Upon Finding My Old Copy of PARADISE LOST - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Upon Finding My Old Copy of Paradise Lost

 

 

Sacred to the memory of Tod Mixson, Robert Conn, and Dr. Huston Diehl

 

 

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold

 

-Milton, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”

 

 

With notes by Dr. Diehl, of happy memory

And my poor scribbles in the hand of callow youth

As memories of Thursday nights with Robert and Tod

Fetch back a golden age when we were young

 

Styrofoamed coffee (and sometimes Scotch)

We fogged the air with our pipes and thoughts

“Umbrageous grots” and “snaky sorceress”

Became our private jokes in public places

 

But now

 

I pray that we will laugh again at “dismal universal hiss”

When someday all are freed from this silence cold

 

 

They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitary way.

 

-PL XII.648-649

 

Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny's - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny’s

 

for

 

William Tod Augustine Mixson

 

Saint Michael’s Orthodox Church, Beaumont

 

 “Memory Eternal”

 

A cup of coffee is a chalice in its way

It brings us all to a table of sharing

And consecrates old friendships with every sip

Blessing us at the end with an Ite of joy

 

But today there was an empty place

An empty cup, an empty plate, empty

Even the air was empty, empty and void

With a joke that wasn’t told today

 

Max found a Denny’s card among his things -

Tod treated us to breakfast once again

 

But not for the last time

 

He’ll tell us that joke at a more glorious feast

The Sea-Road to Constantinople

Mack Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com

The Sea-Road to Constantinople

For Tod on his Birthday

A coastal lugger wallows in the waves
Almost adrift in its poor steerageway
Slow-yawing northeast from the blue Aegean
Into the soft-murmuring Marmara.
Athens is in the past, and soon, ahead,
Constantinople’s walls will catch the dawn.
Our sticks, our packs, a space upon the deck
A book of verse, a cup, a spoon, a bowl,
Some prayers the priest was pleased to copy out
For us poor pilgrims who with weary feet
Were pleased to board a northbound boat at last
And rest through sunlit days with pipes alight
And words and prayers afloat among the sails,
Among the gulls that circle ‘round the mast.
All travelers pray for their hearts’ desires
To wait for them ashore at journey’s end;
For us, ours is to serve the Emperor -
A little further, there beyond the stars.