Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Tin Ears in the Hands of an Angry God
-as Jonathan Edwards did not yell
If You are good and kind
and loving, O Lord
Then why do You permit
The
harpsichord?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Before the Magi Came
-1 Maccabees 4:36-60
Yes, long before the holy Magi
came
Judah the Maccabee brought
forth his gifts
First scourging the Temple
clean of false gods
In prayerful preparation
for the True
And then presented God with
oil and bread
A consecrated Altar of
undressed stones
Incense and lamps and
songs and grateful hearts
And an octave of
inextinguishable light
Thus, long before the holy
Magi came
Even before the Star,
Judah brought a flame
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Contagious Disease Unit – Ward 20 Deck 2
Maybe my aptitude for throwing
up
My ENT infections, fevers
and chills
Hopeless motion sickness
and fainting fits
Were the reasons why NavPers
posted me there
All the diseases in the
Fleet called it home:
Infections, syphilis,
leprosy, the clap
(Let’s give him a hand),
and for reasons not clear
A couple of crewmen from
the Pueblo
Before I was sent to be
sick in Indo-China -
And now they say
there’s a virus going around
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Waiting for the Messiah Someplace Else
Motel: Rabbi, we've been waiting for the Messiah all our
lives. Wouldn't now be a good time for him to come?
Rabbi: I guess we'll have to wait someplace else.
-Fiddler
on the Roof
And so we wait, here where
we are, the time
Marked off by calends and
by candlelight
Four Gospels in a ring of
holy fire
Before the Altar, and
before the Throne
The Magi journey through
space and time
Our journey is in waiting
for a star
To shine upon us all, and
lead us to
The Temple where all
waiting finally ends
Beside an Altar of repose
in a Stable
A cradle of wood from Eden
and the Ark
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Marketing Strategies of the Nazgul
An email arrived from a
dear, dear friend
I was so glad to hear from
him…until
Unhappy remembrance – he’s
dead and still
And my stitches were torn
open again
Some Nazgul program had encountered
his name
And mine, and smashed them
together to see
If some foul poison could
be sold to me
Through a counterfeit, the
cruelest game
But in faith my friend
lives, as we have read -
It is the Nazgul who are
truly dead
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Rural Electric Co-Op’s Giant Christmas Tree
Christmas
trees are a delight to a child
On the farm, situational
poverty
In muck and filth, old coat
against the cold
Finishing the milking long
hours after dark
But to the east a Christmas
tree, a hope
The electric co-op’s radio
mast
Its guy wires strung with
multi-colored lights
The North Pole must be
something like that
Christmas trees are a delight
to a child
And even more when the child becomes
a man
Lawrence Hall
The Rural Electric
Co-Op’s Giant Christmas Tree
Christmas trees are a delight to a child, and when a man is
old and can be a child again, even more delightful.
Our family’s farm was about three miles from town. We lived
in what would now be called situational poverty, but most folks in the county
were worse off. Some kids got bicycles for Christmas, for us it was socks and cap
pistols and little tinplate toy trucks, and for many there was almost nothing.
The post-war prosperity boom bypassed most of East Texas.
A few weeks before Christmas each year Father took us boys
into the woods next to our land for the adventure of cutting the Christmas
tree. In our informal squirrel hunts in the autumn we had scouted out likely
trees, and now returned for the best of them, almost always a pine. Finding it, cutting it down with the hatchet,
and dragging it back to the house through the chill was a great adventure to be
savored then and savored now in the remembrance.
Father stood the tree in a bucket of wet sand and anchored
it with fishing line. He and Mother strung the big Noma™ lights and hung the
precious glass ornaments, and then we children were at last given a box of
tinsel each and permitted to fling the bright strands any way we wanted. What a
mess! I realize now that after we went to bed Mother discreetly arranged the
tinsel a little more artistically.
Farms in our school readers and in the movies were always
bright and cheerful places, with happy cows and happy pigs living peaceful lives
of prelapsarian fellowship. In reality a farm, especially in the winter, is
brown and grey and mucky and smelly, and after their years of loyal service
cows are prodded into a trailer, bellowing in fear, to be driven away to the
slaughterhouse. Good ol’ Bessie, whom you raised from a calf, is now lunch.
Life on a farm is often grim.
Thus, a little pine strung with multi-colored lights and
little figures and globes brought out once a year was magic.
Another magic Christmas tree was the huge one the local
electric co-op built each year by stringing lights on their tall radio mast –
tall enough to have red lights all year round lest the town doctor fly his
airplane into it.
For weeks the far-away tree shone across the dark, frosty fields.
A child imagined it to be a magic place, maybe even the North Pole itself.
Now the tower is gone, replaced by cell ‘phones and more
modern radios, and the co-op decorates only a little tree out in front of the
drive-by window. Still, it’s a Christmas tree, and good enough.
For Christmas the co-op gives employees, retirees, trustees,
and others ham for Christmas. Because I serve on the scholarship committee I
get a ham, which is not a Christmas tree but then you can’t eat a Christmas
tree.
Scholarships for graduating seniors, Christmas hams for
some, electricity for all, and a pretty good Christmas tree out front. What a
wonderful institution our Rural Electric Co-Op is!
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Advent of Our Discontent
-As Shakespeare did not say
Everyone accuses everyone
else
Of treason; they’d call
each other Quislings
If they had any history,
but they don’t
Only Hochhuth and Unferth
on the air
But you and I have wood to
split and stack
The garden to level and
put to sleep
Cows to get up for the
milking at dusk
And in the evening, a cozy
fire to watch
Oh, listen to the
migrating geese, up high!
Unlike us humans, they
never learned to lie
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
We Are Afraid for Each Other
We do not wear our masks
against car keys
Or coffee cups or clocks
or coins or books
Nor yet again in fear of
paper clips
Or pocketknives or
fountain pens or socks
We do not wear our masks
against the sun
Or moon or stars or air or
trees or flowers
Nor yet again in fear of
autumn leaves
Or gentle rain or evening
mist or dreams
We wear our masks because
we are afraid
Of being humans, of loving
each other
NB: This
is NOT a plea for unmasking. The fear is of hurting others.
Wear your mask. Wearing a mask protects others. Wearing a mask is love. It’s
not about you; it’s about protecting MeeMaw.
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Midnight Appointment of Shame
“Where greed is an ape and pride is
an ass”
-Chesterton, The Ballad of the
White Horse
You poor man –
You are not the first to
use Truth as a spade
With which to dig for yourself
mouth-honors and wealth
A tyrant piped, and now you
dance for him
His toy, his poppet, his
puppet, his pet
You poor man –
Who pottage-messed stout
honesty for toys
To descend in a brazen
elevator
To an evil that didn’t
even have to try
For you were so eager to
go to it
You poor man –
You poor, poor man: the
cock will not crow for you -
You have betrayed only your
wretched self
https:///www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Appoint the Following
Individuals to Key Administration Posts | The White House-120320/
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Man Who Delivered the Movies
The
Saturday afternoon matinee
Outside
the Palace Theatre in a line
Impatient
for the hour, the man, John Wayne
Air-conditioning,
popcorn, Coca-Cola, escape
Then
riding to the rescue of the ranch
The
man who delivered the reels of fun
Running
up the steps with a big grey case
Of
Rio Bravo – he brought us our dreams
And
did he know, speeding to little towns
That he
too was a hero of the Golden West?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Let There be Barbies
Let the children have their night of
fun and laughter.
Let the gifts of Father Christmas
delight their play.
-Churchill, Christmas Eve radio
address, 1941
Some
young mothers ban Barbies and Santa Claus
And
all such trinkets and dolls and mummeries
Sacrificing
childhood to fashionable gossip -
In
obedience to the Holy Internet
A
toy Cochise must never ride again
Or
little plastic soldiers defend their forts
Or
Maid Marian roam with Robin Hood –
Barbie
must never be dressed for success
Little
children must now sit on the floor
On
Christmas morn to play with ideologies
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
DaddyPaw’s Letters from the CCC Camp
And all Who Served in the Civilian
Conservation Corps, 1933 - 1942
He
found his DaddyPaw’s young adulthood
In
a box of letters from New Mexico
About
fighting forest fires and building fence
To
the stockyards at Magdalena
“The
peas must be coming in by now,” he writes
“Are
yall getting enough to eat? How’s my dog?
I’ve
got swell friends but I sure wish I was home.
And
did yall get the five dollars I sent?”
We
stand in reverence of a generation
Who
almost never had enough to eat
Lawrence Hall
Hospital Waiting
Room in Advent
“How could I
bear a crown of gold when the Lord bears a crown of thorns? And bears it for
me!”
-Heilige Elisabeth von Thuringen
The pre-dawn parking-lot is crowded enough, and almost
pretty with the high orange-ish light reflecting nicely on the rainy pavement.
The cold wind blows a lonely paper cup along among the puddles and the cars
with the more-than-one-family-members dozing or reading their MePhones. It
seems as if the world itself is a waiting room for now.
In the lobby a queue forms, everyone standing six feet
away from each other as ordered by plastic signs on the floors. A
cheerful-enough volunteer aims a little plastic gun at each human head as it
passes, and asks each owner of a head DO YOU HAVE ANY SYMPTOMS DO YOU HAVE A
SORE THROAT HAVE YOU BEEN AROUND ANYONE WITH THE CORONAVIRUS HAVE YOU BEEN OUT
OF STATE RECENTLY
Does Louisiana count?
Pass, friend.
A cold and fashionable Christmas tree obscures an image
of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringen next to the row of elevators marked ‘B’ along a
covid-silent corridor. She ministers to
the poor and ill as she always has, and the medical and support staffs of the
hospital do the same, under her support and patronage.
A visitor with his mask and his pass can hear his footsteps
echoing-echoing as he passes through the silences, and read signs announcing
activities scheduled long ago that were canceled long ago because of the
lockdowns. Only rarely will he see a masked and gowned figure seemingly scuttling
into hiding while carrying a tray of lab specimens or pushing a cart or whispering
into an official glowing screen.
Doors that used to be open are secured with NO ENTRY or
STAFF ONLY signs, and former passages are blocked with new plywood panels or
panes of clear plastic in this unclear time.
The cardiovascular ICU waiting room is empty – ONE FAMILY
MEMBER ONLY, reads a sign scotch-taped to a door, and NO COFFEE BECAUSE OF THE
CORONAVIRUS YOU WILL FIND COFFEE IN THE CAFETERIA announces another. Some seats
are marked off-limits with yellow crime-scene-ish tape even though there is no
one in the room to be made off-limits. The television is dark and silent, the
floors and plastic chairs are clean-upon-clean from repeated daily wipings and
scrubbings and sprayings although almost no one ever goes to that room now.
There are no people, no magazines, no bottles of water, nothing in the litter
baskets. It’s like a scene from one of those Star Trek episodes in which
an away-team beams down to a deserted space ship, a deserted city, or a
deserted planet, only there is no thematic background music in the hospital.
This is the block of floors and space given over the
cardiac care and surgery; the areas where CV patients are treated are hidden
behind doors and walls and faces of appropriate secrecy and discretion.
Behind those doors and walls life and death are worked
out through the work and thought and education and brilliance and industry of
so very many health care workers, from physicians to the nice fellow with the
bucket and mop, and through the mysteries of God and His saints.
As for our visitor, he can do nothing but take a seat –
one without the yellow crime-scene-ish tape – and wait in silent prayer for one
he loves.
-30-
Lawrence HallMhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Video Mass in Lockdown - Jesus and the 502 Bad Gateway
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https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
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Charming Murderers
I
have met murderers of wit and charm
And
saints who were crude and vulgar and coarse
I
feared the saints would do me greater harm -
I
don’t know what any of this means, of course
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
They are Disinfecting Venice
I have been trying to find out; no
one will tell me the truth; they are
disinfecting Venice. Do you know why?
-Death in Venice
We
live on islands in the virus-time
Shored
in by disease and uncertainty
Waves
of uncertainty, rumor, and fear
The
deaths of friends bumping against us at night
Delivery
trucks are our vaporetti
Ferrying
our supplies across the Styx
That
separates our then away from now
With
imaginings outsourced from Lethe.com
They
are burning stimulus checks in the streets
To
disinfect us against reality
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Farewell to an Old Comrade
He yaf not of that text a pulled hen
That seith that hunters ben nat hooly
men
-Chaucer, Prologue, 177-178
A
man visits his pal in the hospice room
Two
great old pals, best friends from boyhood
In
school and in the Army together
Best
men at each other’s weddings long ago
Hunting
trips, laughter, campfires, and coffee
They
tramped the woods and fields into old age
Until
the arthritis house-bound them at last
But,
peace:
A
good man whispers farewell to his dying friend:
“I
remember our tramps through the mists on the moors –
And
can I have that fine old Purdey of yours?”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The
Turning of the World: Advent through Plough Monday
God spede the plough
-an English blessing for a good agricultural year,
numerous sources
In springtime Nature kisses the
world with light
And summer follows with work
and merriment
In autumn she kisses the world
good night
And winter follows with frost
and lament
But first we celebrate the
great world’s turning
With Advent and the holy
Christmas time
With liturgies followed by the
Yule log burning
Through feasting and cheer, and
each well-sung rhyme
Six midwinter weeks ‘til the Three
Kings appear
And then Plough Monday to begin
the new year
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thanksgiving Dinner
with Generous Helpings of Biological Functions
Would
you please pass the bowel-movement stories
Gosh,
this lab-test casserole sure looks great
I
love the well-steamed vasectomy glories
And
a helping of dentistry on my plate
This
year I fried the potassium levels
They
taste as yummy as a cancer scare
And
here’s heart surgery with our revels
For
Christmas I’m getting a new potty chair
The
kids have gone outside, oh what a fuss -
Why
don’t they want to have dinner with us?
