Lawrence Hall, HSG
Our Dear Leader in
His Jet Pilot Sunglasses
Democracy is dead, a memory, a husk
Selected, not elected: President Musk
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Our Dear Leader in His Jet Pilot Sunglasses - doggerel
By Reading This Content You Agree to OUR Privacy Policy - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
By Reading This
Content You Agree to Our Privacy Policy
It
was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander
when
you were…within range of a telescreen.
-Orwell, 1984
But your privacy? Nah; deal with it, you see
Baked beans, magazines and mountain scenes
Vacation trips and handy houseware tips -
They see you, they know you, they hunt you
Podcasts, partisan views, gossipy news
Engine parts, how-to vids, and funny kids
Treating head lice, tax advice, dancing mice
They see you, they know you, they hunt you
Through your made-in-Shanghai Palantir
Adverts will forever make you fear,
My Precious
(“Palantir” is here an
allusion to Tolkien’s genius, not to the software people.)
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
The O Antiphons, the Star, and Us - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The O Antiphons,
the Star, and Us
Solstice is not a time when the sun stands still
But rather a season when the sun stands aside
That we may better know the mysteries of deep night
In darkness just before deep Light returns
Out in the cold, and warmly wrapped in hope
We pray the O antiphons as we scan the sky
For the prophetic Star we long to see
The Star that guides us in our wanderings
Solstice is that season when the sun stands aside
So that eternal Dawn may then abide
You (Formerly Known as You) - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You (Formerly Known as You)
X, formerly known as Twitter
And then there is you
Formerly known as you
Go read a book
Go get a job
Go get a life
Go get a clue
Work in the yard
Volunteer at the school
Wash the dishes
Clean up the house
Raise your children
Be positive
Be a role model
Be a real mensch
Be a real friend
Be a neighbor
By the Grace of God
Be truly you
You are no one’s glassy-eyed parasite -
Go out into the world and do yourself proud
Monday, December 16, 2024
Camp Pendleton in Springtime - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Camp Pendleton in Springtime
Field Medical Service School, 1968
There was no warmth in our sleeping bags
Spring rain sluiced down the dark and through our tents
Decaying tents from the Second World War
The Corps would spend no money on tents or us
But
we were young, and playing at war was fun
We
kept our rifles dry but nothing else
And
yarned throughout the cold and soggy nights
Long
days and nights mud-fighting the VC
Sometimes
an hour or two of soggy sleep
But
in my pocket, warm words from my favorite poet
Sunday, December 15, 2024
A Brief Not-Exactly-a-Review of Elie Wiesel's NIGHT
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Night, Elie Wiesel
My father (602 Tank Destroyer Battalion) was one of the liberators of Ohrdruf / Buchenwald and then Dachau. When I was a child he talked on a G-rated level about his time in the army, the usual recruit training stories, his buddies, his time in England, Normandy, the Bulge, and where he was (Zwickau) when the war in Europe ended but without detailing the horrors. When I returned home from Viet-Nam we did talk about these things. He told me WHAT HE WITNESSED, WHAT HE SAW, WHAT HE SMELLED in the death camps. He said that someday people would deny the reality of the death camps and the genocide against Jews and others. I thought that that he was being pessimistic, that surely the world would never deny what we humans are capable of and that Jews would never again be persecuted.
But he knew.
To our great shame, and to our judgement before God, anti-Semitism is not only tolerated but is now fashionable. Through an obscene moral failing in blaming victims, Elie Wiesel, Viktor Frankl, Charles Coward, and other survivors and witnesses are now accused of lying and their accounts denied. The blood-libel the people Israel is back.
There is much talk of transparency just now, but that is irrelevant if we blithely accept the facile bleatings on the InterGossip and campus beer-parties instead of reading the primary sources left to us, the written and recorded testimonies and the visual records made both by the Nazis, who were proud of their satanic death-cult, and by the liberators.
NIGHT, written shortly after the liberation in terse, tight, clear, unadorned language is a place to begin.
Saturday, December 14, 2024
About That Beautiful Lady Sipping a Cup of Earl Grey - sort poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
About That
Beautiful Lady Sipping a Cup of Earl Grey
You’ve noticed her, I see – just a word of advice:
I was chatting with her over cups of tea
I mentioned that Earl Grey also tasted nice over ice
There was ice indeed as she turned away from me
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