1970 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

1970

 

When I came home I was asked by a boyhood friend

“I haven’t seen you lately; where have you been?”

 

I’m still wondering about that

"I Guess You Saw a Lot of Action, Huh?" - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

“I Guess You Saw a Lot of Action, Huh?”

 

Don’t

 

You and I weren’t there; it’s none of our business

They will talk about it among themselves

Politely excluding us, as they should

Mostly each will grapple with it in the dark

 

Alone

 

You and I weren’t there; it’s none of our business

They might become more open when they are old

When God speaks to them from the desert and plain

But the decision is theirs; it is their pain

 

Theirs

 

You and I weren’t there; it’s none of our business

Don’t ask

Don’t even speak

Just leave it alone

Yes, But I Don't Own a Motorcycle - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Yes, But I Don’t Own a Motorcycle

Are you a Viet-Nam veteran, old man?

          Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle

And do you really love America?

          Yes, but I don’t own a motorcycle

And are you saved?

          Beats the H*** outta me

Under the Shadow-Tree - a poem on Remembrance Day

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Under the Shadow-Tree

For David Jones, 1895-1974

Poet, Artist

Pte., Royal Welch Fusiliers

One can go back to one's own home…

and everything is so changed that one is a stranger.

― Graham Greene, The Ministry of Fear

I went away, a young and foolish lad
Imagining I would go home someday
Made manly in the war, someone to respect
Admired by all in the old, familiar scenes

There was only exile. Echoes and screams
Fumbling through the flashbacks for charger clips
And stepping carefully lest the lawn explode
In dreams lit only by parachute flares

While waiting for the order for volley fire
And is the safety on? Or am I off?

While Dressing for an American Legion Meeting - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

While Dressing for an American Legion Meeting

A pair of slacks, a pair of shoes, a shirt
A watch to count the weary meeting hours
Coffee with comrades in the old church hall
And all of these are very good indeed

But like old shoes, old pals, the scenes of youth
We must someday let them all go, and pass
Peacefully, one prays, through the spray and foam
And sail until dawn to that farthest Shore

Where only the NCOs must dress right, dress
And the coffee’s always fresh in the company mess


(But will the smoking lamp will be lit?)

On the Resignation of the Executive Director of a Certain Veterans' Service Organization - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

On the Resignation of the Executive Director

of a Certain Veterans’ Service Organization

Our leaders’ reputations decay in the corners
Of their star-spangled offices, curling up
Like fallen leaves wind-blown against a fence
Then writhing in the rubbish-fires of history

Their bubble reputations in their own mouths 1
Ephemeral as the grey and ashy smoke
Adrift among the vaporous lies that once
Scented the sewage of their resumes’

Our leaders call us comrades, shipmates, brothers -
From their forward positions on the 501C

1 Shakespeare, “The Ages of Man”

Dreamcatchers Along a Navajo Road - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dreamcatchers Along a Navajo Road

“…the war…often seems to have happened to someone else.”

-C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

A pickup truck beside a Navajo road
Tables of souvenirs, a Thermos of coffee
Clotheslines of dreamcatchers catching the sun
For now; the dreams must wait for sleepless hours

“You were in Viet-Nam,” the old man said
To another old man. No mystery;
He simply took a chance to make a sale
And did, for both had known the Vam Co Tay

Old men along the road, catchers of dreams
Who burned their chances in the long ago

Viet-Nam Service Medal - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Viet-Nam Service Medal

A dragon lurks among the bamboo trees
And if sometimes half-hidden, still, always there
Sometimes half-forgotten, but always there
Is he a glorious dragon? Sometimes, yes

But then some nights he stirs the leaves awake
His eyes – they seem to flicker through the dark
His claws – they tear into the freighted soul
His blood – like Duncan’s, will not wash away

But dragons are good – what is it that one sees
If not a dragon lurking among the trees?

"Have You Seen Ken Burns' Latest Television Show?" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

"Have You Seen Ken Burns’ Latest Television Show?"

No, I was in the play. I didn’t like it.
The plot, setting, and characterization
Were all wrong, and the clumsy denouement
Was poorly written and acted.
                                                   “Macbeth.”

War profiteers from John Wayne to Ken Burns
Have claimed my illegal war for their own
"Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant"
Beyond that, the VA is ashamed of me

So, thanks, but no. I'm good. Bitter, but good
For I was in the play. I didn’t like it.

Memorial Day II: Bad Morning, Viet-Nam - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not whiz. Mortars do not crump.

There is no thin rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie;

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.

Alter Christus, Alter Vir - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Alter Christus, Alter Vir

For Reverend Angelo J. Liteky

He died three times, for other men
Who lived because he died – once in Indochina
Once in his vocation, and one last time
Forgotten in a poor hospital bed

Soul-wounded in the false, incessant wars
Humanity inflicts upon itself
Fallenness falling again, ever fallen
And the ever-falling fell upon him

Though he lifted his love – always for others
He died again – and who will live for him?

Thank You for Your Service - Now Shut Up - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Thank You for Your Service – Now Shut Up

Heat, mud, mosquitos, humiliation
Despair, stand to, stand down, stand to again
Wait, wait, the trucks are late; you’ll have to march
Do something with these bodies, Godammit

Damp, rot, no sleep for how many days now
Your promotion got misplaced in Saigon
We gave your medal to an officer
Because we had more officers than medals

What do you know; you weren’t in a real war
My cousin was; he told me all about it

Collateral Damage - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Collateral Damage

His final defensive perimeter
Room 304 in The Plaza Hotel
Convenient to the bus stop, and not far
From the public library one street over

He checks out a Perry Mason each week
“They knew how to write a good yarn in those days”
And bears it off to The Corner Café’
Free refills; the waitresses always pet him

He makes speeches in Perry Mason’s courtroom
The Social Security office, and Korea

An American Legion Meeting - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

An American Legion Meeting

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And discharge half-remembered boot camp yarns
As ragged volleys of camaraderie
Blasted through well-defended hearing aids

O let us not raise funds for this or that
Through weekend fish-fries in a parking lot
Or catalogue good deeds inflicted on

Those

For whom our kindness is a border breached

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And remember again the Vam Co Tay

A Proletarian Fellowship of Death - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

A Proletarian Fellowship of Death

To have been lost in Indo-China is
A core, a center asymmetrical
Perhaps a hinge, or some other weary
Metaphor for one’s life, a series of
Experiences in no time without time
Frivolous merriment and satanic horrors
Which have led or misled, influenced, moved,
Inspired, infected, focused, fuzzed
Almost every thought, intent, act, motion
That can be credited or discredited
To those of us who were in confusion there
And who have come to realize or been made
To realize this late in life that all -
All - is predicated on murders and lies
And wearing Sauron’s ring has compromised
Any claim of “Gott Mit Uns” or "S nami Bog."
Thus, given that much of one’s life is an exile -
A village shunning, an embarrassment
A stumbling memento mori denied
A former person who should go away -
One question now remains:
What’s for breakfast?