Lawrence Hall

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

The Goddess and the Chainsaw

“Do not human spirits look out at you from every leaf and stem?”

-Firs, the loyal old servant who has been dismissed

Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

Chekhov wrote his farewell to a cherry orchard

And I speak a valedictory to my apple trees

Sweet Anna apples who gave good service for years

Apples and love for family, neighbors, and friends

We were all young, the apple trees and I

I petted them with pruning and pesticide

And sat under them on hot summer days

As they sang in the soft, susurrant breeze

The goddess Pomona approved our endeavors

And breathed upon us blessings and bees and birds

To swarm us with the ancient loves of Latium

When youths and maidens embraced beneath the leaves

The last tree died this summer

I had to chainsaw the remembered joys

and Pomona is no longer here

Wednesday, October 14, 2026

An Elderly Woman Screaming Obscenities into her MePhone in the Parking Lot of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

An Elderly Woman Screaming Obscenities into her MePhone

in the Parking Lot of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital

“Where the **** are you!? Did you sneak away!?”

Might serve as an existential question

Addressed to a patient saint, to God

To the silent spheres of Creation

“What is this ****!? Did you ****ing leave me here!?”

We’ve all asked that question: in a lonely bed

On a blood-sodden gurney in an emergency room

In the screaming-burning-gunfire streets

With the courage and compassion which befits a man

I slipped around her rage, and avoided her eyes

Monday, October 12, 2026

"The Man with the Spanish Helmet" on the Barracks Wall - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

“The Man with the Spanish Helmet” on the Barracks Wall

Hospital Corps Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,

ca. January 1970

A barracks wall is a studio wall:

Miss April, smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin

Miss October, tall (in need of a shawl)

Miss January, thin, an aethereal djinn

But among these beauties (grandmothers now)

A Spanish helmet and a stern old man

A white-haired don still strong in chin and brow

Like yours, his eyes for truth and wisdom scan

So then who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?

Why, the Dreamer with the Spanish Helmet is

you

Variant ending:

“The Man with the Spanish Helmet” on a Barracks Wall

Hospital Corps Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,

ca. January 1970

A barracks wall is a studio wall:

Miss April, smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin

Miss October, tall (in need of a shawl)

Miss January, thin, an aethereal djinn

But among these beauties (grandmothers now)

A Spanish helmet and a stern old man

A white-haired don still strong in chin and brow

Like yours, his eyes for truth and wisdom scan

So then who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?

And why is he looking not at me but at

you?

Sunday, October 11, 2026

Do Ice Agents Teach Sunday School? - derivative doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

Do ICE Agents Teach Sunday School?

A furore monstrorum glaciei libera nos Domine

Now I lay me down to sleep

But in the night the ICEmen creep

I cannot sleep; I’m still awake -

I fear the ICEmen will come and take…

Friday, October 9, 2026

We are All Pretty Much Exiles, You Know - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

We are All Pretty Much Exiles, You Know

We are all pretty much exiles, you know

We scribble verse to reconstruct our home

That half-remembered never-seen mystery

Within our hearts, sailing beyond the stars

Half-worlds threading from chewed-yellow-pencil leads

The sharpener says, “Now this may sting a little”

As cedar spirals down to the kitchen floor

Poor pairs of rhymes that never find each other

They’ve gone and closed the Main Street picture show

We are all pretty much exiles, you know

While Repairing a Widder-Woman's Door Locks - a weak senryu

Lawrence Hall

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

While Repairing a Widder-Woman’s Door Locks

A widder-woman

Drove her car (crash!) into mine

She doesn’t know why

A Certain Ancestor - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

A Certain Ancestor

Yes, sir,

When God made him

God broke the mold

Most angrily

Hugo Boss Swastikas Have Been Replaced - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Hugo Boss Swastikas Have Been Replaced

And I am one silent cry

over the many thousands of the buried

-Yevtushenko, “Babiy Yar,” in Yevtushenko: Selected Poems

Trans. Milner-Gulland and Levi, Penguin, 1963

The Hugo Boss swastikas have been replaced

By another bit of cloth with squiggles

But the torches are the same

The fashionable lies are the same

Grilled Mongolian at the Barber Shop - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Grilled Mongolian at the Barber Shop

An Overdue Haircut from Miss Tasha

While I was being shorn of excess hair

V: “Make me look like a young Robert Redford, please”

R: “We don’t do miracles here, Mr. Hall”

A lady enthroned a few chairs over

Mentioned the menu at The Mongolian Grill

“What the h*** is this?” she quoted herself

I thought I might ask if the plat du jour

As served was a lightly grilled Mongolian

But Wednesday had already made that joke

About Girl Scout cookies and real Girl Scouts

So thoughts of topics carnivorous I let pass

And admired myself in Tasha’s looking-glass

An Execution for the Common Man - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

An Execution for the Common Man

I will not watch the coming execution

But when the regime comes for me –

I’ll catch that one

The Kid Who Won the Lottery - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

The Kid Who Won the Lottery

He always wanted to be an artist

In school he drew pictures of horses and trucks

In truth the same horse and the same truck too

On his book covers and his notebooks too

And on the margins of his papers and tests

He always wanted to be an artist

After graduation he worked around town

The Dairy Queen, and the Wal-Mart too

He swept the tire shop, and city hall too

His trailer-girl was pale with ketamine dreams

He always wanted to be an artist

The year he won the Louisiana lottery

They moved to Florida

he came home alone

He always wanted to be an artist

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened - poem

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

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened

Pasture gate at dusk

The last of the hay is gone

Stars await autumn

October’s mown fields are sweet

Mist upon the grass

My old dog paws at my jeans

Pasture gate at night

Sunday, October 4, 2026

The Secret of Dolly Parton’s Angel Wings - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

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