Motley Mumbling: Romance Poetry and Prose

By Thomas J. Hally

Both funny and serious in an ironically oxymoronic way, Motley Mumbling: Romance Poetry and Prose offers a diverse collection of poetry and prose from Thomas J. Hally that seeks to challenge you to look at the world in a new way.

This compilation, intended for lovers, expresses itself in four languages: English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Although its pages contain some erotic passion, it focuses primarily on the romance in the essence of the languages themselvesmost notably in the three Romance languages featured in the collection, which take their own center stage.

Intelligently written with beautifully picturesque metaphors, surprisingly direct and exact analogies, and other twists of the pen, the poetry and short stories included here reveal author Thomas Hallys desire to share beauty, love, adventure, anger, justice, and a sense of universal belonging that flourishes in Motley Mumbling.

The reader is in for a treat with this eclectic collection, for it contains something for everyone. The beauty of this book is in the various forms of literature covering various aspects of life, spoken in different voices, and presented in different languages. The challenge facing the reader is to reconcile Motleys various pieces to the same individual; this is not a simple task, and nor is Hally, and inherently nor are we, but we celebrate our shared humanity when such reconciliation occurs.

Mark van Vuuren, BA (hons), BCom, MCom; poet, Johannesburg, South Africa

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 31, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475937237

Thomas J. Hally

Thomas J. Hally is a writer for the Mensa International Journal, as well as an editor and the vice president of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE). He lives with his wife, his dog, and five kittens in the sleepy village of Ajijic on the shore of Lake Chapala, Mexico.

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Copyright © 2013 by Thomas J. Hally.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-3722-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-3723-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012922555

iUniverse rev. date: 02/26/2013

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Un Momento En El Tiempo (Lupita’s Poem)

My Army

El Tío Sam Me Quiere

Metamorphoses

Metamorfosis

The Descent Of Man

La Descendencia Del Hombre

Brittany Woods And Noel

Brittany Woods Y Noel

Autumn At The Lake

Otoño En El Lago

Bell Bottoms With Suspenders

Pantalones De Campana Con Tiradores

Xochipilli, Mictecacihuatl, And The Bird Of Paradise Flower

Xochipilli, Mictecacihuatl Y La Flor Del Ave Del Paraíso

Just Turned Eighteen

Apenas 18

Catemaco!

¡Catemaco!

An American Adventure

Una Aventura Americana

A Great Day To Be Alive

Un Gran Día Para Estar Vivo

Stuck In The Right Turn Lane

Atrapada En El Carril Derecho

Thank You

Gracias

Mom

Mamá

The Lonesome Twosome At Awesome Iguazú

La Pareja Solitaria En El Maravilloso Iguazú

Beautiful Waters

Aguas Preciosas

Aguas Preciosas (Português)

Precieuses Eaux

Renaissance

A Sad Song Of Vainglorious Flattery

Triste Oda Vanagloriosa

The Night Before I Died

La Noche Antes De Que Muriera

Everywhere Aves

Aves Por Doquier

The Day Of The Dead (Beat)

El Día De Los Muertos (De Cansancio)

Jack Was Livid!

The Tlaxcaltec Warrior Lies In Repose*

Yace El Guerrero Tlaxcalteca*

Cain And Abel

The Idiots And Lunatics Asylum At Surrey

Twice Twisted

Around Enchanted Lake

Autour Du Lac Enchanté

Lago Chapala Encantador

Poor Old Joe Had But A Name

The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre Occidental

The Lost Ballad Of Deity Holstein

Laughing At Someone Else

Through Her Looking Glass

Warm Summer’s Morn

Cálida Mañana Veraniega

La Historia De Un Amor

About The Author

Acerca Del Autor

For Lupita, my eternal fountain of inspiration.

I’ve read some of your modern free verse and

wonder who set it free.

~ John Barrymore

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Firstly, I would to thank my good friend and colleague Mark Van Vuuren of Johannesburg, South Africa, a fellow member of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, for critiquing my work prior to its publication. Mark’s keen observations and commonsense suggestions were a lifesaver. And another special thanks must go to my Buenos Amigos Argentinos Hernán (Chapu) Trigo Mogro and his lovely wife, María José Rubin (Majo), for their translations of some of my stories into Spanish and for revising and editing my other poems and stories in Spanish. I would also like to thank the former president of Mensa Argentina, Facundo Viana of Buenos Aires, for his excellent Spanish translation of my story Catemaco! Lastly, but certainly not least, my enduring love, time, and gratitude go to my precious Guadalupe, my wife, my proofreader, and my artist. Thank you for your unending love and encouragement both in the good times and when the going gets tough.

INTRODUCTION

This is not Tom Hally’s first book, for he has work published in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. This should give the reader a clue what to expect with his current work, Motley Mumbling: Romance Poetry and Prose. It is a collection of memoir, fiction, prose poetry, and verse poetry reflecting diverse viewpoints of life, such as impartial observer, social commentary, and political opinion, highlighting, inter alia, justice, goodwill, and beauty. The title is notable, for Hally presents a motley collection for the discerning reader.

My personal preference is with four pieces, Bell Bottoms with Suspenders, Xochipilli, Mictecacihuatl, and the Bird of Paradise Flower, Thank You, and Mom.

In the poem Bell Bottoms with Suspenders, Hally compares and contrasts Joey and Joe, one young, one old, and leaves the reader contemplating whether they could be one and the same person in different stages of life. The poem Xochipilli, Mictecacihuatl, and the Bird of Paradise Flower is in stark contrast to Bell Bottoms with Suspenders, and the rhyme and rich, complicated imagery are a pleasure to follow. Thank You is prose poetry, amplifying the many facets of gratitude, and it is best read in slow contemplation. Mom is a beautifully written essay about Hally’s mother, and the last line lingers in my thoughts, . . . while contemplating her at-last peaceful face and the rosary intertwined between her fingers.

As a linguaphile, Hally has presented various pieces in both English and Spanish, as well as in English, French, and Portuguese. It’s a worthwhile exercise to read these translations, to compare the chosen imagery and appreciate the richness of each language, which is a tribute to Hally’s proficiency.

The reader is in for a treat with this eclectic collection, for it contains something for everyone. The beauty of this book is in the various forms of literature covering various aspects of life, spoken in different voices and presented in different languages. The challenge facing the reader is to reconcile Motley’s various pieces to the same individual; this is not a simple task, nor is Hally, and inherently nor are we, but we celebrate our shared humanity when such reconciliation occurs.

Mark Van Vuuren, BA(hons), BCom, MCom, Writer/Poet

August 2012

Johannesburg, South Africa

Un Momento en el Tiempo (Lupita’s Poem)

Un momento en el tiempo en el cual me muevo impávida,

el lapso que me dejó memorias, vicisitudes, alegrías, una remembranza.

Gente que se ha ido, el perro que perdí, Mr. Sandman, y lloré.

Alegrías y suspiros que ahora son una flama, una flama que nunca se apagará…

~ Guadalupe García Hally, October 13, 2006

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MY ARMY

One might ask, Why would anyone want to recall their miserable days in the US Army? The short answer is To get it off his chest. So here is the story of My Army.

First, let me give you a little background information about myself. I was born in San Francisco in March of 1945 and raised in that same city. My family was of middle-class background, and I have two siblings. After three grade schools and three high schools, I went on to university to study political science. I always believed that political science was a better term than government, and only such progressive advances such as that which gave us resource learning center in exchange for library can explain the new terminology. At any rate, as I was saying, I went on to study at the University of San Francisco, where, after an uneventful year and a half, I quit school after the death of my father and went to work full-time. I found employment at United Parcel Service as a loader and checker. I worked full-time for almost four months at UPS at night, and as grocery clerk at Antonelli’s Corner Market on Union Street for half a day in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. At lunch, I would deliver groceries in the Nob Hill and Russian Hill neighborhoods, sometimes parking Mr. Antonelli’s turquoise 1957 Chevy station wagon on steep and crooked Lombard Street, and I’d even go as far as Grant Avenue and other streets in Chinatown delivering groceries to San Francisco’s rich and famous.

In March of 1965, I quit my jobs. Frank Mahoney, Pat Kerns, and I decided to tour the United States on our motorcycles, for as far as our money would take us and bring us back. My two college buddies and I decided that the idea was a bit costly, and we opted for selling our bikes. We changed our plans for a less expensive trip, hitchhiking in Europe, where we figured we would be able to spend four to six months with the money we had saved from our respective jobs and the sale of the motorcycles. Mahoney had only accumulated four hundred dollars from his job but got a whopping nine hundred for his nearly new Triumph TR-6, better than one dollar per cubic centimeter of engine. Kerns and I each had eight hundred dollars to take along to feed and lodge us for as long as the money would be available. We all bought European travelers’ checks.

So in late March we started out from Pittsburg, California, near Oakland, driving a red Chevy Apache 10 pickup truck we got from Auto U-Drive, and started out for the East Coast. After about a week, we dropped the vehicle off in Philly, and we headed for New York City. There were no car rental fees; we paid only for the gas since we were bringing the truck to its final destination for the company. But we paid through the nose in New York for three or four days; and so we wisely decided to buy our Icelandic Airlines tickets for Glasgow, Scotland, with a couple of days’ layover in Reykjavik, Iceland. Arriving at Glasgow, we felt like we were at last in Europe, and the three of us anticipated visiting relatives in Ireland.

I, for one, had a lot of fun visiting the British Isles and the European continent itself. I managed to work briefly in three countries and visit twenty-three in all. In September of 1965 I got a predraft or preinduction notice (I’m not sure now exactly what it was called) so I returned home from my last stop, Madrid, on an Iberia Airlines flight that put my mother out—and off—for four hundred dollars plus.

I came back to my hometown after having bummed around Europe for almost six months, mostly by myself. I decided to go back to college and return to the University of San Francisco after the ten-month hiatus. Too bad for me, I was late for registration. I’d have to wait till the spring semester, but I was sure that I’d be drafted by that time. So, at barely twenty years of age, I fell in love. Her name was Pat Brooks, a honey of a strawberry blonde with green eyes and a Ford Thunderbird, and she had a way with the boys. The hometown romance was short lived, and in October 1965 I enlisted in the United States Army. I chose Infantry Intelligence as my specialty and opted for Special Forces. I was initially rejected by Special Forces for having two speeding tickets, so was promptly put into the foot infantry as cannon fodder. After all, I had volunteered for the United States Army and had no college degree to save me from Vietnam. It was a dumb move, indeed. After processing and physicals I went to Fort Polk, Louisiana, at Leesville—or Fleasville, as it was more commonly known—for Basic Training.

At Basic Combat Training, I learned how to fight (as if I didn’t already know how after a year on the streets during high school). I also learned how to follow an idiot’s orders and how to march, and march, and march. It seemed like we would march everywhere. After a quickie Christmas schedule of six weeks, instead of the usual eight, I was sent on to Advanced Infantry Training at (the now-closed) Fort Ord, California, near Salinas and Monterey. This was a lot better for me since it was only about one hundred miles from the family home in San Francisco, and I was able to visit my mother almost every weekend as well as socialize with young ladies at singles bars and the big discos on Broadway and Lombard streets.

In AIT (Advanced Infantry Training) I learned how to do things I never conceived of in my wildest dreams—how to kill Charlie, as the VC or Viet Cong were called, with a quick twist of the bayonet—and I managed to get Sharpshooter’s badge with the M-60 machine gun. I only got a Marksman’s badge with the M-16 rifle. The latter meant that I was only one step above can’t hit the broadside of a barn door. I guess my Expert’s title was due, in part, to the fact that I watched a lot of Audie Murphy war movies as a kid, where he would spray a nest of enemy soldiers with machine-gun fire like most people would spray a nest of cockroaches with Raid. I learned his trick, I suppose. I was also taught first aid, how to obey orders, and how to march, march, and march—again. We were still marching everywhere. After leaving AIT, I went on to Fort Benning, Georgia, for jump school—that is, airborne training. I was finally going to become a paratrooper! I wasn’t scared at all at the prospect of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, and