Lawrence Hall, HSG
Is There No Sulky Gas?
To the dentist this morning but woe and alas
Only a cleaning - no laughing gas!
Ha, ha, ha!
Monday, April 1, 2024
Is There No Sulky Gas? - doggerel
Time Will Play the Tyrant - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Time Will Play the Tyrant
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 5
Time need not play the
tyrant; we have tyrants enough
But it is true that we
must go away
When time and God say we
have played our game
And must withdraw into
another world
We sneak past time with
our words and songs
Arcing over mortality with
truth
Distilling each day into poetry
That lives long after our hearts
and hands are stilled
Time need not play the
tyrant, for tyrants only bluff
And their poor poisons
with their masters die
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Unthrifty Loveliness - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Unthrifty Loveliness
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 4
I had told her how beautiful she was
(she knew that through the mirror, mirror on the wall)
For her bold eyes were upon herself
As she magicked with lipstick and mascara
I had
hoped her blush was for me to gaze upon
Her hair,
her perfect lips, her slender hips
Over
candlelight at the Starlight Roof
Then the telephone, not nature, called her away
I had told
her how beautiful she was
That sports-car
guy, far handsomer than I
Had said
so too
Saturday, March 30, 2024
The Discount-Store Patriot and the Bible Salesman - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Discount-Store
Patriot and the Bible Salesman
Two greedy old men a-shakin’ their Jesus cup -
No, son, for that I ain’t a-standin’ up
Look in Thy Glass - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Look in Thy Glass
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3
I look in the mirror and
ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my
mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and
an impish grin
But later they said I had
to become a man
She had her April, and
then so did I
And there are Aprils
enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils,
but they will do
Every April reflects our
youth back to us
I look in the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother
Friday, March 29, 2024
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Did a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook
Rushing to his topside battle station
But remembering the chief’s daily admonitions
And the way his mother kept her kitchen clean
Notice on a galley table a speck of dust
And pause to brush it away
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
A Tattered Weed - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Tattered Weed
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2
Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady
oak
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
After my morning’s work,
creaking into my chair
And reaching for my iced
tea and a book
Sipping on both for a
vision of youth
My Hercule Poirot body is made
almost young again
By strolling through Arden
with Rosalind and Orlando
(Only for a while; they
would much rather be alone…)
And then the iced tea tells
me of Ceylon
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
But sometimes - forever
young
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The World's Fresh Ornaments - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Word’s Fresh
Ornaments
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 1
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
In a springtime glow of iridescent greens
A sweet Creation scene of little bare feet
And puppies’ paws scampering across soft lawns
Bold pirate ships patrol the honeybees’ pool
And mockingbirds offer flights to the tops of the oaks
A line of waving crocus borders this Narnia
Oh, could there ever be a happier world?
The sun, the green, the bees, the endless day
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Look at How Much Sevin Dust is NOT in the Container - photographs
Brand-new container just now opened
Sevin (r) is good stuff, but while we admire the biologists and scientists who make gardening and food production possible, the alligator-shoe boys in marketing are not to be trusted.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
My New Career as a Doorman - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
My New Career as a
Doorman
“The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”
-in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed
I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night
Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello
And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Make America Pray Again Otto - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make America Pray
Again OTTO
We see the bills of their uniform caps
“OTTO” is the legend beneath the peak
Which reads “Make America Pray Again”
The operative word is “Make” – we must be forced
Then who is OTTO, and whence his authoritative voice?
Is he a god come among us with a rod
To beat us down until we bleed and bleat
A great American Ave or Shema?
A cultic cap is neither theology nor art
And I will never invite OTTO into my heart
Whistling Past the Graveyard - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Whistling Past the
Graveyard
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Not with the radio on and the windows up
Though in our barefoot childhood long ago
Walking home alone at dusk – we whistled
But there is no need to whistle now
The cemetery is not a place of spooks and haints
But of those childhood friends with whom we walked
Past our ancestors to the swimming hole
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Because those whom we love are silent there
Friday, March 22, 2024
We Serve Our Princess Catherine - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Serve Our Princess
Catherine
“We be the King’s men”
– Thomas Hardy and others
We are the King’s people
After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc
Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna
Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles
We are the Queen’s people
And because we are the Queen’s people
We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess
And every woman of our isles a Queen
To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith
We are the Prince’s people
We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –
But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more
Monarchy can easily be ‘debunked;' but watch the faces, mark
the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been
cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom
pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire
equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they
honour millionaires, athletes or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or
gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it
food and it will gobble poison.
-C.S. Lewis, “Present Concerns,” 1948
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Cattywampas - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cattywampas
Cattywampas? You don’t know what cattywampus means?
Cattywampas is:
When you discover in your apple only half a worm
When your planet is out of its orbit
When you lose your lover, your job, and your cat
When your DNA is flagged by the FBI
Cattywampas is:
When a traffic light is forever red
When the car wash strips out the rubber seals
When the doctor says you’re okay…for a man your age
When your neighbor on disability jogs every day
Cattywampus is:
When you have life sorted, indexed, and filed
And then find yourself staring into those eyes…
Years on the Night Shift - couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Years on the Night
Shift
Today’s student loans need not be met
How privileged of me – I paid my debt
Sunday, March 17, 2024
Rain Puddles and Children Make the World Better - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Rain Puddles and Children
For Nora and Theo
Our boat-captain neighbor is home from the sea1
(Okay, the Gulf of Mexico)
And this morning took his children for a walk
Along our road, and stopped to visit with me -
Nora watches and listens, but Theo loves to talk
Talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk
He wildly rushes his sentences and words
Words piled in heaps - he has so much to say!
But Nora in silence celebrates flowers and birds
She sees whole worlds in puddles along the way
And into them Theo LEAPS!
We know this world is in a bit of a muddle
But when children splash through a rain-filled puddle
They make everything better
1Cf. “Requiem,” Robert Louis Stevenson. The context is entirely
different.
Friday, March 15, 2024
Gardening with Happy Bees - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Gardening with Happy
Bees
…for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures
that by a rule in nature teach
The
act of order to a peopled kingdom
-Henry V, I.ii.87-89
A bumblebee hovers in front of my face
No hostility; it’s simply greeting me
As I putter from pot to place to pot again
Messing contentedly with seedlings and soil
But honeybees race around me in formation
No hostility; they’re ignoring me
They speed from water to flower to hive and back –
After all, every flower needs a little love (wink)
Blessed spring hovers softly everywhere
As bee-sy bees sing their sweetest airs
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
The InterGossip is a Content Cop - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The InterGossip is
a Content Cop
Number
Six: I have a choice?
Number
Two: Of course. You can do as you want.
Number
Six: As long as it's what you want.
Number
Two: As long as it is what the majority wants.
-The Prisoner
The
InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand
Half in my face, half-way to a
Fascist salute
Forbidding me to read or study
any further
Without pledging loyalty to a
community
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
If I want to keep reading, I
must subscribe
The cost is access to my
information…information…information
“You have read five of five
free stories this month”
Which is their way of saying, “Your
papers, comrade”
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
And if sometimes my words
violate the standards
Of communities I never joined –
white space
The InterGossip is a content
cop holding up her hand
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
There's Nothing Old to Write About the Moon - quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
There’s Nothing
Old to Write About the Moon
The newest moon – it blessed us tonight
A sharp bright crescent within a rim-glowing orb
Following the sun’s afterglow deep into the west
Ornamented with a frosting of stars
Monday, March 11, 2024
Ethan Crumbley's "Help Me" - column, 11 March 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
11 March 2024
“Help Me”
Murderer Ethan Crumbley scribbled “Help Me” on a geometry paper [Counselor who allowed school shooter Ethan Crumbley to stay in class despite drawing guns and threats says he thought it would be 'better' for him to be around students than alone after his parents refused to take him home | Daily Mail Online]. Many have inferred that this was that now ubiquitous “cry for help” employed as an excuse for all sorts of violent behavior, and that those who allegedly ignored this one of all the many cries for help are thus guilty of murder themselves and should be imprisoned or even executed.
There are three flaws in this conclusion:
1. That every complaint, whine, resistance, tantrum, protest, or scribble issuing forth from the mouth or pen of an unhappy person is an absolute moral, ethical, and legal imperative for every other human on this planet to shut down all economic, legal, cultural, artistic, and domestic activities until the complainant’s perceived needs are addressed.
2. That every man and woman who fails to read the minds of others or notice any of those famous “red flags” in the behaviors of others should be imprisoned or executed.
3. That Ethan Crumbley was not given help.
I wish to address item 3.
Ethan Crumbley wrote “My life is useless” (and it was; he chose to make it so), “The world is dead,” and “Blood everywhere,” along with foolish adolescent drawings, on a geometry handout on congruent triangles given to him and every other young person in his class as a review in preparation for a coming exam. A look at the exercises and at the vocabulary in the reason bank at the top right of the paper indicates that the instruction offered Ethan Crumbley was of a high level.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through, among other things, a high-expectation mathematics class to help him prepare for a useful, productive, and happy life not only through the immediate mastery of the needful science of mathematics but in extending those challenging lessons in problem-solving and logical thinking into all other fields of human endeavor. A Uyghur teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the provision of a warm, well-ventilated, well-lit place to learn. A Ukrainian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through the offer of a hot meal at school every day. A Haitian teenager would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help, through his school, church, and community, with opportunities for cultural and charitable activities in music, dance, informal prayer meetings, fellowship, athletics, art programs, Boy Scouts, theatre programs, science clubs, roadside litter pickups, food drives for the poor for Thanksgiving, Christmas toy drives for the poor, nursing home visits for shut-ins, and other programs. A Communist Chinese teenager working long hours and with bleeding fingers to make junk for the amusement of Americans and the enrichment of Beijing oligarchs would envy him that.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through association with hundreds of other young people from diverse backgrounds and with all sorts of wonderful goals. The young, like adults, are not always likeable. Welcome to reality, kid. Deal with it. A Venezuelan teenager in the streets with no school and no hope and no supportive peers would envy him all those happy possibilities.
Ethan Crumbley was given help through a world of books, music, dance, cinema, parks, after-school jobs, healthy recreation, youth clubs, and volunteer service to people young and old who could have used his help and kindness. But in the end Ethan Crumbley found nothing more interesting in life than his own sulky self-pity.
Ethan Crumbley’s parents, like the leaders of a drug
cartel, didn’t help at all; they gave him a semi-automatic 9mm pistol.
-30-
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