Lawrence Hall, HSG
Moving the Metaphor
“Moving the needle” isn’t moving anymore
As a metaphor it is out of the groove
Although politics are spinning at 78
The needle is quite worn down, and so am I
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Move the Metaphor; Move the Needle - short poem
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
If Mr. Vance Says You Ate Someone's Pet Cat Then Obviously You ate Someone's Pet Cat - not really a poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
If Mr. Vance Says You
Ate Someone’s Pet Cat
Then Obviously You Ate
Someone’s Pet Cat
“Show me the man and I will show you the crime”
-many attributions, usually to Lavrentia Beria,
sometimes to Stalin
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs…They're eating
the cats.
They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”
-Presidential candidate Donald Trump,
10 September 2024
"If I have to create stories so that the American media
actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's
what I'm going to do."
-Vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance on CNN,
Sunday, 15 September 2024
Little children in school are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
Patients in hospitals are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
City office workers are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
A Lutheran university is threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
A few Proud Boys [sic] stumble around in the street
Because two Heroic Men of Destiny said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
Monday, September 16, 2024
I’m Proud of My Childless Cat Lady Daughter - two lines to rebuke certain stuffy old politicians
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I’m Proud of My Childless Cat Lady Daughter
Some call her a childless cat lady
At work the staff call her “Doctor”
The Terrifying Creepy Chilling Iconic Sniper’s Lair - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Terrifying Creepy
Chilling Iconic Sniper’s Lair
Some call it the sniper’s lair, some the sniper’s nest
Some call it a creepy lair
Some surely call it chilling and iconic
Because to InterGossip posters everything
Is chilling, iconic, jaw-dropping, and a bombshell
It’s just a sad, sagging old chain-link fence
With some sad old man’s wannabe G.I. Jerk
Army wannabe soldier-toys hanging from it
The Kalashjackov was real enough
The poor fool’s mind, not so much
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Runes Recently Discovered - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Runes Recently Discovered
We have mysterious runic messages still
Appearing this morning – there, on the road – see them?
Some say these irregular scrawls mark utilities
But you know, there are Wee Folk in these woods
15 September 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
If Li-Po Were my Houseguest - quatrain
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
If Li-Po Were my Houseguest
If Li-Po were
my houseguest tonight
I’d probably
have to drag him inside
After he’d
been drinking to the moon’s silver light
And heave him
into his bed with a gentle chide
We Don't Understand, But We Hope - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Don’t Understand, But We Hope
We don’t understand it, but we hope in it
The change from that which is to that which isn’t
Or is the change back again and no change at all
Which maybe means the blood and pain remain
We recline in a rented banquet room
We follow in fear along a narrow street
We watch in horror upon a death-haunted hill
We are called to an empty tomb which isn’t empty
We are called to a dented Cup which also isn’t empty
(Maybe $200 at the church supply store)
Cradling a Mystery from before time
A plate of bread that looks like bread but isn’t
The Altar is where the arc of history bends
Mystery
Who among the servers did the dishes
And did she accidentally drop a Cup?
(That part’s not important)
Friday, September 13, 2024
I Had a Flat Tire Along the Silk Road - not-a-Tang-quatrain
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I Had a Flat Tire Along the Silk Road
A bandit-princess stole my trail-lost
heart
To play with carelessly one
idle day
She teased me a road sketched
on her magic chart
But I had a flat tire along
the way
In reading Li Po (variant pronunciations and spellings in English) and others, and trying to understand Tang quatrains, well, I don’t understand much. The forms and content are so varied as to make the term almost undefinable to my simple English soul. But nature, irony, loss, and separation are apparently common, as well as rhyme, so I took them and iambic pentameter for this not-really-a-Tang-quatrain.
Tropes, Dopes, and Culture Worriers - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Tropes, Dopes, and Culture Worriers
I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.
-Tolkien, from a letter rebuking a German publisher, 1938
One does not imagine Tolkien schlubbing about
In a garish cartoon tee and baggy shorts
A Glock strapped to his 50-inch waist
Shopping the dollar store in a Trumpy cap
One does not imagine Lewis following QAnon
Encouraging Peter to take an AR to Latin class
Or quartering the Cross of good Saint George
With a swastika’s spidering wheel of shame
Not all evil comes from outside the Shire –
Sometimes evil is our own internal desire
On the time J.R.R. Tolkien refused to work with Nazi-leaning publishers. ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)
Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right? – The Irish Times
Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex | Vanity Fair
Thoughts of Home from Behind the Wire - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Thoughts of Home from Behind the Wire
Over the South China Sea
We could see China past the portside
wing
The forbidden land of our enemy
Who encouraged the Viet-Cong in our
destruction
But allowed us peaceably to pass
Refueling in Japan
We could see Japan from behind
chain-link fencing
The industrial land of an ally now
They sold us tape recorders and
radios
And airplane fuel from beyond the
wire
Thank you for your service
Honored fighters for freedom almost home
from the wars
Penned freely behind pig wire and
gates and bars
My Grandfather's Hayfield - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
My Grandfather’s Hayfield
From my own fields I can hear the band
The high school marching band, oom-pah, oom-pah
From several miles away, with merry songs
and merry cheers around the homecoming bonfire
That was my grandfather’s hayfield in my youth
Before the town and school replaced the past
The shaking baling machine compressing grass
Where the team captain gives his whup ‘em speech
I found a terrapin where the cheerleaders dance
From my own fields I can see my youth
The White Lady of the Well - a senryu
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The White Lady of the Well
She visits at dusk
She’s watching you;
turn around -
She’s just over there
Thursday, September 12, 2024
We Have all Written Poems about September - and, yes, this is a poem about September
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Have all Written Poems about September
(Not applicable on that half the planet where September is a springtime month)
(Certain taxes and fees might apply)
(Offer void where prohibited)
(Some assembly required)
Everyone writes poetry about September
The cooling of the summer-sun-beaten earth
A few more hummingbirds with maps of Mexico
A first leaf skittering across the grassy lane
The sky looks a little different somehow
A fresh breeze rises with the gentle dawn
Sitting outside at dusk is comfortable now
Notebook and pen are easier to the hand
Everyone writes poetry about September
As every worker and dreamer ought to do
We Have All Written Poems about September - and, yes, this is a poem about September
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We
Have all Written Poems about September
(Not
applicable on that half the planet where September is a springtime month)
(Certain taxes
and fees might apply)
(Offer void
where prohibited)
(Some assembly
required)
Everyone writes poetry about September
The cooling of the summer-sun-beaten earth
A few more hummingbirds with maps of Mexico
A first leaf skittering across the grassy lane
The sky looks a little different somehow
A fresh breeze rises with the gentle dawn
Sitting outside at dusk is comfortable now
Notebook and pen are easier to the hand
Everyone writes poetry about September
As every worker and dreamer ought to do
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
For English Pick Up the Anglophone - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For English Pick Up the Anglophone
For English pick up the Anglophone
For French the Francophone
For others in Canada the Allophone
(“‘Allo! ‘Allo!”)
For Mandarin or Cantonese the Sinophone
For Portugal the Lusophone
In Deutschland perhaps the Deutschesphone
(or perhaps not)
And in Russia the Russophone
Please phone in, everyone
Because isn’t it wonderful -
So many phones, and each with a direct line to God
Monday, September 9, 2024
Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain
Li Po, “Ancient Air,” p. 84
A Book of Luminous Things, ed. Czeslaw Milosz
We read of the poets of China
In the days of the Golden Tang
In the time of The Gathering of Kings
When The Silk Road carried dreams
Government officials were the poets
And poets were the government
officials
Who knew The Five Classics by heart
And wrote of China in Tang quatrains
They were writing to the Emperor
And now they are writing to us
Sunday, September 8, 2024
God in the Hands of Angry Sinners - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
God in the Hands of Angry Sinners
As Jonathan Edwards did not say
How do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why do they bind their scriptures and
themselves
In anger, duct tape, and camouflage
Why do they raise high the AR and
their fists
Instead of salvation and the Holy Cross?
Where do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why have they abandoned the altars of
Truth
For the flagpole idolatry of the pagan
state
In coven-circles facing each other and
a pole
Like Canaanites and their wooden Asherim?
Why do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
If they would look beyond their own perimeter wire
They would see
A Maiden dancing
In
Galilee
For Booger-Dog of Happy Memory - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For Booger-Dog of Happy
Memory
And for his
pet human Max
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves
ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
-George Graham Vest
His
fuzzy little bed is empty today
His dinner
is untasted, his water bowl full
Awaiting
his ungentlemanly slurps
And
his favorite toy seems lonely and lost
He
will not claim space on my pillow tonight
Nor
chase dream rabbits while cuddling with me
Nor
lick my nose to wake me up at…
(Geez, Booger, do you know
what time it is!?)
Leaping
and barking to be allowed outside
He
will not bound into the kitchen at dawn
Happily
barking his joy unto God
Circling
and snuffling for his breakfast treat
A
bit of bacon or egg from a loving hand
Because
his brave little soul has flown
To
wait for me at the foot of that glorious Throne
Friday, September 6, 2024
Cleaning a Metaphorical Rifle - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cleaning a Metaphorical Rifle
The Detachable Magazine Holds Ten Lines
There is no such thing as an unloaded word
And once a word has left the barrel it’s gone
You cannot call it back – were you sure of your aim?
Draft Beer, Not Students - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Draft Beer, Not Students
A slogan from the 1960s
In illo tempore:
A young man swaggers across the
‘versity quad
Smoking a Marlboro or affecting a
pipe
‘Way cool in his sports coat and
turtleneck
Shakespeare or physics held loosely
in his hand
A young woman passes through the
‘versity quad
Smoking a Parliament or checking her
mirror
‘Way cool in her pencil skirt and
layered look
Shakespeare or physics held closely
to her heart
Sed in tempore nostro:
Pronouns galumph across the ‘versity
squad
One fist raised in hate, the other
clutching a glowing box
Thursday, September 5, 2024
You are not a Banana - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You are not a Banana
Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered
A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)
If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so
Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun
But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses
Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas
And our brothers and sisters are not bananas
Barefootin' Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Barefootin’ Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon
For J. W., His Dad, and His Uncle
Brandon
J. W. is blessed with
family and purpose and love
Guided study and chores
and structured faith
Happy barefootin’ days
among the watermelons
A fishing pole and
buzzing-bee summer afternoons
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Feeding the Squirrels and Birds at Dawn - very short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Feeding the Squirrels and Birds at Dawn
A squirrel sits upon a little mound of corn
And faces the east with its nimble forepaws
Clasped gently together as if in prayer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
