A Small-Minded Man - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Small-Minded Man

 

Oh, yes, I am a very small-minded man

Whose horizon stops at the apple trees

Whose vision is much upon the little things:

A tiny snail upon a pepper-plant leaf

 

A placid rabbit nibbling at the lawn

A squirrel feasting on his daily grains and seeds

A bluebird shyly hiding among the oaks

A mockingbird mocking all the rest of us

 

No grand visions for me; I will not leave

Small villages of dead bodies and wicked smoke

The rotting bodies of children and animals

Cratered cities of bomb-blackened ruins and stench

 

I promote no world-changing master plan -

Deo Gratias, I am a very small-minded man

Playing the Hitler Card - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Playing the Hitler Card

 

We say we would never play that card

But we see that it has been played

It lies upon the table before us -

And whose febrile hand placed it there?

A Mildly Amusing Repudiation of the Concept of Entropy - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Mildly Amusing Repudiation of the Concept of Entropy

 

For poetry too is a little incarnation.

 

-C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

 

All that ever was, that is, that ever will be -

All is from God, and will return to God

As elegant iambic pentameter

 

(Okay, maybe tetrameter)

The Olympics as Imagined by John Milton - couplet

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Olympics as Imagined by John Milton

 

On the anniversary of the martyrdom of

 

Father Jacques Hamel

 

The Olympics this year seem demon-haunted -

Christians, Jews, and amateur sports not wanted

On Being a Still Life Today - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

On Being a Still Life Today

 

No outside duties have called me away today

And so I have become a still life entitled “Ennui”

Or perhaps “Weltschmerz with a Pet Dog”

Two dogs, actually, and they have napped the hours

 

The rain has fallen day after day after day

A parallel to the Ancient Mariner’s sun

Tree frogs cling to the algae-green window panes

As if they too have lost interest in life

 

Even so

 

With my little world all rainy and grey

I am happy to be a still life today

 

In Memoriam - Ayden Rose

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

In Memoriam – Ayden Rose

 

 

 

Eternal rest, O Lord, grant unto your daughter

 

Ayden Rose

 

and make perpetual Light to shine upon her

 

 

 

Ayden was a neat, funny kid in my 9:00 o’clock class

Hard-working and smart, and more than a little bit saucy

As eighteen-year-olds are supposed to be

She grew up to be a triple-threat teacher and coach

 

And on Monday night some hero shot her in the back

 

Upon an Abomination in Paris - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Upon an Abomination in Paris

 

Opening Ceremony at the Paris Olympics

 

All are welcome at the Table of the Lord

But first

It’s always good manners to wash your face and hands

Let's Go for Coffee - Grab Your Flak Jacket - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Let’s Go for Coffee - Grab Your Flak Jacket

 

Some give their sons semi-automatics and hate

Instead of family and purpose and love

Instead of guided study and structured faith

Instead of fishing poles and summer afternoons

Your New (Famous Name Brand) Credit Card Has Arrived! - an assemblage of corporate tech-babble

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Your New (Famous Name Brand) Credit Card Has Arrived!

 

UserName already taken card

number invalid access code too short

access code already taken last four

digits of your social download the app

link pay save 3 easy ways to activate

scan the QR code with your phone’s camera

error visit MyFamousNameBrand.com/Activate

register your account for consumer center

error error error invalid please say yes or no

I didn’t quite get that call 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX

this call is being monitored for your protection

we didn’t tell anyone that enable

paperless statements set up alerts error

your number is invalid your number is invalid

your number is invalid all our representatives

are busy right now but I could refer you to

our site your number is invalid select

your savings every day earn save save

even more that number cannot be accessed

see your rewards program terms for details

please try again

 

Prisoners Working in the Early Morning Rain - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Prisoners Working in the Early Morning Rain

 

We have all worked in the rain – building fences

Getting up the cows for milking twice a day

Sloshing through the muck to make deliveries

And usually with some choice in the matter

 

Prisoners have choices too – cells or a work detail

In designer costumes with horizontal stripes

Not much of a choice, but the work is needful and good

Picking up the litter of freedom and patching the road

 

Through the wipers I wave. They wave back. Rain -

We have all passed by our fellow man in the rain

Orgiastic Screaming from Below - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Orgiastic Screaming from Below

 

Those who called for Nonsense will find that it comes

 

-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

 

We have seen Milton’s Pandaemonium

Choreographed on a wide palantir

Fallen angels praising the Great Fallen One

In a High Council of electrified lies

 

Great thunderings of fire and rolling smoke

Issuing from a shiny plastic throne of power

The Great Fallen One framed in Elvis lights

On the floor the lesser ones screaming in ecstasy

 

The Great Fallen One has a plan for us

After all the balloons, too, have fallen

[Allusions to C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings]

My Great Replacement Theory - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

My Great Replacement Theory

 

(or maybe just a lesser replacement theory)

 

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass

Which used to be my job, but they stepped up

And in stepping up they are replacing me

Which is good - I miss my youth but delight in theirs

 

A boy and a girl giggled and whispered

In a language I don’t know except that

Having once been young, I know it well -

A perfect translation was in their eyes

 

All languages come from Old Solar, Lewis says

And to Old Solar will someday return

We must all be replaced someday

For in Creation’s Great Dance that is a step

 

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass

And God will open another door afterward

The Mysterious World of Azalea - poem

 Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Mysterious World of Azalea

 

If I were a child, this would be a happy place

A hidden leaf-mould world, all darkly green

Summery green beneath the shaded sun

Between the roots, beneath the leaves, alone

 

If I were a child, this would be a happy place

A brand-new comic book, some army men

A Roy Rogers cap pistol without any caps

A plastic Tarzan leaping from branch to branch

 

If I were a child…but alas, I’m not -

I’m pruning back limbs and checking for rot

Who Gives a Fig? - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Who Gives a Fig?

 

Some people say that they don’t a give a fig

Which we would never hear from a happy fig tree -

The one at the bottom of the garden gives its fruit

As a blessing to every passing animal

 

Squirrels and rabbits, sparrows and mockingbirds

Share in this sugary summer delight

I speed by on my riding lawnmower

And take a fig myself, only to give it away

 

Some people say that they don’t a give a fig

But I think we need more figs in our lives

 

(As Amanda Holmes did not exactly say)

How Many Moons Can You See? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

How Many Moons Can You See?

 

It was a full moon and, shining on all the snow,

it made everything almost as bright as day.

 

-C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

 

When the subject of vision came up

(as it must with an ophthalmologist)

I told Dr. Talbot that I saw two moons

When only one of them would be sufficient

 

But which one?

 

After a gentle touch of surgery

I now see only one moon, which is nice

But I rather miss that other moon

And wonder if in her exile she misses me too

 

Where is she?

 

On whatever planet you happen to live

I don’t think you can have too many moons

For Bob Newhart of Happy, Happy Memory - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

For Bob Newhart of Happy, Happy Memory

 

 

“He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him”

 

-Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

 

 

With just a telephone, a clipboard, and a stutter

He was a happy band of some of our best friends:

May we with him

At last approach that Inn where all are welcome

 

The joy he gave us proceeds before him

The angelic choirs soften their hum and throb

Because

That loving Voice we all most long to hear

Will gently say,

 

“Hi, Bob.”

Fire Ants Devouring the Corpses of Unhatched Wasps - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Fire Ants Devouring the Corpses of Unhatched Wasps

 

Nature does not, in the long run, favour life.

 

-C. S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age,” 1948

 

A formation of formicidae trekked north-northwest

Across a vast and lonely sunbeaten expanse

Their imperial quest a fallen wasps’ nest

Between a lawn chair and a potted plant

 

The ants greedily ripped open the paper shells

Like Christmas crackers for the goodies inside

The ghastly drippings of pupae in their jaws

Fragments of dead wasplings for their demanding queen

 

A formation of formicidae trekked east-southeast -

What, then, is the number of an unnumbered beast?

We Were Dressers of Sycamores - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

We Were Dressers of Sycamores

 

Amos 7: 12-15

Saint Mark 6: 7-13

From the readings for the 15^th week in Ordinary Time

 

All of us are sent, one place or another

On curious missions little understood

No detailed instructions, no notes, no maps

Take this road and go on until it ends

 

And greet the folks you meet along the way

Some of them will need your help, your love

Some of them will give you help, their love

And one of them might murder you

 

All of us are sent, one place or another

We can’t get out of it; we’re needed, brother

On the Events of 13 July 2024 - a quote from MACBETH

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

On the Events of 13 July 2024

 

                                                  …that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th’ inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends th’ ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. 

 

-Macbeth I.vii.8-12

These Professors - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Those Who Stereotype “These Professors”

 

Exodus 20:16

 

These professors

 

Dr. Moriarty was a PFC on certain Pacific islands

          Who could bayonet an enemy

          Clear a jammed machine gun under fire

          See his pals blown to pieces next to him

          And work out subtle textual analyses

 

These professors

 

Dr. Chambers was a retired colonel of Marines

          A natty little man in blazer and bowtie

          Who could bayonet an enemy

          See his pals blown to pieces next to him

          Deconstruct the minutiae of energy distribution

          And toss a foul-mouthed football player out on his sorry ass

 

These professors

 

Dr. Dale was a butcher until his thirties

When he entered college for the first time

          He knew your hamburger from the outside in

          The economics of building a business

          He probably could have bench-pressed a Ford Fiesta

          And when he spoke of Wordsworth, Keats, and Coleridge

          You could feel the air of The Lake Country

 

These professors

         

“These professors” were complete men

Strong in war and word and wisdom and work

Unlike envious Unferths who learn life only second-hand

          From Fox News and John Wayne movies

          And closed loops of echoing InterGossip sites

Beowulf Visits the Dentist - a bit of fun, maybe a bite of fun

  

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Beowulf Visits the Dentist

Arise from the nitrous oxide

From the somnolence, dreams, and pain

With forge-hammered teeth

And then go out

Go out and bite something

 

 

(Trying for the Anglo-Saxon four-beat line)

Is That IPhone Surgically Attached to You? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

“Is That IPhone Surgically Attached to you?”

 

 

“Is that thing surgically attached to you?” the teacher sighed.

 

“You can’t talk to me like that!” the MePhone replied.

Ford vs Chevy - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Ford vs Chevy

 

In an era where everything was either Ford or Chevy

I was an MG roadster

Unreliable

But lots of fun

Their Ephemeral Temples Look Much the Same - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Their Ephemeral Temples Look Much the Same

 

Their ephemeral temples look much the same

In a semi-circle the faithful sit or stand

And turn their eager faces to an altar flood-lit

To be magicked by their leaders and gods

 

They wave their arms in ecstasy and awe

As lantern-slides of flags and martyred heroes

Ripple as electronic waves beamed into their eyes

Commanding free obedience through spontaneous scripts

 

At dawn

 

Contractors will tear away the plywood and paint

Take down the plastic statues and columns

The recordings of programmed emotions

And heave them into the beds of rented trucks

 

Preaching or politics, or some other game:

Their ephemeral temples look much the same

How is Your Adventure So Far? - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

How is Your Adventure So Far?

 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

 

-Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

 

Even if you are looking up at an I.V. drip

Instead of green leaves and a summer sky

Your adventure is not nearly at an end

Not even in this life – and the next life, wow!

 

Your childhood joys have never slipped away

That cheesy 45 rpm that graced your first dance

Has not come to the end of its groovy grooves

You’ve still got the happiness, the moves

 

Your first job, boot camp, university

Riding a big red bus ‘round Piccadilly Circus

Drinking from your canteen on a mountain top

Your first kiss, that evening in Rome – there’s more to come!

 

Your first car is still parked in the driveway

Waiting to take you where you always meant to go

A Hurricane: Outer Bands and Inner Thoughts - haiku

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Hurricane: Outer Bands and Inner Thoughts

 

Sun gives way to clouds

Stillness to winds, birds circle

Searching for meaning

Reading the Magna Carta Will Make Us Smarter - rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Reading the Magna Carta Will Make Us Smarter

 

(And it bans fish weirs in the Thames)

 

The Kings have been subject to the law since 1215

But are American presidents? That remains to be seen

 

In Defense of King George | Smithsonian (smithsonianmag.com)

 

The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially | The Nation

A Sunday Morning Church Message: "Some Folks Need Killing"

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Sunday Morning Church Message: “Some Folks Need Killing”

 

“…disciple-makers through the power of Jesus Christ!”

 

-Lake Church

 

A lieutenant-governor strutting and yelling in church

Demanded the deaths of “some folks” unspecified

The faithful of Lake Church heard out his deadly cause

And then obediently applauded him -

 

The man who might someday order their executions

 

 

NC Lt. Gov. Robinson defends ‘folks need killing’ comments (msn.com)

 

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson at NC church meeting: “Some folks need killing” (yahoo.com)

 

HOME | Lake Church NC

Hurricane Track Attack Forth and Back - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Hurricane Track Attack Forth and Back

 

Spaghetti models are not really spaghetti

But only colored lines across electric maps

Squiggling in iridescence around the Gulf

Slithering atop the waves, then to your house

 

The weather reporters’ cliches fall from the skies

As microbursts of bottled-water-babbles

Canned goods and fresh radio batteries

Tune to this station as your roof blows away

 

Spaghetti models are not really spaghetti

But watch the news in the street – he’s getting all wet-ty!

Yes, We Are a Republic, Much Like Haiti - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Yes, We Are a Republic – Much Like Haiti

 

As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth.

 

-Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

 

In America every night is Kristalnacht

Everyone seems to hate everyone else

Gunfights in our parks, mass murders everywhere

Communist-made fireworks celebrate freedom

 

From state to state a reichskirche is on the march

Employment is down, prices are up

Vultures circle our dying President

Some in Congress promote raw genocide

 

The Supreme Court authorizes presidential crimes -

As St. Thomas More said to Lord Norfolk:

“I show you the times”

It Wasn't the Fourth of July - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

It Wasn’t the Fourth of July

 

     That we may wander o’er this bloody field

     To book our dead, and then to bury them

 

-Henry V IV.vii.75-76

 

It wasn’t the fourth of July, but it was about then

Near the Cambodian border, on the Vam Co Tay

Searching for two American airman whose machine had gone down

Down, down into the steaming green Vam Co Tay

 

Bloated and floating, quite still when we saw them

The sloshy prop wash bumped them about a bit

Empty eye sockets, mouths open in silent screams

We poncho-linered their bodies aboard the boat

 

Cigarettes of despair against the stench and rot

This was not what we sang about in school

The Haunted Electric Toothbrush - doggerel

 

(I don't know why this program has suddenly decided to double-space. Perhaps it is conspiring with my electric toothbrush)

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Haunted Electric Toothbrush

 

This morning at dawn

I was alone

I heard a moan

A mysterious groan

A ceaseless drone

It wasn’t the ‘phone

 

It was my toothbrush

 

It had on its own

Turned itself on

 

My Philips Sonicare ™© and (legal protections in a peach tree) has done me good service for years. This morning it turned itself on atop a glass shelf with other little bottles of this and tubes of that, making an unusual moaning / groaning / droning that took me some time to sort out. It is a great device; when it finally hands in its lunch pail (as Bertie Wooster would say) I will buy another just like it.

On Independence Day and Every Day, Spelling Counts - photograph