Lawrence Hall, HSG
18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities
When missiles fall upon our vanities
And children die among our smoking ruins
Will we dare plead our weak excuses to God:
“This isn’t what we meant…”
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
If Children Ask for Bread Will We Give Them a Statement? - a sentence which is not a poem at all
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
If Children Ask
for Bread Will We Give Them a Statement?
“The Roman Catholic–Orthodox Joint International
Commission for Theological Dialogue produced a statement this past June on
the vexed issue of papal primacy and the timely topic of synodality.”
Well of course they did.
A Deer and I Surprised Each Other - doggerel
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Deer and I Surprised
Each Other
Silence
We paused
We looked
She leaped
I said
Goodbye
But she
Was gone
And I
Was left
There all
Alone
Monday, October 16, 2023
People are Dying by the Thousands - Let's All Go Buy Slogan Tees - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
People are Dying by
the Thousands – Let’s All Go Buy Slogan Tees
XL, L, M, S, and
Petite
Guaranteed
Ethically-Sourced Materials
Domestic
carnage now filled all the year
With
Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,
The
Maiden from the bosom of her Love,
The
Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,
The
Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all
Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X,
356-360
We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:
Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed
The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup
A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea
But then
The evening news is a call to our conscience
With offerings in two senses only
Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals
Across a couch with a motorized recline mode
Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news
And peace-loving intellectuals chanting
“Gas the Jews!”
Will There be Coffee after the Crucifixion? - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Will There be Coffee
after the Crucifixion?
Everything’s
going to be discovered
And
understood in the course of time,
Only
we have to go on thinking
-Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”
Not all are crucified, but all are wounded
We bring our gifts to the Altar; they fall apart
In secretly clinging to them for ourselves
Our claims to be defined by an era
But rotting corpses in a tangled wood
The celebrant elevates the Host
We lift unfocused eyes in grave pretense
Inattentive at the Wedding of worlds
The Mass is the central Act in Creation -
Not all are crucified, but all are wounded
Sunday, October 15, 2023
A Tale of Herschkowitz - a brief narrative
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Tale of Herschkowitz
602nd
Tank Destroyer Battalion
My father, who was a master sergeant in the Second World
War, told this story of one of his armored car’s crew, Herschkowitz. Towards
the end of the war, probably in the area of Zwickau, Herschkowitz was flirting
with some pretty German girls. This was probably one of the sanest moments in
Europe in 1945.
Later my father said, “Herschkowitz, I didn’t know you
spoke German.”
Herschkowitz replied, “I don’t, sergeant, but I know
Yiddish and we all understood each other pretty well.”
Thus endeth the lesson.
-30-
Saturday, October 14, 2023
(Untitled / flashback to Viet-Nam / not for publication)
93. 14 October 2023, Saturday in Ordinary Time
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Flashback (not for
publication)
Domestic
carnage now filled all the year
With
Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,
The
Maiden from the bosom of her Love,
The
Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,
The
Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all
Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X,
356-360
We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:
Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed
The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup
A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea
But then
The evening news is the call of our conscience
The evening news is a long-ago call-back
With offerings in two senses only
Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals
Not
The concussions, the stench, the stickiness
of blood, the dust on our lips, the screams we deny, the tears we swallow the
impossible pulse that makes breathing gasping hyperventilating fragments
stinging the skin concussions concussions concussions make them stop make it
all stop running running running over there drag him to the ditch hurry hurry
hurry you can treat him there he’s dead his eyes are open to the gravel go back
again hurry hurry hurry breathe breathe breathe
Why is this happening again why is this happening again
Stop
That child is dead
Stop it
What’s that? A dead soldier. He is so small
Stop it
So many bodies, shrunken into their clothes
A still-clawed arm sticking out from a bundle
Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news
Non-combatant commandos channeling their views
And darling little undergrads shrieking, “Death to the Jews”
Friday, October 13, 2023
My Concealed-Carry Jewish Space Laser (Shhhhhhhhhhh...!) - doggerel
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
My Concealed-Carry
Jewish Space Laser
In my state you can carry a switch-blade knife
And shoot an AR with 30-round magazines
Or a .50-calibre Barrett for vaporizing a life
Tote brass-knuckles in your camouflaged jeans
In my state
Few methods of murder are regulated
But if you read Anne Frank you could be investigated
Three Cigarette Lighters - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Three Cigarette
Lighters
And in what landscape of disaster
Has
your unhappy spirit lost its road?
-Thomas Merton, “For my Brother”
I was strolling along for my digestion and health
Inspecting the refreshing October winds
Counting the summer-tired leaves floating to earth
And noting the brightness of autumn’s yellow flowers
Off in the weeds a cigarette lighter presented itself
It didn’t work. A second cigarette lighter did
A useful souvenir of my evening walk
And then a third – three cheap lighters, all in a row
A cocaine trail of disposable dreams
Disposable lighters, disposable lives
Wednesday, October 11, 2023
"Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve"
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Choose You This Day
Whom You Will Serve”
“…for whom war was a fresh terror and the corpses of real people…”
-Matti
Friedman, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai
A little child ripped from her dead mother’s arms
Is not a
petition for border adjustments
A grandfather murdered while waiting for the bus
Is not a
parliamentary point of order
Teenagers stripped, raped, beaten, tortured, and shot
Are not cool chants
in a university quad
A rotting fragment of a beheaded baby
Is not someone’s
tee-shirt slogan
An elderly woman still marked from Buchenwald
Is a child of
God, not a bargaining chip
No deflections
No whatabouts
No evasions
No excuses
No
Choose you this day whom you will serve.
Sunday, October 8, 2023
7 October 2023 - Anger and Futility
7 October 2023
Must Anne Frank be murdered again and again? I cannot write
anything meaningful today; I can only sputter in anger and futility.
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great
mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because
they are no more.”
St. Matthew 2:18
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Southern Belle Antiques 'N' Stuff - a little East Texas Gothic for Ya
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Southern Belle Antiques
‘N’ Stuff
(Slow sibilant bathroom-slipper-shuffle)
“Oh, don’t close the door, honey, oh no
If the door is closed no one will know I’m open
English Romantics? Here’s an Edgar Allan Poe
I read lots of books myself; do you like westerns?”
(Dark narrow paths tunnel through dark moldy heaps)
“I paid fifty dollars for that bolt cutter
It’s almost new; I bought it for my daddy
My brother locked him out of his own house
You can have it for twenty; I live upstairs”
(The shambling slippers follow me to the door)
“It’s a shame that girls don’t play with dolls anymore
Come back anytime; I’m mostly open”
The Synon on Synodality and, Like, Stuff - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Synod on Synodality
“There are to be forty interlocking committees sitting
every day…”
-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 36
One reads the words of the committees:
The grammar of synodality our
times the time journeying together breaking molds inclusion experts
facilitators process delegation the people totality sense of the faithful organize
discussion opening remarks challenges continental stage novelties dynamic legitimize
interrelation common discernment modules instrumentum laboris synthesis
report road map response paradigm preparation planning natural vision human
planning expectations narrative of radical change shifting models of synodality
conciliarity emblematic expression methodology dubia divine discourse adjudicate
delineating areas of consensus specific situational analyses media framing
reinterpreting confidentiality requirements module serenity of the discernment
in common implementation phase inclusive ecclesial process participatory ways
of exercising responsibility social dialogue regenerating relationships initiate
the processes practicing synodality a double dynamic of conversion articulations
of synodality ten thematic nuclei to be explored synodal dialogue the potential
of synodal engagement national synthesis document consultative sessions what it
means to be church social media template an operative notion national synthesis
of the people of God contextualize diocesan phase of the synodal process enduring
wounds needs-friendly steps for discerning ongoing formation for mission…
Brushing aside this choking fog of words
The reader ceases to read, for he sees
A silent, sandal-shod saint in a raggedy cloak
Having fed the chickens now telling his beads
A Carrier of Bodies - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Carrier of Bodies
My stretcher is one scarlet stain
-Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”
In illo tempore:
I don’t know
that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies;
I was already up
There, where smoking
metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun
Later:
Carrying
bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried;
Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patient
and in sterile drapes
Red fragments
of flesh in the E. R. at night
Now:
In the
evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older
self, to a chair at dusk
Southern Belle Antiques 'N' Stuff - poem, a little East Texas Gothic
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Southern Belle Antiques
‘N’ Stuff
(Slow sibilant bathroom-slipper-shuffle)
“Oh, don’t close the door, honey, oh no
If the door is closed no one will know I’m open
English Romantics? Here’s an Edgar Allan Poe
I read lots of books myself; do you like westerns?”
(Dark narrow paths tunnel through dark moldy heaps)
“I paid fifty dollars for that bolt cutter
It’s almost new; I bought it for my daddy
My brother locked him out of his own house
You can have it for twenty; I live upstairs”
(The shambling slippers follow me to the door)
“It’s a shame that girls don’t play with dolls anymore
Come back anytime; I’m mostly open”
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Nazi Canada? weekly column 10.1.2023
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Nazi Canada?
Nazi Canada? Of course not.
Canadian P.M. Justin Trudeau is not a Nazi. He presents himself
as a vulgar, privileged jerk but he is not a Nazi.
His groveling apology last week for the purported Nazi
insensitivity of other Canadians thus seems inexplicable.
Recently the Speaker (now former Speaker) of Parliament, Anthony
Rota, had occasion to welcome Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine. The Speaker
got it into his head that he would add to the occasion by inviting for one of
those now tiresome shout-outs a Canadian citizen, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka,
who was born in Ukraine and fought against the Russian Communists in the Second
World War.
A problem is that when Stalin, Hitler’s ally against the
Western democracies, was betrayed by his old comrade he turned to the Western
nations for help. Thus, the perverse Stalin was a Nazi ally when that was useful
for him and a Western ally when that was useful for him. In 1945 he turned back
again against the Western nations who had saved the Soviet Union. But the
unhappy fact remains that Communist Russia was our (admittedly treacherous)
ally for a time. Further, Mr. Hunka fought against Communists but with a Nazi
unit.
The Speaker of the Canadian Parliament presumably has a
well-paid staff to assist him in learning about such matters, but in the event Mr.
Rota naively invited a poor old man with a dodgy background to be presented in
Parliament without doing a routine background check.
This is embarrassing and should never have happened. However,
it reflects a moment of carelessness, not Nazi sympathies in Canada. One might find a few village-idiot “stormtroopers”
waddling around and shouting in the streets, but they reflect only stupid
choices by stupid individuals. They are not Canada. Canadians sing that they
are “the true north strong and free.” They mean it.
This reality means nothing to those unhappy people always
finding in others guilt that does not obtain except perhaps in the accusers
themselves. Note Susanna in the Book of Daniel and later in the Gospel of St.
John the woman purportedly caught in adultery.
An apology is appropriate, but only for carelessness in
background checks.
The accusation given is that Canada is sodden with a poor
history of accommodating Nazism.
Apparently few if any have chosen to defend Canada with
the facts:
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Canada was one of the
first nations to declare war. At that time Canada had a standing army of 4,500
men and some 50,000 reservists, no modern equipment, only 20 combat aircraft,
and a navy of 6 destroyers. [http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/chrono/1931goes_to_e.html].
From 1939 – 1945 approximately 1.1 million Canadian men
and women, out of a total of 10 million citizens, joined the services and fought
Nazism and Japanese imperialism. This does not include the Canadians who served
with the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth nations, and the United States.
According to Library and Archives Canada [Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947
- Library and Archives Canada (bac-lac.gc.ca)], 24,525 Canadian
soldiers, 17,397 RCAF airman, and
2,168 RCN sailors were killed in action. These numbers do not include civilians
and Canada’s Merchant Marine, nor do they include those wounded in body and
soul.
Newfoundland, not then part of Canada, lost approximately
1,000 men and women in the several services, including those of Canada, the
United Kingdom, and the United State [Newfoundland
in World War II | World War II Database (ww2db.com)].
Over 50,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders died fighting
Nazism - and yet Mr. Trudeau ignores them while apologizing for Canada’s
purported Nazi sympathies.
One 98-year-old former Nazi was erroneously given a
shout-out in Parliament, and now the Canadian government is collectively calling
for smelling salts. In all of this
self-abasement and drama no one seems to remember all the Canadian and
Newfoundland soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen, Marines, and merchant
seamen who were killed in action against young, tough Nazis Newark-bent on
global domination.
In 1914 Lawrence Binyon, a British poet, wrote a poem, “For
the Fallen,” some of whose lines are to be found on British, Canadian,
Newfoundland, and even American memorials, and quoted every Armistice Day / Remembrance
Day / Veterans’ Day as a tribute to those who died fighting tyranny:
They shall grow not old, as we
that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
But in the last few weeks Mr. Trudeau and the Canadian Parliament
seem to have forgotten them after all.
-30-
Are You an Old Soul? - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Are You an Old Soul?
“…but lay thy sword aside
And lean upon a peasant’s
staff”
-Wordsworth
We have it on the highest Authority
That we are souls on lengthy pilgrimage
But I don’t
know if we are old or not
And did you
bring along something to read?
Sometimes we
march in step along the route
At other
times we seem to fly in pairs
Or sometimes trudge
a lonely path in the night
And hear the
music of a thousand spheres
Sometimes I’m
old, but then you smile just so
And I am
young – there’s magic in your soul
Saturday, September 30, 2023
30 September 2023 - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
30 September 2023
“Make
it so, Number One”
-Star
Trek: The New Generation (often)
Up at 0630 with coffee and Tuxedo-Cat
In the west-fading light of the still-full moon
To watch and hear and feel and touch and taste
The waning of night, the beginning of day
The air was cool, the grass was damp, the birds –
The birds were LOUD, fussing from tree to tree
An old lawn chair, layers of paint over rust
Was our captaincy over possibilities
“Is all well, Number One?” I asked the cat
He blinked his eyes that the world was ready to sail
Friday, September 29, 2023
Stay Close to the Telephone - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Stay Close to the
Telephone
“Stay close to the telephone,” they used to say
Stay close to that Western Electric on the desk or wall
Since news of great importance might come your way
A message from the shop or some emergency call
“Stay close to the telephone” – you couldn’t go out
Without breaking contact in an hour of need
You could only wait in place in fear and doubt
For an order at last to move with speed
“Stay close to the telephone?” It had no reach
But a modern ‘phone drains you like a bloody leech
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