A Point-and-Won't-Shoot Camera - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Point-and-Won’t-Shoot Camera

 

The concept of the point-and-shoot camera obtains

But a Me-‘Phone camera doesn’t see it that way

I stopped to watch a bug-grazing bird

Who approached me as if she wanted to visit

 

I took out my Me-‘Phone for a photograph

And it didn’t recognize my handsome face

And I had to tap a four-digit code

And the bird grew suspicious and flew away

 

O Egret, in your beautiful brown and white -

I truly understand your need for flight

High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup

 

Blue light - an illusion of comfort at dawn

The streaky windows frame a winter day

Illusions and delusions lying to us

For this is July, when hopes wither and die

 

The sun’s tentacles ripple across the fields

One of them slithers to your window and leers

Mocking the fantasies of your air-conditioned sleep

Beckoning you outside: come and be fried

 

The sun’s hot streakings, mortals seeking, they roam

As summer’s slithering death: a high-pressure dome

A Roadside Snapping Turtle in April - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Roadside Snapping Turtle in April

 

If you’d spent the winter

Sleeping deep down in the mud

You’d be snappish too!

An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Summer Bugs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Summer Bugs

 

(He was small in the spring)

 

When a tree frog moves up in the world

He becomes a fashionable window frog

No longer the pain of a rough tree bark life

But rather the pane of easy living

 

(He grew larger during the summer)

 

My bedroom window is his buffet

An all-he-can-eat buffet of bugs

Delicious summer bugs shared around

With an uncommon house gecko of style

 

(He’s really big now)

 

I look out at a hungry tree frog, you see

But now – is he looking hungrily in at me?

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?

What Toppings Would You Like on Your Hurricane Cone? - poem for 23 August 2020

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

What Toppings Would You Like 
on Your Hurricane Cone?

Sunday, 23 August 2020

Two cones? I’d rather just one. Vanilla
And Maxwell Smart’s Cone of Silence was 
          fun
I had to sort out conic sections in math
But cones like that are lacking in good 
          taste

And now two cones are moving up the 
          coast
Maybe tomorrow they’ll move back down 
          again
While we stack toilet paper and MREs
Perhaps the ice cream truck’s an ice cream 
          float

No one knows if the cones are there or 
          here –
That’s pretty much a metaphor for this 
          year

Death in the Autumn Sky - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Death in the Autumn Sky

The red-tailed hawk extends translucent wings
As brakes to stop the air and make it serve
The warrior as an observation post
For scanning close the sere November grass

And then

The red-tailed hawk falls in a sloping dive
Through fierce acceleration of gravity
Flinging itself in silence down, down, down
In wild defiance of the earth, the ground

And then…?

The red-tail hawk powers up its wings, up, up
And in its beak a snake writhes in surprise

The Hummingbirds Have Flown to Mexico - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Hummingbirds Have Flown to Mexico

The hummingbirds have flown to Mexico
Above the dark malevolence of man:
No border patrols, no criminal gangs
No wire, no walls, no displaced persons’ camps

The hummingbirds have flown to Mexico
To celebrate bright Navidad and be
Pequeno flores de Nochebuena
For the delight of our dear Infant Lord

The hummingbirds have flown to Mexico
On pilgrimage, for God will have it so

A Farm Boy Smiles at the Moon; the Moon Smiles Back - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Farm Boy Smiles at the Moon; the Moon Smiles Back

A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back
For they are friends, you see, both peek-a-boo
Behind and through the leaves of their favorite oak
In an ancient world that is forever young

Adults are children who have forgotten how
To see, and who have lost their bearings, their course
Their pirate-maps for sailing to the stars
And their lunar love-letters to be read in dreams

Among the fireflies, on the cooling-dusk field
A child smiles at the moon; the moon smiles back

For the First of September - poem (possibly a re-post)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

September Twilight

The gasping summer heat withdraws at dusk
The hot winds still themselves, and now defer
To autumn’s promise and an easy truce
Sol slips behind the trees; the empty sky

Takes little note and fades among the stars
The summer grass is tired, but, bravely green,
Hosts cricket games for pouncing cats and dogs
Points cheered by choirs of cicadas and frogs

This is the thinking time. The book’s at rest
Unread, face down upon a lichened bench
While votive fire glows in its copper bowl
And dryads whisper in the gathering dusk

Ancestors seem to gather round, to mark
The changing seasons on their holy earth
And tho’ their tread no longer makes a sound
Their merry tales more remembered than heard

Their happy presence in the first-star-hour
Reminds us that whatever-was remains
And will remain until the calling of time

A Young Wasp in Spring - Appropriate Respect for Life Forms - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Young Wasp in Spring

The spring morning was chill when from its nest
A young wasp fell, helpless and young
Upon the ground, needing the warmth of the sun
To spread its tiny dragon’s wings into new life

A creature of God, needing only an hour
To gain its strength, and so to live the life
Destined for it, its appointed mission
In the unknowable Plan of Creation

It seemed to beg for mercy with each desperate breath
And so with great care I crushed it to death

Setting the Night Watch - poem

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

Setting the Night Watch

Nature exists without anyone’s permission:
At dusk the loud cicadas in the oaks
And the soft crickets dwelling in the grass
Sing an evening hymn to the setting sun

Sparrows and mockingbirds leave off their wars
And all make wing to Shakespeare’s rooky wood
While little dogs patter the day’s last patrol
Snuffling the bounds as true as timber wolves

And as a tourist comes a straying man
Oblivious to the changing of the watch

The Luna Moth - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Luna Moth

The moon does not in fact wax anything,
She does not wane; she simply ever-is;
She rules the softly-sung, soft-summer nights,
A willing queen, and willingly obeyed.
The luna moth, her winged votary,
Clings to indulgent oaks of their kindness,
Their moon-sent goddess from another world,
And strangely robed and crowned in lunar green,
Pheroming softly for some other moth
To come perform with her those rituals
Of love illogical, of sacrifice;
For all a luna moth can do is live
A summer week or so, but in those hours

She loves

In lunar beauty, strangely eternal
Who needs a dying luna moth?
                                                       We do.

Oh, Possum! - poem

Oh, Possum!

or

Marsupials in the Mist

or

Didelphimorphia Park

Well, there you are, snarling behind the mesh
Of a steel humanitarian trap
For the crimes of digging under the fence
And encouraging the dogs to escape

Stop hissing, now, through rows of dragon-teeth
And listen to human words you won’t believe -
Late summer grapes have tempted you to this,
So absolution is granted; ajar is the door

Your executioner stands down: Go forth!
And be a better ‘possum forever more

The Moon Would Be Alone - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Moon Would Be Alone

The moon veils her presence with mist and damp
Mortals are not wanted in attendance
On such a night, when rain rises as fog
And the singing of frogs is a menacing chant

The apples of summer, the frosts of autumn
The barefoot maidens dancing on the lawns
Or old men smoking through philosophy:
All are forbidden on a night like this

Above the trees swings a half-hidden lamp -
The moon veils her presence with mist and damp

Death of a Country Gentlemouse - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Death of a Country Gentlemouse

In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat
Reposes an elegant little field mouse
Neatly laid out for the visitation
Attended not by aunts now, but by ants

Luna-Dog, separated from her kill
Poses prayerfully at the back-door screen
Or predatorily, as it might be, before
With work-gloved hands the mouse is bade farewell

Tossed respectfully over the garden fence
In a golden cloak and a white waistcoat

Mimosa Pods - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Mimosa Pods

Mimosa pods hang heavily in the heat
Like lurking green and yellow slithery snakes
Just waiting for their hour to drop to the ground
Between the lemon and the apple trees

All is quiet in the early afternoon
Even the dragonflies repose at rest
After lunching on their kindred species
And the mocking bird has sought leafy shade

The hours drowse until September, and
Mimosa pods hang heavily in the heat

Not-So-Wildflowers - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Not-So-Wildflowers

Wildflowers are not really wild, you know
They are not forward like catalogue blooms
Demanding the best seats in the garden
And the most delicate of drinks and soils

Wildflowers smile softly, sweetly at the sun
Shy fairy-folk of forest, field, and fen
Dancing through the warm mid-year months and then
Withdrawing quietly at summer’s end

Like children yawning, and wanting their beds -
Wildflowers are not really wild, you know

The First Hummingbird of Spring

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The First Hummingbird of Spring

O wing’ed messenger of innocence,
Aloft among the pollinating flowers,
At last you have returned from Mexico
And warm months there among soft latitudes
Where little birds can make a holiday
Far, far away from withering Arctic winds.

O tiny traveler, what souvenirs
Did you declare to customs at the Rio Grande?
South winds to tell the flowers to wake up
And Rosaries of morning fogs to bless
The yawning grasses with a morning drink,
And fresh new sunlight for the industrious bees.

O buzzing and impatient little friend!
Just wait a minute, your breakfast is coming -
The old glass feeder washed and packed away
In harvest-rich October’s golden light
Must be recovered and refreshed for you,
And
How good it is to see you home again.

Bipolar Vortex

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Bipolar Vortex

Global warming? The concept’s tired and old,
For one only knows that today is cold.