Learning to Comb Your Hair - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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)

Our Vines Have Tender Marsupials - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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)

"This Waiting Room of the World" - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

Salt and Mrs. Lot - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

 

Some Say This is the End of the Trump Era - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

The Out-of-Season White-Tailed Deer and Name-Brand Butter - weekly column

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

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-

Two Sure Ways to be Banned from Websites - a dipstick...or dyptich...or something...

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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 - poem

 

For the 20^th 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

“FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid fears of insider attack” - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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)

Coffee Shop Darwinians - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

The Writer, the Reader, and the Synapse Between Them - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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 writer to the reader

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

This Side of the Covid - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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.

 

An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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?

Soldiers Sleeping Beneath a Bust of Father Abraham - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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)

An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say - weekly column

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.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 the 20^th 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-

The Understated Joys of Crows and Bedroom Slippers - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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!

The Ever-Glorious Presidential Medal of Freedom with a Wal-Mart Gift Card Attached - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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?

"My Temple Stands in Ephesus" - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

Snow Clouds for children on a January Dawn - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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

Antihistamine Dreams - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

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