Elon Musk Invites Us Down for Chips and Dip and Destruction - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Elon Musk Invites Us Down for Chips and Dip and Destruction

 

They have pulled down Deep Heaven on their Heads

 

-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

 

He’s implanted a chip, says Mr. Musk

Into the brain (certainly not the hip)

Of some poor patient who’s now just a husk

A talking head, a thing, a radar blip

 

And what could go wrong with this poor android

A man now fitted with an electric brain

Adjusted and programmed and tweaked and toyed -

A failed experiment thrashing in pain?

 

And if he fails, this humanoid chip

Musk might use him for guacamole dip

 

Electronic chips, as with eyeglasses, pacemakers, and artificial joints, will make our lives better through the good work of good and wise healers and scientists. But I don't trust just anyone in the matter.

A Penny Candle - and if You Don't Have a Penny, Love will Do - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Penny Candle – and if You Don’t Have a Penny, Love Will Do

 

The key to the lighting of a church candle is that, in its tiny light, all the mystery of life is drawn up into an eternity excluding only sorrow and loss.

-Tod Mixson

 

It’s not just that a candle struggles against darkness

But that we do too, trying to sort the chaos

With weary eyes and unsure, trembling hands -

But it is something that we’ve lit the candle

 

It’s not just that a candle flickers in the darkness

But that we shape against shadows all our hopes

Bundling them into a pilgrim’s haversack

For whatever remains of our journey to Light

 

For in the end we give the candle away

Offering it to a passing Whisper in the night

This Smart Watch Will Last - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

This Smart Watch Will Last

 

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in

 

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden

 

I do not set the time; time simply is:

The dawning day requires no entrance code

The morning frost need not be set to wake

The yakking crows cannot be switched to “Off”

 

The lingering fog sends no notifications

The bare-limbed oaks re-set themselves in spring

The sky is the background app refresh

The wind is a warranty for life

 

All these good things are made to be -

I do not set the time, but God sets me

The Army of God and, Like, Stuff - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                     

The Army of God and, Like, Stuff

 

They’re loud and they’re smarmy

They boo and they hiss

They say they’re God’s Army -

But does God know this?

 

An 'Army of God' Vigilante Group Plans to Head to the U.S.-Mexico Border (esquire.com)

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”