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

Muster

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Muster

There is no American Legion hall
It was sold long ago to pay the bills
A few old men gather in borrowed rooms
To pledge allegiance to a nation that
Has never pledged her allegiance to them
But still they offer their service and faith
To a wonderfully indifferent nation
And to its equally indifferent God
They muster again on the trail because
There is no American Legion hall