Pam from THE OFFICE Goes to War - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Pam from The Office Goes to War

 

A young woman drills with a wooden rifle

She looks like Pam Beesly from The Office

An old man checks his antique shotgun’s breech

He looks like Grandpa going out for rabbits

 

The Ukraine is preparing for war

 

In a bunker a young man cuddles a cat

He looks like he should be driving a truck

An old woman practices field medicine

She looks like she’s done this before

 

The Ukraine is preparing for war

 

They all may die under Russian tank treads

Their government will watch on television

 

(For that’s how our leaders prepare for war)

TAB and Fresca - weekly column, 30 January 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

TAB Cola

 

This week we read that TAB Cola will no longer be manufactured. This comes as a surprise to most of us, who didn’t know it still existed.

 

TAB Cola, a product of the Coca-Cola company, dates back to ye olden days of the IBM Selectric Typewriter, Sears, and Chesterfield cigarettes at 10 cents a pack.

 

The first and maybe the only TAB Cola I drank was at Dr. Moore’s office after getting a shot for something or other when I was a barefoot lad. Yes, I was an anti-vaxxer, but I was only ten years old. Either Coca-Cola or a distributor had given Dr. Moore, of happy memory, a case or two, promoting TAB as a health drink because it contained artificial sweeteners instead of sugar.

 

In those days, when Studebakers still roamed the earth, TAB came in a glass bottle with sharp serrations so you wouldn’t drop it. The design of its last container clearly dates from the late 1960s or early 1970s, a bright purplish-red can with ‘way-cool happenin’ lettering. The container itself would be worth keeping as an artifact of its time.

 

Another surprise is that Coca-Cola’s awful Fresca drink still exists. That is inexplicable, because I don’t know that anyone ever finished a Fresca. For a time I was stationed at the last outpost (kinda like that Ronald Reagan movie, only with boats instead of horses and swamp instead of desert) on this side of the Cambodian border.

 

Because we were at the end of the supply line we received only whatever had not been taken off the boat by the previous posts. They got the Coca-Cola and we got the Fresca.

 

We threw the Fresca over the wire to the children, who promptly threw it back with some language that was probably rude.

 

We often shared our food with them, but their reaction to the ham-and-lima-beans in C-rations was pretty much the same. But they weren’t doing without; it was ironic to see a ten-year-old smoking Marlboros when the smokers among us couldn’t get any cigarettes at all. Some Navy storekeeper back down the river probably paid for a new car to be waiting for him stateside with his profits from the black market.

 

But the Fresca was always safe.

 

CNN (yes, yes, I know...) says (Coke killed Tab soda. Meet the superfans trying to save it - CNN) that Coca-Cola offers hundreds of different brands of belly-wash, and most of them just don’t sell well. They have to go.

 

Maybe the last cases of TAB will be delivered in AMC Pacers or Ford Pintos.

 

-30-

 

 

When the Ambulance Arrived - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

When the Ambulance Arrived

 

When the ambulance arrived the medics

Pushing and pulling the gurney in and out

Knocked the latch from the jamb, which no one noticed

But later someone else found the door open

 

I walked across the road with a bag of tools

And fixed the latch with a couple of screws

Easily enough, a wooden door that opened

To Christmases and homecomings and life

 

The door is now secure, but I don’t think

The owner will ever walk through it again

Remembering Rod McKuen - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Remembering Rod McKuen

 

But of course some are vituperative – they aren’t him

The young still read his books, discreetly now

Because he isn’t cool in this unhappy time

The old still read his books – he saved their youth

 

But of course some are vituperative – they aren’t you

The young will read your books someday and know

That you have captured on paper their lives

And they will give their hearts freely to you

 

I hear that you are thinking of giving up poetry

You shouldn’t, you know – because while it is true

That you have a gift, you should always remember

That you are a gift, and the young need you

Love Expressed Through Committee Assignments - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Loved Expressed Through Committee Assignments

 

Do people really love each other today

Or do they negotiate partnering

As if falling in love, or out again

Requires codicils and signatures

 

Is a rumpled sheet evidence of passion

Or that the party of the second part

Neglected to observe the laundry schedule

Worked out in the last committee meeting

 

No

 

There is love

When one hand shyly reaches out to another

No! - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

No

 

When you say no

To a baby or a dachshund

Someone’s feelings are hurt

So you pick up the baby or the dachshund

And apologize

Which doesn’t make sense

Because sometimes no

Is what needs to be said

But still it hurts

Even though you say

 

I’m sorry

The Shooter Possessed - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Shooter Possessed

 

He clutches his demonic delusions

While yelping out his programmed three-beat chants

In a closed loop of mindless obedience

Celebrating the poison fed to him

 

He clutches his envies and resentments

Until they explode from his magic gun -

          When vanities collapse in blood and smoke

          And he is abandoned, a howling soul

 

          He clutches at his weeping concrete blocks

          While those who sent him clutch their single-malt

 

 

 

Cf. Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed / The Devils

WORDLE for Dullards Like Me - poem (sort of)

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

WORDLE for Dullards Like Me

 

 

E A G L E

 

X A X X X

 

B A D G E

 

X A X X X

 

L A T C H

 

X A X X X

 

H A R M S

 

X A X X X

 

M A T E R

 

X A X X X

 

H A I R S

 

X A X X X

 

R A T S S

 

NOT IN WORD LIST

Be Still, and Bring Your Attention to Your Breath - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Be Still, and Bring Your Attention to Your Breath

 

And so we find ourselves obeying a watch:

Be still, and bring your attention to your breath

We do, and watch an aquamarine lotus

Glowing and growing and pulsing before our eyes

 

Now inhale

 

And ponder the mysteries of respirations

Breathe in the air that was always here

From Creation until now and beyond

A mystic stream through all living things

 

And exhale

 

Giving back to all that which was given

Knowing that it will be enriched and returned

The Love Boat Hoists the Jolly Roger, weekly column, 23 January 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Love Boat Hoists the Jolly Roger

 

According to numerous sources, the Crystal Symphony (which is a ship, not a mineral or a musical) has failed to make its scheduled landing in Miami and has fled to the Bahamas to avoid arrest for over a million dollars in unpaid fuel bills.

 

Hmmm…will you take a Shell card? Exxon?

 

“Harrrgh!”

 

The Crystal Symphony, operated by Genting Hong Kong Ltd. (Hong Kong) and registered in the Bahamas, owes a BIG fuel bill to Peninsula Petroleum Far East Pte. Ltd. (Singapore). Peninsula Petroleum has filed for a judgment against Genting in the Supreme Court of Bermuda (now called a British Overseas Territory because we’re not supposed to say it’s a colony, so, shhhhhhhh).

 

“Hoist the Jolly Roger Covid Mask! Harrrgh!”

 

Naturally the U.S. has been asked to solve this problem involving at least three other nations and so on a pier in Miami a wise and weathered U. S. Marshal sits patiently astride his mighty stallion scanning the horizon for the errant ship.

 

Avast, ye mateys! Haaargh!

 

He’s seen ‘em all, this marshal has, cruise ships that sail up to the Long Branch Tropic Bar and pick fights with innocent catamarans and peaceful ferryboats. Someone usually ends up in Propeller Hill. That’s when they call in the marshal.

 

“Want a beer, Matt? Harrrgh!”

 

Another problem is that along with 400 crewmembers there are some 300 passengers, mostly Americans in their traditional attire of knee-pants and cartoon tees, who were scheduled to end their cruise in the all-American city of Miami, not in some furrin country.

 

“Trouble about the price of rum in Captain Ahab’s Deck Bar? Make ‘em walk the plonk! Haaaargh! Plonk, not plank. Get it? Ha, ha.

 

Thus, the captain of the Crystal Symphony has apparently taken some 700 people against their will (maybe; the Bahamas must be nice this time of year).

 

“Send ‘em to Davy Jones’ locker & Health Spa! Harrrgh!”

 

This will give the passengers lots of stories to tell their grandchildren: “Yes, lad, I was aboard the good ol’ Crystal Symphony when she went rogue. One morning my Belgian waffles were undercooked; I won a big settlement for my PTSD over that.”

 

“So there be mutiny at the breakfast buffet, eh? Harrrgh!”

 

Yes, my friends, this has been a sea story about the fateful cruise of the Crystal Symphony, of pirates and abductions and mutinies and, yes, a glass of cheap merlot shed on the shuffleboard deck during a desperate struggle for mastery of the Atlantic Go Around Hanger.

 

“Harrrgh!”

 

-30-

No Revolution Today, Thank You - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

No Revolution Today, Thank You

 

Sure, I miss standing in formation at dawn

The quick inspection and loud verbal abuse

Rushing through a steel-tray breakfast in rows

And marching to the rifle range in rows

 

Sure, I miss formation in the dawn of life

Slinging a rifle over my skinny shoulder

Thrilling to “BATTALION! PASS IN REVIEW!

          RIGHT SHOULDER ARMS, AND PASS IN REVIEW!”

As did my fathers back to the Civil War

 

But that was what I did, not who I was -

I took an oath to the Constitution

 

And not to some fat slob who needs a shave

502 Bad G-String

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

So was I Born to Wear a Slogan Tee?

 

So was I born to wear a slogan tee

Or an influencer’s autographed g-strings?

Is this why the Lord God created me -

To be a follower, a buyer of things?

Our Dreams are Lost Somewhere along the Supply Chain

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Our Dreams are Lost Somewhere along the Supply Chain

 

I needed a dream but I wasn’t given one

So I had to construct it for myself

It wasn’t very good. Dreams should be left

To the professionals, but where are they?

Whatever Happened to all our Little Notebooks? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Whatever Happened to all our Little Notebooks?

 

We all saw the same old bumper sticker:

This is not a rehearsal; this is your life

And so we carried little notebooks around

Discreetly jotting down the overheards

 

In coffee shops and class, the mid-night shift

The bus to work, the elevator up

The escalator down, the line at the bank

For the poems or plays or novels we’d write

 

The cafeteria was a notebook itself

Between the salad and dessert we fell in love

What Awakened You? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

What Awakened You?

 

The bedside clock glows an hour you cannot read

Because your eyes of full of fuzzy sleep

And your mind of half-remembered dreams

Of a better time when – but it’s slipped away

 

Moonlight and moonshadows silver the silence

You went to sleep in a different world

And woke up in this one – is it the same?

At magic o’clock this one seems more real

 

What woke you up? A breath, a sigh, a song?

What woke you up? Maybe it was love

Who Betrayed Anne Frank? - poem

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Who Betrayed Anne Frank?

 

A spokesman for the F.B.I.

Notes that Jewish hostages were taken

At a synagogue on Shabbos

And concludes that the attack

 

“Was not specifically related

To the Jewish community”