on dirty books

 

Thirty-round magazines and stock-tank baptisms

Rams’ horns, made-in-China Wal-Mart camouflage

Squeezed around fat proud boy oaf-keepers

An unorganized militia of lemmings

 

Red-capped lemmings channeling QAnon

While waving Bibles and semi-automatics

20,000 jackasses marching out of step

Well-armed against sin at the voting booth

 

Trump!

Trump!

Trump!

Trump!

Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Pickup Truck - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Pickup Truck

 

Teaching Poetry to High School Boys

 

The fragility of teenaged boys is well known

Despite their tough hands stained with oil and grease

And their slouch and their ‘tude, wanting to be grown

Their loud voices disturbing the classroom’s peace

 

(Ooooh-RAH!)

 

And true enough they are rough-and-tumble souls

Who are seldom frightened away from any fray

But nothing blasts manly roles so full of holes

As a name like Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

(Shiver!)

 

In teaching boys poetry you’re just out of luck

Unless there’s a dog or a pickup truck

 

(Hey, Old Dude, is “deer stand” an iamb or a trochee?)

A Licensed General Contractor Who Loves Jesus - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Licensed General Contractor Who Loves Jesus

 

Oh, man, hey, I’m sorry I missed your call

I was busy personal problems next week

For sure “the mailbox is full” I have to go to Houston

To pick up those flooring samples I just love Jesus

 

Was that last week I’m sorry I had to make sure this other job

Was going okay you didn’t get my call

I’m sure I’m called I’m sorry about that hey

I gotta take this other call just hang on a moment

 

Hey man I haven’t forgot about you yeah

I’ll be there first thing tomorrow you can bet on it

King by the Grace of God - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The King is the King by the Grace of God

 

The King is the King by the Grace of God

Prime ministers are chosen by party caucus

The King reigns in dignity with sceptre and rod

And Parliament is useless and greedy and and raucous

Van Gogh or Your Lives, Comrades - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Van Gogh or Your Lives, Comrades

 

Sunflowers look to the sun

Protestors blink in the dark

 

Swivelling their angry eyes

From their pale Gadarene flesh

They shriek false dichotomies

And vandalize the sunflowers of Van Gogh

 

Sunflowers look to the sun

Protestors lurk in the dark

Crazy Old Men with Rockets 'n' Bombs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Crazy Old Men with Rockets ‘n’ Bombs

 

When you read to your brother or sister

A go-to-sleep book about bunnies and stars

You are healing a wound in Creation

Made by some malevolent old man

 

When you sing along with the washing machine

And help your MeeMaw up those tricky stairs

You are healing a wound in Creation

Made by some malevolent old man

 

When you sit on the steps late at night

And watch a pirate ship sail close by the moon

You are healing a wound in Creation

Made by some malevolent old man

 

When you pray for the bombed-out refugees

And put a little extra in the collection plate

You are healing a wound in Creation

Made by some malevolent old man

 

When you sing a song to the universe

It remains in the heavens forever

 

Because

 

You helped heal a wound in Creation

Upon Reading - a small collection as published in LogoSophia Magazine

 Upon Reading – LogoSophia Magazine

A small collection of recent poems published in LogoSophia (the editor makes even my poor work look good!).

Gender Selection is not Addressed in THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE ("Q" - not that "Q" - 1940 printing) - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Gender Selection is not Addressed in The Oxford Book of English Verse

 

That was the time when the custom of political re-education

                 of teachers by students had come in. 

 

-Doctor Zhivago, epilogue

 

Once upon a time a likeable student said

“You know, Mr. Hall, you can choose your gender now”

I paused, then replied, “And you know that’s impossible”

He was silent, folding his arms in contempt

 

I had been investigated before

And expected a summons from the Colonial Office

With a list of sensitive points to be addressed

But I hadn’t been reported this time

 

Someday, when this old world is set aright

Some will say such things could not have happened

 

In America

Lest Our Old Shoes Sit Easier Than Our New - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Lest Our Old Shoes Sit Easier Than Our New

 

-as Macduff does not say in Macbeth

 

When we were children we were proud of our new shoes

Our once-a-year shoes in situational poverty

Although we went barefootin’ most of the time

As long as the weather and parents allowed

 

But we had to wear them to Sunday church

And finally to school after the first chill

But it was something to own a new pair of shoes

To stand upon the earth in feigned prosperity

 

And even now, with lots of pairs to choose

We want to ask folks if they like our new shoes

Taking Time to Stomp the Flowers - weekly column, 16 October 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Taking Time to Stomp the Flowers

 

At London’s National Gallery last week two unhappy young persons, one styling herself “Ziggy Stardyke,” vandalized one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings by sloshing it with tomato soup.  Both were costumed in tee-shirts proclaiming, “JUST STOP OIL.” The purple-haired Miss Ziggy then yelled, “What is worth more, art or life? Is it worth more than food?”

 

[Van Gogh vandals are graduate, 21, and student, 20, who blockaded Trafalgar and Parliament Squares | Daily Mail Online]

 

The art was on the wall, and then the food was too; Miss Ziggy and her sullen comrade are the ones lacking a life.

 

Another reality is that the possibility of you or I having an intelligent, source-based give-and-take exchange of ideas with someone styling herself Ziggy Stardyke is remote.

 

Two topics obtain in the recent adventures of Ziggy Stardyke and her sour-faced little Renfield. The first one is the matter of fossil fuels, including oil, coal, and natural gas.  Without these sources of energy we would all be dead. There is not enough wood on the planet to replace them, and solar and wind are still laboratory projects. Nuclear, which would also work, is mostly forbidden because some lazybones at Three Mile Island chose to ignore the layers of warnings and then the safety protocols.  

 

The other topic is civilization.  To paraphrase a character in an episode of Northern Exposure, we are not monkeys with car keys. We are humans, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, as C. S. Lewis reminds us. We think. We build. We speak. We write. We draw. We paint. We sculpt. We identify and solve problems. We recognize Creation and our part in it. We deal with the complexities of creation through science, math, art, and poetry. As the Greek philosophers teach us, life is about questing for the good, the true, and the beautiful. 

 

Any utilitarian structure confirms this: a bridge over, say, the Houston Ship Channel is good because it provides enhanced freedom of movement and the exchange of goods and services for people going about the business of life. A bridge is also true because its engineering and construction work together in physical harmony through the applications of engineering, geometry, metallurgy, hydrology, and the other sciences. Finally, a bridge is beautiful because its functions and proportions personify the human spirit. The suspension cables, the towers of steel, and all of the works of human minds and hands that make a bridge a bridge are aesthetically pleasing.

 

Ziggy Stardyke and her Renfield have looked upon the good, the true, and the beautiful, upon at least 10,000 years of civilization, and have found them wanting. Therefore, exactly like Nazis, Communists, Talibannies, and some of their own English ancestors [Puritan Iconoclasm in the English Civil War | Reviews in History], they censor them. They who have life only because of the wise use of fossil fuels condemn the use of fossil fuels, and express their condemnation by censorship, by attempting to destroy a work of art, one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings, which has no connection with fossil fuels except that we would need to take a London Transport bus to go see it.

 

These two childish individuals are purportedly educated women, but so far have demonstrated no knowledge of either the sciences or the fuzzy studies, and in their invincible puerile ignorance angrily destroy things of beauty while shrieking illogical demands at the rest us.

 

In the autumn of 1945 the Western world surely did not imagine that civilization would fall again into book banning, book burning, the censorship of movies, newspapers, and broadcasts, the destruction of art, and mobs chanting slogans of hate in the streets, but here we are. 

 

A sunflower is heliocentric – it turns to the light. Poor Ziggy Stardyke and her Grima Wormtongue turn to the darkness.

 

-30-

Like an Autopsy on a Dear Friend - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Like an Autopsy on a Dear Friend

 

I’m amputating limbs in late October heat

Grateful to this friend who gave me so much:

Those first green leaves and blossoms in the spring

Deeper greens through summer, and apples in season

 

Something went wrong in the winter, and she didn’t awaken

The summer passed with its more pressing chores

And only now can I cut my friend apart

Into sweet billets for the winter fires

 

She will be with me this Christmas in comforting flame

And then return to Creation, from whence she came

Reported Side Effects Include... - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Reported Side Effects Include…

 

After a dose a sudden nap-attack

A sour afternoon of sour dreamful sleep

Unhappy sour imaginings among sour pains

Feverishly sour and dizzily sour

 

Feverishly up and dizzily up

To watch the feverishly sour news

Sour Putin parked nuclear bombers in my head

Is Nancy really threatening to punch Donald?

 

Sour!

 

I’ll verify with Lester Holt tomorrow

For now I’m clinging to my sour sorrow

Casualties of Being - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Casualties of Being

 

In the last century

I lost my youth in Viet-Nam

Last week I met a man

Who lost his son last year

 

Autumn - always autumn

My New Shoes Might Test Positive for Traces of Blood - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

My New Shoes Might Test Positive for Traces of Blood

 

Brand-name boat shoes glued together in gloom

Canvas and rubber and toxicity from Shanghai

Bloody little hands and decaying lungs:

We are all guilty of slavery

 

Do the workers dream of luxurious yachts

Or even a day off for a picnic at the pond

Bloody little hands and decaying lungs:

We are all guilty of slavery

 

Bloody little hands and decaying lungs:

We are all guilty of slavery

A Geriatric Motorcycle Gang Invades the Bluebonnet Cafe' - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Geriatric Motorcycle Gang Invades the Bluebonnet Café

 

The Hearing Aids from Hell Roaring off the Screen

Biker Babushkas High on Geritol

Looking for Trouble and a Clean Restroom

The Wild One Searching for his lost Social Security

 

Hell’s Angels on Aluminum Walkers

The Thundering Electra Glide in Blue Rinse

Harley Davidson and the COPD Inhaler Man

Dentures Every Which Way and Loose

 

“What are you rebelling against?”

“What have…wait…it’s coming to me…what have you…dang, I forgot!”

Mention Stalin in Your Poem - a poem, but "Stalin" is mentioned only in the title

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Mention Stalin in Your Poem

 

“It was discovered that there was not one mention of Stalin in your poem…”

 

-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, p. 67

 

A chill October morning of brilliant air

Leaves turning in their colors and on their stems

In the healing-cool Cerean breeze

As the goddess takes her dreamy walk

 

This bright October morning of happiness

It’s time to put the garden tools away

Summer, in need of healing, begins to rest

Each moment is an earth-crafted waykreuz

 

But to approved poets this morning is nothing

For it makes no mention of anti-colonialism

I Never Want to Hear a Child Made to Sing Cohen's "Hallelujah" Ever Again poem

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

I Never Want to Hear a Child Made to Sing Cohen’s “Hallelujah” Ever Again

 

Our first contestant will sing “Hallelujah”

After taking ten minutes for exposition

About what it meant to her granny

And she knows Granny’s in Heaven listening

 

Audience, you are obligated to cry

 

Our next contestant will sing “Hallelujah”

After taking ten minutes for exposition

About what it meant to his ol’ pop

And he knows Pop’s in Heaven listening

 

Audience, you are obligated to cry

 

Our third contestant will sing “Hallelujah”

After taking ten minutes for exposition

About what it meant to her cat Fluffy

And she knows Fluffy’s in Heaven listening

 

Audience, you are obligated to cry

 

Our fourth contestant will sing “Hallelujah”

After taking ten minutes for exposition

About what it meant to his big brother

And he knows his brother is in Heaven listening

 

Audience, you are obligated to cry

 

And the winner is…“Hallelujah!”

And in each listener there is a secret cry:

“Cohen, why are you doing this to us!”

A Very Brief Review of WHEN BOOKS WENT TO WAR - weekly column, 9 October 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Very Brief Review of When Books Went to War

 

When America entered World War II in 1941, we faced an enemy that had banned and burned more than 100 million books and caused fearful citizens to hide…many more.

 

-Cover note, When Books Went to War, by Molly Guptill Manning

 

The “we” is a bit precious; the blurb writer was not in World War II, nor was the author, nor I, nor you. Still, the point is well made: tyrants don’t want people thinking for themselves. Books are dangerous to bullies, whether they are Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi Minh, Vlad the Bad Putin, Chairman Xi, or the Ms. Grundy down the street.

 

Molly Guptill Manning’s excellent When Books Went to War begins with an overview of what books have been accessible to soldiers, beginning with the American Civil War, and then examines censorship of all media but especially books in the Nazi time.

 

When American entered the war the average education level among soldiers was the 11^th grade, which was the highest in U.S. military history. With an almost universal literacy rate, books would be important for morale and for helping promote critical thinking and a sense of culture for helping democratize learning among all Americans after the war.

 

The process of making books accessible was complicated, but by 1943 the Armed Services Editions (ASE) of all sorts of books – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and scientific-technical - were being sent to our military all over the world.

 

These paperback editions were designed to fit a combat infantryman’s pockets, and were bound on the narrow edge rather than the wide. Given that printing presses and paper sourced had to be modified for this format, this was a challenge, but one successfully met.

 

Ironically, there were strong attempts to censor the content. Title V, the Soldiers’ Voting Rights Act, was burdened with a rider that would have banned any book with even a hint of politics. Although Title V was so botched that very few soldiers overseas were permitted to vote, the censorship was scrubbed. As The San Antonio News said, “One would think that the men who fight the Nation’s battles would be quite able to decide for themselves what they would like to read” (p. 142).

 

Miss Manning appends the titles and authors of the thousands of ASEs. Many of these are action books: westerns (Hopalong Cassidy Serves a Writ), detective stories (The Postman Always Rings Twice), historical novels (Death Comes for the Archbishop), and a very few war narratives, along with essays, science fiction, biographies, drama. There is a little poetry: Robert Frost, for instance, Carl Sandburg, Whitman, Longfellow, and others, including Robert Herrick, who would now be found only in a university graduate course. There is a Russian novel written by a fellow named Kalashnikoff (as spelt) and German Erich Maria Remarque’s Arch of Triumph.

 

The ASE’s would in fact represent the holdings of an especially good library in a mid-sized American city or a very large high school.  That is, of course, before all the Ms. Grundys thundered in looking for th’ dirty books.

 

…over 123 million Armed Services Editions were printed. The Victory Book Campaign added 18 million donated books to the total number distributed to American troops. More books were given to the American armed services than Hitler destroyed (p. 194).

 

Those free and uncensored books were examples of the many things this nation gets exactly right. Thanks to Molly Guptill Manning for reminding us.

 

-30-

 

 

 

A Mansie Wearing a Gun in the Supermarket - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Mansie Wearing a Gun in the Supermarket

 

Wearin’ a big iron on his hip he swaggers down the aisle

The village idiot over by the vegetables

When you call him that, tomato, smile

He ain’t takin’ no lip from any of you edibles

 

Wearin’ a big iron on his hip he faces down

A mob of gluten-free breads carrying torches and a rope

Looking for back-shootin’ rice, white or brown

Who want rough justice for a cantaloupe

 

Step easy when he’s around, potato chip

That anal orifice with a big iron on his hip