Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Q
Where they go one, they go all
Just like sheep in a rented U-Haul
(Bah, bah, bah!)
Friday, July 1, 2022
Q - doggerel (or perhaps sheeperel)
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Come Laughing Home at Twilight - for Canada Day
Lawrence Hall
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A repost for Canada Day:
Come Laughing Home at Twilight
Beaumont-Hamel, 1916
And, O! Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.
Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?
Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.
Where is he now? Can you tell me? Can you?
I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight.
An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee
I once saw one
of those slogan coffee cups
(I’m sure it would
have served as well for tea)
Which read
something like this:
The beginning of faith
Is to
realize that you are not
The ruler
of the Universe
And it is so – I
am not very good
At ruling even myself
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Chewing-Gum Girl
Waiting for the Sunset Limited
Long, long ago
In the station at Tucson we waited
Someone said the locomotive had burned in the desert
A girl with earphones chewed gum through the hours:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP
Her eyes were closed, her music was her god
She clutched a leatherette case of tapes
Just as some clutch a Bible, and chewed:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP
Her mechanical chomps could have been the rhythm
Of the passenger train that wasn’t there
My paperback novel never joined in:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP
I don’t remember her boarding the train
That in the evening finally arrived
She might be in the Tucson station still:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Fashionable
Death Cults Then and Now
After
the June 1941 German
invasion of the Soviet Union and Einsatzgruppe mass shootings
of civilians, the Nazis experimented with gas vans for mass killing…
-Gassing
Operations | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)
Dozens
of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio on Monday in
what appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.
-At least 50
migrants found dead inside a truck in San Antonio, officials say (cnbc.com)
We have our death vans too, not well-organized
But rolling down the American road
Unseen by our leaders in their personal jets
Flying to Frisco or maybe Cancun
Bombings and shootings on the street and in church
Job lots in hospitals, by the dozens in schools
For we too specialize in genocide
And may Moloch and Herod bless our AR-15s
If any children survive, we’ll call them Generation
Something
And tell them each day how inadequate they are
Monday, June 27, 2022
The Narthex as a Barricade - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Narthex as a Barricade
I have become a
greeter in my old age
(Why is that
pickup truck circling the parking lot?)
How good to see
you! What happy children you have!
(Any bulges in
that unknown man’s pockets?)
The Altar
servers are in place for the processional
(Why is that man
just sitting in that car?)
The lector gives
everyone a word of welcome
(Pssst – do you
know that guy sitting in the back?)
I open doors and
hand out bulletins
And watch
Sunday, June 26, 2022
To Please Her Man - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
To Please Her Man
She underwent the stomach-stapling knife
To please her man, to tighten her tummy and cheeks
While in recovery she bled out her life
He married his girlfriend within a few weeks
Saturday, June 25, 2022
The Pale Lady of the Well - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Pale Lady of
the Well
I am mostly English, which is now uncool
And my soupcon of West African genes
Along with a whiff of Russia and First Nations
Protest Northumbria and East Anglia
But when outside at dusk with poetry and pipe
And a whisper of single-malt offered to the earth
Sometimes I seem to see visions proper to a Celt
And hear soft songs from the dawn of time
How is it that an Englishman can still
Sense the White Lady near the well at dusk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
