Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Third Couplet for
the Coup
The president’s son humiliated our representatives -
They’re as useless as gas-station pregnancy preventatives
Friday, January 12, 2024
A Third Couplet for the Coup
Another Couplet for the Coup
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Another Couplet for
the Coup
Presidents and their bangers bully judges, you see
So the laws apply only to you and me
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
He Won't Even Notice - a Bitter Couplet for the Coup
Lawrence Hall, HSG
He Won’t Even Notice
- a Bitter Couplet for the Coup
They cry that he is anointed of Jesus, that he saves
(His limousine will rumble over their poor graves)
Upon the Return of Artifacts to Wounded Knee - poem
Lawrence Hall
Upon the Return of
Artifacts to Wounded Knee
“We hope the spirits are on their way now.”
-Richard Broken Nose
A knife, a needle, an arrow, a pair of shoes
Some beads, a shirt, a drum, a tobacco pouch
A little girl’s doll, fragments of a pot
And tools for completing one’s daily chores
They are not artifacts; they are not displays
They are the ordinary necessities of life
Stolen from the dead hands of innocents
To be numbered, indexed, filed, boxed, and mocked
These things are sacred now, part of the Great Dance of Creation
We pray the spirits will come and take them home
As plundered items return to Wounded Knee, decisions await
(artdaily.com)
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Endsville - didacticism not at its best
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Endsville
All in all, at the end of the day, and in conclusion, when
the curvy lady sings, when the truth be told, when all is said and done, when
the chickens come home to roost, when all the evidence is in, in sum, in short,
in brief, the bottom line is, we can only conclude, to conclude, in the end, so
as I said before, to sum up, and as Churchill / Gandhi / Harry Potter / a wise
man once said, therefore, all things considered, most importantly, taking the
facts into account, to wrap things up, on the whole, and most importantly, and
finally…
(I was going somewhere with this…)
Polysyllabic Aspirational Bourgeois Vanity (and, like, stuff) - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Polysyllabic Aspirational
Bourgeois Vanity
(and, like, stuff)
Surrealism
A melting clock is not aesthetically pleasing
Nor is it of any utility
It celebrates chaos instead of life
And bullies us with a manifesto
Surrealism
Gives pale aesthetes topics for their idle hours
Surrendering imagination to cliches’
The endlessly self-referential I, I, me, me
(Another double-latte, if you please)
Surrealism
The republican’s derivative art is but
The emperor’s new clothes turned inside out
(And have you seen my serial
takes on Greek ikons re-imagined and re-envisioned as diatomic forms through
vegan egg-tempera on recycled barn wood as a repudiation of hidebound colonialist
oppressivist occupationist Orthodoxy by sequencing monks on Mount Athos as agnostic
Jewish fast-food workers influenced by the works of Dali and the Rapallo poets through
a motif of running wedges in asymmetric lines from a cosmopolitan image of
Heaven to a day-glow Wal-Mart beside a sea of transcendental bubbles which
symbolize my feelings when my latest grant was canceled? Hmmmmmmm? Of course
the straights don’t get it; their lack of imagination is why they stopped The
People’s funding I deserve so that I can make great art chiding them for being dullard
capitalist mechanicals. I do take all major credit cards for my works.)
Monday, January 8, 2024
End. Stops. Employed. As. Arguments. - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
End. Stops. Employed.
As. Arguments.
Learn. To. Code. You. Had. One. Job. End. Of. Fact.
Decolonize. This. Place. Best. Job. Ever.
Burn. It. Down. Get. A. Job. Not. In. Our. Name.
Not. My. King. Not. My President. Spot. On.
Worst. Day. Ever. Votes. Have. Consequences.
What. Could. Go. Wrong. It. Begins. Heads. Will. Roll.
O. M. G. Let. It. Go. This. Isn’t. Over.
Come. And. Take. It. Not. Just. Shut. Up. Just. No.
Shut. It. Down. Let. It. Go. I. Have. No. Words.
This. Ends. Now. End. Of. Story. Grow. Up. Full. Stop.
Sunday, January 7, 2024
The Elections of 2024 - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Elections of 2024
How sharply our children will be ashamed…
remembering how in so strange a time
common integrity could look like courage
-Yevtushenko,
“Talk”
1. Thesis (of a sort)
The nation shamble-shuffles erratically
Erratically to a lectern and microphone
A microphone on a Potemkin stage
While a bewildered audience feebly applauds
2. Antithesis (of a
sort)
The nation lemming-marches along the streets
Lemming-marches along with bullhorns and flags
Bullhorns bellowing in 5.56
The Gospel according to Saint QAnon
3. Recusancy instead
of synthesis
But I am an American, not a D, an R, a Q
My faith is in the Constitution, and maybe
In you
I Demanded to be Heard - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I Demanded to be Heard
When I was young I demanded
to be heard
And I was not heard, which
turned out for the best
Because I had almost nothing
to say
And that almost-nothing was
sodden with cliché
You Have Never Voted for a President - weekly column
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You Have Never
Voted for a President
You have never voted for a president, and neither have I.
Certain plaintiffs in certain states have recently petitioned
their state courts to bar a certain candidate from standing for the presidency
based on Section 3 of the XIVth Amendment. This states that no one can be a
senator, representative, or presidential or vice-presidential elector, or hold
any public office, civil or military, federal or state, if he (the pronoun is
gender-neutral), as a member of congress, an officer in the United States, a
member of any state legislature, or an executive or judicial officer in any
state if he, having sworn loyalty to the Constitution, “shall have engaged in
insurrection against the same (the Constitution).”
The XIVth Amendment was enacted following the Civil War
and in response to it, but an amendment is not limited in time and place. It is
active law, not a museum curiosity.
But how can a state presume to bar a candidate from a
presidential ballot in that state?
That leads us back to Article II, which states clearly
that presidents are elected by electors from each state, not by a popular vote.
Further, these electors from each state are appointed by the legislature of
each state, “…in such Manner as the Legislature may direct…”
The fifty states and the too-much-indulged District of
Columbia can, as a matter of states’ rights, choose their electors in any
manner they chose. Hey, it’s in the Constitution. And do we follow our
Constitution or not? As practiced the popular vote in each state is for
electors, not for candidates, and the electors then vote for the president.
Some states do not allow their electors to vote against the will of the
electorate, but some do.
Our clumsy system of voting sounds illogical, but its
function is to ensure that sparsely-populated states and districts are not
subjected to the votes of heavily-populated cities. Without our electoral
college (they don’t have a football team, though) our presidential elections would
always be decided by the west coast axis and the east coast axis.
This protection is similar to the constitutional
requirement that while the states send a number or representatives to the House
based on population, they each send two senators to the Senate regardless of
population.
All this is a little awkward, but it means that the great
population centers cannot use the rest of us – “flyover country,” “deplorables,”
and so on – as simply a source of raw materials for their industries and recruits
for their many undeclared wars, and dumping grounds for their garbage.
Under the Constitution the citizens of a state may indeed
appeal to their state legislature for barring a candidate from the ballot in
that state only based on the XIVth Amendment in that same federal
Constitution. It is a matter of states’ rights not only in the XIVth amendment but
in the Xth.
The argument that the President is not mentioned as an
officer in the amendment is specious, even a little desperate. No one in over
two hundred years has ever denied that the office of the presidency is in fact
and function the office of the presidency. The President is not in a position
of employment or contract; he is an officer.
The argument that the amendment does not apply if the
candidate has not been convicted might carry some weight except for the fact
that the authority for granting eligibility rests with a ¾ vote of the House of
Representatives.
Where the petitioners may have gone off those
metaphorical rails is presenting their petition to their state courts instead
of to their state legislatures. The state courts under the Constitution should
bounce this to their legislatures.
So why isn’t this taught in school? Well, it is; it’s
just that no 16-year-old is in the least interested in civics class. Nor does
he (the pronoun is gender-neutral) give a rat’s rear end for Shakespeare,
sentence structure, molecular theory, physics, algebra, or the food pyramid.
Geometry is kinda fun, though.
But they’re kids. They’re learning. We adults have no
excuses, and the language of the Constitution is clear enough. We have a duty
to perceive issues rationally as adults, come to conclusions based in law, and
participate in civilization as citizens of a great republic.
There are many elementals in civilized behavior – one is
that when we vote we often don’t get our way. That’s the deal. That’s our
Constitution.
-30-
Saturday, January 6, 2024
A Russian Christmas Card - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Russian Christmas
Card
For Tod and Max
I allowed the time, the year, the day to slip
And so I can only imagine a card for you
A Russian Christmas card in paper and paints
Of Christmas scenes from a happy golden time:
And let there be small children in furry boots
Dragging a little fir tree over the snow
Among artistically disposed squirrels and deer
To the delight of Father Christmas and the sweet Snow Queen
And let there be Saint Michael’s at the end of the lane
Its ancient bell ringing the ancient joys
While ancient stars and humble cottage windows
Give light to the faithful on their way to Mass
And let us be among them, as God will allow
Before the Theotokos and Child, kneeling now
Happy Orthodox Christmas, dear friends!
All the President's Mob - a re-post from 2021
(a re-post from 2021)
Lawrence Hall
All the
President’s Mob
Sedition batters past the capitol police -
As Congress, sweet harmless Merovingians,
Arming from a thesaurus of pomposity
Meet the attempted coup with lofty words
While hidden far away, lurking unseen
Our Leader screams into his telescreen
Moving his dementia along the Potomac:
Glorifying himself in the highest
Our government, cowering on the floor
Maintains that it will not be intimidated
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
No Threat to the Community - very short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
“No Threat to the
Community”
“…an isolated Incident “
-Orange (Texas) Police Department
The neighbors are in shock; news cameras peek and see -
But let the children play outside; oh, don’t be shy
Because there is “no threat to the community”
(Four dead in a house, and no one knows why)
[Police in Orange investigating deaths of four people in home
| KFDM]
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Each Birthday is a Step in the Right Direction - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Each Birthday is a Step in the Right Direction
The
Road goes ever on and on,
Down
from the door where it began
-Tolkien
A birthday is not the beginning of something new
But rather part of a continuing story
From its Prologue and its Chapter One
Through the dark leaves of Mirkwood and beyond
Yes, there be dragons, more than ever, it seems
But sometimes still we glimpse magic by moonlight
Or take an ale or two at a wayside inn
Then sticks and packs again, our faces set West
If this were my last hour, I still could say
With Tollers and Jack: the Road goes ever on
Monday, January 1, 2024
Colin Cloute on the First of January - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Colin Cloute on the
First of January
And now is come thy wynters stormy state,
Thy mantle mard, wherein thou maskedst late
-Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, “Januarye,”
23-25
The calendar year is advertised as new
But the slanting, yellowing sun is old
Almost weepy-eyed, exhausted, and weak
Beyond the icy cirrhus clouds of dusk
In a few weeks I will turn over the garden soil
A mediaeval ploughman with his electric tiller
Following the ancient seasons of the English year
Anticipating Lent and Eastertide
For now, the fireside and a comforting page
And a cuppa for warming the bones of age
On the Day Papa Benedict Died - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
On the Day Papa
Benedict Died
This day a year ago Papa Benedict died
I heard it in a post-anaesthetic mist
Was there a TV in ICU? A radio?
Did someone say it? I don’t remember now
I knew only that Papa Benedict had died
That I was alive, and didn’t know why
Little toy cowboys rode across my mind
But in my lungs the air was sweet and cold
Papa Benedict had something to do with it
And Saint Elizabeth of Thuringen
And I am thankful
Saturday, December 30, 2023
Dropping Stuff at Midnight for the Gregorian New Year - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Dropping Stuff at
Midnight for the Gregorian New Year
(The Julian calendar is so old that it’s a Boomer
thing)
I don’t know why people drop
things at midnight:
A ball of electric lights in New York
A single light bulb as a gag somewhere else
As The People chant in unison, “WOO! WOO!”
Maybe this year they’ll drop a flaming car
Its finely-crafted batteries on fire
Torching the holy QAnon tee-shirt stand
As foretold in the House of Representatives
(Yawn)
Couldn’t all of this wait until daylight?
I don’t know why people drop things at midnight
picture of a burning tesla public domain - Search (bing.com)
Gandhi, Churchill, and Shakespeare Wrote a New Year’s Resolution (I Mean, Like, I Read it Somewhere, Okay?)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Gandhi, Churchill, and Shakespeare Wrote a New Year’s
Resolution
(I Mean, Like, I Read it Somewhere, Okay?)
Be the cliché-sodden, inaccurate,
and unsourced quote you always wanted to be
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
On This Feast of St. Stephen - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
On This Feast of
St. Stephen
If Good King Wenceslaus looked down today
He might well ask in irony if we
Have adequate food for these Twelve Days
With our leftover hams and yams and rolls
Coffee and tea, chocolates from Italy
Bread loaves so yeasty they incense the air
Potatoes and puddings and plates of cheese –
Our cry is, “I couldn’t eat another bite!”
So are the gifts we left on the Jesse Tree
For some poor man are all that they might be?
Do Vladimir Putin and His Office Staff Play Secret Santa?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Do Vladimir Putin and
His Office Staff Play Secret Santa?
Some speak of an after-Christmas letdown. And perhaps it is
true that all the weeks of expectations and demands and sometimes forced
merriment crash down into a silence on the 26th.
But Christmas truly begins at midnight on the 24th
of December and ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of
January. In the northern hemisphere our
ancestors took those twelve winter days in feasting and celebration after the
liturgies of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
The first Monday after Epiphany was Plough / Plow Monday, beginning the
new agricultural year with farmers breaking up and turning over the soil in
anticipation of spring.
This year Christmas Day fell on Wednesday, so most Americans
return to their metaphorical plows / ploughs dark and early on Thursday
morning, but maybe while wearing a nice, new coat against the cold.
More practically, the car or pickup might be wearing a new
battery which will crank the engine without the need for jumper cables.
Most decorations remain up until Epiphany, which is exactly
right, honoring the Infant Jesus and serving as a counterpoint against the
cold, dark weather. The letdown comes when, at last, the tree and decorative angels
and wise men and Disney princesses and plastic ivy and the lights, all those
wonderful little lights, must be taken down and packed away until next year.
After the floor is vacuumed of pine needles (real or made in
China of weird chemicals) and the furniture re-arranged, the low, grey skies
outside the window remind us that winter has settled in for a long visit.
If the house is blessed with children parents are advised to
wear slippers upon arising in the mornings lest their bare feet fall upon Barbie’s
scepter or Ken’s sports car.
Christmas toys once engaged children – girls played with
their dolls (pardon me while I dodge hashtags of outrage), boys played with
their cap pistols (eeeeeek!), and living room floors and front yards were adventure
lands of cars, airplanes, push-scooters, books about Robin Hood and Gene Autry and
space cadets and Annette and her adventures, dump trucks, Barbie’s Dream Missouri
Pacific train set, trikes, bikes, wagons, footballs, basketballs, kickballs, little
green army men, little plastic cowboys and Indians, games formed up and won and
lost, and occasional tears.
Christmas toys now seem to be a matter of silent, earphoned Children
of the Corn staring dully and obediently into little glowing screens. What are
The Voices telling your children?
The season of Christmas, now mostly known as
after-Christmas, is good in its own quiet ways – social demands are fewer, the
house is quieter, there are hidden resources of chocolate to be explored, and a
good cuppa and a book by the fire is possible, where we can also meditate on
the eternal verities, such as whether bloody tyrants and their office staffs
play Secret Santa.
Peace.
-30-
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
