A collection by Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall
Read Within Your Academic Discipline
“The Child is father of the Man…” -Wordsworth
When I was a child I read without discipline:
Robert A. Heinlein, Robin Hood, cowboy yarns
Pirates raiding across the Spanish Main
Penrod and Sam, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn
In college they said, “Read within your discipline”
The Russians are good, Romantics if you must
Though the English are overstudied and overdone
(Some say electronics are the coming thing)
I minded the words of my college tutor
‘Til Robin Hood stole the Sheriff’s computer
Two Sovereign Remedies for Depression
Reading a few pages of Wodehouse at bedtime
Is like walking behind a dachshund at any time
Happiness
Dostoyevsky and Applesauce 2 / $5
Literature in the Supermarket
The nice young man who bags my purchases –
He spoke to me of Notes from Underground
And who the unreliable narrator is
And how he anticipates the revolution
The pharmacist who jabbed me against the ‘flu –
He spoke to me of Robert E. Howard
And how Conan’s psychological issues
Anticipate the author’s death by suicide
A surprising conversation in a small-town grocery
But even more in a modern university
Now Everyone’s a Two-Dimensional Religious Image
News writers are dull, almost catatonic
Dispensing metaphors soporifically phonic
For in their world of the cliched and ironic
Every topic, every person is invariably
Iconic
Havoc
What is havoc, and how does one wreak it?
Havoc is a condition or state of being
That apparently exists only to be wrought
(There is no such word in English as “wreaked”)
A wreak does not now obtain without a havoc
And there is no havoc without a wreak
Your Favorite Author is Nothing Without You
Your favorite author would be nothing without you
His words, her words would echo in emptiness
Without your thoughts to sort them into being
And graft them onto the arts of sub-creation
Ideas left idle on a printed page
Repose in dormancy, in darkness, in silence
But when you read them they bloom into life
Your eyes and lips free them for all humanity
You enrich and send forth all that is good and true –
Your favorite author would be nothing without you
No One Keeps a Diary Anymore
“Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one mile away?” – Mather Byles
No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
Men have been hanged for what they have written
It may be that they revealed some forgotten crime
Or, worse, that they possessed the gift of thought
No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
The Moms for Liberty are scared of books
Even the diary of a little girl
Because children must not read or write or think
No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way –
And have you self-purged your own books today?
(Cf this news story and this one)
Chekhov’s Rifle
In Act I there was a rifle on the wall
A Mosin-Nagant of vintage make
The weapon was ready and on call
If someone in Act II made a mistake
In Act II some surly men appeared at the door
They entered, each with a menacing sneer
Scuffing their grubby boots across the floor
And Chekhov asked of them, “What do you want here?”
In Act III there was no rifle on the wall
Chekhov had sold it to pay the rent – that’s all
(Editor’s Note: “Chekhov’s Gun” is the name of the idea that every element put into a story should be used)
On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines
(Scribbled with a little help from Shelley)
Look upon my Verbs, ye Mighty, and despair!
No more lines remain. Round the decay
Of my online Competition, of vocabulary bare
The lone and level squares stretch far away
LogoSophia Magazine 
Wonderful ♥️
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