Night Class

Mack Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Night Class

The moonless night presents a nothingness,

As flickering cones of yellow light pursue
Pale wraiths and shadows through the conifers.
The radio hisses in its loneliness,
While miles and hours in meditation pass;
The coffee cup from several towns ago
Is empty now; its caffeine promises
Have faded like a statesman’s solemn vows
While Byron, Shelley, and Keats, in repose
Between the covers of a Moby Book,
Await those even later, owlish hours,
Then to renew their pleynts against the past.

Night Class

Mack Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Night Class

The moonless night presents a nothingness,

As flickering cones of yellow light pursue
Pale wraiths and shadows through the conifers.
The radio hisses in its loneliness,
While miles and hours in meditation pass;
The coffee cup from several towns ago
Is empty now; its caffeine promises
Have faded like a statesman’s solemn vows
While Byron, Shelley, and Keats, in repose
Between the covers of a Moby Book,
Await those even later, owlish hours,
Then to renew their pleynts against the past.

Cellphonia in F Flat

Mack Hall

Cellphonia in F Flat

A chamber piece for two sulks and a soda

He yawns, his head propped up against a wall
Of head-stained, head-banged green-fluorescent blocks   
In the back of the room, in Marlboro Country
Reposing in sad, sullen insolence
Furtively strumming a silent keypad
Flinging his unique existential angst
Into cool, pure, plasticized electrons
And out into the post-Dairy Queen night
Where there’s real life, man, not these books and stuff,
Real life; you wouldn’t understand. I’m me
And you don’t know who I am, man.  I am:
An inspirational singer-songwriter
An artist, a great soul misunderstood
Raging against a machine that isn’t there
An angry Romantic on government grants