Lawrence Hall
Setting a Cat Among the Pigeons
After two months
I filed a complaint with
the insurance company
After four months
I filed a complaint with
the state insurance board
Neither the cat nor the
pigeons are much moved
Except to disapprove of me
for noticing
That nothing much has
moved
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Decline of the British Empire
Whatever happens
We have got
Milton and Shakespeare
And they have not
But this is what
They have got:
A strong economy
And we have not
(Based on a bit of 19th
century triumphalist doggerel, attributed to Hilaire Belloc and others, about
the Maxim gun. And let The People shout, “Decolonize these lines!”)
Lawrence Hall
The Second and
Most Efficient Memory Device
The concept of the free public library with access to all
is, like rural electrification programs, public roads, untaxed airwaves, public
schools, university agricultural extensions, and other outreach plans, an
expression of the burst of genius and energy that helped make this nation great.
The idea that all citizens, rich or
poor, should have access to learning, freedom of movement, the exchange of ideas,
and possibilities for self-improvement does not originate in America but this
is the nation that made it work.
For most of human history access to learning, to the
ability to read and write and measure the world and map the stars, to
participate freely in what the Romans called the res publica (the
republic, that is, the public life), was limited to a relatively small upper
class. England, for instance, gave the
world the genius of Shakespeare; America saw to it that everyone had access
to Shakespeare.
The stunning and inexplicable failures of access via
racial, gender, and class biases demonstrate the point that possibilities must be
available to all, and that a universally literate citizenry makes life better
for all of us.
Books have always been expensive, but the American
invention of pulping wood for paper in the 19th century made them
less so. The free public library meant that those still-pricey volumes would
circulate among the people as does the air, the air of freedom.
Libraries have changed, and in many ways not for the
better. In our time the successful and stabilizing repositories of knowledge
and aesthetics have been seen by some as weapons of ideology, with the
promotion of limited points of view and the attendant suppression of others.
Public libraries have sometimes been required by the governing authorities to
serve as non-emergency homeless shelters and as centers of political activity.
In times of crisis, yes, a library or any other building
can be used for shelter. A great many libraries in Ukraine, for instance, are
of necessity helping keep the dispossessed housed. But housing is not what a
library is otherwise for.
The freedom to assemble peaceably is an essential value of
our republic (with its very democratic systems of voting), but serving as the
headquarters of a political party or ideology of any kind is not what a library
is for.
Adult men and women are free to attend certain entertainments,
but those entertainments are not what a library is for. No one ever entered the Cheyenne Social Club
or Miss Kitty’s Long Branch Saloon to demand that the girls cover up and the
boys put down their beers for an hour’s discussion of the Wife of Bath and Lady
Macbeth as symbols of feminist empowerment.
All things to their proper venues.
And let’s get real – news features about some guy
costuming himself as Elsie the Cow in makeup for a function staged in a public
library are news because they are as rare as they are inappropriate. It doesn’t
happen here, and it won’t. Librarians are guardians of civilization; posturing loudmouths
with bullhorns are not.
On the other hand, there’s all the unhappy content in the
MePhones parents provide their children.
You think the kid walking down the street with the little Orwellian
telescreen in his hand is reading Plato’s concepts of the good, the true, and
the beautiful?
Back to the books, everyone.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Objective Correlative of the Construction Trades
A builder takes a vision
of a surface
A vision of place,
stability, and horizon
Connections
between a bookcase and a window
Smooth
transitions from sitting room to bath
And
pours them all out as concrete indeed
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Cat as an Argument Against the Concept of
Evolution
On the sixth day God made
the animals
The cat generally
disapproved of the others
And in a superior fashion
licked its paws
In the springtime shade of
the very first oak
The very first cat looked
upon the very first bird
And ate it
And the cat said that the bird was good
Chewy in musculature and
crunchy in bone
Then when the Creator
rebuked the cat
The cat ignored Him
And in a superior fashion licked
its paws
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
What WE Did in the War
For all those Keyboard Commandos
Who Can Quote Every Line in Patton
You talk about what WE did
in World War Two -
Well, I wasn’t there, and neither
were you
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Row of Missals on the Chimneypiece
Those inexpensive missals,
all in a row
Upon the chimneypiece of
their little home
Each with its ribbons in
orderly place
Like children in line for the
Eucharist
I envied my friend for his family’s
faith
The daily liturgies of a
Catholic home
Rhythms and usages giving
order to life -
They are all gone now, dead or
dispersed
And in a garage sale some
fifty years on
I found his missal, ribbons
still in place
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature
and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Unemployed Second-Amendment Carpenter Looking for
Work
“I have five ARs to support,” said he
Without the merest hint of irony
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Jack and the Magic
Cryptostalk
As we are so often reminded in life, there are no magic
beans. Still, the lesson is often not taken: The Dutch Tulip Bubble in the 17th
century, the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Bubble in the 18th
century, the original Ponzi scheme in 1919, fools’ gold, emus, Enron, Madoff, cryptocurrency,
the Texas State Lottery [State lottery advertising tells players half of the story |
AP News], Theranos, and any number of other get-poor-quick schemes that
victimize people with cruel tricks to separate them from their savings.
We all read about these historical ripoffs in our history
classes and wondered how anyone could be so naïve as to mortgage the house to
buy, say, tulips, or maybe shares in a gold mine in Peru.
In the future people will read about cryptocurrencies and
marvel even more. How is it that people invested in something that didn’t even
exist? A machine or series of machines generate secret codes that have no
reference to anything in reality, and some clever people then sell these secret
codes for money. The idea is that the secret codes acquire value and can later
be sold for a profit.
Magic beans indeed.
The first few code owners in any given scheme do make a
profit; they tell their stories which in turn entice others to buy some of the
magic beans – codes – and so the originators accrue fortunes which they filter
to a foreign tax haven before discreetly disappearing with almost all of the
investors’ money into another nation which for a generous fee will ignore any
attempt at extradition.
The recent dramatic failure of a cryptocurrency [Crypto Stocks Teeter Near Abyss as Fink’s Warning Adds to
Angst (yahoo.com)] and [Why Hasn’t Sam Bankman-Fried Been Arrested Yet? (nymag.com)]
has let the metaphorical cat out of the bag with regard to the others. The beanstalk is falling; the marvel is that
it stood as long as it did.
The first few investors might or might not be required by
an inquisitive federal court to give their winnings back, and while Poncy
Clever, MBA, is lounging on a tropical beach (as long as a host government will
want to put up with him), the thousands of investors will be left with nothing
but self-reproach.
Poncy Clever, MBA, with an umbrella drink in his hand and
a Rolex on his wrist, might paraphrase Marie Antoinette and say mockingly, “Let
them eat fungible tokens.”
Or magic beans.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine –
A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship
& Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Trial by Twitter
“…why torture ourselves in order to hurt others?”
-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings
We have made ourselves a
surveillance state
Eager to be approved
Fearful of being judged
We the accused must not
presume to think
We impeach ourselves daily on
their screens
(The screens are hardly ours)
Accusing ourselves of sin
Against the loving terror of
the Now
But as for a torch and a Phrygian
hat –
Is there an app for any of
that?
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Carpenters, Electricians,
Plumbers, and Pom-Poms
And sometimes I hear
Professional craftsmen gossiping
Like
cheerleader sponsors
Lawrence
Hall
LogoSophia Magazine –
A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship
& Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Cats, Mice, and Inter-Species Violence
Inspired by Kirk Briggs’ thoughts on eye
surgery
(It’s complicated)
I have cats and mice
The mice don’t need surgery
But the cats insist
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Cataracts of the Nile
Obscure and opaque
But surely there are in Egypt
Ophthalmologists
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine –
A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship
& Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Navigating the Rules
Everything not forbidden is compulsory
-T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn
The rules are
immutable and absolute
Except when they’re
not. The rules this week
Are whatever the powerful
might say -
Questions are a
burden; simply obey
Accept that whatever
you think is wrong
To the truculent who disapprove
of you
For you are outdated,
a relic, a prat
And you are wicked to
disagree with that
Anything in your
defense that you might urge
Is now a forbidden ism
subject to purge
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine –
A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship
& Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Negotiating Toilet Paper
The escort carried
three rolls of toilet paper
As she walked me to the
classroom area
One each for Dorm A, Dorm
B, and the guards
Some fellows walked
casually along the path
“And you guys know how
to walk single-file”
“Yes, ma’am”
“Yes, ma’am”
“Sure thing, ma’am”
And thus in silence
they formed that single-file
“One roll of toilet
paper per prisoner per week
Sometimes it’s just
not enough,” she said
“We had a meeting on
it; I told the guys
Sometimes
administration just doesn’t get it”
Dignity, like
treaties, can be broken
In many ways
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine –
A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship
& Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Eyes of a Stalker
Dear Publisher:
Yes, I thank God you
are free to publish your books
And I thank that wise First
Amendment thing
Even though crafted by
agnostics and rebels
Who ought to have been
faithful to their King
You are free to call
that parasite a prince
You are free to profit
from his treacheries
But selling your honor
for shillings and pence
Reveals your failure
as cultural trustees
But know you something
of that sullen talker?
On the cover you have
given him the eyes of a stalker
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
FIFA FO FUM
Association football, aka soccer, aka football, is said to
be “the sweet sport,” though no one seems to know why. Soccer is nominally a
healthy youth sport in which teams of young men and women kick a round ball and
occasionally each other, but what one observes in the FIFA World Cup is a sour
political mess of grownups acting like children without any positive role
models.
When we drive by a school or a park and see children playing
sports we consider how good it is for them to practice self- and external
discipline in pursuit of a common goal.
When we open the news and read about adults burning down
cities in response to other adults playing those same sports, we wonder at what
point did society fail to heed the lessons of youth.
No sport can be considered sweet when its commercial
sponsors, national sponsors, fans, and players choose to condemn each other in
matters religious, national, racial, and political, with apparently little
regard or respect for a well-played round, inning, or goal. There are lots of
accusations and few congratulations, and fists instead of handshakes.
FIFA footer is not a sport, it is an incubator of hatreds
and ideologies, and for a very few, great wealth.
This nation is hardly innocent in the matter – the behavior of
adults attending youth sports in schools and even in church leagues reminds us
that at one time children were encouraged and guided in sports by the adults in
their lives, not overwhelmed with partisan passion from the stands. As President Theodore Roosevelt said,
"It is not the
critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or
where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the
man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually
strive to do the deeds…”
Sports for young people are important as part of their intellectual,
moral, and physical development. A child participating in a team or even
kicking a ball around the back yard is much further along to adulthood than the
poor schlub vegetating on the couch with the little Orwellian telescreen for
hours at a time.
A parent must determine that elusive dividing line between
encouraging the child in sports as opposed to displacing the child from making
any decisions, and it’s never easy.
But as for FIFA as a role model for anything, that’s easy – no.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
On the Eve of Advent
On the eve of Advent
Jupiter ascends
As is his custom at
dusk this time of year
Then Mars and the
company of Orion
And all the dutiful
stars awake, arise
To mark the passing of
Ordinary Time
And arc into the west
and disappear
Late leaves rustle
unseen in the deepening dark
We whisper our Compline
prayers along with them
And in the absence of
light await the Light
Which will appear in the
most unlikely places
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Old Men in Chambray Shirts
Meditation on a theme of Tod Mixson
We don’t see khakis,
Bull Durham, or farmers’ hats
Or muscled arms that toss
square bales of hay
Two strokes hammering a
ten-penny through two-by-fours
One stroke of an axe splintering
lightered pine
A hand-rolled smoke
dangling from sun-blistered lips
An old boot heavy on a
rattlesnake’s head
An old stock knife to cut
that b*****d apart
And old, unwritten
yarns from the long ago
For now old men wear
shorts and slogan tees
A flock of gabbing
fools with knobby knees
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust
(fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The
True Knowledge
The True Knowledge
Them slaves was happy and well taken
care of
Prisoners lay around in air-conditioned
private rooms
Teachers don’t teach nothin’ but sex
and all them lies
I need disability; I’ve got five ARs to
support
The True Knowledge
They sell children at the pizza parlor
Jesus is my king and Trump my president
I saw them suitcases full of votes
Don’t try to tell me there ain’t no Q –
FACT!
The True Knowledge
I didn’t have to go to no fancy college
I got me [whisper] some sites - they teach The True Knowledge
