Never Mind the Guns and the Drugs; Seize the Books - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Never Mind the Guns and the Drugs; Seize the Books

 

By 1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,

4,175 titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…

 

-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War

 

Ideologues search libraries for dirty books

Because reading might give people ideas

And encourage them to think for themselves

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

Censors search Mary Poppins for dirty words

Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas

And encourage them to think for themselves

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

 

How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)

 

The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

Film censors aren’t protecting children from Mary Poppins – they’re protecting themselves (yahoo.com)

 

States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives : The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR

 

List of banned films - Wikipedia

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/22/police-officer-searches-middle-school-library-after-complaint-about-concerning-illustrations-in-lgbtq-book/

 

Someone is cutting down free little libraries in a Chicago suburb and police are searching for the suspect (msn.com)

 

Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries following new education reform - CBS News

 

The police officer who searched for a book in a Great Barrington classroom also used a body camera. The ACLU has ‘deep concerns’ | South Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com

What We All Need to Know About Fentanyl - a re-post

I almost never re-post but in the matter of children's lives this is important. The source is at the foot of the page:

Here’s what children need to know:

1. There is a poison killing 200 Americans of all ages, backgrounds, and races every single day. It’s called fentanyl. Most kids who die from it don’t even know they are taking it.

2. Drug dealers are selling fake pills, cocaine, and meth with fentanyl to boost their profits.

3. These fake pills look identical to the real ones—Xanax, Adderall, Oxycontin, Percocet, and others. You cannot see, smell, or taste fentanyl. Even DEA agents can’t tell the difference between what’s real and fake.

4. Do not accept any pill of any kind if it didn’t come from a doctor or pharmacist. Even if your best friend offers you a pill, they won’t know if it contains fentanyl.

In the age of fentanyl, your life will become a coin toss. Heads, you get high. Tails, you die. The only way to win this twisted game is to refuse to play.

James Fishback is a writer for The Free Press. Follow him on Twitter @j_fishback. And read Sam Quinones’ recent piece, “Opioids Decimated a Kentucky Town. Recovering Addicts Are Saving It.”

Broccoli on the Primary Ballot - quatrain

 

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

The Dime-Store Philosophy of Kahlil Gibran - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

The Dime-Store Philosophy of Kahlil Gibran

 

How The Prophet Made Kahlil Gibran a Household Name in America ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

 

The dime-store philosophy of Kahlil Gibran

          (“Daddy, what’s a dime-store? And what’s a dime?”)

Reposing mostly undisturbed on brick-and-board shelves

The free-verse love-salad of Rod McKuen

And Lord of the Rings in 50-cent paperbacks

 

The Seekers played over and over on the phonograph

          (“Daddy, what’s a phonograph? Is it something bad?”)

Have you heard The Mamas and the Papas’ latest single?

Peter, Paul & Mary in “stacks of wax”

Three-chord commandos in every coffee shop

 

Looking back - it wasn’t the greatest stuff

But for the time and place, it was good enough

 

Someone Along County Road 400 & County Dump Extension Has Done a Little Remodeling...

...and it looks nice, especially the blue carpeting. But please have your contractor swing back and pick up the unsecured debris that fell from his open trailer around midday on Saturday, 24 February.

No, I Will Not Watch X - quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

No, I Will Not Watch X

 

For all the same reasons I repudiate Q

I will not watch X, not even for you

And I regret that you asked me to -

They’re both a Macbethian witches’ brew

Night of the Long Sporks - quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Night of the Long Sporks

 

Republicans have their sporks out for each other

Slashing each member with unpassable bills

Impeaching each MAGA sister and brother -

The 118th Congress gives me the chills!

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT ALL OVER EUROPE AND OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

ALL OVER EUROPE AND OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The Great AT&T Blink of 2024

 

America has failed, Babylon has fallen

Amid sturm und drang and riot and rout

Civilization has collapsed and we can’t call it in

Because our telephones are out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

(Oh, it’s back on – is this Joe’s Pizza?)

Standing the Test of Time - quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Standing the Test of Time

 

So tell me about life’s test – is it multiple-guess?

Or fill-in-the-blanks for my empty mind

If the most common answer is C…oh, what a mess!

Gimme a hint, Teach; I’m falling behind!

The Wind Drove the Pages Wild - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Wind Drove the Pages Wild

 

Reading Yevtushenko on a Windy Day

 

The flapping, fluttering pages went wild in the wind

And poetry sometimes should go wild, blow wild

To shake those gently slumbering words awake

Provoking peaceful musings into a storm

 

Nouns chasing verbs into logical conclusions

That turn about and bite the reader in the (hand)

And adjectives torment the symbolism

While adverbs, as always, were mostly in the way

 

I just wanted a quiet hour with coffee and verse

But flapping, fluttering pages went wild in the wind

A Single, Intemperate, Ill-Mannered Line About Tucker Carlson

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A One-Line Dismissal of Tucker Carlson Isn’t a Poem, But…

 

 

Democracy dies in dorkness

Waiting for the Other Boot to Drop - quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Waiting for the Other Boot to Drop

 

And it’s not even a good and honest boot

But the steel-tapped heel and studded sole

Of anger, hatred, and existential despair

One that takes time to pause and stomp the flowers

(The village grouch; you know him)

Faces Among the Leaves - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Faces Among the Leaves

 

At first she thought it was but the rock and the bushes…

But all at once she was aware of a face among the leaves…

 

Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter

 

There are curious faces among the leaves

Among the trees and sometimes in the trees

Along the road a little old man appears

Looking at me from the trunk of a rotting pine

 

He seems to be a little bit annoyed

But not dangerous; he’s become used to me

Tapping along with my shiny hiker’s stick

Searching the winter sky for something of truth

 

And there are bare feet dancing in the underbrush

And faces in the trees I must not see

A Ballerina Arrested for High Treason - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Ballerina Arrested for High Treason

 

Let them dance in praise of His name

 

-Psalm 150

 

A ballerina was arrested for high treason

 

And no wonder – dance is a beautiful thing

Whether the thunderous tread of a country line

Or the ethereal flights of Russian ballet

Dance is a joy, and so must be suppressed

 

A ballerina was arrested for high treason

 

A dancer moves to mysteries of her own

On an imperial stage in Saint Petersburg

Or barefoot in a meadow among butterflies

Dance is a joy, and must be controlled

 

A ballerina was arrested for high treason

 

In the street or in a moonlit fairies’ ring

Such wild wonder – dance is a dangerous thing!

 

A ballerina was arrested for high treason

 

 

American Ballerina Ksenia Karelina Is Detained For 'high Treason' In Russia By Putin's Feared FSB Security Accused Of Raising $51 For The Ukrainian Army And Could Face 20 Years In Jail If Found Guilty - Ny Breaking News

Sunshine is Dogshine - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

Sunshine is Dogshine

 

Be prepared. A dog is adorable and noble.

A dog is a true and loving friend. A dog

Is also a hedonist.

 

-Mary Oliver, “The Wicked Smile”

 

My little dogs pause at the kitchen door

But after tentatively testing the air

Run wild into the sunlit of a rare warm day

Leaping across the long-dead summer grass

 

They tumble and roll, and loll with their tummies up

For each little sunbeam is a doggie-kiss

To be cherished against the next arctic front

When the sleeting wind rattles the window panes

 

My little dogs scratch at the kitchen door

Sunshine is dogshine

But now they want a doggie-nosh and a nap

Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things

 

All of my life I have been told

That Lent is not about giving up things

So was there a time when anyone

was told otherwise?

 

“Never Surrender” Sneakers: Collectible Bone Spurs Edition - quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

“Never Surrender” Sneakers – Collectible Bone Spurs Edition

 

Now we have lived to see a president

Hawking tatty cartoon-character shoes

Having already pawned his soul for rent

And now the bailiffs are turning the screws

Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, and Boomer Tea

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Gen X, Gen Y, Gen Z, and Boomer Tea

 

How wicked to stereotype the several gens

To brew a tempest in a pot of self-pity -

The morning sun shines upon a world of friends

For we are all leaves on an Eden-tree

A Martyr is a Poem - for Alexei Navalny

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Martyr is a Poem

 

For Alexei Navalny

 

“Only in Russia is poetry respected; it gets people killed.”

 

-Osip Mandelstam

 

His soul was a poem; upon it he wrote

Of hope for Russia’s peoples frozen in pain

A poem of stern rebuke to Rolex tyrants

Who censored him with beatings, poison, and death

 

 

He spoke

He died

Because he spoke he died

Because he spoke the truth he died

 

They left his unfinished poem upon the ice

His soul was a poem – we must complete his verse

There are no Foreign Accents in Texas - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

There are no Foreign Accents in Texas

 

“For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America.”

 

– John Steinbeck

 

There are no foreign accents here, n'est-ce pas?

Un acento extranjero is for Auslander

And there are no mga dayuhan here

The dat belongs to all of us and to niemand

 

Before even the Pierwsze Narody there was the jord

And les humains have come in successive amaza

Izdao each other with אלימות and кровь

Κατακτήσεις and 背叛 instead of féastaí

 

But 私たち are trying to make it bora now -

There are no foreign accents here, capisci?

 

 

 

I played with Microsoft’s translator ]english to spanish - Search (bing.com)] because to my regret I have no language other than English and puer parvus scholis Latinis.

Dragons for Your New Year - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

Dragons for Your New Year

 

For Doris and Anthony

Who have known dragons

 

Eustace had read only the wrong books; they had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.

 

-C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

 

 

The dragons are a polite and ancient race

And very conscious of their dignity

It would not do to neglect their seasons and feasts

Lest they neglect to visit you this year

 

They want to bring good fortune to your house

But first you must make a place for them -

Their breath will warm your room, your hearth, your heart

Their knowledge will make your children worthy and wise

 

Their songs will send your family happy dreams

For dragons are a polite and generous race

Reader Responses in the U. K. DAILY MAIL

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Reader Responses in the U. K. Daily Mail

 

RepubliCraps. Demoncrats. Repugs. DemoCraps. MAGA. Magats. Maggots. Clown. Orange clown. Clowns. Clown show. Absolute clown show. Absolute commie clown show. Diaper Joe. Dr. Potatohead. Moron. Selected not elected. Deplorables. Trailer trash. Absolute trailer trash. Said no one ever. Oh wait. Lock her up. Lock him up. Throw away the key. Absolutely. Joebama. Drumpf. Dump. Woke. Wokista. Wokerati. Absolutely Woke. Biden’s America. Trump’s America. Mean tweets. No mean tweets. These teachers. These schools. These universities. TDS. Absolute TDS. Liberal idiots. Extremist idiots. Absolute idiots. ROFL. Grab some popcorn. …in 1, 2, 3…  Dumpster fire. Absolute dumpster fire. You can’t make this stuff up. Train wreck. Absolute train wreck. Car crash. Absolute car crash. Total car crash. The jokes write themselves. At its finest. Pure evil. Absolute pure evil. Cue crickets. Of biblical proportions. Of epic proportions. Of absolute epic biblical proportions. Rinse and repeat. Rules for thee but not for me. Two-tier justice system. Absolute two-tier justice system. You could look it up. Follow the science. Full stop. LOL. End of. Absolutely. Fact. FACT!!!!!

The Disinterment of Pablo Neruda - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Disinterment of Neruda

 

Qui sine peccato est vestrum, primus in aliam lapidem mittat

 

This Neruda - the Fascists murdered him

This Neruda - let us murder him again

The people read and love his poems too much

And they ignore ours – let us dig him up

 

This Neruda – we will dig him up

And subject him to our Inquisition

We now will tell you what each fragment means

Each fragment of each word, his flesh, his bone

 

We have our bullhorns and our three-beat chants

His poems will mean what we tell you they mean

 

Shut up

Poetry and Jazz Stroll into a Smoky Bar

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Poetry and Jazz Stroll into a Smoky Bar

 

Poetry, like jazz, is itself

If you feel a need to explain it

You’ve failed

                      Art sings itself

Wipe That Geographical Expression Off Your Face - quatrain

 Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

Wipe That Geographical Expression Off Your Face

 

Alas, poor country! / Almost afraid to know itself

 

-Macbeth IV.iii.164-165

 

We are now a geographical expression

An almost amorphous land mass occupied

By violent tribes of shifting loyalties

And assemblies of squabbling Merovingians

A Burning Car in Baghdad - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Burning Car in Baghdad

 

 

The delusion that by force you can impose the Millennium on the human race is one of the most dangerous delusions in existence.

― Agatha Christie, They Came to Baghdad

 

 

In the center of Baghdad a burning car

Illuminates long centuries of pain

Inflicted by schemes of improvement upon

A city of scholarship, wisdom, and art

 

Militias, commanders, air-strikes, and bombs

So clever that they can single out one car

Without harming another car at the traffic light -

And somehow this will make the world all better

 

Dullard journalists will type “tit-for-tat”

Because they don’t know anything else to say

 

And neither do I

Cups and Jugs and Kettles and Beds - something more than a Quatrain

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Cups and Jugs and Kettles and Beds

 

St. Mark 7:1-13

 

Let the coffee cups rattle with denunciations

About the contextual meaning of “beds”

At the fossil table in the roadside café’

That Javneh of theological studies

 

For the health and comfort of our other guests

No smoking, please

A Sanitary Pad Along Beer Can Road - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Sanitary Pad Along Beer Can Road

 

 

To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves

 

-Julius Caesar III.ii.256

 

 

A sanitary pad along Beer Can Road

Sodden and heavy with the waning night’s damp

And beer cans shining in the morning sun

Completing a picture of misadventure

 

I once found a ratchet wrench about here

And a knot of twist-ties further along

And a couple of disposable lighters for toking crack

I’ll just give this latest detritus a miss

 

But on my morning stroll I won’t pass by

Without a prayer for happiness for all

 

Especially my nocturnal predecessors

 

A Dusty Drum Kit - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Dusty Drum Kit

 

In a re-sale shop in Huntington, Texas

 

Fronting for decaying videotapes

And clocks that will never again chime the time

Through tinny mechanical syncopation

A drum set reposes without percussion

 

An arpeggio of silent despair

Whose cymbals and snare impatiently wait

As do the bass and other impedimenta

For the hand of a youth who has something to howl

 

The next kid through the door might bell the cat:

“There it is – I will rhythm the truth with that!”

 

The Latest Atmospheric River End-of-the-World Pineapple Express Bomb Cyclone from H**l

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Latest Atmospheric River End-of-the-World 

Pineapple Express Bomb Cyclone from H**l

 

 

The news is falling! The news is falling!

 

-as Chicken Little did not say

 

 

An apocalyptic storm of such intensity

We’re all going to drown in a flood of breaking news

The streets already overflowing with hyperbole

From reporters in damp shoes awaiting their cues

 

A Quatrain to Explain the Infinite Monkey Theory

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Quatrain to Explain the Infinite Monkey Theory

 

If you set a monkey at a typewriter

To type and type for all eternity

What he will type, that little blighter

Is a politician’s speech – nonsense, you see!

A Rotor-Tiller and the Feast of the Presentation - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Rotor-Tiller and the Feast of the Presentation

 

Names have not been restored, as Aslan says

Some are pleased to call this Ground-Hog Day

Although there are no ground hogs here

But the Presentation is everywhere and forever

 

I passed the morning deconstructing the tiller

                                  (instead of sacred texts)

Working debris from around the tines

Thinking about the coming spring and how -

How the Presentation is everywhere and forever

 

Names have not been restored, as Aslan says

Still, the Presentation is everywhere and forever

Browsing the Poetry Titles in the Book Store

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Browsing the Poetry Titles in the Book Store

 

I soon had a thorough understanding of the rules. For a poem to go through there had to be a few lines devoted to [         ]

 

-Yevtushenko, p. 68, A Precocious Autobiography

 

Call Me by the Post-Colonial Things We Carried Without Borders in the Boat in the Twilight Garden of our Being Unsilencing the Silent Voices Songs of Our Powerful People Aimlessly in Fire New and Selected Hopes To Change Your Life Forever Becoming the Healing                                                                                                                                                              You Always Wanted to Be in the Emptiness Within While Searching the Soul of the Underself in Quest of Anti-hierarchy For Elegies of the Lover

Who

Never

Was

But

Who

Might

Be on the Silences of Screaming Wings in a Rhapsody of a Plangent Tangent of Voided Meanings at the End of the             Rainbow World When a Golden Sickle Pierced the Sighings of                     the Moon in  Your Shivering Hand Leaves in the Exiled Gentleness of              Barbed Wire Pillows Comforting Your Cerulean Soul-Quest of Meaningful    Meaninglessness adrift in the Writhing  

 

 

Arms of your Powerful Weakness as a Twinkling Pancreas Vaults        Ambition Through Disconnected Quotes from Shakespeare Who was My           Soul-Twin Aflame with Passionless Passion for a Forbidden Vegetable Incarnadining     the Cosmic Cypress of Your Unattainable Body Through the Music of                 the Trapezoids as the Forbidden Kiss of Life

And, like, stuff