Lawrence Hall, HSG
Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight
A powerful monster // living down
in the darkness growled // in pain…
-Beowulf, Burton Raffel translation
In the sinister dusk // they seek our blood
A ghastly enemy // of disgusting thirst
Stealing up from the swamp // and primordial mud –
Well, we stole their habitat // – the mosquitoes were here first!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate
“No, sir, I do not bite my dentures at you, sir; but I bite my dentures, sir.”
-as a brawler in Romeo and Juliet I.i.57 does not
say
Neither man is a coherent talker -
This might end as combat by walker
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die
Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera.
-Apocalypsis XXI:V
We can’t take our books with us when we die
That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:
The copy of The Brothers Karamazov
I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?
But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow
And since He is the Word, all our books are His
How foolish of us if we fear that God
Has made no proper arrangements for them
Books are eternal
Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf
For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists
A question may be brought about ownership
And the turgid content of the daily trawl
But even before the question of censorship
One must ask
Why are adults on TikTok at all?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors?
I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
In glorious CBS monochrome
Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow town street
And saunter through those familiar swinging doors
I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam
And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other
While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly
And for a while we are all at peace
I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered outside
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Shakespeare: Maybe We Need to
See Other People
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 39
Perhaps
if we separated for a few days
We
would find more passion in our love
(Please note
all this artsy empty space)
After
fourteen empty lines I find
My
deep, abiding love for you stronger than ever
But
who’s this…you’re seeing some other man?
THIS
ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
“I’ll
Be Away from My Desk for a Few Days”
“Look
upon my absence, Ye mighty, and despair”
-as Shelley
did not say
Every once in an ego you’ll read on a site
“I’ll be away from my desk for a few days”
As if everyone must re-schedule his life
And wait forlornly for Mr. O’s return
Nothing else remains 404 Error 404 Error
404 Error 404 Error 404 Error 404 Error
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Spirit of Art
Is
The
good, the true, the beautiful
Not
The
sullen, the resentful, the envious
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.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
When
Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
A good thing with being disgraced in men’s eyes
Is that that mostly they don’t notice you at all
As a nobody you are but a shadow at best
Or an accessory in their empty scenes
If they don’t notice you, then you are not disgraced
And you have better things to do anyway:
Children to raise, songs to sing, books to write
Each day’s honest labor at your honest craft
The resolution is
That some men might be disgraced in your eyes
That is, if you choose to notice them at all
Lawrence Hall, HSG
And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway?
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 28
The days are a mess and so are the nights
Each day is burdened with labors unrelenting
Toils industrial and toils emotional
Everyone seems to want a bite of you
At night the stresses follow you to bed:
The boss’s write-ups seem to poison the pillows
The unpaid bills, the clapped-out car, the fears
The children’s report cards, the broken washer
You give life your all – you work, you struggle, you strive -
And why is there a cop car in your drive?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
These Here So-Called Schools These Days
“Lead, Follow, or Get the H*** Out of the Way”
-a sign on the bulkhead in recruit
training
Those coffee-shop cynics
drowning in dejection:
Some of them wallow in existential
abjection
And some meet every hope
with an objection
Or with a sneering,
irrelevant deflection
But I did something other than b**** and moan
I voted in my local
school board election
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Weary with Dachshunds
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 27
With an improving book I go to bed
(as P. G. Wodehouse said)
And two improving dachshunds on my pillow
(as Wodehouse almost said)
They then begin their journey at my head
Wriggling down to my feet and back again
They slurple messily from my bedside glass
And crumple up my copy of Hercule Poirot
Neither slows: they lick my nose, they tickle my toes
And will they finally doze? Nobody knows!
But
When comes the midnight moon, then all in a cuddly heap
Their little doggie noses snuffle at last in sleep
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The President of Columbia University is Saddened
“Why must we fight for the right to
live, over and over, each time the sun rises?”
― Leon Uris, Exodus
Jews are not welcome in
the cool universities
The laboratories are shut
against them
Libraries, classrooms,
meetings, coffee shops
Here, sir, the bullhorn
rules (Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho!)
Administrators smile
weakly and shrug:
We cannot guarantee your
safety here
The Merovingian president
says she is saddened
That Jewish students are harassed
and beaten
The halls of academia are
lined with swastikas
And 7 October is
remembered with glee
