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Next Paige Mar 2012
dimitri was a music man who paid attention to life's subtleties
he chiseled at a block of notes, hammering them down to sculpted perfection
music did he use as a platform to disguise his controversial contexts
distracting his judges with thin air before delving into the matter at hand
a scherzo, to illumine Stalin's atrocities
sewn into the playful boom-chuck, dangerous melodies and complex harmonies
in one instance, the William Tell did he use to comment on
power to the people and their triumph over the regime
it was a strategic ironic play
Rossini's light, airy music brewing with tumult in fact
une blague, a sort of joke to mock society
an unsettling fiddle bit later echoed in the likes of Bernstein
dimitri read his part at a UNESCO convention--
--deadpan, not looking up once from his paper
it was clear, he had his own opinion
a voice rang in the distance, an approaching bell
at a time when all were violently silenced
the opposition cleverly fashioning his statements
one only had to listen to his symphonies to find
dimitri's was a very attuned mind.
James Wisp Aug 2011
Have you ever felt,
no,
dreamt of falling down
a precipice into a pit.
That's how I'm falling,
but its no dream.

And I'm not afraid.
And don't you be afraid.
I guess that I am afraid,
but I enjoy it.
It's not enjoyment though,
but ecstasy.
Patricia Drake Mar 2013
your plans of escape
YOLO, I know, but please, NO!!!
please! do not go there
So much pain in the bottom of a seally bag
And it reminds me of the life I could of really had
For every scar on my arm it never made me stay clam
Left my head ringing like alarm
The itch always burning like its ******
A need that I just couldn't run away from
And when I look around today and wonder where the hell have all my mates gone
Shackled up in chains I can't see they will ever break from
An this is only take one
But there's no take two
Thousand hits of Dimitri
still couldn't break through
So I'll have to make do
Knowing there's a part of me that loves and a part that really hates you
I never meant to hate you
I never meant to hate you
Lawrence Hall Mar 2018
Did Mitya escape to America?
He might have changed his name to Bob or Al
Married Myrtle in the Methodist Church -
Myrtle, nee’ Agrafena Alexandrovna –

And worked the candy counter at Woolworth’s
Riding the trolley downtown every day
While saving up for a new Model T
In obedience to his New World staretz

Horatio Alger hissing behind a tree:
Was Mitya sentenced to America?
Lawrence Hall May 2017
The Fifth Karamazov

When young we identify with Alyosha
His optimism and his innocence
His fragile, flowering Orthodox1 faith
A happy, almost-holy fool for Christ

When older, the sensual Dimitri,
With irresponsible lusts and desires
Grasping for the rewards of the moment
Now, ever now, wanting everything now

Then older still, as intellectual Ivan
Sneeringly aloft, above all faith and flesh
A constructor of systems and ideas
From the back pages of French magazines

Though never do we identify with
Nest-fouling, leering, lurking Smerdyakov
Our secret fear, unspoken fear, death-fear:
That he might be who we untruly are

But hear, O hear, the holy bells of Optina2
Those Russian messengers3 singing to us
Inviting us to meet Alyosha again
At Father Zosima’s poor4 hermitage


1Russian Orthodox
2The name of the real monastery upon which Dostoyevsky modeled his fictional one
3The Brothers Karamazov was first published as a serial in The Russian Messenger
4Poor only by earthly standards
Lawrence Hall Jan 2018
The Fifth Karamazov

When young we identify with Alyosha
His optimism and his innocence
His fragile, flowering Orthodox 1 faith
A happy, almost-holy fool for Christ

When older, the sensual Dimitri,
With irresponsible lusts and desires
Grasping for the rewards of the moment
Now, ever now, wanting everything now

Then older still, as intellectual Ivan
Sneeringly aloft, above all faith and flesh
A constructor of systems and ideas
From the back pages of French magazines

Though never do we identify with
Nest-fouling, leering, lurking Smerdyakov
Our secret fear, unspoken fear, death-fear:
That he might be who we untruly are

But hear, O hear, the holy bells of Optina 2
Those Russian messengers 3 singing to us
Inviting us to meet Alyosha again
At Father Zosima’s poor 4 hermitage


1 Russian Orthodox
2 The name of the real monastery upon which Dostoyevsky modeled his fictional one
3 The Brothers Karamazov was first published as a serial in The Russian Messenger
4 Poor only by secular standards
Tyler Roberts Aug 2018
I speak hood art
That street poetry
When you hear that bass
Knocking down your street
You know it’s me
That lilheathen
Creeping straight outta Hell
Just to bask up in the smell
Of the ****
Need that Acapulco Gold
Fruit for the soul
Blue dream got me froze
Stuck in a maze through my mind
Stuck in a place I can’t find
Lighters in the skies
Look like
Fire flies in the night
Higher I climb
To the Light
Smoked a bowl full of Dimitri
Just to enlighten my eye
Firebuns9 Feb 2018
9/11
By Daniel Lantigua

Up above watched, by the five thousand plus souls,
Came a voice that punctured in them some holes.
A tall man in a straw hat stood and said, "don't be sad, look at your
country don't you see, you died for freedom just like me."
Then before them all, appeared a scene of rubbled streets and twisted
beams.
Death, destruction, smoke and dust
And people working just cause they must.
Hauling ash, and lifting stones,
Knee deep in hell,
But not alone.

Beams bent and melted like your knees do when you knelt.
How could it be, my friend beside me in anguish is what she felt.
All the heat that is seen from the fire, pushing humans to melt.
All caused by the thunderous and horrific attacks that was dealt.

One man puts in perspective just like he did back when he uttered, "I
have a dream.." This is what I've seen,
Look closer newcomers, yes there is suffering, there is pain, and there
are tears,
But what I don't see is fear".

All of those people, even the ones that have never met you,
All of their lives, they will never forget you.
Don't you see what you have done?
You have brought them together, together as one.

A man bearded and in a stove pipe hat told them to "take my hand" for I
will lead you to heaven,
Your young ones like Michael, Louis, Dimitri and Devin
Shall remember you on this date of September 11.
Lawrence Hall Jan 2023
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                  ­    Corporal Karamazov Flies Home from the War

                                           “Which war?”

                            “Your war – there’s always a war.”

Every young reader sees Alyosha in himself
A sensitive mystic, misunderstood by most
Questing for an answer to a question unasked
Politely shown the door by Father Zosima

As Old Karamazov? Impossible
53 is an age of antiquity
As Dimitri, Ivan, and Smerdyakov?
They are unable to sort out themselves

Lost in thought in a contract airline seat:

A 22-year-old just two days off the line
A patriarchal colonialist ideologue
Lawrence Hall Apr 19
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      “Anglo-Saxon Students Would Not Like to Be Taught by a Jew”

                                                      cited in
                   -Stanley Kunitz Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius

To the Privileged Youth of Columbia University:

As a child of situational poverty
I am so grateful for all my Jewish teachers

Including

Moses
Joshua
Jeremiah
Samuel
David
Solomon
J­esus, Mary, and Joseph
Saint Peter and the others in The Twelve
Saint Paul
Elie Weisel

Chaim Potok
Herman Wouk
Leon Uris
Franz Kafka
Leonard Cohen
Anne Frank
Bernard Malamud
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Philip Roth
Osip Mandelstam

Saul Bellow
Isaac Asimov
Woody Allen
Mel Brooks
Edna Ferber
Yip Harburg
George Cukor
Mel Brooks
Oscar Hammerstein
Alan Lerner

Carl Reiner
Rod Serling
Franz Werfel
Alan Arkin
Claire Bloom
Leonard Nimoy
Chaim Topol
Ed Asner
Mel Brooks
Peter Falk
Werner Klemperer

Jack Klugman
Walter Matthau
Tony Randall
Mel Torme
John Banner
Kirk Douglas
Lorne Greene
Eli Wallach
Sam Wanamaker
Morey Amsterdam

Leo Genn
Otto Preminger
Jack Benny
Leslie Howard
Ernst Lubitsch
Cecil B. DeMille
Mortimer Adler
Allen Bloom
Harold Bloom
Irving Berlin

Boris Pasternak
Emil Ludwig
Eric Wolfgang Korngold
Elmer Bernstein
Max Steiner
George Gershwin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Samuel Fuller
Alexander Korda
Zoltan Korda

Emeric Pressburger
Erich von Stroheim
Billy Wilder
William Wyler
Fred Zinnemann
J. J. Abrams
Peter Bogdanovich
Michael Curtiz
Stanley Donen
Stanley Kramer

Howard Caine
Leon Askin
Robert Clary
Dinah Shore
Stephen Sondheim
Volodymyr Zelinsky
Simon Schama
Louise Gluck
Siegfried Sassoon
Isaac Rosenberg

Joseph Brodsky
Rob Morrow
Vasily Grossman
Stanley Kubrick
Viktor Frankl

And more, so many more, a cloud of witnesses
Whose names are written in gold on a scroll in Heaven

But somehow, in this world of beauty and truth
And humanity’s aspirations to the good
All you have found are bullhorns, trash fires, chants
Clinched fists, obscenities, lies, and shrieking hate
Anti-Semitism
Lawrence Hall May 2019
Our steppes and birch woods are metaphorical
And so are we - who has not seen himself
In youth as the innocent Alyosha
Or in bad days as Dimitri or Ivan

Grushenka at times, and pale Katya too
The Grand Inquisitor at our dark worst
Old Karamazov lusting after Death
Foul Smerdyakov descending cellar stairs

Or gypsy dancers in a rented room
Rolling Polish officers for their pay

But who could ever be Father Zosima?
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 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            Do Not Forsake Me, Oh, My Dushen’ka

                                    In honor of Dimitri Tiompkin

When we learned that a Russian wrote the score for High Noon
And another for John Wayne’s Rio Bravo
It made some of the populist faithful swoon
(Alas that nothing much rhymes with Bravo)

Given that Tiompkin was a Russian critter
We’ll just have to cancel John Wayne and Tex Ritter

— The End —