The Yellow Dairy Barn and the State of Texas Milk Inspector - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Yellow Dairy Barn and the State of Texas Milk Inspector

My father painted his dairy barn yellow
Maybe because he found some bargain paint
Then came along the inspector fellow
With his clipboard, and he said that yellow ain’t

Legal, that dairy barn paint had to be white
My father had The Book, and from it he read
That a dairy barn’s color only had to be light
“Well, I’ll find something else,” the inspector said

He found a fly speck on an old cow bell -
May Texas milk inspectors just go to (Newark)

Twenty Kerenskys Passing in Review - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Twenty Kerenskys Passing in Review

“No doubt they’ll sing in tune after the revolution.”

-Kamarovsky in Doctor Zhivago (film)

Kerenskys marshaled in two ordered lines
Unsure exactly how to stand, to pose
Merry banter, backpats, handshakes, and smiles
A show, a glow of Party unity

And then – a hiss, a strike, a spit, a spat
Atop the tomb in sixty-second bursts
Comrade against comrade, a free for none
The audience applauds the bloody fun

Who is the Trotsky, and who the Stalin, then;
Who will die in exile, and who will win?

Served on a Tectonic Plate - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Served on a Tectonic Plate

I ate my lunch on a tectonic plate
It drifted away - my dessert is late!

Is Your Bible Communist? - weekly column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
26 June 2019

Is Your Bible Communist?

The Washington Post, not everyone’s favorite news source, is suffering Aunt Pittypat vapours over the possibility that bibles in this country may soon be unaffordable. And they suggest that this is President Trump’s fault:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/06/21/bible-tax-christian-publishers-warn-that-china-tariffs-could-lead-costly-bibles/?utm_term=.937a3bcb329e&wpisrc=nl_faith&wpmm=1

According to the Post, mega-publisher HarperCollins (sic), a Borg that has absorbed many old and famous American publishers into its continuum, also owns Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, said to be the largest publishers of bibles. HarperCollins (sic), under its Thomas Nelson and Zondervan labels, has many or most of its bibles printed in that garden of freedom and brotherhood, Communist China.

Given the proposed tariffs, according to the Post, the prices of our Communist-made bibles could rise 25%.

Christianity Today (https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/october/bible-made-in-china.html) and Publishers’ Weekly (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/religion/article/80555-bible-tax-threatens-christian-publishers.html) concur.

Two ironies come to mind. The first is the matter that Communist China, a persecutor of Christians (but, to be fair, Communists persecute everyone, especially other Communists), is a significant printer of Christian books.

China is a Communist nation. Communism is an obscene evil. Communism denies the dignity of the human individual and his freedom to live, think, study, speak, write, sing, compose, believe, play, pray, create, travel, or enjoy the work of his own hands without the permission of the state. As T. H. White says of the collective state in his allegorical Book of Merlyn (sic), everything not forbidden is compulsory; everything not compulsory is forbidden.

Communism, which is also the source of Nazism and Fascism, is the ideology which in one century pretty much halted some 10,000 years of human progress. Communism has destroyed many great and ancient nations with the attendant deaths of millions of human beings, the displacement of millions more, and the catastrophic loss of languages, literature, art, music, architecture, monuments, history, and faith. In sum, Communism is the ultimate expression of genocide.

And Communists print our bibles for us.

The second irony is that the publishers who deprive American craftsman of jobs by outsourcing the printing of books to a Communist collective seem to suggest that this is somehow Mr. Trump’s fault.

Look, President Trump is not my main man. I don’t like him. But I don’t like him because of what he himself says and does, not because of what someone else (The Washington Post comes to mind) says about him. Certain American publishers, not Mr. Trump, shifted American jobs to a terrorist state long before he was elected.

I don’t know if Mr. Yuge Deal would have outsourced printing work to China; the idea of Trump Enterprises printing bibles seems unlikely. But then, the idea of Communists printing bibles seems even more unlikely.

So where was your bible printed? “Published in…” means nothing more than where the head offices are. “Printed in…” – now that is what tells you where the book was printed.

And it is important.

-30-

When Dogs Don't Wanna be Dogs - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

When Dogs Don’t Wanna be Dogs

You send the pups outside to play
This so-soft, sunny summer day

The yard is big and safely fenced
A paradise nicely condensed

And there the dogs have cats to chase
Bugs to eat, and each other to race

Soft rubber toys to squeak and chew
Bowls of water and dog-food stew

And naps to take beneath oak trees
Tummies up in the soft, soft breeze

And yet –

As soon as you have let them out
Then all they seem to do is pout

Unhappy with their vast estate
They glare at you and seem to hate

They hate the cats, they hate their toys
You have denied them all their joys

They bark and scratch at all the doors
They’re kinda cute – like sophomores

Breaking the Dress Code - a weak, two-line wheeze, hardly a poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Breaking the Dress Code

We broke at last the secretive dress code
With an Enigma machine from Singer

A Scientific Afterlife - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Scientific Afterlife

What scientific wreckage is buried now
Beneath a chiseled granite sentiment?
Our clapped-out bones and flesh are not enough
To satisfy The Way That Things Work Now



Maybe our eyeglasses will hit the dirt
Along with dental fillings and dyed hair
Pacemakers with their batteries in place
Still firing dutifully after the peace



That now surpasses all understanding
With God (complete with medical branding)

System Errors - Please know that I did format these scribbles appropriately...

...Something or someone is making a mess of it all.

What is Poetry? - rhyming couplet (Something is botching the formatting)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What is Poetry?

Poetry is a language that
Is not prose. Nor is it a hat

"For if a Preest be Foul..." - poem (the system is botching the format - I hope you can read this at all)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If the Faith is a Lie

For if a preest be be foul, on whom we truste,

No wonder is a lewed man to ruste

-Chaucer, General Prologue, 501-502

If the Faith is a lie, then let it lie
Let’s not make it up as we go along
Waving a fashionably duct-taped book about
And chanting “This is all you need!”

Because some millionaire has told us to
Nor yet the famous ‘blogging priest who boasts
And posts photographs of his gourmet meals
While begging money for his many trips

If the Faith is a lie, then let it be
But it isn’t – and neither, please God, are we


(No armpit-drying during Mass, please.)

The Robotic Telephone Tree of Lingering Death - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Robotic Telephone Tree of Lingering Death

Hello, you have reached your longtime hometown downhome Saint Swithin’s Family Medical Clinic now an outreach ministry of Consolidated #Jesus Industries Inc.where nobody knows you anymore and wouldn’t care if they did your health care is very important to us you are a valued customer our office hours are from 8 to 12 and 2 to 5 on alternate Mondays and 9-12 and 2 to 5 on Tuesdays and Thursday after Woodchuck Endangerment Awareness Day but before Greenpeace Day except when the latter falls on a Wednesday in which case our office hours are 2 to 5 only and on Saturday 8 to 12 if this is an outside pharmacy please dial X and follow the menu if this is a prescription refill please dial Y and follow the menu if this is to schedule an appointment please dial Z and remain on the line if this to reschedule an appointment dial A cubed and speak slowly when prompted to do so I’m sorry I didn’t quite get that would you like to try again I’m sorry I still didn’t get that if you would like to speak to an operator dial oh, I am sorry your time is expired please hang up and redial if you would like to speak with Dr. Name’s secretary please dial 3 if you would like to speak with Dr. Other Name’s secretary please dial 4 if you would like to talk with Nurse Practitioner Yet Another Name’s secretary please dial 5 if this is an emergency then please hang up and dial 911…

Summer Solstice - Did the Earth Move for You Too? - a wheeze

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Summer Solstice - Did the Earth Move for You Too?

The almanac says that the Solstice came
Shortly after the receptionist called my name
At 1056 – and how do they know
Of stars and planets in their dances slow?

We note the transcendent reality
Of our pale transient mortality
And guard our health with good ol’ common sense
I later noted this coincidence:

The transition to summer came to pass
While the doctor had his finger up my ***


(There might be some mystical symbolism in that, but I don’t know what.)

A Friend Asked Me to Look Over His Book Before Publication - a rhyming couplet and cautionary tale

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Friend Asked Me to Look Over His Book Before Publication

He asked me to review his book (I must be nuts)
I did just as he asked:
                                  And now he hates my guts

Your Liturgy of the Hours - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Your Liturgy of the Hours

A book of poetry is a prayer book
Your Daily Office of verses and lines
Attended prayerfully if possible
But, yes, attended in any event

Wavell’s Flowers for your next deployment
Young Yevtushenko for the bus commute
Or a little volume of Pushkin pushed
Into a pocket past your pocketknife

Beginning with Matins, and all through your day
Make the blessings of poetry part of your Way

A Hank Williams Night - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Hank Williams Night

You’re lonely in an apartment at night
But lonesome way off in a pickup truck

Lonely sitting in an IKEA chair
Lonesome on the tail-gate of an old Ford

Lonely over a glass of single-malt
Lonesome over a Marlboro and a beer

Lonely surfing the channels of emptiness
Lonesome listening to the silence of stars

And either way you hurt; she isn’t there
No, she sure ain’t

The Successor to Steve Allen's MEETING OF MINDS - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Successor to Steve Allen’s Meeting of Minds

A cookery show with noshes and gnaws -
People giving a ‘burger rounds of applause

Hospice Care - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Hospice Care

Whispered voices adrift about the house
The little cousins all sent out to play
Adults ingathered at the kitchen table
Taking communion from the coffee pot

The hospice nurse is in and out and back
A subtle shake of her head – he’s still alive
In the back bedroom, gurgling to an end
Frail fingers twitching on the coverlet

An evening of grieving, darkening fast
Whispered voices adrift about the past

For a Single Mother on Fathers' Day - a lapse into free verse

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

For a Single Mother on Father’s Day

No father
Could have been a better father
Than you
When duty called
You were there
And will be forever

You’re the best

A Paean to Dabblers - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Paean to Dabblers

Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly
With sketchbook, pen, guitar, and crescent wrench
With telescope and hiking boots and love
With verse that scans and prose that strongly speaks

For a dabbler, all the world is his adventure:
A coffee cup is as Old Santa Fe
A stroll in the garden a pilgrimage
To Canterbury or Santiago

And you should draw and write and sing these things
Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly

A Man's Not Dressed Without His Pocket Knife - column

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

(Recycled from 2009, and so possibly a re-post)

A Man’s Not Dressed Without His Pocket Knife

This last Christmas certain environmentalist groups advertised meaningful green gifts – instead of giving your child a bicycle or a football for Christmas you could donate the money you would have spent on your own kid to some stranger who’s shown you a picture of a polar bear allegedly drowning.

It’s a polar bear, citizens; it swims in the water and eats harp seals, you know, the cute widdy-biddy harp seals with the big ol’ eyes. The polar bear rips screaming baby harp seals apart with its fangs and claws, and the baby harp seals die far more horribly than if they got whacked in the back of the head, and then they get eaten. How’s that for a bedtime story, PETA?

When I was a child there was nothing I would have wanted more than to stumble sleepily but excitedly into the living room to find a card (printed on recycled paper with recycled soy-based ink) giving me glad tidings that a penguin had the new cap pistol I wanted. Sadly, my parents weren’t green, and so gave me cap pistols and baseball gloves and toy trains and an ant farm.

Although not as exciting as a new bicycle, a good pocket knife is a far better gift than being bullied into pretending to feel good about a fish or a ground squirrel. Giving a boy his first pocket knife is a traditional rite of passage, and having it taken away a day or two later for misuse is another traditional rite of passage. A knife, after all, is a tool, not a toy, and owning one is a grown-up thing.

My ol’ daddy said that a man’s not fully dressed without his pocket knife; experience demonstrates that this is true. The knife was perhaps the first tool used by humans, probably beginning with a sharp flint, and necessary for skinning a rabbit, slicing veggies, building a fire, eating, building, mending, opening, slicing, dicing, picking your teeth, and cleaning your fingernails. Mind the order of usage, of course! No one who lives close to the land or the sea or the workshop can function without a good knife to hand at all times.

Thomas Jefferson is often credited for inventing the first folding knife, which, while not as strong as a one-piece, is certainly easier to carry about. Manufacturers began adding extra blades, and then the Swiss got the idea of adding specific tools in miniature, resulting in the Swiss Army Knife. Where or not the Swiss Army carries Swiss Army Knives is a good topic of conversation. While these gadgets are fun, I’ll bet your old grandpa could accomplish with his single-bladed pocket knife whatever task was necessary before you could find and unlimber the designated thingie out of a Swiss Army Knife or a multi-tool.

A friend gave me a nice little lock-back with a single blade with saw-teeth. I found this knife so useful that a few weeks later I bought a larger model, made-in-America, even while thinking to myself that the last thing I needed was another pocket knife. And then a few weeks after that Hurricane Rita did not hit New Orleans, and that big ol’ American knife with its one large blade and saw-teeth paid for itself many times over with its survival utility.

Shiny things under the tree or for a birthday are fun: little plastic boxes that light up and make noise, and other little boxes that allow you to hear The Immortal Words of Our Time – “Can you hear me now?” and “She’s all up in my face!” But when you are long-gone, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will not treasure your MePod or your cell ‘phone or your Brickberry, because those dinky disposables will have long since been recycled into beer cans or Chinese cars. But they will treasure your old pocket knife, its edge well-worn from good, honest use and from many sharpenings around a winter’s fire when the stories are told.

Sturdy, American-made pocket knives are great, traditional gifts for men and boys. They are also perfect for skinning baby harp seals.

-30-

If You Were Still a Child - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

If You Were Still a Child

If you were still a child, I would give you
A Kleenex or two, as I used to do
(Now blow your nose…) and maybe a cookie too
But now…this much is true…time flew…you grew

And yet

There is no expiration date on tears
No sign that reads “You Are Too Old for Fears”
No simple answers after the smoke all clears
No moon, no music high among the spheres

Where lovers’ dreams ascended in the night…
But, here, have another Kleenex, all right?

Did Churchill Destroy His Secret Underground War Room Computers in 1945? - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Did Churchill Destroy His Secret Underground War Room Computers in 1945?

To be chanted whenever the O Machine 1 fails:

Rumor has it that the Enigma
Was to Churchill a foul stigma

And that the ancient, creaking Babbage
It was to him but so much cabbage

Colossus One and Colossus Two
Those gadgets too he began to rue

They say he let them rust and rot -
The pity is that he did not


(I checked with the Lizard People on this – Churchill’s secret Second World War computers, powered by a primordial Lemurian source of energy so dangerous that even speaking its name in the ancient language of the Atlanteans is said to be fatal, are secured in a locked vault on Oak Island and guarded around the clock (set to Martian time) by the Trilateral Masonic-Vatican Continuum of deadly albino flying fish.)

1 E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” 1909, Much-anthologized

Scenery Shifting Beyond Life's Windows - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Scenery Shifting Beyond Life’s Windows

Once upon a time each morning began
With a ventilation shaft and the night’s
Foul fall of dreams, drama, and downed debris
Dammed and maybe damned against the window screen

And then an apartment window so high
I could see only the San Diego sky
Train windows, the Mojave through the glass
Then only for a little while
                                                  there was you

The scenery keeps shifting, and that’s okay
Life is a John Ford movie every day

There will be BLOOD (But Just a Few Milliliters) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

There will be BLOOD (But Just a Few Milliliters)

Please consider the seeming illogic
The seeming illogic of paying a man
A good and wise and educated man
To poke his finger upwards in your ***

After a visit to a wizard’s lab
Where a pleasant, professional young woman
Attaches a vampire butterfly to your wrist
And sucks your blood into a little phial

“Now you might feel a little pressure, okay?”
And then consider the happy logic
                                                          of staying alive

Listen to the The Rythm of the Massey-Ferguson 35 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Listen to the Rhythm of the Massey-Ferguson 35

With its four-beat
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Continental rhythm
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It pulls and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plants and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It digs and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It mows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It rakes and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It bales and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A little oil, a little gas
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A sweet machine
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Upon the grass
Putt-putt, putt-putt
When all is done
Putt-putt, putt-putt
And all is said
Putt-putt, putt-putt
There’s nothing like
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Massey-Ferguson red
Putt-putt, putt-putt!

What Happens to the Thousands of Naked Lady Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Happens to the Thousands of Naked Lady Ballpoint Pens

Manufactured Every Day?

No high school sophomore ever grew up without
A naked lady plastic ballpoint pen -
Those furtive giggles in geometry class
Were not about theorems all risqué

After the FFA trip to the rodeo
Or the band trip to sunny Galveston
A pretty lady with a 1940s do
Loses her swimsuit over and over again

Upend the pen, and she’s nekkid in the sun -
Whoever thought writing could be such fun!

What Happens to the Millions of Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

What Happens to the Millions of Ballpoint Pens Manufactured Every Day?

No writer ever seems to exhaust the ink
That oozes from extruded plastic tubes
Made by machines and chemicals that stink
The crowded banks of the fetid Huangpu

Cheap plastic pens are given, shared, and sold,
Tapped and gnawed, pocketed, stolen, lent, and lost
Drying and dying after they grow old
Misplaced, mislaid, decayed, but seldom tossed

A ballpoint helps us with our thoughts to think
But no one ever seems to exhaust the ink

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall4618@aol.com

Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud

Like the little children that once we were
The midnight thunder has us burrowing
Down further into the primordial covers
For fear of the rain and cold outside

Our wool and cotton caves cocoon us from
The timbers creaking through the pounding wind
The raindrops at the window wanting in
But after dawn the morning the news reports

A homeless man dying a dumpster-death
Lost his last hope with his last lonely breath

Installing Software in "Just a Few Moments" - a wry observation

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Installing Software in "Just a Few Moments"

Enter a valid email next cancel address Enter a valid email address next cancel Enter a valid email address next cancel Get back into your account Who are you? to recover your account, begin by entering your user ID and the characters in the picture or audio below User ID can’t access your account the description for this page Templates Thousands of templates to jump start your Word · Excel · PowerPoint · Business · Flyers Products Office 365 is a cloud-based subscription Office Products · See All Home · Office Online Sign in to Manage Your Offic…Manage your Microsoft account, update your password, set additional security settings, …See results only from office.com Office 365 Login | Microsoft Office https://www.officeppe.comCollaborate for free with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online, in OneDrive. Share them with others and work together at the same time https://outlook.office365.com We can't sign you in :-(Your browser is currently set to block cookies. You need to allow cookies to use this service. Cookies are small text files stored on your Sign in to your Services and subscriptions with your Microsoft account. If you have more than one Microsoft account, make sure you're signing in with the one that applies to the subscription you want to change. If you're updating your child's subscription, make sure you sign in with their account, not yours. Find the subscription in the list, and then select Change how you pay. If you don't see Change how you pay, it could be because recurring billing isn't turned on. You won't be able to change how you pay if recurring billing is off, because the subscription has already been paid and will end when its duration expires. If you have a past-due balance, select Pay now. You'll have to pay that first before changing how you pay. Get info about paying for a past-due Microsoft subscription. Did you buy your Office 365 subscription through a third party? See Manage your Office 365 subscription purchased through a third party. Selecting Change how you pay gives you a list of your current payment options. If you don't see the option you want, select Add a new way to pay from that list and follow the instructions. Check with your bank if you get an error message when trying to add a new way to pay, To use a prepaid subscription code, turn off recurring billing on the old subscription. When your old subscription expires, go to Redeem a gift card or code to your Microsoft account and follow the instructions. To cancel or turn off recurring billing on your subscription, follow the instructions at Cancel or turn off recurring billing on a Microsoft subscription.

A Crude, Vulgar, NSFW Message to TeleCheck

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

A Crude Vulgar, NSFW Message to Telecheck

Hey, Telecheck:

T

H

I

te S le

 



 

 

 

 

TeleCheck doesn't know a perfect credit score from Shinola. 

 

They say we can discuss it if I send them my bank account information and my driving license number, the information we are constantly advised not to give out to strangers (like TeleCheck).

A Summer Afternoon in Which, by the Grace of God, Nothing happens - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Summer Afternoon in Which,

by the Grace of God, Nothing Happens

Old chairs just anyhow across the lawn
This morning mown by a grass-proud old man
Who with his book and chair and pipe and dog
Rules his demesne with glasses of iced tea

In this an afternoon of indolence
And as the shadows shift to mark the hours
Even Poirot relaxes his little grey cells
And merely strolls to apprehend the thief

Oh, happy summer, tea or lemonade,
And lazy hours just dreaming in the shade

Whatever Happened to the Tank Commander Who Disobeyed Orders? - poem about Tiananmen Square

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Whatever Happened to the Tank Commander Who Disobeyed Orders?

A brave little man with a shopping bag
Defiantly stood before an army tank
A foul machine designed to grind free men
Into bloody scraps to be hosed away

Two unknown men - it was not the tank that stopped
It was the tank commander who stopped the tank
All that is left is old videotape:
Two bullets made all problems disappear

A brave little man with a shopping bag
Another brave man with a battle tank:

They stopped -
                        And, yes, someday China will be free

The Annual D-Day Commentaries by Laddie-Boys Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Annual D-Day Commentaries

by Laddie-Boys Who Never Made the First Day of Recruit Training

My dad was on Omaha Beach but he
didn’t talk much about it so now
I’m going to take the rest of the day
to tell you all that he didn’t much talk about
we broke the Enigma code yeah we did
you can always tell a real veteran by
his thousand-yard stare, yessir, I know stuff
we kicked the Germans’ butts but he didn’t talk
much about it if not for us the French
would be speaking German yeah man yeah
when I was in graduate school but he
didn’t talk much about it we saved the world
when I was in graduate school when I
saw Patton those liberals in academia
he had this thousand-yard stare them snowflakes
wouldn’t hit Omaha Beach now they’d be browning
their pants when I was in graduate school
but he didn’t talk much about it yeah
that M-1 was the best battle implement
ever devised I got me one and boy
it’s got some serious stopping power yessir
I just love to go out to the range and pop some caps
with that bad boy the French are cheese-eating
surrender monkeys we can’t depend on the Italians
but he didn’t talk much about it when I
was in graduate school thousand-yard stare
my dad was there he didn’t talk much about it
here is a youtube about it if only
those snowflakes would watch Patton they’d learn something
left-wing academia he didn’t talk much about it
when I was in graduate school yeah man
I seen it on Band of Brothers liberal elites
Macron Macron Macron first front second front
‘cause I know stuff I got a whole liberry
but he didn’t talk much about it if not
for us yeah you’d all be speaking German
we saved France’s butt when DeGaulle told us
he wanted all American soldiers out of France
we asked him if that included the thousands
of American soldiers in French cemeteries
and that sure shut him up ha ha ha
bet you never heard that before and then
there was these old veterans at the airport
and this Frenchy asked them for their passports
and this old man had to look for his
and this Frenchy asked this veteran if he
had been in France before and this veteran
said he had and then this Frenchy he said
then you know you need to have your passport
ready and this here old veteran said that he
was at Normandy and there wasn’t no Frenchies
to give it to and you could hear a pin drop
ha ha I bet you never heard that one before
When I was in graduate school when I
was on my gap year but he didn’t talk much about it
snowflake liberal elites in academia
I love me my AK-47 that son
spits out some serious lead but he didn’t
talk much about it…


Me? Like, I had this deferment, my feet,
but I know all about it ‘cause I watch John Wayne
and my dad was in it so I guess he ought to know
and he was in a real war; you were only in
like you know them A-rabs and stuff…

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above a Rural Church (as Wordsworth almost said)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above a Rural Church 1

No picturesque ruins will remain for us
To wander through with our sketchbooks and pens
For drawing pictures or writing blank verse
About bare ruin’d 1 air-conditioning ducts

The baptismal font will be repurposed
As a bird-bath (with a plastic Saint Elvis)
And the stained-glass windows will be sold off
As fashionable bathroom accessories

The crucifix of deplorable design 2
Will be stored in the back of someone’s garage
Until the girls carry it off to the woods
And laughingly use it for target practice

A rubbly field will serve as a soccer pitch
Until seventy years 3 have passed away


1 Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
2 Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
3 Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
4 Daniel 9:1-2

A Cucumber-Cool Cave of Green but without any Cucumbers - a poem for June

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Cucumber-Cool Cave of Green but without any Cucumbers

A Poem for June

Just why a cucumber should be so cool
Eludes the logical; a cucumber’s just
A vegetable a-lying on the ground
Awaiting consumption. But let’s accept
This vegetarian cliché’ simply
To get on with this cool descriptive task:

Whatever’s cool in the falling June sun
Descends through oak leaves, dark and summer green
And dancing down the air falls happily
Upon this cool cucumber cave where sits
Upon a wooden bench a lazy man
Who should be taking now another turn
With lawnmower, shovel, or shears against
The wild greenness of happy midsummer.

But, oh! Persephone surely won’t mind
If her allotted garden tasks are paused
By her appointed minion rustic who
Takes now his ease in her delightful shade.
For summer after all is more than work;
She calls for dozing too, and dreamily
Watching busy bees buzz among the flowers,
Like fussy matchmakers arranging marriages,
And hummingbirds humming in and out of leaves,
Their sanctuary leaves, to argue at
The nectar-feeders, as if there weren’t
Enough for all. The squirrels in the trees
Would never condescend to chitter there;
They glare at humans disapprovingly,
Like old teachers unhappily aware
That, oh, somewhere, somehow a child might be
Enjoying life, and that would never do!

Even the ribbon of smoke from the morning’s
Trimmings and cuttings and sawings appears
To be taking a nap in the summer noon,
There gently snoring up wisps of ashes
Instead of roaring, hissing manfully
As it did in the early hours.
                                                      The bench
Along the fence where the tired old man sits
Creaks as he shifts his weight, and watches
His backyard world doze in the leaf-laced sun;
He lights a well-deserved cigar, and sees
Its soothing smoke join with the rubbish fire
Ascending heavenward with peaceful thoughts.