Saturday, May 20, 2017

Children at the Harvest - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Children at the Harvest

A little girl with basket held in hand
Can choose and pick a bouquet in the spring
And play in peace on the warming-sun land
With flower-colors to sort and songs to sing

A little older and the strong girl now
Helps with the harvest in September’s haze
And through hard work with tractor, rake, and plow
She grows through honest work and well-earned praise

Unless –

Before a screen a girl decays, beguiled,
For now the screen is the machine that harvests

                                                                               the child

Friday, May 19, 2017

The Buddhas of Bamiyon - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Buddhas of Bamiyon

What secular new gods will be carved out
Of cultures and of stone, and heaved up to
The pedestals of corrasable truth
To be adored or else ignored in turn?

Make velcro now the test of reality
And transience transcendence in pale mists
As Plato’s shadows flickering in the cave
Denied in turn by fresh eternal truths

And in a century, when new gods frown
What creakery old gods will be thrown down?

Thursday, May 18, 2017

URGENT! SOFTWARE SECURITY UPDATE AND LATEST PATCHES WITH THE U.K. / U.S.A. INTERFACE FOR REPAIRING THE PENGUIN CLASSICS PAPERBACK EDITION OF DON QUIXOTE

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Urgent! Software Security Update and
Latest Patches with the U.K. / U.S.A. Interface for Repairing the
Penguin Classics Paperback Edition of
Don Quixote



Scotch
Tape

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Most Boring American Legion Meeting Ever - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Most Boring American Legion Meeting Ever

A Monologue in Two Parts

I.

Voice:

“Ya wanna talk prostrate1 cancer? I’ll tell ya
About prostrate cancer those PSAs
Don’t mean nothing and those doctors don’t know
Nothin’ I’ve had 15 on my PSA

“Ever since when and I ain’t got prostrate cancer
But this feller I knew he had a one on his
PSA and he had stage five cancer
And he died, so don’t tell me nothin’ about

“Prostrate cancer ‘cause I go the meetings
And so I know, I tell ya, yessir, I do…”


1Prostate, of course

II.

Same Voice:

“Say, did y’all have any good buffets in Iraq
Or that other place Afghanistan
The buffets in Manila were expensive,
I tell ya, expensive, they cost forty dollars,

“Yessir, they did, and that was right down the street
From the embassy and that was too much
Just too much for what ya got, I tell ya
And they gave us ‘phone cards and they were made

“Right there and sixty minutes disappeared
Off it right when you dialed the number, yessir…”

L’Envoi

A Second Voice (in pain, weak, much like the voice of the Bleeding Sergeant in Macbeth):

“I move we adjourn.”

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Withdrawal Symptoms - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

[again violating my rule never to write in the first person]

Withdrawal Symptoms

So I’m not going to change the world after all
That’s okay; it was doing fine without me
The moon arose last night without my supervision
This morning the sun was up before I was

And, true, there are bad men and women about
But I didn’t do so very well myself
It’s better that I didn’t change many things
And better had I worked on changing myself

Age is aware of its own absurdity
And wisely it withdraws from messing things up

     A cup of coffee now would be so nice

Monday, May 15, 2017

All Settings on Auto-Destruct - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

All Settings on Auto-Destruct

“a man enthroned as if it were a committee”
-Yevtushenko, from “Zima Junction”

Senator Pelosi has her head blessed
By the loving hands of The Dalai Lama
And Comey’s looking for a brand-new gig
Maybe as Cassandra’s Mrs. Blossom

J. Edgar’s iron men are said to be in tears
Special investigators rub their tentacles
In delicious anticipation of
A feast of scandals and expense accounts

     “Well, doctor, what have we got?”
     “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Cats and the Office of Prime - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Cats and the Office of Prime

With the dignity of an abbess the cat
Enthrones herself upon the morning fence
To welcome with due solemn liturgies
The daily rising of the given sun

Her slow lavabo accomplished, she turns
Offering the peace of Cat to the assembly:
The lesser cats, the even lesser dogs
The night-chilled lawn, the dewy leaves, the light

She blinks her blessings there upon the day

     And all is complete

When happy children then come out to play

Saturday, May 13, 2017

You're Not Really Country - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

You’re Not Really Country

You’re not country if you have trash pickup
And running water, electricity
Flush toilets, a satellite on the roof
And thirty channels of John Wayne TV

You’re not country if you have carpeting
A pickup truck that runs or a Volkswagen
That doesn’t, more books than hunting rifles
And a toilet-paper personal preference

You’re not really country if you have these things –
Be sure to give God thanks for that, y’hear?

Friday, May 12, 2017

Neither a Menshevik nor a Bolshevik Be - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Neither a Menshevik nor a Bolshevik Be

                                                            What is’t you do?
                                                                                                  A deed without a name.


-Macbeth IV.1.48-49

This is not a matter of recusancy
To wish a blessing on your houses both
That in the Grace of God you amend yourselves -
But go away and do it somewhere else

And take with you your posings and your twootings
Your alligator shoes, expense accounts
Your plastic soldiers all saluting you
And your designer plots of great import

And leave good folk alone to their good work
With sweat-stained hands in clean domestic peace

Thursday, May 11, 2017

"Withdrawn from Salem Public Library" - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

“Withdrawn from Salem Public Library”

“Salem Public Library, East Main Street,
Salem, VA 24153”
A happy book, thought-stained, and often-read
An anthology of Russian poetry

Salem, Virginia must be a marvelous town
A library stocked with poetry, and stocked
With poetry readers who have turned again
And again to favorite pages here and there

Long-ago poets murdered by the Soviets
But finding love at last in Salem, Virginia

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Adventures with an Olivetti - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Adventures with an Olivetti

(In which the scrivener violates his rule never to write in the first-person)

My bed was a Sears & Roebuck sleeping bag
And my world headquarters that old MG;
An Olivetti portable processed
My words, my fresh young words, that no one read

I owned more books than clothes, and only those few
That could be stowed in the passenger seat;
I fancied myself the new Rod McKuen
And I wasn’t - but I remember the road

When the world was new, adventures every day
And I miss that - but mattresses are nice

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Where do I Apply to be Corrupted? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

True Faith and Allegiance

A retired admiral peddles insurance to
“My fellow veterans,” still ripping off
The enlisted with bogus bonhomie
About how they all were merry shipmates

Retired generals ooze into something new
Suits for the business of dealing in souls
Souls bought and sold internationally
Where careless talk could cost discreet kickbacks

The surviving enlisted, wounded and sick,
Are doled out vouchers for a bus ride home

Monday, May 8, 2017

The Flying Squadron of Church Ladies - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Flying Squadron of Church Ladies

At First Communion the Flying Squadron
of Church Ladies surround the children to:
Reprove, reproach, command, censor, chastise,
Berate, exhort, implore, upbraid, adjust

Chastise, upbraid, embarrass, harangue, rebuke,
Enjoin, dictate, direct, require, apprise,
Advise, inform, beseech, explain, uphold,
Impart, compel, remind, forewarn, correct:

Because since Peter’s time, all this is what
The Flying Squadrons of Church Ladies do

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Western Civilization Will Collapse if You Don't Buy Someone's Book About the Collapse of Western Civilization - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Western Civilization Will Collapse if You Don't Buy Someone's Book
About the Collapse of Western Civilization

There was a review in The University Bookman

Western civilization is in a state
Of imminent collapse, which someone says
In a review of a book which I ought
To buy if I love Jesus and the West

And somehow all this is my fault because
I haven’t finished The City of God -
Oh, Kirk-Centered sir, I really do love
The Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but

I’m not going to buy your book
Because your attitude is in a state

Saturday, May 6, 2017

Thirteen Reasons Why Not - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Thirteen Reasons Why Not

We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
But what we put into it is ours.
-Dag Hammarskjold

1. God made you; you can never be replaced
2. God made you for some purpose – live to find it
3. Someone is blessed in knowing you each day
4. You must live so that others may live
5. Someone desperately needs your kindness right now
6. You haven’t yet written your book, your story, your song
7. When you offer up your suffering, you help others
8. Children running barefoot through the flowers of spring
9. Children running barefoot through the leaves of autumn
10. Dachshund puppies. And leaves. And flowers. And children
11. Coffee and a talk with a good friend
12. Breakfast and the Sunday morning funnies
13. That empty pew God has saved just for you

Friday, May 5, 2017

Approach the Pierian Spring Carefully - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Approach the Pierian Spring Carefully

From an idea suggested by
Rev. Raphael Barousse, OSB

I would that I could taste the Pierian Spring
But he who drinks unworthily the sacred
Will lose even the little that he has
And wither into mummification

One’s poor attempts at innocent, ill-formed verse
May be forgiven because of their innocence
But a little learning, as the man1 once said,
Means duty, and might not be forgiven

If used intemperately or harshly; still -
I would that I could taste the Pierian Spring

1Alexander Pope

Thursday, May 4, 2017

But What About the Dog? - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

But What About the Dog?

Bedtime is a poem written with love:
You change into your jammies at 8 o’clock
You wash your hands and face, you brush your teeth
You kneel beside your bed and say your prayers

And then the dog leaps up onto your pillow
And then your mother says the dog can’t stay
And then you plead, and doggie looks so sad
And then your mother sighs and says, “All right,

“But only for tonight,” then kisses you

(but not the dog)

Childhood is a poem written with love

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Trapped in the Coffee Shop of Lingering Death - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Trapped in the Coffee Shop of Lingering Death

He knows everything about every war
Because although he never went to one
He had good friends who did, and they told him
All about it, and about Patton, so there

He knows all about Jesus, and, like, stuff
The Templar tunnels beneath the Pentagon
The Seal of Solomon lost on Oak Island
And Mexico’s lost Tribe of Israel, so there

Which can lead the unsaved to tell a lie:
“Oh, gosh, I have to rush, I forgot about…”

So there.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

For Rod McKuen - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

[From 2015]

For Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died

Monday, May 1, 2017

The Washington Post Asphyxiates Itself - poem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Washington Post Asphyxiates Itself

“Democracy Dies in Darkness,” you say –
But your arguments die under your popups, okay?