Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Let Us Proceed to Sonnet 32

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 31

There is a reason why Boris Pasternak
Did not recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 31
To the Soviet Writers’ Conference in ’37 -

It’s a mess

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      While Clenching Their Fisties

Old men do not now argue politics
At the coffee table in the grocery store
Old men, like some university students
Simply say what they are ordered to say

By voices bellowing from Orwellian telescreens

While clenching their Trumpy-grumpy fisties

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         We’re Not Going Anywhere Until Our Demands Are Met

We’re not going anywhere until our demands are met
Well, okay, maybe Starbuck’s or Chipotle’s
With my Mumsy and Dadsy’s credit cards
Then we can paint our JEWS ARE NAZIS posters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy Thought

                               Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

I don’t need to summon up remembrances
They simply wander in uninvited
In death just as they did in life, good friends
To sit together with our jokes, our drinks, our pipes

We still argue with each other, our minds
So familiar after all those happy years
Thesis, antithesis, and Dunhill tobacco
Ice cubes rattling in the soft summer dusk

Lewis and Tolkien show up late, stern Milton too
Remembrances? Not really – we are forever here



Nota bene:

In Moscow, 1937, during the annual Soviet writers’ congress—a time of severe purges—Pasternak took a courageous stand. Amidst the dull, regime-prescribed speeches praising Leninist-Stalinism, he did something extraordinary. He recited Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare:

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste.”

The impact was profound. All two thousand writers in the hall rose to their feet, joining Pasternak in this act of defiance. The number “30” became a symbol of resistance, a testament to the enduring power of poetry and memory.

Introducing a Sunday Series from Douglas Murray: Things Worth Remembering | The Free Press (thefp.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                         Those Who Straddle the Temple Walls


                    “Choose you this day whom you will serve”

                                               -Joshua 24:15


For those who are desperate to be accepted as cool –

You cannot straddle the walls of the holy Temple
You cannot straddle the barbed wire of Auschwitz
You cannot straddle the banks of the Red Sea
You cannot choose two sides and call them one

Since the ****** time there have not been two sides

You cannot wear both the tallit and the snakeskin
You cannot break bread with your grinning executioners
You cannot dance to circled drums and bullhorn chants
You cannot forswear your family murdered in the gas chambers

Since the burning time there have not been two sides

He who chooses the fashionable, the clever, the cool
Chooses to be a kapo, a funktionshaftling
His people will despise him, so too his masters
                    (Who in the end will **** him in his shame)
And his memory will be a curse, not a blessing

But you –

Choose bravely so that your name will be written in The Book
And written in the hearts of your proud descendants

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  When Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

A good thing with being disgraced in men’s eyes
Is that that mostly they don’t notice you at all
As a nobody you are but a shadow at best
Or an accessory in their empty scenes

If they don’t notice you, then you are not disgraced
And you have better things to do anyway:
Children to raise, songs to sing, books to write
Each day’s honest labor at your honest craft

The resolution is

That some men might be disgraced in your eyes
That is, if you choose to notice them at all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway?

                             Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 28

The days are a mess and so are the nights
Each day is burdened with labors unrelenting
Toils industrial and toils emotional
Everyone seems to want a bite of you

At night the stresses follow you to bed:
The boss’s write-ups seem to poison the pillows
The unpaid bills, the clapped-out car, the fears
The children’s report cards, the broken washer

You give life your all – you work, you struggle, you strive -
And why is there a cop car in the drive?