Hello, You - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Hello, You

 

Hello, You

 

You, who have never written an idle line,

Give a second sunrise to each merry morning

Or if a morning is not permitted, a dusk

An hour of your gentle peace to read

 

Hello, You

 

You, who chant for us your litany of hope

We who are blessed in your thoughts and words

In how you shape chaos into hymns of love

And sing your stories to the universe

 

Hello, You

 

You, who have never written an idle line

Pray for all of us, please, at your Heliconian shrine

Landing at Port aux Basques - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Landing at Port aux Basques

 

 

“He was faithful and daft to me”

 

-as Marc Antony did not say

 

 

We were approaching Newfoundland aboard the old Caribou

I climbed up on deck in the icy, clear dawn

A mysterious woman in a Burberry coat

Smoked cigarettes in the lee of a ventilator

 (and ignored me)

 

In the cold I surveyed the brown and white coast

And reported back to Dan that there was snow ashore

“You’re daft,” he replied, “those are just little houses.”

But there was snow indeed on Port aux Basques

 

We rattled Dan’s CRV up Highway 1

          (driving around a dead moose in the road)

On daft adventures all the way to Saint John’s

 

Dan is the only one who has ever called me daft; indeed, except in the movies I have never heard anyone else use the term.

The Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast Down at the Post Office - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

The Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast

Down at the Post Office

 

 

“VEHICLES AND THEIR CONTENTS ARE SUBJECT TO INSPECTION WHEN ENTERING, LEAVING, OR WHILE PARKED WITHIN THIS RESTRICTED AREA. ENTERING INTO THIS AREA CONSTITUTES CONSENT TO THE INSPECTION. (39 C. F. R. PART 232.1(b)(2)”

 

-a new sign screwed to the wall at my rural post office

 

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

As it often is for weeks at a time, it seems

A moment in history? A loss? A death?

Maybe another Texas senator or bird dog? ¹

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

Some guy down the street flew it upside down

Protesting or surrendering or not paying attention

To the latest crisis in our decaying republic

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today -

I wonder if now it will always be that way

 

 

¹ A reference to a line in True Grit

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room

 

 

“This waiting room of a world.”

 

-fictional line by the character of C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands

 

 

How much of life is passed in waiting for others

To do what they promised they would do:

The mechanic who promised to call when the car was ready

The computer that promised your package on Monday

 

The lawn service that promised to mow on Tuesday

The friend who promised to meet you on Wednesday

The pharmacist who promised your meds for Thursday

The doctor’s appointment promised for nine o’clock Friday

 

The cable service that promised repairs by Saturday

Oh, sure, all those promises -

They simply went away!

A Parasol Mushroom - senryu, possibly a haiku, possibly not

  

 

A Parasol Mushroom

 

A tiny white house

Appears on the lawn at dawn

But where is the toad?

 

 

To a child a mushroom is a toadstool. I have never seen a toad resting on or sheltering beneath a toadstool, but I keep looking. I imagine it would be rather like Bilbo Baggins, smoking a pipe and reading its morning letters.

What Time is it in Wal-Mart? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

What Time is it in Wal-Mart?

 

 

                                                 And call to children in the yard

                                                 “What century is it outside?”

 

-Pasternak, “About These Poems”

 

 

My daughter gave me a nifty Apple watch

But years have passed; it mostly spends its time

On the charger, dreaming of happier hours

When minutes joyfully leaped over each other

 

I found my dusty Timex in a dusty drawer

$8.00 at Wal-Mart a long time ago

          (the watch, not the drawer)

I fitted it with a new battery (I can do stuff)

Its sweep hand leaps over its painted dial

 

I passed some little children; one of them hissed

“What is that curious thing on that old man’s wrist?”

Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm

 

 

Peter Kreeft: The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written:

The Wisdom of the Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov

 

 

I was yawning over my book late at night

When the driveway alarm squawked unimaginatively

In its mechanical voice, “DRIVEWAY ALERT!”

With guard-dachshund and flashlight I addressed the alert

 

But there was nothing, only the wind and damp

Perhaps a squirrel had triggered the alarm

Which is silly, because squirrels don’t drive

And shouldn’t be wandering around in the lane

 

I am yawning over my book again -

What are you reading at bedtime just now?

In Monastic Solitude - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

In Monastic Solitude

 

In monastic solitude I sat

Among the lilting liturgy of the leaves

Vocalizing no prayers, thinking no thoughts

Only trying to empty my poor mind

 

And listen to the Hymn of the Universe

The blessings of bees, the chantings of cicadas

The singing Silence of the spring-ing sky -

But in all of this I was unsuccessful

 

And that’s okay

 

My mind is too cluttered to pause and to be

 

But still, you see

 

I thought I heard You sighing in the wind

The Distinct Click of a Zippo Cigarette Lighter - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

 

The Distinct Click of a Zippo Cigarette Lighter

 

 

A man

 

An old man

 

An old man slumped in a wheelchair

 

An old man slumped in a wheelchair outside the cardiac clinic

 

Smoking a cigarette

 

An old man smoking a cigarette, not the clinic

 

The clinic is not smoking in any way

 

While armed with smug looks of disapproval

We could pursue him with guilt and consequences

Along the disinfected corridors

Of offices, labs, and consulting rooms

 

Maybe even past the patch-painted corner

Where the cigarette machine used to be

And the pay ‘phone and the newspaper rack

But Bogart and the Marlboro Man are dead

 

A Zippo clicks as it did in his youth

Leave the old man smoking his past alone

Because he is alone, and because he is dying

And his cigarette is the only joy left to him

A Carpenter's Pencil - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

A Carpenter’s Pencil

 

 

For Gary Kirbow and The Guys,

 

Brent, Jeff, and Sam

 

 

A carpenter’s pencil – a marvelous magical wand!

With a mystical mark, a thoughtful touch

Of the master craftsman’s weathered hands

It wondrously works visions into being:

 

Transoms, beams, joists, joins, rafters, cabinetry

Trestles, trusses, uprights, piers, stringers, walls,

Timbers, cornices, doors, lintels, moldings, mullions

Trim, frames, laths, panels, planks, sills, and studs

 

The master shapes them with an artist’s utensil -

The marvelous, magical carpenter’s pencil

 

(At this point Kirbow will tell a naughty joke)

Doggie-Kisses - a poem about dogs

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Doggie-Kisses

 

For all our little domestic carnivorous quadrupeds

 

 

“Love anything, even a small animal, and your heart will surely be broken.”

 

-C. S. Lewis

 

 

Her life is short, her nose is long

A dachshund’s bark is a merry song!

 

Her life is short, her body is long

And how her little paws pad along!

 

Her life is short, her ears are long

Her love is a happy ping to your pong

 

Her life is short, her tail is long

Her eyes are big, her heart is strong

 

Her life is short

But the memories –

O, the memories are long!

Death Comes for the Cardinal - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Death Comes for the  Cardinal

 

While tending the tomatoes and peppers and such

I found the corpse of a cardinal – too much!

 

And my sweet little cat with a grin on her mug

Licking her paw with a ‘tude all smug

 

I’ve told all the birds to watch out for the cat

But they will dive-bomb her – rat-a-tat-tat!

                                                                    

And thus a brave cardinal or insolent bluejay

Will be snatched to its death on a sunny day

 

O, bold birdies, soaring down from the sky

Mind the claws lest you dive and die

 

Or as is said in Iberia, by every don and dona

Always remember - leave that cat alone, ya!

 

                                          (Apologies to everyone in Catalonia)

A play on Death Comes for the Archbishop