Doorbell Spy Cameras of Omnipresent Spookery - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Doorbell Spy Cameras of Omnipresent Spookery

“Be seeing you.”

-Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner

Electric eyes and subtle microphones
Click and glow in anticipation of crimes
Against the sanctity of packages and porch
By trespassers (sometimes my dearest friends)

Beyond the nightly possums, Bob the Cat
Deedra’s little Tuxedo, squirrels, and raccoons
We humans mostly see and hear each other
So I must learn to mind what I do and say

We need no baleful elves upon bookshelves -
We pay a fee to spy upon ourselves!

But the Magi Did Arrive - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

But the Magi Did Arrive

We can’t be sure when the Magi arrived
Or where
                       But if they hadn’t arrived at all
They still would have arrived because they began
Even if their bones in the desert disappeared

We can’t be sure of the meanings in their gifts
Or why
                       But if they had been stolen
The gifts would still have been given anyway
Because the Magi gave themselves to Him

We can’t be sure of most things, only of the journey
And the journey always leads to where He is

Feast of the Epiphany (which is not about Epiphany) - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
From 2006:

Feast of the Epiphany

Grey days recede into dreary, drizzling dusks
Baptismal rains across the windows slip
And even the candlelight is not proof
Against the gathering gloom of heartfall

Shakespeare leans uncertainly on the shelf
And agonizes over his writer’s block
Milton is writing yet another tract
On faith while smoking Players cigarettes

Warnie and Jack are out for a brisk walk
And Tollers is busy correcting proofs
Under a yellow puddle of lamplight
Bleak Spenser in his grief Kilcolman weeps

We all hold castles abandoned and burnt
Friendships grown mouldy, squabbles unresolved
Walks not taken, rough drafts uncorrected
Pipes gone quite out, cups of tea gotten cold

Has it been that long since I saw you last?
Come in; I’ll put the kettle on for tea
Just leave your coat and brolly by the door
Come sit by the fire; come, and talk with me

Old Men Rattling Their Made-in-China Forks of War - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Old Men Rattling Their Made-in-China Forks of War

For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides…

While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and the dying.

-Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, p. 11

The old men rattle their made-in-China forks
And, yes, their dentures too, gumming stern death
Upon the breakfast special with war-like barks
Killing sausage and treason with their coffee-breath

Their stereotypes fly like missiles in the mist
By-Gods and f-bombs and quotes from Patton
Blasting targets that don’t even exist
Imaginary machine guns rat-a-tat-tattin’

“All these here snowflakes, they oughta go!”
The waitress asks, “Another cuppa joe?”

A Box of Tissues in the Top, Right-Hand Desk Drawer - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Box of Tissues in the Top, Right-Hand Desk Drawer

Every good teacher keeps a box of tissues in reach
(The bad ones don’t)
For adolescents racketed in tears
For adolescence bracketed by fears

One must not, dare not hug a hurting child
(Oh, fashionable fear!)
But a tissue is safe, and gentle words
And after school a tissue-silent prayer

Every good teacher keeps a box of tissues in reach
And kindness too

Celebrating Talmud - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Celebrating Talmud

How could it be otherwise?
For even as the Temple burned
Our teachers gathered
     Their thoughts
     Their notes
     And us
And made the Mishna and the Gemera
Our Temple in exile

No Dead Bodies on the Lawn, Please - a poem for the new year

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

No Dead Bodies on the Lawn, Please

There are no dead bodies on the lawn at dawn
So the new year is beginning well enough
No worse than last year at least, when each day
Featured on the calendar of disappointments

There are no dead hopes on the lawn at dawn
The air is cool, the overcast is low
Early-morning silence promises peace
And squirrels are frisking in the front-yard oaks

There are no dead dreams on the lawn at dawn
But both the day and the year are new – just wait

Smoking a Ziggurat on New Year's Even - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Smoking a Ziggurat on New Year’s Eve

Young men are attacking an embassy
Advancing with their cell ‘phones and their bodies
Against the American ziggurat
Spiraling pointlessly into the sky

Its Babel-gridded steel and plastic towers
Babbling babble out into the world
Of Keyboard Kommandos on little screens
Rattling loudly their geriatric tweets

Our fearless president knows about war
For he has been watching Patton again

Early Hours are Best - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Early Hours are Best

The early hours are best

For waking up before the sun has risen
For kindling a fire against the morning frost
For making coffee to celebrate the light
For stretching out a yawn in happiness

The early hours are best

For greeting the ikons next to the stove
For watching sunbeams slip across the floor
For coaxing colors into dressing for the day
For chancing fresh new possibilities

The early hours are best

For thinking and remembering this truth:
That every morning is Eden again

Is the Catholic Church Dead? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Is the Catholic Church Dead?

Did you see the beautiful young people singing before
The smoking wreckage of Notre Dame? They live

They are more powerful in their quiet singing

than the shrieking Antis
than the bellowing Communists
than the scribbling Jack Chicks
than the posturing Napoleons
than the strutting Hitlers

The young people live
Song by song and stone by stone they rebuild Notre Dame

They have lived
They live
They will live

The Great California Earthquake of Seismic Doom - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall
mhall4614@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Great California Earthquake of Seismic Doom

Some are fearful that California will sink
Into the Pacific, into the drink
It’s a matter of time; they’re on the brink!

Ignoring the obvious reality
California will be high and dry, you see -
‘Tis the rest of us who will slide into the sea!

"Dropping Students During Jenzabar Conversion" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

“Dropping Students During Jenzabar Conversion”

A memorandum like a corpse bobs up
A memorandum from a year ago
The final term when I was keepin’ school
In a little college before it closed

I never asked what a Jenzabar was
Nor yet to what it might convert, or if
It is something to which someone converts
(I was raised a Methodist, after all)

But that last term I dropped the syllabus
And gave the young the 18th century

Mrs. Willane Wright's First-Grade Class - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Mrs. Willane Wright’s First-Grade Class

When we started Little Lost Bobo
I couldn’t read
And when we finished
I could

I don’t know how it happened
No one knows how reading happens
It’s magic
And there is magic everywhere

A Brief and Unhappy Review of the IPhone 7-Plus - review

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

A Brief and Unhappy Review of the IPhone 7-Plus

 

 

 It is clunky, with features made more difficult (aka "progress")

1. My email contacts won't move over, tho' The Machine (O Machine!) says they have.

2. The home button is not a button but rather a balky, function-resistant touch screen. Double-clicking to minimize a screen for sliding away requires repeated efforts (I know, first-world problems).  When trying to slide away a screen it often doesn't slide away at all, but becomes a half-screen to no apparent purpose.

3. It's so much bigger than my old 5C, which fit comfortably in my pocket. The iPhone 7-Plus is the slab from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

4. I ordered a leather case for it; for now, I am reluctant even to carry it around the house for fear of dropping it because it is heavy, thin, and GREASY-SLICK.

5. There is no ear-phone port; one must buy the very expensive and easy-to-lose Apple buds. This is not important for me because I don't listen to music or books, but for those who do and who travel or spend time in public places, this is pretty much a matter of Apple being greedy.

6. I haven't tried the camera yet; I am told I will be very happy with it, esp. the portrait mode, which flattens the focal plane.

Hitchhikers May be Escaped Prisoners - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Hitchhikers May be Escaped Prisoners

-road sign

Well, yeah, that’s pretty much true of most of us
Who are adrift, looking for something else
Far from the shiny coils of razor thoughts
That lacerate our souls instead of flesh

Escaping is a risky endeavor, though
We might be caught, imprisonment made worse
But worse than being captured and returned
We might succeed

If we knew what lay beyond those sunset hills
We might not go

+Sue Lyon - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

+Sue Lyon

We are of an age
But when she was rockin’ a proto-bikini
I was still playing with electric trains
It wouldn’t have worked

The Apostrophe Apocalypse - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Apostrophe Apocalypse

sure we dont need no old punctuation
Its antiquated and masculinist
And oppressive like library late fees
Maybe well rid ourselves of other structures

ANDWRITELIKETHEROMANSDIDWITHOVTANYWORDDIVISIONPVNCTVATIONCAPITALLETTERSSMALLLETTERSORSENTENCESTRVCTURE
ERVSTONMILLEWESVACEBTNAWEWFIDRAWCCABSEMITEMOSDNA
BESIDESWEVEGOTOVRMEFONSSRIGHT

Oh, please:

Language is not about innovation
It’s all about clear communication

Eden and Gethsamane - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Eden and Gethsemane

Every morning in silence an old man reads
Verses while resting on a garden seat
Upon the pages falls soft, leafy light
Like meanings breathed into the given words

His shovel and rake are leaned against the oak
Where the too-fat squirrels gambol merrily
His hands and joints just don’t work well anymore
And so he gardens in the Book of Life

And then one morning he isn’t there
And then a gentle wind turns the page

Free Verse is Mucous - poem (in free verse)

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Free Verse is Mucous

Free verse is mucous
Dripping self-pityingly
Into a Kleenex

And speaking of Kleenex, pass me another…

"The Man Hath Penance Done" - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

"The Man Hath Penance Done"

“The man hath penance done,

And penance more will do”

-Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

We criticize some bishops, and rightly so
For sending out into the universe
Their resumes’ of wants and vanities
And shame: “That’s just the way the world works now”

But we must think on our more hidden shame
That smolders as a smaller heap of waste
Our wants and vanities, our lesser lists
And excuses: “That’s just the way the world…”

Oh.

We criticize the bishops, and rightly so
But first our own poor faults we’d better know