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351 · Oct 2018
The Workman's Aubade
Lawrence Hall Oct 2018
Awake at four, he rises, lights the fire
And puts the kettle on for a cup of tea
Pulls on the work-stained overalls he shed
Only a few exhausted hours before

Working a shutdown stretch of twelves and sevens
Maybe he’ll make enough for Christmas this year:
Wonderful gifts for his family still asleep
He slips out silently through the back door

His wife and children are disappointed in him
Because he doesn’t do enough for them
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Oct 2018
-Drudge

What do you look for in an eyeball lab-grown
While maybe it is looking back at you
And if you are looking for an eyeball
What are you looking for an eyeball with?

Will we have eyeballs grown for occasions -
A lovely blue for a day at the beach
And a stunning black for the opera
And Harris-tweed brown for a country weekend

But maybe lab eyeballs are just a rumor
A corn-ea attempt at vitreous humor!
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Apr 2018
The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener.

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender!

Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an ***** burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the ****** onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory —

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think. “God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, and the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain on your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse on some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard the words ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory — must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to ****** shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits.”

...

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2017
The Library of Alexandria in Our Seabags

…in the army…(e)very few days one seemed to meet a scholar, an original, a poet, a cheery buffoon, a raconteur, or at the very least a man of good will.”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

The barracks was our university
So too the march, the camp, the line for chow
McKuen shared our ham and lima beans
John Steinbeck helped with cleaning guns and gear

(You’re not supposed to call your rifle a gun)

The Muses Nine were usually given a miss
But not Max Brand or Herman Wouk
Cowboys and hobbits and hippie poets
And a suspicious Russian or two

Tattered paperbacks jammed into our pockets:
All the world was our university
Those of a certain age will remember those tins / cans of ham and lima beans.

Best wishes for a thoughtful Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2019
Mashing Up Book Store Titles Again...


The Boys in the real Harry Potter Wand
The Girls Who Made America Hermione
I Wrote This for You and Only You (sure)
Pontius Pilate recycles the end of time

The Last Pope is hiding out on Oak Island
You are my identity group breaking ground
And it’s all the better if you like trains
For you alone are my identity group

Women writers breaking the mold trailblazing
Second feminist wave decolonizing
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2017
It’s Bad Only if Jenny’s Fried Chicken is Closed

Warnings and categories – a tropical storm
It’s really bad if Jenny’s has to close
No fried chicken, no electricity
No lights, no burgers, no coffee, no fries, no hope

A flashlight in the night is weak and pale
Our manna in exile - crackers and Spam
And coffee from a Thermos, not enough
To lift the spirits of the chicken-deprived

But now the sun is up, the storm has passed
O tell us that Jenny’s is open at last!
Waiting for Tropical Storm Cindy
Lawrence Hall Dec 2016
Within the Octave of Christmas

The wan, weak winter sun has long since set
And on the edge of stars a merry fire
Sends sparks to play among the tinseled frost
That decorates the fields for Christmas-time.
Within this holy octave happy men
Concelebrate with beer, cigars, and jokes
This liturgy of needful merriment

Because

The Holy Child is safe in Mary’s Arms
Saint Joseph leans upon his staff and smiles
The shepherds now have gone to count their sheep
And all are safe from Herod for a time.

Our Christmas duty now is to delight
In Him who gives us joy this happy night.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2018
For Our Special Prosecutors,
Who Guard and Guide Us

Oh, borscht!  Those pesky Russkies under my bed
Were marching around all night, changing my votes
Beaming mysterious rays through my sleepy head
And snooping through my lesson plans and notes

They programmed my radio with Marx and Lenin
Plastered a poster of Putin to my wall
Sailed Admiral Kuznetzov across my linen
Layered a Petrograd accent over my Texas drawl

The special prosecutor says no further discussions –
Everything’s the fault of those perfidious Russians!
349 · Nov 2016
Conscripting the Dead
Lawrence Hall Nov 2016
Conscripting the Dead

Saturday Night, 12 November 2016

They’ve drafted now his hymn of innocence
Into their revolution against the poor
To sing in praise of dreamers they despise
To canonize the poverty of the rich

They weaponize the poetry of love
And drive sweet words into cold camps of hate
There to be regimented and uniformed
And beaten into a tribute unwilling

His alleluia is not their war song
It cannot be; it is his hymn of hope
349 · Jul 2024
Ford vs Chevy
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­   Ford vs Chevy

In an era where everyone was either Ford or Chevy
I was an MG roadster
Unreliable
But lots of fun
Growing up is overrated.
347 · Feb 2017
Compline in an Alley
Lawrence Hall Feb 2017
Something a wise Benedictine said reminded this scribbler of the poor man to whom Becket gives a blanket in the 1964 film:

Poor man: "Thank you."

Becket: "You're welcome.  It will keep you warm."

Prissy cathedral canon: "He'll only sell it for drink."

Becket: "Then* that will keep him warm."

Compline in an Alley

Oh, let the poor man cling to his bottle
It’s his, isn’t it?  It’s his own free choice
The only thing he owns. Not even the space
Behind the dumpsters is reserved for him

Some bigger guy might take it away tonight
And his blankets too, and maybe his shoes
But with his bottle he is a worthy man
And he will drink to his own worthiness

Hard-earned, hard-fought, hard-drunk, ‘til dead
And kissing no one’s feet or hands or *ss
Lawrence Hall Feb 2018
Upon reading Amon Towles’
A Gentleman in Moscow

Civilization requires a little effort
Ties must be knotted correctly, shoes must be polished
Cuffs must be linked, but not at all gaudily -
Elegant understatement at all times

On every occasion say, “Thank you” and “Please”
When addressing a lady one’s hat is off
And if tomorrow they are going to shoot you
Or beat you to death in a re-named street  

Do comb your hair, and try to stand up straight:
Civilization requires a little effort
Lawrence Hall Oct 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                 We Are Offered Two Candidates for the Presidency


I am afraid that one of them will win
346 · Jul 2017
The Canals on Mars
Lawrence Hall Jul 2017
The Canals on Mars

From an allusion by Robert Royal1

Martians spent centuries building canals
Across great continents to irrigate
Their fields, and on barges of marvelous design
Voyage across their picturesque red lands

They watch us through wonderful telescopes
And send out ships whose missions seem to be
To crash into Earth’s deserts with little green men –
Alas that none of this was ever true!

There are no canals, only an optic blur:
We will miss those Martians who never were


1Robert Royal: “Are Americans from Mars?” The Catholic Thing, 17 July 2017.
Robert A. Heinlein’s boys’ books were part of my childhood. I am sorry that I will never meet a Martian.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2018
I read lots of Russian lit (in translation, of course) while in Viet-Nam

I understood poor, young Raskolnikov
And read all I found by Anton Chekhov
Remembered nothing about Bulgakhov
Heard naughty whispers about Nabokov
Thrilled to the Cossacks in old Sholokov
And then I learned about Kalashnikov –
This, I decided, is where I get off!



Moc Hoa (pronounced something like “mock wah”) is a now-prosperous town on the Song Vam Co Tay near the border with Cambodia.  In 1970 it was rather down at the heels and was a center of military activity, including mercenaries presumably controlled by the C.I.A*.
Well, golly-gosh, I see the italics are all over the place again.  I meant for the body of the poem to stand tall, and the notes to be in italics.  The Machine does not agree.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

               The Men of the Bible Class Pose for a Photograph
                   on the Steps of the Methodist Church in 1968

My grandfather once threatened some other old man
With his pocketknife just before the ten o’clock
Maybe it was over a point of theology
That’s surely as exciting as Bible class ever got

The Baptist men were the city council
And most of the school’s board of trustees too
But the Methodists somehow had more self-assurance
You can see it in their bearing and their suits

They seem to be their fathers in 1898
With railroads and sawmills – great times ahead
A poem is itself.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2018
For thirteen years one’s life is organized
By Mom and Dad and the glorious state 1
Passive behavior rewarded and prized
Just work your sums on an electric slate

Bubble in circles with a number two
Glitter-glue posters for every right cause
School’s all about state scores, not about you
And state exams, according to state laws

For thirteen years you were controlled and toyed -
Today you’re just one of the unemployed



1 You are the state. A school will be exactly what you and the other citizens want it to be. Always vote in your local school board elections; self-government is not a spectator sport.
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com – it’s not really reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Oct 2019
Are You Going...?

             Benedíc nos Dómine et haec Túa dóna quae de Túa
             largitáte súmus sumptúri. Per Chrístum Dóminum
             nóstrum. Ámen
.

Miz Busy with her homemade apple pies
Uncle Alfie lapsing into a snore
Young lads and lassies making goo-goo eyes
Miss Billie’s cookies (shhh…they’re from the store)

Children frolicking only with their ‘phones
Jolly old Ed basting burnt barbecue
An altar boy gorging until he groans
The teenagers’ gross game of choke and chew

Young marrieds getting into a squabble
Politics roaring like a thunderstorm
Bubba came drunk; he’s beginning to wobble
Tox ‘tater salad that’s gotten warm

Unidentifiable glop upon a stick –
No, I’m not going to the parish picnic
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is: Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA, PALEO-HIPPIES AT WORK AND PLAY, LADY WITH A DEAD TURTLE, DON’T FORGET YOUR SHOES AND GRAPES, COFFEE AND A DEAD ALLIGATOR TO GO, and DISPATCHES FROM THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
345 · Mar 2024
The Concept of Gaslighting
Lawrence Hall Mar 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                  Gaslighting

Am I being gaslighted?
Or am I being gas lit?
Whichever way the verb might be
The gaslighter is full of (it)
344 · Mar 2017
CPAs for Christ
Lawrence Hall Mar 2017
CPAs for Christ

Voice: an old-time numbers warrior

“I just didn’t feel welcome in a traditional church,
You know, the stuffy cowboys for Christ church,
With latte’ splatters on my alligator shoes
And ink stains on my computer-worn fingers

“Here I’m welcome to keep my green eyeshade on
Because Jesus loves everyone, even CPAs
It’s like the old times when at night accountants
Swapped stories around the expresso machine

“There’s just something real plain and honest here,
Praisin’ that Great Auditor in the Sky.”
Lawrence Hall May 2018
Oh yeah that’s right we met at now where was it
Uncle Skinny’s funeral now I think that
was now when was that dear? Oh, it
was at Cousin Verlis’ wedding okay
I’m sure stove up from my last surgery
yeah, me an’ Bubba worked the tugboats for years
Then he fired me we lived there for years
but sold the place and we’re still living there
now it was all flooded up there to where
the Baptist Church was so we couldn’t go
they say Interstate Ten’s a mess this summer
we need to go I got to take my pills
that’s why rice farmers just leave their combines
in the field to rust ‘cause the government’s
all mixed up in it I guess there ain’t many
of us left we all grew up together
I got me this new gun now where’s my ‘phone
Oh it’s in the truck I’ll get it
                                                 now here
I can’t make this thing work I know it’s in
my pictures oh there it is wait it’s gone
we need to go I’ve got to take my pills
now was Cousin Skeeter buried with his parents
no wait that was his son joined the Marines
but they kicked him out ‘cause he was no good
we need to go I’ve got to take my pills
now they was both buried in California
I guess I seen ‘em in 1968 last
These chairs is too low I’m all stove up
I don’t know why the government ain’t prepared
For hurricanes they dug this big drainage ditch
But what if the water backs up along it
Then what am I going to do
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills
I ain’t never met a stranger, no, sir
That’s what they always said about me
Now when I was in school if I had said
“computer” they’d-a sure-’nough kicked me out
We didn’t need all that stuff we learnt just fine
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills
(a ten-minute monologue about a couch
goes here) so I ended up buying a new couch
my first job was with Caterpillar but
after ten years he left and went to work
down’t Port Arthur now if you’re ever
down our way be sure to stop by
we’d sure be glad to have you come on by
We need to go I’ve got to take my pills


[The morning’s interrupted projects and chores
Are resumed, but somehow in a milieu
Of existential despair.]
Lawrence Hall Oct 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Dock Workers’ Strike – BUY TOILET PAPER!

WE ARE AMERICANS!

Whenever threatened by enemies furry or domestic
By hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, storms
By shortages of food, water, and electric power
By aliens stalking us and eating our cats
By famine, fire, dispossession, revolution

WE BUY TOILET PAPER! WE ARE AMERICANS!

We are armed with our AK-16s and AR – 47s
Uniformed in our Wal-Mart camo from China
Size 89XXXXL-Lard-***
And we will by God stand together as ONE -
And fight each other to the death for toilet paper!

Oh, and do you know Jesus?
Dock Workers' Strike
Lawrence Hall Mar 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        The Ashes of Lent Fall Upon Ukraine

“Remember, man...”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
Grey ashes of Lent that fall on everyone
Whether they will have them or not -
The still-warm ashes of our fellow man

“That thou art dust...”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
There is no line; the ashes wait instead
Among the swirling smoke to present themselves -
This tiny speck of ash was someone’s child

“And unto dust thou shalt return”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
And cover civilization as its funeral pall
Lawrence Hall Jun 2018
To the Accompaniment of “Land of Hope and Glory” on a CD Player Piped to Speakers on the Artificially Turfed Football Field


                             “Here, sir, the people govern”

   -attributed to Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and others

Beards flowing over beer-swollen bellies
Tattoos, tee-shirts reading “I’m With Stupid”
Knee-pants, hairy legs, knives worn openly -
And some of the men are dressed that way too

Bubba caps worn defiantly during the pledge
Cell ‘phones at full wail during the opening prayer
Too few genetic codes and too few teeth
Rattling loudly during the valedictory

And air-horn cousins out on probation
To lend some elegance to graduation
Lawrence Hall Jan 2024
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.)
341 · Sep 2018
"Then Grandpa Shot Billy"
Lawrence Hall Sep 2018
The merry banter of the waitress flirting
With her old men the negotiations
For a coffee refill the rattle of flatware
And the clatter-clat of the breakfast plates

The buzz of conversation and over there
A Bible verse and a head bowed in thanks
“Then Grandpa shot Billy” and too the hum
Of how’s-the-weather going to be later on

The usual beginning to another work day…
But wait…but what…what did that old man say?
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
340 · Aug 2021
Boxes are for FedEx
Lawrence Hall Aug 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Boxes are for FedEx

You don’t want to hear about my boxes
I don’t much care much about your boxes
Boxes are for FedEx. And birthday gifts
Good Comrades check boxes;
                                                poets create
Beauty among the chaos
A poem is not propaganda; it is itself.
338 · Nov 2024
Algebra is not in the Bible
Lawrence Hall Nov 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Algebra is not in the Bible

Jesus never said unto us, “Solve for X”
If algebra were real, the apostolic succession
Of bishops would have told us about it
(After 2,000 years of committee meetings)

I miss Bob Newhart
337 · Aug 2023
The Fuel Pump Screen Queen
Lawrence Hall Aug 2023
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        ­The Fuel Pump Screen Queen

She’s fresh and lovely on the television screen
Promoting a recipe for a sugar-free treat
And fashion tips for being In The Scene -
Her face on the fuel pump is ever so sweet

She looks so summery in her fashion tee
As gasoline vapors waft through the air
She whispers a makeup hint only to me
And the best techniques for brushing my hair

She speaks to me so charmingly and nicely
That I forget the fuel dials spinning so pricely
Lawrence Hall Feb 2017
Your 'umble scrivener must be cleared every few years by Homeland Security for permission to teach as a part-time adjunct faculty of no status whatsoever at his little cinder-block community college. This began under President Bush. President Obama did not end it.  President Trump is for now making yuge deals or something.*

A Shining Checkpoint on a Hill

There is within this body no pedigree
And the DNA is hardly worth knowing
No yellow star, kennkarte, or ausweis
No tribal identification card

Form 3078, TSA Pre(checkmark)®
FEMA security clearance, TWIC card
NEXUS, SENTRI, Proof of Residency
USDA HSPD-12 card

A Costco card – oops, failure to renew:
Say, will a Barnes & Noble membership do?
Lawrence Hall Dec 2018
How difficult to rejoice when one hears
That those relatives against whose predations
Dead-bolts have been fitted on every door
Are visiting for Christmas after all

Let us rejoice that the nephews who pick locks
And break the windows in the garden shed
And ride the patio doors off their hinges
And pocket pewter chessmen for their play

Will be with us merrily once more
With their mothers – ‘tis the season to abhor
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.


Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Sep 2023
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                A Little Kitten and a Little Girl

A little girl sits with her mug of milk
Happy and peaceful with her breakfast toast
Her little kitten lays beside her and purrs
And takes a delicate sip for itself

“DID YOU LET THAT CAT DRINK FROM YOUR CUP THAT CAT HAS GERMS GO WASH YOUR HANDS GIVE ME THAT CUP I NEED TO WASH IT I DON’T KNOW WHY THAT CAT IS IN THE HOUSE CATS HAVE GERMS ***** CAT SNEAKY CAT THEY’RE ALWAYS UP TO SOMETHING DON’T YOU EVER LET AN ANIMAL DRINK FROM YOUR CUP THEY’RE NASTY WE DON’T LIVE LIKE THIS WITH ANIMALS IN THE HOUSE THAT’S A DISGUSTING HABIT PEOPLE WILL THINK WE’RE LOW CLASS WE WERE RAISED BETTER THAN THAT DID YOU LET THAT CAT DRINK FROM YOUR CUP THAT CAT HAS GERMS GO WASH YOUR HANDS GIVE ME THAT CUP I NEED TO WASH IT I DON’T KNOW WHY THAT CAT IS IN THE HOUSE CATS HAVE GERMS ***** CAT SNEAKY CAT THEY’RE ALWAYS UP TO SOMETHING DON’T YOU EVER LET AN ANIMAL DRINK FROM YOUR CUP THEY’RE NASTY WE DON’T LIVE LIKE THIS WITH ANIMALS IN THE HOUSE THAT’S A DISGUSTING HABIT PEOPLE WILL THINK WE’RE LOW CLASS WE WERE RAISED BETTER THAN THAT!!!!!!!!!”

A little girl sits in her backyard swing
Happy and peaceful with her little cat
Two conspirators winking at each other
Far away from their disapproving mother
Lawrence Hall Dec 2023
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Gandhi, Churchill, and Shakespeare Wrote a New Year’s Resolution

                        (I mean, like, I read it somewhere, okay?)

Be the cliché-sodden, inaccurate,
And unsourced quote you always wanted to be
Lawrence Hall Jun 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        No One is Your Vibrant Stereotype

One’s words and one’s friends are not tuning forks
They do not vibrate, and are thus not vibrant
Nor are they folksy, colorful, or quaint
Curiosities for you to collect

Poetic verse is free of DNA
An iamb suffers no identity
It boldly speaks its rhythm clear and strong
And metric feet march to their own chosen beat

But

If you feel that any culture should vibrate
Then go sit on yourself and just…rotate
A poem is itself.
336 · Dec 2017
Janus Laughs
Lawrence Hall Dec 2017
Janus Laughs

Old Janus surely laughs at our mistake
In thinking that the world begins again,
That pages turned in calendars and books
Reduce mysteries into measurements
Lawrence Hall Sep 2019
A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back
For they are friends, you see, both peek-a-boo
Behind and through the leaves of their favorite oak
In an ancient world that is forever young

Adults are children who have forgotten how
To see, and who have lost their bearings, their course
Their pirate-maps for sailing to the stars
And their lunar love-letters to be read in dreams

Among the fireflies, on the cooling-dusk field
A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is: Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA, PALEO-HIPPIES AT WORK AND PLAY, LADY WITH A DEAD TURTLE, DON’T FORGET YOUR SHOES AND GRAPES, COFFEE AND A DEAD ALLIGATOR TO GO, and DISPATCHES FROM THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
Lawrence Hall Apr 2019
One should never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not now:
Their loving voices are raised in chants of hate
And their funny hats aren’t funny at all

Their ultimate freedom is the freedom to
Obey with love the loudest loving leader
Who twists their supplicant hands to fists of love
For beating harmony into us all

One will never regret coming away
From any crowd, and certainly not today
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Oct 2017
Paleo-Yuppies at Work and Place

Fading slowly from the existential struggle,
Waving their MePhones about in protest,
They swarm to Starbuck’s for adjective coffees,
Uniformed in knee-pants and bulbous sneaks
And Chinese soccer tops with little checkmarks,
Their graduate degrees at parade rest,
And in confusion, suddenly-stalled careers
Raging against the thirty-something machine.
Not trusting anyone under forty,
They rustle their foam cups and resumes’
Instead of suspicious Democrats,
And demand promotions and Perrier.
They mourn pinstripes and leather briefcases,
And the old floppy disc of yesteryear,
And fumble their PowerPoint Presentations
Tho’ once they illuminated the world
With colored markers on glossy whiteboard.
They no longer play games on a Commodore
Or rock to neo-Carib fusion jazz;
Their Rush is Right baseball caps are now filed
In trays of antique curiosities
Beside the moldering hippie stuff shelved
In an adjunct of the Smithsonian
Where curricula vitae go to be eaten
By a computer virus named Vlad.
Now, as the sun sets on Ferris Bueller’s day,
They count and verify their MeBook friends –

They did not change the world, not at all, but
The world changed anyway, and without them,
And in the end they love neither Jesus
Nor The Force; like Eve, they bow to an Apple.
Of your kindness read this as half of a diptych / dipstick with "Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play."
335 · Jan 2017
Save the Date!
Lawrence Hall Jan 2017
Save the Date

O how I do hope you will Save The Date!
It’s a special occasion, so don’t be late
Be sure to sign in with the guard at the gate
I leave on the twelfth; I simply can’t wait
That’s when I’ll be executed by the State.

*Registered at Coffins ‘n’ Stuff, Thibodeaux’s Funeral Home,
& Jardin d’Memoires and Gift Shoppe
Easy, now - it's a criticism of the death penalty, that's all.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2017
The University of Old Lawn Chairs

The new lawn chairs are now the old lawn chairs
How many summers - has it been that long?
Their runners are rusty, their paint is pale -
The flip-this parvenus would disapprove

Not rusty but rustic, these fine old seats
Of learning have weathered many terms
Supporting the front-yard sciences and arts
Of lightning bugs, conversations, and scotch

The cicadas’ songs, the rising of stars
With us enthroned as luxuriously as czars
Lawrence Hall Jun 2018
Shall I Compute 1 Thee to a Summer’s Day?

                              A Lament for the Unlettered

They launch no voyages of discovery
To sail beyond the sunset 1 of their dreams
No pages open to them; no books, no boots,
No paths lead them to Constantinople or Rome 3

For the horns of Elfland 4 they listen not
Nor for the unheard pipes on a Grecian urn 5
The Red Book of Westmarch 6 is forever closed
And lines of lyric verse sing not to them

They cling to their precious palantiri 7
And launch no voyages of discovery


1 As Shakespeare did not say

2 From Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Heinlein used the phrase as the title for his final novel.

3 Patrick Leigh Fermor and Hilaire Belloc

4 C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

5 Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

6 Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

7 Tolkien again
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com – it’s not really reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Jan 2018
Kursk

At a railway junction great powers meet
To blacken the earth with a generation
Of young musicians, mechanics, physicians
Electricians, farmers, painters, and poets

And a philosopher who loves to fish
Ground into blood and screams and scraps of flesh
By the future which some have seen, which works 1
For the dress-uniform closed loop of power

Beneath the Russian sky good young men die
And the tyrants who send them lie and deny




1 Lincoln Steffens
Lawrence Hall Jan 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say

             Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame
             That darkness does the face of earth entomb
             When living light should kiss it?

                              -Macbeth II.iiii.9-11

On Inauguration Day there should be:

Children waving sparklers, avenues of light
High school bands and Boy Scouts in formation
Merriment along streets scrubbed clean and bright
A happy people in love with their nation

But we are given:

Soldiers, concertina wire strung between Corinthian columns, secret service, chain-link fencing, police, checkpoints, soldiers, roadblocks, secret service, rooftop marksmen, police, missile batteries, soldiers, no-go zones, secret service, lockdowns, police, lockouts, soldiers, security gates, secret service, identification checks, police, radar, soldiers, radios, secret service, body scans, police, x-rays, soldiers, sniffer dogs, secret service, permits, police, passes, soldiers, patdowns, secret service, badges, police, questions, soldiers

Fear

Why?
Lawrence Hall Dec 2017
On an Inscription from Katya to Gary
in a Pushkin Anthology Found in a Used-Book Sale

Whatever happened to Katya and Gary?
Their names appear in an anthology
Of Pushkin in a nifty Everyman
Astray on a table of orphaned books

One hopes they read those sweet words each to each
Over Blue Mountain in a coffee shop
Forgetting to feed the parking meter
While planning lives of meaning, deep and rich

Or is each but a memory to the other -
Whatever happened to Katya and Gary?
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Broccoli on the Primary Ballot

                         (as President Bush maior did not say)

Broccoli, limp broccoli, that’s all I see
Just rotting broccoli all stink, stunk, stank
No real choices today, only broccoli –
The same old broccoli, putrid and rank
333 · Oct 2018
Idylls of a Servant
Lawrence Hall Oct 2018
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new” 1

On that cold night Sir Bedivere looked long
Into the dawnlight where three Queens gold-crowned 2
With Arthur passed at last into the West
And the sun rose, but not upon the King

Then in the silence of the raw new year
A masterless knight turned unto the hills
And after wanderings there took the cowl
And among new faces told the beads of worlds

For us – our old year too is someone’s new
With quiet grace and faith we pass from view


1 This line appears both in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur” in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, framing the arcing narrative.

2 The three Queens, too, appear in “The Coming of Arthur” and in “The Passing of Arthur.”  They are perhaps symbols of faith, hope, and charity from 1 Corinthians.
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

My vanity publications are available on amazon.com as bits of dead tree and on Kindle:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall May 2022
An After-Market Warranty for my Catholic Space Laser

             “...tremulous little people of dim intellect and hyperactive
               imagination...need that Wondrous Explanation that will
               quiet all their fears, thrill them with villains to revile, and
               never tax their feeble powers of intellection.”

                        -John D. MacDonald, Reading for Survival

The Great Texas Emu Bubble, crop circles
Power crystals, cryptocurrency
Jewish space lasers, messages from Q
Lizard people abducted by aliens

Enron, obey the science, the settled science
Chloroquine, tulips, herd immunity
Your Norton has expired, buy magic beans
Invoice #666 needs to be paid today

Your uncle in Nigeria is in lots of trouble
And don’t forget the South Sea Bubble
Lawrence Hall Oct 2017
A Boy and His Dinosaur

In another world, a silent world within,
The dominant species are dinosaurs.
Never having fallen, no evil obtains,
And beneficent reptiles live there as -

As innocently as butterflies.
In his quiet world of gentle reptilians
A little boy is never without a friend,
A Saurian with an unpronounceable name,

To share a cave, a thought, a book, a toy,
And so that world with a best-friend dinosaur
Is the child’s real world, the only one
Where he knows love.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  A Treatise on the Burrowing Habits of Dachshunds


                                                   in memory of

                                     Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund

                six pounds of barking, yapping, demanding, and love


A dachshund will burrow under the garden fence
For every dachshund thinks she is a wolf
A fearsome apex predator with a squeaky toy -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your tightly-closed hand
Nosing out the doggie treat you have hidden there
A fearsome apex predator and omnivore -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your end-of-day lap
Watching both the television and the cats
A fearsome apex predator drooling on your book -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow, borrow, beg, and bark
And in her foreshadowing of that better World to come
A dachshund will burrow deeply into your heart -
And love you forever

This is in the nature of dachshunds

And of you
This is from several weeks ago. I dedicated it to Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund who shortly before 0200 on a Sunday morning breathed her last with my hand resting on her to the end. Now she runs and plays with your dear pups and pets under the loving Hand of God Who "...will not deny one who is so blithe to go to Him" (A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS).
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