"And Still to Their Goal the Rivers Go" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“And Still to Their Goal the Rivers Go”

-Ecclesiastes 1:2-11

That which is said to come already is
And was, and so will be again – the sun
Will rise tomorrow, perhaps not upon me
But still the sun will rise again tomorrow

And warm the waters in a little stream
That laughing play with fallen autumn leaves
And all of them swim past a rotting pier
Where little boys with their cane poles once fished

The river currents flow, and so do we
To find our sunlit dreams upon that sea

"Houston Mayor Reveals Plan to Block Robot Sex Shop" - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

“Houston Mayor Reveals Plan to Block Robot Sex Shop”

-Houston Chronicle, 10.1.2018

A robot wandered the mean streets alone
While lighting up and smoking his last transistor
Remembering an IBM long gone
“Buy me a WD-40, mister?”

A floozy thermostat took him to Radio Shack
And talked about some Texas Instruments she knew
A Compaq sent them to a room out back -
“Do ya wanna undo my phillips screw?”

He paid the thermostat some gigabytes

And then…

He was mugged by a relay who put out his lights

A Cold Front in October, Complete with a Merry Little Dachshund - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Cold Front in October, Complete with a Merry Little Dachshund

A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-blown across the still-green summer grass
As autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when next
Diana dances ‘cross November’s skies.

A Devout Sunday Morning Meditation Invoking a Firing Squad - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Devout Sunday Morning Meditation Invoking a Firing Squad

“I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.”

-Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons

And yet how schadenfreude to imagine
The purported Melvin from Mumbai
Tipping the executioner for good service
(To Melvin a concept previously unknown):

     “Be not I understand afraid of your office I need your
     major credit card and your date of birth you but send
     me I understand to that Limited Offer 30G in the Sky
     I understand.”

Or the executives of ISPs
Their eyes blindfolded with their own insolence
Standing before a new Customer Care Team
Drawn from a list of eager volunteers

Now look upon each techno-high-flyer

And

“Customer Care Team – Ready! Aim! Fire!”

And the Senator's Boy is a Harvard Man - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

And the Senator’s Boy is a Harvard Man

A corporal on his embarkation leave
Encounters a girl: “Tell me, what’s your name?”
She smiles and replies on that summer eve
“Tell me no lies and I’ll tell you the same.”

The congressman’s son is on the rowing team

They stroll along a San Diego pier
Where the old museum ships lie in repose
She has a coffee; he orders a beer
From a vendor he buys her a pretty rose

The President’s son is a UPenn man

They flirt over an order of burgers and fries
A soldier-boy so handsome and so young -
The women of the plains will gouge out his eyes
The lads from the hills will cut out his tongue

And the senator’s boy is a Harvard man

The Future of Texas is in Prison - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Future of Texas is in Prison

A class for correctional officers

at the local community college

Thirty-six-thousand a year to begin
No education or experience required
The recruiting posters are pretty, though:
Handsome young people uniformed in grey

But the poor sergeant can’t control his class
His students have their cell ‘phones and their ‘tudes -
“Tell Momma to pick me up like I said!” –
Slouched in their seats or wandering the halls

While dozing over her own telescreen
A fat corporal yawns by the soda machine

The Coming Blue Wave - or is it a Red Wave? - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Coming Blue Wave - or is it a Red Wave?

I can’t remember my color, can you?
One side is the bad side; the other is good -
Am I a red, or am I then a blue?
What’s the true color for my neighborhood?

It’s all confusing for this old fellow
They tell me I’m white, but I’m somewhat pink
(When I had the jaundice I was rather yellow)
What color is good – oh, what do you think?

Identification with color – says who?
I think I’ll just stick with the red, white, and blue

John Bolton Rattles his Moustache of War - Doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

John Bolton Rattles his Moustache of War

The National Security Advisor
In all his frumpery and trumpery
Waves his combat moustache menacingly
Backed up by each nuclear incisor

He threatens Iran with his “hell to pay”
Word missiles through his bristles - “We will come after you!”
Omitting to say (through his facial hairdo)
His child won’t go, but only yours – hooray!

For his own combat record is no joke:
He bravely fought the Cong around Fort Polk

The Teletype Machine in CASABLANCA - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Teletype Machine in Casablanca

To all officers: 504 ERROR
Two German couriers DIAGNOSED WITH AFIB
THIS HAND LOTION IS carrying official documents
murdered on train from LIKE US FOLLOW US

Screen freeze: restart

Oran. AN ERROR OCCURRED IN THE SCRIPT
Murderer ELIMINATES LAUNDRY ODORS
and possible JAW DROPPING accomplices
headed for NOT RESPONDING Casablanca.

Screen freeze: restart

WE’VE GOT AN UPGRADE FOR YOU round up all
suspicious characters TRY IT YOURSELF

Screen freeze: restart



Thanks to:
https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=casablanca
for access to the script of Casablanca.

Our Lady of Walsingham - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Our Lady of Walsingham

O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!
Queen of our hearts and hopes, and of the May
Sweet Empress over forest, down, and dene,
And happy Sunrise over the pilgrim’s way

O let us crown Our Queen with leaf and flower
Gathered this morning in the dawnlit dew
For we in this Island are Her true dower
Pledging our faith with thorn and rose and yew

She gives us Her feast day, cool and quiet and green -
O how beautiful is Our Lady Queen!

#TheNewSwastika# - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

#TheNewSwastika#

#iobey #meweak #isubmit #mefollow
#idon’tthink #pleasedon’tdisapproveofme
#itoo #allin #mecomrade #iobedient
#idesperate # mecabbage #Ilabelled

#ilicensedmerchandise #meclothingtag
#willyoubemyfriend? #mehatewhatyouhate
#idoasiamtold #mehavenocharacter
#ichantanddanceandwave#mesacrifice

           They’ll hate you, you know, if you walk away,
           Think for yourself, and refuse to obey

Harvest Time in the Fens: Saint Michael's Church, Chesterton

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Harvest Time in the Fens

St. Michael’s Church, Chesterton

A calendar knows little of a day,
Of any day; its arbitrary squares
Mark seasons as they amble on their way
From holy Advent ‘til the harvest fairs,

When summer’s crops, all red and gold and blue,
Along with piglets, ducks, some well-fed hens,
Are carted squeaking, squealing, creaking to
Saint Michael’s fields in the Anglian fens.

Old Father William lifts a pint (no less!)
With farmers selling cows and chicks and corn,
For he is merry too, and quick to bless
The laboring marsh-folk on this autumn morn.

Earth, sky, and air mark seasons as they fall,
And soon comes Martinmas, joyfully, for all.


Chesterton, in ancient Huntingdonshire (only those who know not God claim that Hunts is but a division of Cambridgeshire), is the home of my de Beauville / Beauville / Beville / Bevil ancestors.

St. Michael’s Church was built ca. 1295 and contains several memorials to the Bevilles and the tomb of William Beville, +1487. I do not know if there was ever any bit of land designated as “Saint Michael’s Fields”; I wrote that in for the sake of an autumn fair.

Dispatches from the Colonial Office - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches from the Colonial Office

Sometimes they are all Up the Down Staircase:
Please use the computer we never gave you
Respond to the directive we never sent
And send again the grades you sent last month

You have thirty students in your night class
The adjunct next to you has only six
Well, no, you don’t get any more pay than him
           I mean “than he”
We’re miffed that you even asked about that

Your roof is leaking only because it’s raining
And you’re overdue on your pervert training

20 September 1870 - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

20 September 1870

Like vultures hovering over the faithful dead
The rank red rags of base repression hung
Upon the blast-breeched walls of captive Rome;
The smoke of conquest fouled the ancient streets
While mocking conquerors marched their betters
At the point of enlightened bayonets
To the scientific future, murdering those
Who bore themselves with quiet dignity

False, sinister Savoy sneered in disdain
At ancient truths, this costumed reprobate
Who played at soldier once the firing ceased,
And claimed Saint Peter’s patrimony on
The corpses of the merely useful who
With this day’s slogans fresh upon their lips
At dawn advanced upon the remnant walls
So thinly held by so the last faithful few

And thus befeathered fat Vittorio
Was given his victory by better men
On both sides there, their corpses looted by
The pallid inheritors of Progress
The son of a Sardinian spurred his horse
Along the streets of now obedient Rome
And to the Quirinal by a passage broad
And finally to the Ardeatine Caves

A Venus Flytrap Justifies its Diet of Flesh - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

A Venus Flytrap Justifies its Diet of Flesh

I mean, like, veg, you couldn’t expect me to eat
A fellow vegetable, a kindred soul
One in spirit with me, with woody cells
Made in the image of the Great Carrot

The animals don’t feel pain like we do
They have no sense of being, they have no soul
And humans need to be farm-raised in pens
And really, veg, they’re happier that way

I’m studied in all such matters agrarian
And, yum! I love me a tasty vegetarian!

I Lost a Major Credit Card, Apparently in Mumbai - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

I Lost a Major Credit Card, Apparently in Mumbai

For security and training purposes
this call may be monitored to access
your account by card number press 1
to access your account by social press 2
to access your balance press 1 to report
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
when was your last transaction on this card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
what is the number on the back of your card
a lost or stolen card press 2 beep beep
buzz buzz this is tiffany how may I
help you today I understand what is
the number on the back of the card I
understand what is your social what is
your bank what is your date of birth you’re not
at home I understand what is your home
number for verification where can
we send emergency cash oh you don’t
need emergency cash but you are not
at home I understand what is your date
of birth what is your social is this your
current address what is your bank press 2
you should receive your new card in seven
to ten days how can I help you further today?

Well, I could do with a new brain, ha, ha

But Tiffany from Mumbai does not laugh

Life is an Unreliable Narrator - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Life is an Unreliable Narrator

The typewriter misses one of its keys
Every word is an orphan, and the lines
Wither away in an unfurnished room
Above a garage infested with ghosts

     Life is an unreliable narrator

The phone that isn’t connected doesn’t ring
While past-due notices fight among themselves
And on the hot plate macaroni boils
Sometimes you can see islands in the steam

      Life is an unreliable narrator

You’ve got a gift; that’s what everyone said

But

Your worn-thin sleeping bag is still your bed

     Life is an unreliable narrator

Everybody Comes to Rick's Pancake House Franchise - doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Everybody Comes to Rick’s Pancake House Franchise

Changing the channels in the middle of the night
Mixing old plots into a new program
Ugatti sells tickets to an illegal fight
Another quarter for the juke box, Sam

Patrick McGoohan strides angrily into Rick’s
But finds that he has lost his credit card
Vultures, vultures everywhere, Number Six
Ilsa falls for Major Strasser quite hard

Rick’s Place is purchased by Raymond Massey
And Leonard Cohen in his famous blue coat
Emails of transit from Kate Beckinsale, so classy -
‘Tis she who leaves poor Rick that rain-stained note

And Captain Reynaud?

He ends his days pushing each shopping cart
In from the parking lot down at Wal-Mart

"A Cave of Young Earth Dragons" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

The Poetry of John Keats is not Safe

You may find there “a cave of young earth dragons”
Or with a “sea-born goddess” fall in love
You might not escape “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Or finish reading all your “high-piled books”

Yet “tender is the night” when sings the nightingale
And you are shown that all “Beauty is truth”
Through your soul, “The wanderer by moonlight”
And there “like pious incense” the hours pass

Though in that “season of mists” one’s life must end
“Go not to Lethe,” but sail on with the wind

1 “Ben Nevis”
2 “Endymion”
3 “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
4 “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be”
5 “Ode to a Nightingale”
6 “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
7 “I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill”
8 “The Eve of Saint Agnes”
9 “To Autumn”
10 “Ode on Melancholy”

Crises Both Foreign and Domestic Reduced to Dogs and Cats - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

Crises Both Foreign and Domestic Reduced to Dogs and Cats

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

         But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

         But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

         But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

And the cats are quite happy about that