Lawrence Hall, HSG
Smoke Drifting Across America
“Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live”
Columbia campus protester apologises for 'kill Zionists' comments (bbc.com)
Ash-grey smoke drifts across America
“That’s a false narrative”
“That’s a false narrative”
“That’s a false narrative”
The narrative is metaphorical; the smoke is real -
Ashes and smoke from Auschwitz, from burning Jews
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Governor of South Dakota Takes a Shot at the Vice-Presidency
Who is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem? Dog controversy, more to know (usatoday.com)
Blazing a trail of death and bloody fur
She shot her dog, her goat, three horses too
Somehow they failed her, and so, we must concur
She executed them in a bloody coup
When her family's animals disappoint her
She shoots them; she feels that’s her duty to do
Silencing each substandard bark, bleat, and purr -
Now what if she becomes disappointed in
you?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Let’s Meet Again Next Week or Next Life
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 32
To ask to be remember’ed
is good
Both for the humble asker
and for the asked -
For both will pause to
consider mortality
And both will pause to
enjoy the happy now
We understand this world
will pass away
That all created things must
collapse and die
And yet we are promised
them back again
And each other too, in
saecula saeculorum
Then, yes, please, do remember
me, if you would -
To ask to be remember’ed
is good
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Let Us Proceed to Sonnet 32
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 31
There is a reason why Boris Pasternak
Did not recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 31
To the Soviet Writers’ Conference in ’37 -
It’s a mess
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Let Us Proceed to Sonnet 32
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 31
There is a reason why
Boris Pasternak
Did not recite Shakespeare’s
Sonnet 31
To the Soviet Writers’ Conference
in ’37 -
It’s a mess
Lawrence Hall, HSG
While Clenching Their Fisties
Old men do not now argue politics
At the coffee table in the grocery store
Old men, like some university students
Simply say what they are ordered to say
By voices bellowing from Orwellian telescreens
While clenching their Trumpy-grumpy fisties
Lawrence Hall, HSG
When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy
Thought
Cf. Shakespeare,
Sonnet 30
I don’t
need to summon up remembrances
They
simply wander in uninvited
In death
just as they did in life, good friends
To sit together
with our jokes, our drinks, our pipes
We still
argue with each other, our minds
So
familiar after all those happy years
Thesis,
antithesis, and Dunhill tobacco
Ice cubes
rattling in the soft summer dusk
Lewis and
Tolkien show up late, stern Milton too
Remembrances?
Not really – we are forever here
In Moscow, 1937, during the annual
Soviet writers’ congress—a time of severe purges—Pasternak took a courageous
stand. Amidst the dull, regime-prescribed speeches praising Leninist-Stalinism,
he did something extraordinary. He recited Sonnet 30 by William
Shakespeare:
“When to the sessions of sweet silent
thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste.”
The impact was profound. All two
thousand writers in the hall rose to their feet, joining Pasternak in this
act of defiance. The number “30” became a symbol of resistance, a testament
to the enduring power of poetry and memory.
