When It Comes to Shakespearean Scholarship - This isn't It

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Avon Man and the Mystery of His First-Best Bed

 

I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…

 

-Attributed to Shakespeare in his will. Or Churchill. Or Milton. Or Elvis. Or Some Famous Man. And Shakespeare was secretly a Catholic. (No, he wasn’t.) (Yes, he was.) (No, he wasn’t.) (Yes, he was; I read it on the InterGossip.)

 

That second-best bed doesn’t matter a pop

Those anyones whoever slept in it are deads

Memorialized as dashboard bobbleheads

At Ye Olde Anne Hathawaye gifte shoppe

 

Kinge Richarde nevere cryede, “mye kyngdome fore ye bedde!”

Yea, goode olde Sirre Erpinghame joked, “Now lye I like a kynge”

So what’s the deale withe the firste-beste bedde thynge?

Thatte seconde bedde is where the Widowe rested hir hedde

 

Ande thusse ye scholares maken withouten cessatione
Unsupportede argumentes and allegationes

Dentistry and Dogs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Dentistry and Dogs

 

What would the world be like without dogs?

 

-Mary Oliver

 

Our little bit of the world was frozen that day

At the dentist’s office something that makes something else

Do something else was frozen and would not work

And so I waited with Mary’s book about dogs

 

Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world.

 

The frost was still upon the windowsill

As an hour passed for me and Mary’s dogs

Their adventures in the woods, their lonely times

Their happy glances into their human’s eyes

 

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet, / ate a book

 

Even though the something else was frozen in ice

Our little bit of the world was warmer for a time

 

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased

 

 

Quotes from Mary Oliver, Dog Songs, Penguin, New York: 2013

 

Hickory-Doomsday Clock - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Hickory-Doomsday Clock

 

Analogue or Digital?

 

That Doomsday Clock has ticked since 1947

The sweep hand always dancing on the edge of doom

Sometimes a missile more (7, 6, 5, 4…

Sometimes a virus less (a jab, I guess)

 

I’ve been thinking of buying me one

Maybe from the times-table at Wal-Mart

Or as a timeless fashion from Amazon

I want to know the hour we’re going to die

 

But are we truly any closer to Heaven?

That Doomsday Clock has tocked since 1947

Out-Outpatient Surgery - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Out-Outpatient Surgery

 

A little happy pill along the way

A fuzzy memory of the waiting room

A bright fluorescent-lit consulting room

A slippery fake-leather patient chair

 

The nurse and I spoke of children and dogs

(Dang! That needle hurt!)

And about the rain outside this winter day

(Dang! That needle hurt even more!)

 

And the doctor spoke (of what?) (of what?)

Soothingly through the sounds of cutting flesh

Soothingly through the smells of burning flesh

And lengths of suture flying before my eyes

 

At home I took a happy codeine pill

While Randolph Scott rode across the TV

Nurses and doctors make you all better

Life is good

You Are Not a Series of Adjectives - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

You Are Not a Series of Adjectives

 

Adjectives can sometimes be useful things

And even aesthetically pleasing, you know

But

You are not a series of adjectives

You are yourself – and how wonderful you are!

An Apology to Brazos Bookstore on Banned Books Week - poem (sort of)

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

An Apology to Brazos Bookstore

on Banned Books Week

 

Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame
to remember, when punishing vile acts,
that most peculiar time, when
plain honesty was labeled 'courage’

 

-Yevtushenko, “Conversation with an American Writer”

 

Dear Brazos Bookstore:

 

Several years ago I wrote you a polite note

Suggesting that you were a bit hyperbolic

On the touchy subject of banning books

“This is America,” I said; “it doesn’t happen here”

 

I was wrong

I apologize

 

And you are brave

 

Cordially,

 

 

 

Brazos Bookstore

www.brazosBookstore.com

2421 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX 77005

 

(I have no professional connection with Brazos Bookstore, that wonderful, independent purveyor of books and an agora of ideas.)

Awkward Adolescent Verse - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Awkward Adolescent Verse

 

Poetry…

The authority of empires, driven mad,

Threatened it so many times,

But it was the rulers who perished

 

-Yevtushenko, “Poetry is a Great Power”

 

They stole his boots even before he died

And scavengers have eaten out his eyes

His flesh and blood commingle with the mud

His rotting hands still claw the earth, the pain

 

A dime-store notebook, shredded with his heart

Once pencilled with his awkward, juvenile lines

Of undeveloped images and clumsy rhymes

Which will not be shaped and sharpened in this world

 

Among young bodies rats squabble and hiss -

Someone will be given a peace prize for this

 

Methodist Pecans - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Methodist Pecans

 

Methodist pecans

 

Connie-the-Haircut-Queen sells us pecans

Every Christmas, good Methodist pecans

A fundraiser sponsored by the women’s club

To be baked into cookies and pies for Christmas day

 

Methodist pecans

 

They used to come from my grandfather’s trees

But now they’re grown and gathered somewhere else

Packaged in plastic, certified, and sealed

But still they’re good Methodist pecans

 

Methodist pecans

 

And in January when the hail-storms rattle

Stuffed in a barn-coat pocket while tracking cattle

 

Methodist pecans - Texas blessed and Texas’ best!

Quomodo Catholici inter se Loquuntur? - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Quomodo Catholici inter se Loquuntur?

 

Scortillum, scortillum, scortillum!

(Catholic news sites, I’ve had my fill of ‘em)

Sailing a Couch into History - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Sailing a Couch into History

 

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny, but what we put into it is ours.

 

-Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, p. 51

 

Through eating, fatting, sleeping, video games

En couchant in a stasis ossified

By the low expectations of the zeitgeist

(“What’s a zeitgeist?”) some flail into history

 

The ironic echoes of Call of Duty

Flatten against an empty ‘tater-chip bag        

Yesterday flung into the baby’s crib

(“Ain’t no one seen little Shawnee today?”)

 

His MePhone case is manly hunter green

He's checkin’ out the fantasies on a glowing screen

In the Foggy Dawn - a Hawk on a Fencepost

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

In the Foggy Dawn - a Hawk on a Fencepost

 

For him the hayfield is his restaurant

A baby mouse, perhaps, or a tasty rabbit

But I prefer a bacon-egg-cheese croissant -

For breakfast we are all creatures of habit!

What Do These Teachers Teach These Children in These Schools? - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

What Do These Teachers Teach These Children in These Schools?

 

PETA thinks this is how farmers get the wool off sheep? 😂 | Not the Bee

 

Sheep-shearing isn’t a topic in English class

Not here in cattle country; we give sheep a pass

You're Going to Be Okay - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

You’re Going to Be Okay

 

You’re going to be okay

Your feet hit the deck this morning

You offered up that cup of coffee to God

And He delighted in your happiness

My Illegal Oxygen-ish Apple Watch - doggerel

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

(Photograph taken 23 August 2023)

My Illegal Oxygen-ish Apple Watch

 

Apple WILL be banned from selling smartwatches in the US from TOMORROW over claims it stole medical tech - after court rejected tech giant's appeal | Daily Mail Online

 

My Apple Watch ™ © ® has the oxygen feature –

Do I confess to the Law? Or to the preacher?

(My Apple Watch worked fine until it was messed up by the last two updates, which cannot be undone. When this thing fails completely I will find a cheap knockoff on amazon.)

Awaiting Cataract Surgery (Catchy title, eh!)

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Awaiting Cataract Surgery

 

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

 

- attributed to C. S. Lewis and others

 

I will give up my books

When someone pries my cold, dead hands from them

Companions of my youth, tellers of truth

Next to my heart when the mortar rounds fell

 

But now I see the world

As through a dark lens darkly, well enough

For most common household purposes

But those dear words on any page – not so

 

I never thought I’d say

That I’m looking forward to surgery day!

Our Former President Loves Us All - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Our Former President Loves Us All

 

The People grant him power; he grasps for more

He asks them for their votes and for their deaths

His eunuchs tell us that it was just a joke

Like Two Corinthians walking into a bar

 

But when the folding chairs are folded away

And that one night of transient glory is over

The caucus captains and their caps depart

Cheap souvenirs tatted in white and gold

 

They stumble home through limousine fumes and ice:

“For a moment I was Somebody – it was nice”

A Government Church?

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Government Church?

 

We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.

 

- President Ronald Reagan, Speech in Temple Hillel, Valley Stream, New York,

26 October 1984

 

Each American may his own conscience search

For by the Grace of God we have no national church

 

Cf. The Constitution, Article VI and Amendment I

To Accept Israel - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

To Accept Israel

 

“Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”

 

– President John F. Kennedy)

 

To deny Israel is to curse ourselves

For we are inheritors of the Covenant

That He should be our God, and we His people

He creates us, He calls us – this is so

 

He has given us prophecy and law

Cattle in the fields, fish in all the seas

And lovers, flowers, sunsets, songs, salvation

The Great Dance of Creation - and Himself

 

Let not the sinister whisperer divide us!

To accept Israel is to accept - everyone

An English Major Screaming at a Wall Clock - poem (and a mostly-true story)

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

An English Major Screaming at a Wall Clock

 

(A French officer would be too well-mannered to do that)

 

Passing from one office to another in quest

Of some elusive official signature

I saw a woman screaming at a clock

And heard her, too, because screams are like that

 

“She’s an English major,” someone said in explanation

“She and her boy Wordsworth are at it again

And meddlesome Coleridge keeps putting his oar in”

I nodded in understanding; Milton had mentioned it

 

A scholar should never scream at institutional clocks;

He should discreetly disapprove of them

Garage-Sale Rolodex for Seventy-Five Cents - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Garage-Sale Rolodex® for Seventy-Five Cents

 

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,

debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.

 

-Patrick McGoohan as Number Six in The Prisoner

 

The Rolodex was once a symbol of power

Of knowledge marshalled into sequences

Orderly sequences alphabetized by names

By names and cross indices of subjects and dates

 

Of enemies or allies or contacts, rarely friends

Condensed in ink on smoothly finished cards

Restrained in place by colored plastic tabs

Awaiting the stroke of an office tyrant’s hand

 

The Rolodex was subsumed within The ‘Phone

Thus still your life cannot be called your own