Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Where Do I Apply
to be Corrupted?
-U. K. Daily Mail
This rumor has irrupted
Life is interrupted
Outrage has erupted
But I want to
know
Where can I
go
To be corrupted?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Murder Most Cosy
A murder cannot possibly be cosy
With blood all over the vicarage floor
And while Miss Marple is politely nosy
There is still the problem of all that gore
A murder committed in an English village
Is hardly cosy to m’lord who died
Surrounded by hop fields under tillage
He still is dead (tho’ in the countryside)
A murder cannot possibly be cosy –
But is the widow finding life now rosy?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Learning to Comb
Your Hair
Do you remember
learning how to comb your hair?
Your mother had you look into the mirror
(What a handsome
young man!)
And watch as she made magic with a comb
First, she chased all your hair forward and down
Until your eyebrows laughed for the fun of it
And then she chose an imaginary line
And parted the strands for the rest of the day
Hooray!
Do you remember learning how to comb your hair?
(Now in your mother’s memory send up a prayer)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Our Vines Have
Tender Marsupials
In summer the ‘possums come seeking my garden
In grey winter they come seeking dog food
Tonight they cling high up in the bare vines
Hiding from the dachshunds snuffling below
All the animals’ eyes stare back at the flashlight
Unsure of their duties in the misty rain
Whether to climb, to move, to bark, to hiss
And so we all pause to ponder the mysteries
Fear, hunger, confusion, artificial light –
Pretty much metaphors for the covid time
(The title is a play on Our Vines Have Tender
Grapes, MGM, 1945)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“This Waiting Room of the World”
I’ve always found this a
trying time of the year. The leaves not yet out, mud everywhere you go.
Frosty mornings gone. Sunny mornings not yet come. Give me
blizzards and frozen pipes, but not this nothing time, not this waiting room of
the world.
-Jack
in Shadowlands
Slow raindrops are the pulse that marks the time
Which falls with them upon the browning leaves
Each one of them a railway station bench
In a darkened world where trains have ceased to run
The ticket window is closed the rest of the day
But someone says the local will run tomorrow
Maybe around two if the tracks are cleared
Of all the hopes that seem to block the line
But maybe not, for nothing seems to move
And the journeys of life are forbidden to us
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Salt and Mrs. Lot
We are told that Mrs. Lot
was turned into
A pillar of salt for
looking back to view
The flames of cursed Sodom
and Gomorrah
For looking to the past,
instead of tomorrow
Maybe
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Some Say This is the End of the Trump Era
Some say this is the end
of the Trump era
Some with glee
Some in mourning
Some say this is the
beginning of the Biden era
Some with glee
Some in mourning
But I say that this is your
era
As it always was
And always will be
And you realize that this
is your era
Sometimes with glee
Sometimes in mourning
You need no leader, no master,
no whip
Obey yourself
And lead yourself
You wear no one else’s
name
For you have yours
And you are free
You are not defined by an
era
Define yourself
And honor yourself
Make the picture of your
hero
A self-portrait
Sometimes with glee
Sometimes in mourning
But always you
Lawrence Hall
The Out-of-Season
White-Tailed Deer and Name-Brand Butter
In the last week of the (legal) season for hunting
white-tailed deer the folks at Texas
Parks & Wildlife were pleased to send me a thin, 12-page magazine on hunting
white-tailed deer.
The magazine contains a few mostly insubstantial articles,
not all of them signed, a review of shooter safety, a few photographs of
varying quality, and some recipes: is “Venison Loin with Salsify Puree’, Hen of
the Woods mushrooms, Swiss Chard and Candied Grapes” really a thing in Texas?
The recipe for “Venison Sourdough Toast” says that
Kerrygold butter is preferred but does not say why. Kerrygold butter is imported
from Ireland and has been the subject of several lawsuits and bans in some
American states (Kerrygold butter hit with lawsuit over grass-fed cow claims
| IrishCentral.com) and in Germany (Kerrygold maker rejects German magazine’s germ claim
(irishtimes.com). Whether or not the allegations are accurate, have
we no butter produced in Texas? The list of 13 ingredients specifies only one
brand, that of Kerrygold Butter, so naturally the reader is curious as to why.
A nice story about youth hunting written by a 10-year-old
shows a photograph of the lad in a standing position and holding a bolt-action
rife with both hands close together on the stock. The picture is out of frame
at the bolt, and so the reader does not know who or what is holding up the lethal
end of the rifle. Further, the young man is shown looking at the camera, not
attending to the business end of his rifle. This appears not to gee-haw with
the bit about hunter safety.
The last page is a review – or advertisement? – for a
novel about “a comic crime novel set in Blanco County.”
This leaflet on hunting and cooking white-tailed deer is
the sort of thing that might be kinda / sorta interesting while waiting for a
tire repair, but there appears to be no clear reason why it was ever edited,
published, and sent, nor why it appears after the end of white-tailed deer
season.
Like Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick’s hairpiece and his
original name, it is a mystery.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Sure Way to Be Banned from a Political Website
Is to ask a critic, by way
of correction:
If he voted in his last
school board election
A Sure Way to Be Banned from a Catholic Website
Is to ask a radtrad priest
just why he must
Promote his fantasies about
others’ lust
For the 20th of January
1961 and 2021
The deed of gift was many deeds of war
-Robert Frost
Miz Hawkins brought a television to school
So we could watch the inauguration
Of a president “born in this century”
But he seemed really old to us anyway
God looked like President Eisenhower
And God was surely a Methodist
President Kennedy was a Cath’lic
(In their basements they hid shortwaves and guns)
Shortwaves tuned to the Vatican and that ol’ Pope
So could a Cath’lic be a good American?
But the nation was young, and so were we
And America was God’s best creation
And because America was the Leader of the World
And we had whipped the Nazis and the Japs [sic]
All by ourselves, and invented the Bomb
We were the blessing of democracy over all
Robert Frost spoke grand words in the January frost
I was hoping for his “Stopping by Woods”
Because I had memorized that in school
But he gave us something else, “The Gift Outright”
And then with frosted breath the President
Asked us what we could do for our country
Our country later asked us about Viet-Nam
But for now Miz Hawkins shushed all us deeds of gift
The nation was young that day, and so were we –
And everything seems so much older now
Our long ago optimism a deed of gift
To angry old men whose voices rattle
Rattle from behind armored glass and barbed wire
Barbed wire left over from DaNang and Saigon
And a hundred abandoned desert posts
Each a gift outright to Ozymandias
Who late bestrode the littered Capitol steps
His wrinkled lips loud-yelping in command
Over our increasingly antique land
“Made it, Ma! Top of the World!”
The happy crowds of ’61 are sand
There are no crowds in ’21, only silence
Behind ranks of soldiers (properly vetted)
Standing in empty streets, waiting for a Traveller
References:
Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright”
Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Warner Brothers, White
Heat (film), 1949
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid
fears of insider attack”
-Associated Press
“…we need to put all of the mechanisms in place
to thoroughly vet these men and women…”
-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy
Men of Destiny always make
a mess
Of life, of death, of
shabby governance
And from the safety of
their bunkers
Polish their medals and send
in the young
“These men and women” – “these”
– he sneers the word
As if privates and corporals
try to block votes -
His predecessors, trusting
budgets, bullets, and bombs
Didn’t trust us one
bit in Viet-Nam
It is the Pentagon’s
original sin:
When they **** up they blame
the enlisted men
FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid
fears of insider attack (apnews.com)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Coffee Shop Darwinians
“We’ll set a fine, new, well-oiled machine in place of the old one and
this time we’ll put the Normans into it instead. That’s what justice
means, isn’t it?”
-Saxon Monk in Becket
No, of course it didn’t
have to happen
We’re not campus coffee shop
Darwinians
Determined that five
innocents needed to die
Within the gears of our
new, well-oiled machine
And that more should come,
chanting “O Machine!” 1
“Follow the Science!” and
“Learn. To. Code!”
As they sacrifice
themselves to a Tweeter-sanctioned
Infestation of Manifest
Destiny
And I’ve got a feeling, as
you might agree:
No one on either side quotes
Dostoyevsky
1 “The Machine Stops,” E. M. Forster
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Writer, the Reader, and the Synapse Between Them
Per V.B. & W.K.
From the writer to the
reader
From the speaker to the
listener
Like
a 16-year-old crossing a field at noon
A little word has a lot of ground to cover in the heat
A mile of open ground to a
wall and some trees
Where confusion does not
want it to arrive
From the speaker to the listener
If we send a little word across
a field
But stay behind ourselves
and only watch
To see what happens - how
responsible are we
If the word dies screaming
among the wheat
From the writer to the
reader
From the speaker to the
listener
Like a 16-year-old
crossing a field at noon
A little word has a lot of
ground to cover in the heat
16
January 2021
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
This Side of the Covid
The Covid still is
spinning me around
And flinging random
thoughts against the roof
The bat-cave roof of this cosmic
centrifuge
Whoops-a-go with a plastic
temperature
And here’s a finger for
the oxygen thing
With which to touch a
passing ice-cream dream
And clutch it to a forest
long sacrificed
For all the snot-paper I
needed last week
So if, dear friends, I fail
to make any sense
My words are piled in
drifts along the fence
I think.
Maybe.
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame
That darkness does the face of earth entomb
When living light should kiss it?
Macbeth II.iiii.9-11
On Inauguration Day there
should be:
Children waving sparklers,
avenues of light
High school bands and Boy
Scouts in formation
Merriment along streets
scrubbed clean and bright
A happy people in love
with their nation
But we are given:
Soldiers, concertina wire
strung between Corinthian columns, secret service, chain-link fencing, police, checkpoints,
soldiers, roadblocks, secret service, rooftop marksmen, police, missile
batteries, soldiers, no-go zones, secret service, lockdowns, police, lockouts, soldiers,
security gates, secret service, identification checks, police, radar, soldiers,
radios, secret service, body scans, police, x-rays, soldiers, sniffer dogs, secret
service, permits, police, passes, soldiers, patdowns, secret service, badges, police,
questions, soldiers
Fear
Why?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Soldiers Sleeping Beneath a Bust of Father Abraham
In the Capitol exhausted
soldiers sleep
Beneath a bust of Abraham
Lincoln
And a sign that reads:
“Cameras and related gear
Not authorized in this
area.”
After days of transports
and formations
Of stringing wire and
policing the area
Of orders and marches and
lines for the head
And maintenance of all weapons
and gear
They sprawl just any
whichaway on a floor
To be mocked with sneaky
MePhone photographs
“Is that all our overpaid
soldiers do? Sleep?”
And stepped around by
those whom they protect
Insolent civilians might
not give a damn
But our soldiers are blessed
by Father Abraham
(Based on a photograph published in Drudge)
Lawrence Hall
An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say
Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame
That darkness does the face of earth entomb
When living light should kiss it?
Macbeth II.iiii.9-11
On the 20th of
January in the capital of the United States there should be children waving
sparklers, avenues of light, marching bands and Boy Scouts in formation, merriment
along streets scrubbed clean and bright, hot dog stands, souvenir shops selling
shiny tat in red, white, and blue, and a good and happy citizenry in love with
their nation and practicing good will to each other.
But in the present unhappy
reality the capital on Inauguration Day will be a mottled scape of soldiers,
concertina wire strung between Corinthian columns, secret service, chain-link
fencing, police, checkpoints, soldiers, roadblocks, secret service, rooftop
marksmen, police, missile batteries, soldiers, no-go zones, secret service,
lockdowns, police, lockouts, soldiers, security gates, secret service,
identification checks, police, radar, soldiers, radios, secret service, body
scans, police, x-rays, soldiers, sniffer dogs, secret service, permits, police,
passes, soldiers, patdowns, secret service, badges, police, questions, soldiers,
suspicion, secret service, bollards, police, armored vehicles, soldiers, and
all the other menacing apparatus of a decayed state.
In our nation’s capital on
Inauguration Day the dominant emotion will not be national pride or joy or even
relief, but fear.
Fear.
Why?
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Understated Joys of Crows and Bedroom Slippers
The morning lawn is white
with frost and mist
And speckled black with a
claque of sneaky crows
Bullying the little birds
aside for the seeds
Before the squirrels are
up to contend for them
Into my Christmas slippers
I push my feet
Slowly so as not to
startle the birds
But they spy me through
the window and rustle off
In insolent protest
against all men
Because their feet are
cold and mine are hot
Since I have slippers, and
the crows have not!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Ever-Glorious
Presidential Medal of Freedom
With a Wal-Mart
Gift Card Attached
As a child I played miniature golf, you see
So is there a Medal of Freedom for me?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
“My Temple Stands
in Ephesus”
-Pericles V.i.241
“My temple stands in Ephesus,” the goddess says
I don’t believe in goddesses, of course,
And stern Saint Paul would up cut rough about them
But we could wish them so, temples and gods
We could board a ship with a seeing eye
A ship of wonderful cargoes safely stowed
And let there be “Lords, Knights, Gentlemen,
Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers”
To speed our stories and our very selves
To where a temple stands in Ephesus
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Snow Clouds for Children
on a January Dawn
There could be snow later, and that would be nice
Children can grow up here and never see snow
Today they might go out and play in it
While we old folks tut-tut, “You’ll catch your death…”
But they are asleep, the snow is asleep
Only the rain is awake, drip, drip, drip
Making last summer’s leaves speak one last time
As they crumble into their winter sleep
There could be snow later, and that would be nice
For the children: a happy new year twice
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Antihistamine
Dreams
My night-time sneezing, cold, and ‘flu medicine -
It flew me back to Viet-Nam last night
Not on a battlefield or Ye Olde Veterans’ tour
But with a mixed group younger than any war
From a tour bus I pointed out scenes of my youth
To people who wisely were not interested
Who with their Leicas took pictures of fields
And the languid flow of the Vam Co Tay
And there were no hard feelings anywhere
Until someone shot me from a window
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
You are the Daily Good
– Thank You
What good shall I do this day?
-Benjamin Franklin
So much good is being accomplished today:
Women and men going about their daily work
Food pantry volunteers stocking the shelves
Retirees prepping meals for everyone else
So much good is being accomplished today:
Little children study (and clean their plates)
A teen shops for his MeeMaw so she’ll be safe
A neighbor gives comfort to her grieving friend
So much good is being accomplished today:
And you and I are going to be a part of that
Lawrence Hall
Light, Love, Song,
Feast, and Dance
Someone wrote that if you were a mile away from the
Battle of Hastings (October 1066), you not only couldn’t hear any of it but unless
you were in direct line of sight you wouldn’t know it was happening.
Similarly, a current attempt (so far unsuccessful) to overthrow
our freely-elected government also probably could not be heard a mile away, with
the flash-bangs and occasional gunfire subsumed within the noise of traffic and
commerce.
Within a mile of the Capitol are thousands of businesses
and homes connected by busy streets and highways. A man or woman coming off
shift and burrowing within his or her own peaceful thoughts while enjoying a
book or podcast over a light supper might well do so without hearing or even hearing
of the crude grasp for illegitimate power by a physical and moral coward urging
his followers into dubious tumult from the safety of a glowing screen in his
bunker.
And that is because life goes on. In his A Preface to
Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis writes,
In
the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he [Satan]
could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.
And it is the joys of light, love, song, feast, and dance
that are important. An omelette and a cup of coffee might be feast enough for
someone who is going on shift or off shift, and a book to discuss with a friend
later is a feast of the intellect, a dance of the Poirot-ish Little Grey Cells,
a celebration of light, while the nimble waiter’s excursions among the booths
and table are a dance indeed.
Any man, even a president, who withdraws into an unnatural
obsession with his feelings and moods, hugging to himself all the satanic
resentments that poison his mind and heart, is leading himself into a
nothingness. He would resent the idea that no one would mourn his passing, but
more than that he would be shocked that he would not be missed at all, no more
than anyone would miss an earache or an abscessed tooth.
Those who live in light, love, song, feast, and dance celebrate
civilization, and want to share the joy, not grasp it selfishly. If the good among
us cannot hear the self-wounding bellowings of those who have broken faith, it is
because they hear the stronger, and more joyful voice of truth.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Storm Heaven, if
You Will
In
the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could
find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.
-C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost
Storm Heaven with your selfless prayers, if you will
But not your fellow man with fists and flags
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
All the President’s
Mob
Sedition batters past the capitol police -
As Congress, sweet harmless Merovingians,
Arming from a thesaurus of pomposity
Meet the attempted coup with lofty words
While hidden far away, lurking unseen
Our Leader screams into his telescreen
Moving his dementia along the Potomac:
Glorifying himself in the highest
Our government, cowering on the floor
Maintains that it will not be intimidated
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Drive-Through Covid
Testing and Bladder Control
Just waiting in a car-queue, something new
Every hour up a hundred yards or so
Readings on the MePhone, a book or two
And good ol’ Morning Al on the radio
Clutch, go, brake, clutch, inches at a time, wait
News on the up hour, and news on the down
Scan the QR code, number, name, and date
For the nice lady in a mask and gown
Hold your head forward, now strike a pose
Then up my nose the little swabbie-thing goes…
(And that’s all. Boring, eh?)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Asymptomatic Sinner
I burned a television set
today
Which was a rewarding
experience
A bonfire of the vanities
indeed
Burn, you 140 channels,
burn!
I am in quarantine,
‘though symptom-free
And there was an old
television around
And so I burned it. And
I’m glad, ha-ha!
Tomorrow I will rake the
ashes for its guts
While in quarantine,
waiting for my test -
A burning television is a
merry jest!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Merely to see the magic is
not enough
The children do not merely
see Aslan
Nor does Uncle Andrew
merely see the witch
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Merely to see the Truth is
not enough
The Magi do not merely see
the Star
Nor do the shepherds
merely see the Child
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Or else the magic isn’t
truly told
Behold!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Seraphim of Sarov
And the Bear
And the Robbers
Saint Seraphim was seen
feeding a bear
He would have fed the
robbers too, poor men
With both the little in
his larder bowl
And healing from the
greatness of his soul
With his own axe they beat
him near to death
Before looting his cell of
its rumored riches
They found indeed a
treasure of great wealth:
A peasant’s Ikon of the
Mother of God
For the rest of his life
Seraphim leaned upon his
axe and upon God
Taking our brokenness upon
himself
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Useful Things
Aboard a Delivery Truck on New Year’s Day
A new clothes-dryer for our little house
“MADE IN AMERICA” – but is it really?
By hand to the hydraulic lift, and down
And by dolly trolley into the laundry
It made its journey with someone’s new washer
A refrigerator, and a cast-iron cooker
Useful things delivered by working men
Wrestling trucks and freight for the common good
When their day’s work is done I hope that they
Can relax
(around a cooker, with a cold one in hand)
and say, “This was a good day.”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Happy Roman New
Year - Join me for a Cuppa!
“I went, and I am still going.”
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“Zima Junction”
The dogs and I are out on our morning patrol
Greeting the new day, new month, and new year
Greeting the sun as he sings through woods
His song of Creation, Creation-fresh
I have fed the animals, lit the fire
Made coffee to enjoy at my old desk
With Edmondson, Wells, and their pal Shakespeare
And John Senior with his awfully thinky words
Fresh coffee, fresh words for me and for you –
Join me, won’t you, for a merry cup of brew!
I have no connection with
the authors or publishers:
Edmondson, Paul and Wells.
All the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2020
Senior, John. Pale
Horse, Easy Rider. Lawrence, Kansas, Shakespeherian Rag Press, 1992
