Sweepers, Man Your Brooms! - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Sweepers, Man Your Brooms!

(It’s a Navy thing)

If you think you’re too special to sweep the deck
Well, you’re not; get over yourself and turn to
But if someone hands you a broom and a ‘tude
That Irish pennant needs to get over himself

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Upon Return from the Hurricane Evacuation

“…and that the fury of the storms may pass away.”

-Missale Romanum, p. 1612

The temperature is 97

The hummingbird feeders must go up first

The humidity is 77

The feeder for the birds and squirrels is next

The temperature is 97

The outside cats are nowhere to be seen

The humidity is 77

But food and water are waiting for them too

The temperature is 97

The largest oak has lost much of itself

The humidity is 77

Red oak – more firewood for the winter

The temperature is 97

The electrical lines are down – how long?

The humidity is 77

But happiness - the house itself seems okay

The temperature is 97

Leaves shoal across the lawn and against the walls

The humidity is 77

Insulation from lost houses reef the fields

The temperature is 97

Debris, human and natural, debris

The humidity is 77

The world is covered with a litterfall

The temperature is 97

The generator coughs and barks and starts

The humidity is 77

We will sleep under electric fans tonight

The temperature is 97

Electric cords slither across the floors

The humidity is 77

The refrigerator takes turns with the coffee pot

The temperature is 97

The window unit that worked two weeks ago

The humidity is 77

Failed – everything is damp and hot and still

The temperature is 97

The damp and rot make sleep impossible

The humidity is 77

Dawn is but headaches, heat, dampness, and despair

The temperature is 97

Shifting fallen limbs from the driveway and lawn

The humidity is 77

And breathing heavily in the soggy heat

The temperature is 97

The road is blocked down at the other end

The humidity is 77

Strangers back up to my lane to turn around

The temperature is 97

We share information, rumors mostly

The humidity is 77

And wish each other well in this fallen time

The temperature is 97

The cats return, shyly, and one by one

The humidity is 77

From among green cover new to them

The temperature is 97

I sit in the shade and drink lots of water

The humidity is 77

And sweat and stink and try to catch my breath

The temperature is 97

An insolent hummingbird buzzes me

The Humidity is 77

He wears a green coat and a bright red tie

The temperature is 97

The bees are back at their freshwater pool

The humidity is 77

I poison the ants who are invading the house

The temperature is 97

Day after day, like The Ancient Mariner

The humidity is 77

Becalmed for days on a sunbeaten sea

But then: today, to everyone’s great joy

The electrics were restored by the rural co-op

And I stopped cleaning up the yard and house

To kill the generator and roll up cords

And to write to you to say that all is well
At our little house

Because we have houses to live in, you and I,

And lots of people don’t, and that’s easy to forget

At the foot of the thermostat

Peace especially for the homeless and for exiles
And for you too

The Juggler of Midlothian (Midlothian Marriot Courtyard, Desk Clerk Leto)

An enjoyable stay while in exile from Hurricane Laura. All the staff at the Midlothian Marriott Courtyard are very friendly and helpful. I was up at dawn for that first cup of coffee and met Leto, one of the many nice folks who work in this hotel.

"Now Tell Me Again the Things We're Against" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Now Tell Me Again the Things We’re Against”

She told us that she had truly been saved
Her new life of freedom had now 
          commenced
Then she turned to a co-religionist and 
          raved
“Oh, tell me again about the things we’re
          against!”

"Make Sure all Your Devices are Fully Charged" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Make Sure All Your Devices 
are Fully charged”

Nothing about a storm respects our trifles:
A flashlight is no good against the rain
A MePhone cannot block a falling tree
A watch cannot divert wild thunderbolts

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

A wireless doorbell cannot stop the wind
A radio cannot swim to save its life
A tablet cannot operate a boat
A laptop is quite unable to float

“Make sure all your devices are fully 
          charged”

That’s thin advice when facing the eternal:
Nothing about a storm respects our lives

What Toppings Would You Like on Your Hurricane Cone? - poem for 23 August 2020

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

What Toppings Would You Like 
on Your Hurricane Cone?

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Two cones? I’d rather just one. Vanilla
And Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence was 
          fun
I had to sort out conic sections in math
But cones like that are lacking in good 
          taste

And now two cones are moving up the 
          coast
Maybe tomorrow they’ll move back down 
          again
While we stack toilet paper and MREs
Perhaps the ice cream truck’s an ice cream 
          float

No one knows if the cones are there or 
          here –
That’s pretty much a metaphor for this 
          year

John Milton Title Page, MePhone Photograph

Of your kindness please pray for the repose of 

Professor Huston Diehl

of happy, happy memory -

A true scholar and a wonderful teacher

University in the Virus-Time - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

University in the Virus-Time

The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him.

-C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

I don’t know if you should put down your 
     glass
Or even stub out that late-night cigarette
But please know that a more rebellious 
     vice
Lies in an understanding of Paradise Lost

(Although blind Milton was genocidal…)

And it takes courage and humility
To get all naughty with quadratic 
     equations
Or slip between the sheets and cuddle up
With Augustine, Euclid, Plato, or Keats

(I would never date a math course, of course…)

Many are called to university
But few are chosen – so choose to learn 
     yourself 1

(Pssssst – Cliff’s Notes, okay? Just don’t tell anyone...)


1 That there are three meanings is deliberate

What's the Buzz? - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

What’s the Buzz?

Mosquitoes at humans must smugly smirk
They plot all day long and hide in the mud
Then as the sun sets, in bushes they lurk
And when you pass by, they drink all your 
     blood!

Yevtushenko, Book Cover, 20th Century Russian Poetry

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Admires Himself

Only in Russia is poetry respected –

it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else

where poetry is so common a motive for murder?

-attributed to Osip Mandelstam

Recently I finished a book only half-remembered from my youth, Yevtushenko’s A Precocious Autobiography.

I had no idea that a poet I had long admired was such a, well, jerk. He claims to have been a championship table-tennis player, that he could have been a professional soccer player, that he mastered ju-jitsu and can beat anyone up and that he is afraid of nothing, that everyone failed to understand his brilliance as a poet while simultaneously admiring him for his brilliance, that the Soviets picked on him even while flying him all over the world to represent the Soviet Union and proudly assert his Communism, and that he who would later earn lots of money and own at least two homes airily disapproved of money like a good comrade.

A photograph in the book is labeled “Yevtushenko and Galya at the home of the former Luftwaffe General Huebner” but an admittedly quick search through the InterGossip does not indicate that there was any such person.

The famous first line of his autobiography is “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry.”

Yevtushenko accuses Arthur Rimbaud of having been a slave trader when in fact there is no evidence for it (Rimbaud was certainly bad enough in other ways, including being an arms dealer). Yevtushenko also claims to be a sophisticated art critic and patronizes other cultures and peoples in unfortunate and sometimes offensive language. He faults Western nations for their failings (and fair enough) but ignores the seventy years of horror and mass executions and mass incarcerations and the genocidal mania of the Communist Revolution. Oh, and Lenin was a good fellow; Communism would have worked had not Stalin betrayed the Revolution.

And so it goes, for 124 self-serving pages.

Perhaps Yevtushenko’s most famous poem is “Babiy Yar” (there are variant spellings in English even by Yevtushenko himself), admitting the Russian / Ukrainian silencing of the Nazi massacre of some 34,000 Jews in the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev in two days in 1941, with thousands of more Jews as well as Roma, prisoners of war, Russians accused of partisan activity, the mentally ill, and others. Possibly some 100,000 people were murdered there in the Nazi time, and there may have been Russian / Ukrainian compliance. After the war the Communists downplayed the Jewish focus. Yevtushenko is praised for his courage in bringing up the matter, but the reality is that he could not have published that poem without the permission of the Communist government, and perhaps on their orders.

In this short poem Yevtushenko refers to himself in first-person pronouns at least 27 times, making Babi Yar about himself.

Given all this, I recommend the book highly. Yes, it really is interesting, but as with the most gaseous old man in the corner down at the diner you can’t rely upon his veracity.

Beyond that, Yevtushenko’s poetry is fascinating. I have no Russian, and while the standard for Russian poetry is rhyming iambic tetrameter, I don’t know how he structured it, but the content is brilliant.

Also brilliant is his anthology, 20th Century Russian Poetry (he doesn’t neglect to give himself lots of space in it).

Yevtushenko admires himself, but, yes, there is much to admire.

Peace to you, Yevgeny, you old rascal; you’ll always be one of my favorites.

-30-

An August Day - But on What Planet? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

An August Day – But on What Planet?

An August day of dragging hoses, washing 
     dishes
Watching hummingbirds while doing the
     laundry
Pulling up the last exhausted tomato vines
Feeding the dogs and cats, mowing the 
     lawns:

The summery hours of heat and work and 
     sweat
Considering the clouds and praying for 
     rain
Enjoying the way the light falls on the 
     grapes
And marveling how green the grass still is

And in the evening a glass of iced tea
And then the news –
                               What planet are they on?

"The days are gone / When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory" - SEAFARER, Anglo-Saxon, anonymous, trans. Burton Raffel

Among Jacobins - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Among Jacobins

“…the thoughts and feelings of each individual who really exists

are unique and cannot be duplicated.”

-Yevtushenko

A connection is not a surrender -
When we connect we exchange, we give 
     and receive
Ideas, jokes, poems, questions, a bit of 
     gossip
Cheesecake recipes and garden vegetables

But to deny the self is to cease to be
And nothing is left but an echoing, hiving 
     We
Galvanic responses instead of thoughts
Useful, obedient, disposable

Among the Jacobins there are no ideas
No poetry, no questions – only obedience

Virtual Candidate Drop - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Virtual Candidate Drop

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission...For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear.

-The Outer Limits, 1963-1965

The Party faithful gather together as one
Because there is only one; I am alone
In unison roaring with the comrades who
Except as Zoomies may not even exist

Conventions meet in the aether this year
On glowing screens in isolation rooms
Not much point to a funny hat or tie
Or a drop of flickering CGI balloons

The candidates are chosen! O let me sing
And party with a solo pierce-and-ping!

We now return control of your television set to you…

Colonel Klink and his Gonculator - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Colonel Klink and his Gonculator

Colonel Klink’s machine was the very first
But not the last; the twentieth century
Bequeathed unto us The Gonculator
An electronic curse to blight our lives

With beepings and rumblings and flashing 
     lights
It wants our thoughts, our words, 
     our dreams, our souls
Twisting and misshaping our imaginings
With vaporous fantasies of packaged gods

It calls us from our work and recreations
And bids us stare into it, and believe…

Believe, believe…
We believe, O Gonculator, and we obey!


The story of Colonel Klink, that classic Miles Gloriosus, and his primitive prototype can be found on the gonculator that possesses you:

https://hogansheroes.fandom.com/wiki/Gonculator

Evening Thundercloud 16 August 2020, MePhone Photograph

And Now Four Fingers of House Scotch - a Diptych or a Dipstick or something...

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Two Fingers of House Scotch – 

a Diptych or a Dipstick or Something

1. Two Fingers of House Scotch

A bartender should be paunchy and 
     middle-aged
His oldest kid in college, the youngest in 
     jail
Cigarettes in five ashtrays down the bar
His name is Blue; nobody knows just why

If there must be a woman behind the bar
Let her name be Sophie or Maud or Toots
Makeup slapped-on, her hair dyed 
     trash-fire red
She misses stripping at the Flamingo

Frank Sinatra once bought her a drink, 
     yeah, true
But now she kinda has a thing for Blue


2. Six Centimeters of House Scotch

A bartender programmed by MicroPlop
Prototype to a braking system that failed
Disposable batteries smoking, on fire
Its model number is Hey You B-52

It remembers a third-party vendor by 
     name
What is the gender for a robot bartender?
Hey, big spender, is that a credit card?
Or maybe you’re just happy to code me

And the programmer who hacked it out of 
     plot
It’s rather like a lust-crazed coffee pot

https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/goodbye-to-bartenders-robots-could-soon-make-your-drink/article_e24e2abf-0b1f-51df-b6b5-b79da01e0ff1.html

Two Fingers of House Scotch - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Two Fingers of House Scotch

A bartender should be paunchy and 
     middle-aged
His oldest kid in college, the youngest in 
     jail
Cigarettes in five ashtrays down the bar
His name is Blue; nobody knows just why

If there must be a woman behind the bar
Let her name be Sophie or Maud or Toots
Makeup, her hair dyed trash-fire red
She misses stripping at the Flamingo

Frank Sinatra once bought her a drink, 
     yeah, true
But now she kinda has a thing for Blue

But is it True? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

But is it True?

How was it possible for even gifted and intelligent people to be deceived?

-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, p. 74

Then:

Proletariat bourgeoisie egotistical
Calculation labor capital revolutionary
Theory freedom of speech people’s army
Specter of Metternich capitalist hyenas

Now:

Visual aesthetic frank discussion
Defund decolonize decommission
Assumptions unpack the conversation
Re-imagine emerging non-profits

Transcendent:

The Good, the True, the Beautiful