The President is writing in ALL CAPS today
And that’s all right because caps are okay:
They keep his head warm in the winter’s cold
He has ‘em in colors: red, white, and gold

And an old one in green from Viet-Nam
Where he was a-serving 1 of his Uncle Sam
Only he didn’t, but that doesn’t matter
He’ll dodge the issue with bluster and natter

Be grateful he sports his red MAGA cap
To cover his head, ‘cause it’s full of
                                                      

        ­                                                                h­air




1 allusion to Kipling's "Gunga Din"

This letter, is to inform you, about a
bomb threat
that we received this, morning. Name of a Name
Unified Consolidated ISD,
a State-Recognized School of Somethingness,
Where Kids Come First under the theme of
All The Kids All The Curriculum All The Time
is committed, to the safety and education
of all our students and We Are Number One,
Go #Thundercatbears!, ‘Cause We are #All-Hashtagged
in Unity and Oneness. We also, want
to clearly communicate with split infinitives
And crazy commas all over the place
to parents about safety issues when they
get found out arise.

This morning, a phone call, was received,
by the receptionist at

The-Latest-Name-Held-in-Place-with-Velcro-Until-the-Next-Name-C­hange
Elementary School and Essential Spirit
Dreams New Dawn Progress Learning and
Technology Center of the Future

stating a

bomb

was present, on the campus.
After conferring with the Threat Assessment Team,
The Standard Response Protocol team,
the Chinkypin-Lizard Lick Police Department parked in the handicapped spaces at Tia Jolene’s Goremay Eats ‘n’ Bokays out next to the Interstate,
the cheerleader sponsors,
Facebook,
Twitter,
our attorneys,
and Superintendent Dr. Hamestus Goodoleboy “Spike” Ponsonby III,
the students were rapidly, and efficiently evacuated
to a safe area up in the football bleachers
where they would be more obvious targets
and the school was professionally and thoroughly
swept for anything suspicious and untoward.
During this time,

when no students were in danger,

another call was received stating that  gunshots
were fired in the school. There were no gunshots,
fired in the school and

no children were in danger at any time.

Currently, we’re are is allowing students,

who were never in any danger,

to return to school as usual

where there was never any danger at any time.

We will have extra counselors and therapists available
if students or parents needs supports are
counsolining in spelling ‘n’ sentence structure.

The students were never in any danger at any time.

All threats to our school where

their was never any danger

and students who were never in any danger

will be taken seriously immediately
and thoroughly and investigated
thoroughly and fully except for that call
last week that we managed to keep covered up.
We wanted to inform you of the correct facts
because our correct facts are the only facts
so you can discuss them with your child/ren
Of any race, ***, color, creed, religion,
or gender identification or not
and emphasize the seriousness of our facts,
which are the only facts. If you discover
Any facts untoward or out of place please contact us
At the district office at
*** *** xxxx ext ***
or the Chinkypin - Lizard Lick Police Department
immediately and thoroughly.

No children were in, danger at any time.

As culled from an arts magazine, 13 March 2019

Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.

            -Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry


collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted members of the creative community Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization

The Dying Romantic Mathematician

“Your trapezoid is vectored to a sphere”
She sighed, “and parallels are polygon.”
“All, all is perpendicular,” he coughed,
“And arcs are so rectangle to sad Pi
Equiangular in the radius
And rhombus has gone Pythagorean.
O canst thou concave the isosceles?”
“Yes!” she coplanared. “Yes!” he gasped in pain,
“Oh, yes, our love is solved for X!"
                                                                He died,
Quadratic equations upon his lips

The Church and the Pub:



                                                I.

     ­            No One was Before the Blessed Sacrament
      Between the Hours of 8:00-9:20, 10:20-11:45, & 1:10-1:50

                                 -the parish bulletin

And yet we are always before something:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips in her *****-boots

But still, the small red lamp alone in the dark
Shines on for us, for Miss Swivelly too
Throughout the careless hours when we neglect
Duty for the fellowship of the pub

“No one was before the Blessed Sacrament…”
And yet we are always before something

                                                  II.
­
            “No One was Here for the Weekly Darts Tournament”

                           -the old geezer in the corner

And yet there is much to be said for the pub:
A pint of beer, a tv football match
A darts game where the plastic feathers fly
Miss Swivelly-Hips – but we have mentioned her

That fluorescent beer ad’s a kind of red
The old geezer’s cheeks shine, especially when
Miss Swivelley-Hips flirts him for a beer
There is an honest joy in fellowship

“No one was here for the darts tournament”
(Maybe they were before the Sacrament?)

Cheaply manufactured in India
Its fake marbled cover fakier than ever
But not as fakey as this assignment
“Grendl symbolizes existential…”

Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout

“Grendl symbolizes…” my senior year
Nobody understands why I don’t want
To go to college, why I quit the band -
Grendl and I are both exiles, okay…?

Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout

I love my fountain pen; its deep, dark lines

Just like me

Refuse to be MLA marginalized

“Grendl symbolizes…”

A Secretary-Receptionist Faces the Future - “I Know Where the Door Is, You Little Police Academy Dropout.”

The name on the building changed again today
I must apply for my own job, they say
A smarmer wants more work for much less pay
It’s time to reconstruct my resume’

I once was great with videotape and film
And could type fifty-five words a minute
On an IBM Selectric; my skills are dim
The boy-boss taps on a plastic box - what’s in it?

For forty years I ruled the company’s ground floor -
Security, with a sneer, shows me the door

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

               Last Sunday after Pentecost

A calling-crow-cold sky ceilings the world,
Lowering the horizon to itself
All silvery and grey upon the fields
Of pale, exhausted, dry-corn-stalk summer

The earth is tired, the air is cold, the dawn
False-promises nothing but an early dusk
As calling-cold-crows crowd the world with noise,
Loud-gossiping from tree to ground to sky

Soon falling frosts and fields of ice will fold
Even those fell, foolish fowls into the depths
Of dark creek bottoms where dim ancient oaks
Hide darkling birds from wild blue northern winds

Crows squawk of Advent disapprovingly,
For Advent-autumn drifts to Christmastide
When all the good of the seasonal year
Then warms and charms the house, the hearth, the heart.

Winston Churchill Defies the Nazis

#Intersectionality come together
#As one we are cliché strong privileged
#Patriarchy ethically sourced all options
#Are on the table chilling effect quagmire

#Teutons behaving badly doomsday clock
#Transgressive sustainable Guccifer
#Renewable change the gender binary
#Wiretapped microinequity

#Unity in diversity is strength
#Build bridges not borders no fascists here

                          And let The People say “#Meme”

Cats are Iambic Pentameter

Light-footed cats are nature’s iambics
Each subtle feline step unstressed to stressed
Across a lawn, a counterpane, a heart
As a tail-twitching cat ballet, all grace

But dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon1 lines
Galumphing heavily and clumsily
Across a moor, a sleeping-bag, a heart
As a tail-wagging country reel (gone bad)

Soft-footed cats are nature’s iambics
And dogs are four-beat Anglo-Saxon lines


1Old English Anglo-Saxon (approx. fifth-twelfth century). Applies to four-stress hemistichal alliterative verse, e.g. Beowulf.

- Stephen Fry, *The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

For Mike Marconett

                                  of happy memory

Bright star, beyond a Sterno stove’s brief glow,
We’ll live forever as we live this night:
Coffee and cigarettes and comradeship,
Our backs against the sun-warmed Sierras
As the cold falls from infinite darkness
To keep the snow in place another night,
To smile in ancient silence back at you,
To make a glowing, slumberous twilight until dawn.
Those C-rations were good after a day
Of scrambling among pre-historic rocks
Made musical by the dinosaur creek,
Water as cold as the dark end of time.
San Diego glows in the south-southwest,
Silently, inefficiently, light lost.
But you, dear, happy star, will still shine down
On dreaming youths, tonight and other nights,
Counting for us, for them, each millennium.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Peter­ Pan in Bowring Park

                 For Dan, who knows something of magic

                        “Do you want an adventure now,
                      or would like to have your tea first?”

                                          -Peter Pan

Sweet little bunnies browse and squirrels climb
And tiny mice and fairies give delight
To all the little ones of Newfoundland
Who visit Peter Pan in Bowring Park

He plays his pipes for them, and they can hear
The joyful music of his magic world
Where they may celebrate their pixie-dreams
At this bright second star from Kensington

And sing in peace their happy morning hymn
For darling little Betty, who waits for them


...the history behind Bowring Park's Peter Pan statue? — Historic Sites Association of Newfoundland & Labrador

The one-off bag is by Louis Vouitton
The sheath dress by Dolce & Gabbana
The low-top shoes by Christian Louboutin  
The vaporisation is by Sukhoi

Evening wear goes with biologicals
Retro pantsuits with a casual bomb
Alice Archer jeans for a weekend massacre
Jonathan Simkhai swimwear for an ocean boil

Ohhhhh, yeahhhhhhhh…

She turns every head when she enters the room
But The People’s Army delivers the BOOM

Wisteria, ivy, and grape: they cling
To the oak tree’s shaggy, craggy old bark
And up it and down it themselves they fling
Wandering paths with many a loop and arc

Among wisteria, ivy, and grape

Almost hidden highways, up to the sky
That make green pilgrim roads for little folk
For tiny bugs and ants, who cannot fly
But in their journeys play and peek and poke

Among wisteria, ivy, and grape

The little creatures climb along leaf and limb -
Oh, wouldn’t you like to be one of them!

Among wisteria, ivy, and grape

I saw a polar vortex in my dream
Drinking his coffee with sugar and cream
Then water skiing on the warm gulf stream –
He seemed to plan, he seemed to plot, to scheme

I tried to wake, I tried to warn, to scream
But wait – now just what is this wild dream’s theme?
Why was my sleep all night a mental steam?
My dream was confused, for this was the meme:

My gutter ball alienated my team

And so

I saw a bowler vortex in my dream

Hurricane Preparedness Checklist

Double-A batteries, a map out of town
A tank full of gas, a mind full of plans
A flashlight, toilet paper, a radio
A can opener and cans to go, go, go

Leather gloves and duct tape, whistles
Waterproof matches, and match-proof water
Blankies and ponchos and changes of clothes
A medical kit and a pocket knife

But

No one ever lists a box of cigars,
And a Wodehouse for reading by lamplight

Christos Voskrese!

For Tod

The world is unusually quiet this dawn
With fading stars withdrawing in good grace
And drowsy, dreaming sunflowers, dewy-drooped,
Their golden crowns all motionless and still,
Stand patiently in their ordered garden rows,
Almost as if they wait for lazy bees
To wake and work, and so begin the day.
A solitary swallow sweeps the sky;
An early finch proclaims his leafy seat
While Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Then wide-yawning Mikhail, happily barefoot,
A lump of bread for nibbling in one hand,
A birch switch swishing menace in the other
Appears, and whistles up his father’s cows:
“Hey!  Alina, and Antonina! Up!
Up, up, Diana and Dominika!
You, too, Varvara and Valentina!
Pashka is here, and dawn, and spring, and life!”
And they are not reluctant then to rise
From sweet and grassy beds, with udders full,
Cow-gossip-lowing to the dairy barn.

Anastasia lights the ikon lamp
And crosses herself as her mother taught.
She’ll brew the tea, the strong black wake-up tea,
And think about that naughty, handsome Yuri
Who winked at her during the Liturgy
On the holiest midnight of the year.
O pray that watchful Father did not see!
Breakfast will be merry, an echo-feast
Of last night’s eggs, pysanky, sausage, kulich.
And Mother will pack Babushka’s basket,
Because only a mother can do that right

When Father Vasily arrived last night
In a limping Lada haloed in smoke,
The men put out their cigarettes and helped
With every precious vestment, cope, and chain,
For old Saint Basil’s has not its own priest,
Not since the Czar, and Seraphim-Diveyevo
From time to time, for weddings, holy days,
Funerals, supplies the needs of the parish,
Often with Father Vasily (whose mother
Begins most conversations with “My son,
The priest.…”), much to the amusement of all.

Voices fell, temperatures fell, darkness fell
And stars hovered low over the silent fields,
Dark larches, parking lots, and tractor sheds.
Inside the lightless church the priest began
The ancient prayers of desolate emptiness
To which the faithful whispered in reply,
Unworthy mourners at the Garden tomb,
Spiraling deeper and deeper in grief
Until that Word, by Saint Mary Magdalene
Revealed, with candles, hymns, and midnight bells
Spoke light and life to poor but hopeful souls.

The world is unusually quiet this dawn;
The sun is new-lamb warm upon creation,      
For Pascha gently rests upon the earth,
This holy Russia, whose martyrs and saints
Enlighten the nations through their witness of faith,
Mercy, blessings, penance, and prayer eternal
Now rising with a resurrection hymn,
And even needful chores are liturgies:
“Christos Voskrese  – Christ is risen indeed!”
And Old Kashtanka limps around the yard
Snuffling the boundaries on her morning patrol.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            On the Unlocking of Words

           Their leader answered him, Beowulf unlocking
           Words from deep in his breast:  "We are Geats…”

                    -Beowulf to the Danish Coast Watcher

In bold and sturdy four-beat lines
Beowulf keeps his knowledge clear
With kennings well-crafted and careful caesurae
And never needing to raise his voice

But thus the Grendel-voice responds:

“Woo woo that’s just my person opinion that’s what I’m talking about follow your passion learn to code no offense, but *** oh my God oh my God woo woo hey hey ** ** something-something has got to go woo woo only dead fish go with the flow tear it down shut it down burn it down woo woo lock her up there is no I in team woo woo not my president it’s not rocket science it is what it is woo woo say it loud say it clear this is what something looks like woo woo is there an app for that woo woo that’s what I’m saying woo woo…”

But you - be brave like Beowulf, and boldly dare
To unlock your words with creativity and care

“But my chief argument in defence of **** An-shih is that…
           he retired from the Court decisively, ignored all recalls, and
           took to the mountains to write poetry of no political
           significance whatever.”


              – David Warren on the poet-philosopher **** An-Shih

Recusancy is not pious quietism;
In silence it is a brave voice withdrawn
From pompous Kratos’ halls of treachery
From screaming Demos’ marketplace of noise

And up into the silent hills to save
Something of civilization, to sing
Matins among the mountain mists, to write
A page in praise of Creation, to live -

Recusancy is not quietism at all;
It is a firm rebuke to tyranny

What Were You Thinking, CBS!?


There is basketball
But no Young Sheldon tonight
Life has no meaning

-Houston Chronicle, 10.1.2018

A robot wandered the mean streets alone
While lighting up and smoking his last transistor
Remembering an IBM long gone
“Buy me a WD-40, mister?”

A ****** thermostat took him to Radio Shack
And talked about some Texas Instruments she knew
A Compaq sent them to a room out back -
“Do ya wanna undo my phillips *****?”

He paid the thermostat some gigabytes

And then…

He was mugged by a relay who put out his lights

Are you a Viet-Nam veteran, old man?
     Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle
And do you really love America?
     Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle
And are you saved?
     Beats the H** outta me

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

          But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

          But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

          And the cats are quite happy about that

Your Eminence:

Speaking of apostolic poverty
From the queen bed in your apostolic beach house
To those working two jobs to make life happen
Is pretty thin gruel –
                                                   serve it to someone else

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then candidates would have to pay a fee
Each time they appeal to the glorious past
When standing for the election, the proceeds
To fall like ****** weregeld on the dead
Who can never cash the checks anyway

If wars were subject to a copyright -
Then Hollywood movies should pay their dues
Whenever a bold, scripted commando,
Body-waxed muscles glistening with makeup,
Advances up Hamburger-Helper Hill
With a patriotic song on his lipstick

If wars were subject to a copyright –
The generals’ memoirs, the admirals’, too,
Would pay to lighten the blighted young lives
Of soul-fragmented lads whose pain and blood
Won the air-conditioned another star
And unctuous applause at the officers’ club

If wars were subject to a copyright -
The President would have to pay his bill
Each time he bangs the lectern for a war,
That glorious dux bellorum dux-ing
From the rear, while a squadron of pigs fly
Above, powered by pixie-dust and smoke

Where, then, do I apply for bribery?
Russians are everywhere here, we are told
So why aren’t those nefarious oligarchs
Flinging dollars and dachas at poor me?

And the Chinese, poking and hacking about
(My last water bill was in Mandarin)
Have yet to pad my secret bank account
Or park a Porsche on my patio

But if they will…

I want to spy for the cool FBI
And party away with the CIA

(Imagine the title centered)   Art in Pursuit of Man

        Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine

Art cannot be but in pursuit of man
Whether or not man is in pursuit of art
For men are shifting shoals of shiftlessness
Artistic absolutes that calendar-clique

But art is not defined, not locked in time
Art does not yield her crown in obedience
To yet another Decree 349
To yet another Order of the Day

Art is herself; her names are Sapientia
And Sophia; she creates; she does not obey

(A class for correctional officers
at the local community college)

Thirty-six-thousand a year to begin
No education or experience required
The recruiting posters are pretty, though:
Handsome young people uniformed in grey

But the poor sergeant can’t control his class
His students have their cell ‘phones and their ‘tudes -
“Tell Momma to pick me up like I said!” –
Slouched in their seats or wandering the halls

While dozing over her own telescreen
A fat corporal yawns by the soda machine

To be chanted whenever the O Machine 1 fails:

Rumor has it that the Enigma
Was to Churchill a foul stigma

And that the ancient, creaking Babbage
It was to him but so much cabbage

Colossus One and Colossus Two
Those gadgets too he began to rue

They say he let them rust and rot -
The pity is that he did not


(I checked with the Lizard People on this – Churchill’s secret Second World War computers, powered by a primordial Lemurian source of energy so dangerous that even speaking its name in the ancient language of the Atlanteans is said to be fatal, are secured in a locked vault on Oak Island and guarded around the clock (set to Martian time) by the Trilateral Masonic-Vatican Continuum of deadly albino flying fish.)

1 E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” 1909, Much-anthologized

The National Security Advisor
In all his frumpery and trumpery
Waves his combat moustache menacingly
Backed up by each nuclear incisor

He threatens Iran with his “hell to pay”
Word missiles through his bristles - “We will come after you!”
Omitting to say (through his ****** hairdo)
His child will not go, but yours will – hooray!

For his own combat record is no joke:
He bravely fought the Cong around Fort Polk

To all officers: 504 ERROR
Two German couriers DIAGNOSED WITH AFIB
THIS HAND LOTION IS carrying official documents
murdered on train from LIKE US FOLLOW US

Screen freeze: restart

Oran. AN ERROR OCCURRED IN THE SCRIPT
Murderer ELIMINATES LAUNDRY ODORS
and possible JAW DROPPING accomplices
headed for NOT RESPONDING Casablanca.

Screen freeze: restart

WE’VE GOT AN UPGRADE FOR YOU round up all
suspicious characters TRY IT YOURSELF

Screen freeze: restart

Thanks to:
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=casablanca
for access to the script of Casablanca.

That Young Man from Nantucket

As filtered through National Public Radio

There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose foot was caught in a bucket
He said with a grin
As he massaged his shin

     “Vers libre is a more affectively responsorial mode of privileging my
      authentic voice with regard to the cultural norms that speak to the
      existential realities of my heritage instead of the mask of the external
      culture that fails to affirm my needs predicated on the living organic
      wholeness of, like, y’know, my own special existentialness, and,
      like, stuff.”

Syllabus for a Summer Day

Awaken with the sun, and while thin mist
Slinks eerily across the fields, step out -
Labor across the dewy grass, near ripe
For the second cutting of summer hay

The lesson for today is clearing brush
Along the fence lines of both fields and life
The attendance check is for needed tools:
Old gloves, old boots, old saw, and fresh new verse

Awaken with the sun, honor the day
With work and play to earn a grade of A

                       Alternative Syllabus for a Summer Day

Ignore the stupid sun; go back to sleep
Reject the chatter of the alarming beep
And waken at a reasonable Christian hour –
Oh, ten will do; earlier is so sour!

Then bathrobe-shuffle to the coffee ***
See what is on the news, or maybe not
And scratch and yawn and look around to see
That nothing has changed since last night at three

Ignore all work; just stick it on the shelf
And for my grade, I’ll happily take an F!

“You are your own god – and are surprised when
                  you find that the wolf pack is hunting you across
                  the desolate ice fields of winter.”

                               ― Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings

Crazy old men bellowing at each other
Crazy old women shrieking at us all:
The Spiritus Mundi is hard at play
Among the wreckage of civilization

The stripping of the altars 1 is complete
Holy innocence is a toilet joke
And the literature of millennia
Now serves as cleaning rags for The Machine

An executioner, while waiting for you
Pauses to admire his latest tattoo



1 cf. Eamon Duffy

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     The Stupidest Metaphor

                         Do these camouflage knee-pantsies
                       make my 250-pound *** look too big?

He never formed up with a skirmish line
To **** and snoop to some distant trees
Across a death-hot field of weeds and mud
With some idiot yelling, “Dress it up!”

He never feared that a 40-mike-mike
Would blow his guts and spine into ****** rags
Which would get his air-conditioned C/O
In Saigon another medal and promotion

His PTSD is from watching TV
But he is pleased to claim that he is a
                                                                ­      *warrior

This is neither history nor theology;
this is Romance:

                                       A Liturgy for the Emperor

In memory of
Patrick Joseph Donovan,
Stratiotis

Processional

How, then, will we find death?  With rifle in hand,
Perhaps, or flowing with the warm, worn prayers
That slip with beads through one's fingers and soul.
Rifle or Rosary, either will do.
One's death might rise in the boldness of youth,
Or in the wearied wisdom of old age,
In wild combat against ancient evils,
Or softly, while planting a red-apple tree
For grandchildren to summer-celebrate,
In wild red martyrdom, or obscure white.

The nights still whisper how the Emperor fell,
Fell with a faithful few upon the walls,
The old land walls of Constantinople.
But we are not to speak of martyrs whose
Transcendent beauty reproaches our times,
Our drifting dark age, drab, dreary, and dim
Our tomb-like lives cluttered with small darkness,
Our talk all common, colourless, and cold:
The thoughts assigned programmed into our souls,
Daymares programmed into us for our good,
Pitiful, pattering, prosthetic prose,
Cacophonies of casual cruelties --
No brave iambic lines for golden dreams.

But dare we also whisper truths, and speak
Of what a wind-wild people once we were,
And we will want our syllables to sing
In honour of the Martyr-Emperor
And those who followed him into his death,
And in this knowing of him we can live
Among those souls who are forever young.

Introit

In Nomine Partis, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti

We will go to the Altar of God
To God, Who gives joy to our youth
We will go to the Altar of God
We will go to Byzantium

Kyrie

Lord have mercy -- when the shadows surround us
Christ have mercy -- when we forget the Three Romes
Lord have mercy -- when we forget You

Gloria

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to His Byzantine people
And all His peoples
Lord God, Heavenly King
who once blessed us with Emperors
Send us another
Send Your waiting people their Emperor

The First Reading

As Constantine his walls he watched, he wept,
Lost in the Gethsemane of his soul
His tears they fell upon the ancient bricks
Warm with centuries of sun, saintliness,
And the passions of a glorious race

The City!  Long reigning on the Golden Horn
The Summer Country of our childhood dreams
There playing, praying, working, selling, and,
Yes, sinning too.  Passionate *Romanoi --
What a magnificent people we were.

(fast)

When armies marched to the Byzantine beat
Sophia ruled from her Byzantine seat  
When Byzantine sails sheltered Odysseus' sea
The wave-roads of trade were open and free  
When Romanoi feasted, blood mixed with wine
Daggers drawn over a dancing concubine
A newer Helen who provoked desire,
She seared men's eyes with her own Greek Fire
When Blues and Greens howled in the Hippodrome --
Such rowdy citizens in Second Rome! --
Then even Emperors in purple shoes
Feared stoning by Greens or hanging by Blues
The rough, loud democracy of the street --
Mobs also marched to the Byzantine beat

The Second Reading

(slowly)

But –

Above all rose Justinian's gem
The holy place where God called us to Him
The Mother Church of dawn-lit Christendom
Sophia -- the Queen of Byzantium
Where Patriarch, patrician, people, and priest
Gave worship.  Then the greatest and the least
Abandoned sin to hear the sweet bells ring,
Stood penitent before our God, our King:
In consecrated hands, through wine and bread

Christos Pantocrater fed us Himself

And then all hearts were cleansed, all souls were fed

(Very slowly)

But centuries passed, and this City of God
Heart of the Empire, became the Empire,
As lands and peoples were lost forever
to the creeping new age.  When Constantine,
The last Constantine, was called to the Throne,
All that was left was The City herself,
The Morea, and islands, and memories.
The fleet whose sails had shaded the Inner Sea
Was but a few hopeless hulks in the Horn

From the dust, dark shadows metastasized,
Shadows who stole and slew their way to power
And swept the land bare of free folk and fields
And more and more the shadows grasped and held,
A dead world of slaves whose backs were bloodied
Beneath the whips of masters, slaves whose eyes
Were cast carefully, cautiously to the ground
Lest demeanour manly and bearing proud
Attract the executioners' busy blades.

Finally, after devouring lands and souls,
The shadows coveted Constantinople,
The Red-Apple Tree where continents meet,
The City they could never build for themselves
And nothing stood between them and their lust
But one bold man: Constantine Dragases.
The faithful few who stood the walls with him,
Gathered around proud, stubborn Constantine:
Workers and monks and nuns, beggars, merchants,
Proud, arrogant Byzantines, and the few
Wild Latins From the barbarian West
Whose Greek was in their hearts, not on their lips,
Who gave their loyalty late to their liege lord,
The Emperor, who could have safely lain
A shadow's golden-caged slave, obedient,
Well-fed, well-bedded from the shadows'
Catalogues of pretty girls and prettier boys,
A memory of what had been a man.

But Constantine stood proudly on his walls,
Defiantly, bravely, sadly there on
His crumbling ancient walls, and gave his faith
To God and the City, to his people,
Even to the faithless ones, even to his death.

And others came, From Rome and Spain and France,
From Germany, and even from the Turks,
Brave, lonely men with reasons of their own
For ending their lives there on the Land Walls.

But they were not enough.  And late that night,
After the last Mass in Hagia Sophia,
The Emperor knew that his was the blood,
The blood of sacrifice that would be shed
In remembrance of ****** Golgotha,
For the people he was given to rule,
For the people for whom he chose to die,
Sheltering, protecting, until his end.


A Gospel

No angel appeared to the Emperor,
No voice of God from a burning bush
He parted himself from his followers
And for a few minutes grieved alone

And this was given Constantine to know:

The eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated --
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree.
Constantinople will live forever.
Know that, and, laughing, give your last earth-hour,
And your joyful eternity, to God.

Credo

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem.


Communion

Constantine shook himself, and gave commands,
Commending all to duty and to God.
Above him the dome of Hagia Sophia
Glowed eerily on that last, wild night
While lightning slashed among the sliding clouds
Byzantium rose again for one glorious hour
And the world marveled that such things could be,
That Christ and Rome and Constantinople
Could be found in one man at the end of an age.

Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
The glory is that there is no glory.
Chaos.  Horror.  Stench.  Sweat.  Pain.  *****.  Death.
Hi­s -- His -- body broken again for us.

On that dark morning of a dark new age,
Constantine turned and faced its slithering shadows
With a Byzantine end to his ruler's art,
With the peace of Christ and a hero's heart.

DISMISSAL

The Mass is ended.  Byzantium is ended.  
Escape, if you can -- make Byzantium live.
Escape to live in some peace, if you can.
Escape in peace to love and serve in exile.
Escape in peace to love and serve the Lord.

"O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance;
And to Thy Faithful king grant victory over the barbarians.
And by the power of Thy Cross, protect all those who follow  
          Thee"1

Not an End at All

1Troparion for the Sunday of the Elevation of the Cross, Divine Prayers and Serves of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ, copyright 1938.

Many thanks to Mr. Tod Mixson and others of St. Michael's Orthodox Church for assistance at many points, both liturgical and artistic, to Dr. Dan Bailey, of happy memory, and Dr. John Dahmus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

This is dedicated to whomever (“’whom,’ he said, for he had been to night school.”)  mentioned existential angst the other day. At first I misread “existential angst” as “existential ants,” and so for you and for all who suffer existential angst and existential ants:

                                                  Existential Ants

All creepy ants are existential ants
If ants across your old blue jeans advance
And bite into your tender skin by chance
You leap into an existential dance

And swear profane, wild, existential chants
Your good companions look at you askance
Each with a wondering existential glance
They seem to be in an existential trance

As you flail among the flowering plants
Because of those wicked existential ants!

Were you ever in love with someone not
Listed as an approved relationship
By roaming mobs of false analogies
In either-or assumptions basely masked?

Friendship and love are regulated now
Not by a written fiat of the state
But by the decibels of imbeciles
The bellowed mandate of the club and fist

The law of love is now the law of bans -
They’ve politicized even the touching of hands

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Luna Moth

The moon does not in fact wax anything,
She does not wane; she simply ever-is;
She rules the softly-sung, soft-summer nights,
A willing queen, and willingly obeyed.
The luna moth, her winged votary,
Clings to indulgent oaks of their kindness,
Their moon-sent goddess from another world,
And strangely robed and crowned in lunar green,
Pheroming softly for some other moth
To come perform with her those rituals
Of love illogical, of sacrifice;
For all a luna moth can do is live
A summer week or so, but in those hours

She loves

In lunar beauty, strangely eternal
Who needs a dying luna moth?
                                                We do.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                   Beowulf and the Danish Passport Officer

                     From a recently discovered manuscript

The clapped-out Boeing         wheezed to the gate
The ground crew jumped                 name-tags rattling
And swiftly moored                 the shining ocean-bird

Behind his plastic shield                 a Danish official watched
The travelers approach         their passports raised
He stood peeking down         at the naughty selfie
His girlfriend sent         to his bold smart-phone
Shaking his rubber stamp                 he spoke:

“What is                 the purpose of your visit?
Business, or pleasure?                 Hwaet! I’ve stood
At this same gate                 longer than you know
Keeping our gift shops free         from British footer hooligans
No commoner carries                 such fine matching luggage
Unless his Rolex                 and his boyish good looks
Are lies                         You! Tell me your name
And your home address         and your email!
The quicker the better                 I’m off-duty in ten minutes.”

Beowulf answered him          Unlocking his smart-phone:

“We are the Geats           the mighty, mighty Geats!
Men who follow Malmo FF           Malmo FF the great!
And we have come seeking           Parken Stadium
Greatest of all stadia                   Its shining seats polished
By cheering generations                   of fat-full footer fans
We have come to cheer           Malmo FF
While they whup up on           Dansk Boldspil Union
Instruct us, watchman                   Where is the stadium
But first, where is the beer?”

                          The worthy officer
Answered him boldly:

                          “A true fan knows
The difference between           fighting on the field
And puking in the stands                   and keeps that knowledge clear
In his beery brain                   I believe your babbling
Go forward, credit cards and all           on into Denmark
Spend your money!                   Our exchange rate is generous!
And then go home bearing our love           while we bear your money.”

(Stamp, stamp, stamp)          “Tram stop to the left
Taxis to the right”

(Scholars everywhere will regret that here the burnt and torn manuscript breaks off.)

Sometimes they are all Up the Down Staircase:
Please use the computer we never gave you
Respond to the directive we never sent
And send again the grades you sent last month

You have thirty students in your night class
The adjunct next to you has only six
Well, no, you don’t get any more pay than him
          I mean “than he”
We’re miffed that you even asked about that

Your roof is leaking only because it’s raining
And you’re overdue for your pervert training

Shhhhh - Titanic was Sunk by a Bilderberg

Albino rabbis, the Illuminati,
Protocols of the Elders of Zion -
The evidence seemed a little spotty
‘Til a radio guy had us wonderin’ and sighin’

Fluoridation by the New World Order
Backed by the Trilateral Commission
A scheme to open our southern border
To crop circles – that’s his suspicion

Area 51, the Templar Knights
FEMA lurking in the Bohemian Grove
Perfidious Rothschilds through menace and fright
Guarding a Jewish-Viking treasure trove

Poor Newfoundland is Occupied by ****** rats
Who scheme in secret tunnels beneath St. John’s
Brewing magic potions in Macbethian vats
In Rodentian rituals from the Age of Bronze

The Priory of Sion, runes, swastikas, the Vril
Roswell and the Thule Society
No wonder the air is darkly chill:
We all live in a conspiracy!

After Epiphany 1

Epiphany is the door into winter
Into those bleak, grey days, into the cold
When time itself is huddled in the dark
Asleep, suspended in the drifting mist

In clouds of icy mist among the trees
Above the somnolent, shivering earth
The brief, pale sun in silence disappears
The moon in silence rises high to watch  

Over a world asleep until far spring
Epiphany is the door into winter

This site does not permit the caesura divisions at all and I will not post the poem without them. You can find "Antihistamine Dreams with a Little Touch of Grendel in the Night" at my own not-very-well constructed site,

https://reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com/2019/01/antihistamine-dreams-with-little-touch.html

where the divisions are merely botched, not forbidden.

(I think it's rather nice, shivery little poem, especially if read around a campfire at night)




“A little touch of Grendel in the night” is a takeoff of “a little touch of Harry in the night” in Henry V.

No picturesque ruins will remain for us
To wander through with our sketchbooks and pens
For drawing pictures or writing blank verse
About bare ruin’d 2 air-conditioning ducts

The baptismal font will be repurposed
As a bird-bath (with a plastic Saint Elvis)
And the stained-glass windows will be sold off
As fashionable bathroom accessories

The crucifix of deplorable design 3
Will be stored in the back of someone’s garage
Until the girls carry it off to the woods
And laughingly use it for target practice

A rubbly field will serve as a soccer pitch
Until seventy years 4 have passed away


1  Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
2  Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
3  Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
4  Daniel 9:1-2

On Monday I will wear my uniform -
A blazer from Goodwill, old khaki slacks -
Knot my made-in-China patriotic tie
And verify that my papers are in order

On Monday I will sortie through the candidates  -
I’m important to them on this one day -
Then work around their signs all slogan-trapped
And rush the doors through a hail of cliches’

And watched by comrades with their helmets blue
Vote for a Merovingian or two

This house is silent now, this new smart house
The storm has downed the power lines; wild rains
Against the windows beat like hungry wolves
And all house gadgetry is silent and still

And just as still: the Barnes & Noble Nook™®
The Ipod™® unsupported, the dead FitBit™®
That failed before its third Christmas day
The La Crosse(tm)® that failed before its second

And dead are all the promises that they gave:
Our silent gadgets in this cold, dark cave

Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal love
Those breathless kisses on a summer night -
They leave no lipstick on a shopping list

Lovers disappoint each other in time
The protestations of eternal youth
When even the sell-by dates have faded away
From the shopping lists of our yesterday

We mourn the lips we’ve kissed, the lips we’ve missed

But still…

Would you leave lipstick on my shopping list?

Prelude PEAVEY you give PEAVEY the splendor
Of the PEAVEY CAN I HAVE AN ‘AMEN’!?
How great is our PEAVEY WOOOOOO! The lion and
The PEAVEY name above all YEAH!!!!!

Age to PEAVEY chorus PEAVEY bridge PEAVEY
You are PEAVEY touching my PEAVEY these
Bones will PEAVEY shout your PEAVEY OH YEAH!!!!
We pour out our PEAVEY WOOOOO!!!!! YEAHHHH!!! An’ Lord

We just wanna PEAVEY you YEAH! And WOOOOO!!!
REPEAT 4X PEAVEY YEAH!  WOOOOO!!!! We are
God’s PEAVEY AMEN!!!! CAN I HEAR AN ‘AMEN!?’
Food drive PEAVEY outreach ministries PEAVEY

Love offering PEAVEY I worship PEAVEY
Outreach WOOOOO! And Lord we just offer up our
PEAVEY…!!!


(You can always walk away – and I did)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                Socrates on the Courthouse Lawn in Liberty, Texas

                         “Strong minds discuss ideas,
                          average minds discuss events,
                          weak minds discuss people.”

                     -attributed to Socrates, but no one knows

Imagine if you will old Socrates
On an old wooden bench on the courthouse lawn
Playing checkers with all the other old men
On an old picnic table throughout the day

He lifts his old straw hat in the leafy shade
With his old bandana he wipes his old bald head
And sagely asks the old questions of us
And through his dialectic dismantles old cant

And that must be why, as the ages pass
They’ve made for him a monument here in the grass



(While passing through Liberty, Texas I saw on the courthouse lawn a marble slab engraved only with “Socrates”.)

Liberty County Courthouse - TexasCourtHouses.com
Liberty, Texas, Bed & Breakfast Hotels (usatoday.com)
Socrates (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)