Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Old Sears Store
Remains Unsold
The big Sears store was a happy place
But now it’s only an empty space
Friday, December 3, 2021
The Old Sears Store Remains Unsold - rhyming couplet
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Children and Machine Gun Dreams - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
By word and example…parents lead their children to authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift of self, and they cultivate in them respect for others, a sense of justice, cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity, and all the other values which help people to live life as a gift.
-St. John Paul
the Great, Evangelium Vitae
Do we sing to our
children machine gun dreams
Instead of sugar
plums? Little sleepyheads
Now tucked away
into their little beds
In matching
camouflage blankies and sheets
Do children code
messages to Santa asking him
For Barbie’s Bunker
all accessorized
With guns and
knives properly pint-sized
And Super Sniper
Skipper and Recon Ken?
Do children hide
bayonets beneath their coats
And measure the distance
to their classmates’ throats?
Wednesday, December 1, 2021
All Power to the People's Soviet of Gadgetry - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
All Power to the People’s
Soviet of Gadgetry
1.
The servile arts teach us to plan
Wars for sending our children to die
Barbed wire for penning our fellow man
Computers to sneak and snoop and spy
2.
The liberal arts teach us to ask
Why?
Tuesday, November 30, 2021
Las Vegas, Geographically Speaking - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Las Vegas, Geographically
Speaking
Upon watching the 1960 Ocean’s Eleven
That oasis of Cool no longer exists
Except as road markers and artifacts
All else is gone: cigarette girls, ashtrays
Rotary telephones, Ford Galaxies
The glamour of cocktail dresses and tailored suits
Xanadu with electric lights and Scotch
Heliopolis with showgirls and cards
So Cool that no one ever called it Cool
And like those fragments of Ozymandias
All of that Cool is lost among the sands
Monday, November 29, 2021
A Man and His Dog at Sunday Mass - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Man and His Dog
at Sunday Mass
And
in what landscape of disaster
Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?
-Thomas Merton, “For my Brother - Missing in Action
1943”
His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan
With an air-conditioner duct-taped in back
And his old dog next to him in the seat
At Mass he sits in back with his good old dog
His clothes are warm, he gets enough to eat
And, sure, a man and dog who approach their God
Together are good and faithful servants indeed
His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan
And there is a dog
Sunday, November 28, 2021
We'll Trade You One Stealth Fighter for a Billion Vaccine Jabs - weekly column, 11,28.2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We’ll Trade You
One Stealth Fighter for a Billion Vaccine Jabs
A number of sources, including the Guardian (A new Covid variant is no surprise when rich countries are
hoarding vaccines | Gordon Brown | The Guardian) are blaming the new
Covid variants on “rich countries” (that invariably means you and me) for
hoarding vaccines.
Poor countries, you see, can’t get any vaccines because Canada,
the U.S., the U.K., and France are keeping them all, rather like Gollum clutching
that ring while chanting, “My precious! My precious!”
I suppose I’d better dig up those sealed barrels of
vaccines I buried in my back yard and turn them over to Medicins sans
Frontieres (who also blame us) with an abject apology.
And you, good friends, need to check your closets and
cupboards for all those bottles of vaccines you’ve stockpiled next to pallets
of toilet paper, bottled water, and the complete collection of Wheel of
Fortune: The Lost Episodes. Gather all those vaccines and turn them
over to the INTERPOL officers who will land at the nearest intersection in
unmarked UN helicopters.
You can tell they’re UN helicopters because they’re
unmarked.
In truth, I aver that I might be the only man in America
who admits he doesn’t know doodlysquat about the coronavirus. I know only this: I have occasion to sit in
the same room with nurse practitioners, nurses, physicians, and physicians’
assistants, all of whom attended real medical schools, not The University of Google,
not The University of Gossip, and not The University of Some Loudmouth on
Television. I listen to what the nurse practitioners, nurses, physicians, and
physicians’ assistants who are in the room with me tell me about all sorts of
medical topics affecting my brief life on this earth, and I do what they recommend.
They know medicine. I know them. I trust them. As Martin Luther (otherwise not
one of my favorite people) said, “Here I stand; I can do no other.”
The only other medical thing I know is that the full-body
scanner that beamed across me last summer in a room that looked like the bridge
of the starship Enterprise had all sorts of pretty little lights on it
and made soft, susurrant, soporific sounds that almost put me to sleep.
Oh, and I can operate a Band-Aid.
But that’s it.
Given my trust in professionals with whom I can speak
face-to-face rather than screen-to-screen, I tend not to believe the metaphorical
medical mudslides on the InterGossip. The idea that a gang of Snidely
Whiplashes in Washington, Ottawa, London, and Paris are withholding vaccines
from poor nations who don’t seem to be so poor that they can’t afford the
latest weaponry appears to be just another variant on blaming others for one’s
own failings.
Pharmaceuticals are developed and manufactured by
companies interested in their profits. They want to sell drugs, not lock them
away in a variant (so to speak) of Uncle Scrooge’s money vault. The leaders of
companies and countries are not always the most ethical, but it is not in their
interests, whether in profits or philanthropy, to withhold vaccines from other
nations.
Beyond that, those nations who focus on accumulating
weapons and Swiss bank accounts could probably vaccinate all their peoples
against all sorts of diseases by foregoing a single new jet fighter.
But then, prudent budgeting should obtain here too: how
many luxury aircraft and armored limousines does ONE president need?
-30-
The Taste of Covid - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Taste of Covid
“Never give in…”
-Mr. Churchill, 29 October 1941
Coffee is metallic, as is my morning toast
Most everything else is vague, fuzzy, and flat
As if the world needed a pinch of salt
And that’s okay; it’s good to be alive
They say that there’s another variant or wave
Named Mu or Omicron or maybe Bob
Slithering ashore through Grendelian mists
We take our jabs in defiance because
We all have casualty lists of friends we miss
That’s not okay, and so we will never give in
(Still, I don’t know why
the coffee should be metallic)
Saturday, November 27, 2021
Advent - a Gift of Becoming - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Advent – a Gift of Becoming
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new”
-“The Coming of Arthur” and “The Passing of Arthur” in Idylls of the King
There is much to be said for Ordinary Time
Its very ordinariness is kind to us
The daily hours that end with the Vespers chime
Free of formation and pageantry
But Advent comes as part of the dance
Of seasons wheeling through the universe
And we must shift our thoughts back into time
In anticipation of the Nativity
In solitary splendor a wonderful Star
Gives us light for our pilgrimage renewed
Friday, November 26, 2021
Trytophan Dreams after Thanksgiving Dinner - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Tryptophan Dreams
after Thanksgiving Dinner
(channeling our inner Dorothy Parker)
Sleepy now, from excess of meat and cup
But unlike the poor turkey, we will wake up!
Thursday, November 25, 2021
Autumn is Life Writing its Autobiography - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Autumn is Life
Writing its Autobiography
Autumn is not the end of summer, nor yet
Is autumn the beginning of winter; it is
Itself. Autumn is not between anything
Autumn is the culmination of seasons
The seed that slept beneath winter’s cold death
Arose in spring, a resurrection of itself
And grew its summer strength through work and sweat
And in September finished, and mopped its brow
Surveying all its cosmography
Autumn is life writing its biography
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Face Masks and Hippie Hymns - poem
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Face Masks and
Hippie Hymns
At Mass I breathe behind and through a mask
My custom still, one of the paper-faced few
Although one might with some good reason ask
If it serves much purpose in a crowded pew
Each humid exhalation clouds the lens
Of my eyeglasses so I can’t even read
But I’m sure I know how each lesson ends
Needless to say I’ve memorized the Creed
And to mask those sandwich hymns:
I make hidden faces when the soloist croons
Another of those awful hippie tunes
(Has anyone told the music
director that the 1960’s are over?)
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Book Reviewers Promote Freedom by Giving Orders - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Book Reviewers Promote
Freedom by Giving Orders
“Obey me and be free!”
-Number Six in the Free for All episode of The
Prisoner
The irony of the imperative in most reviews
Is to make a command that the reader must heed
Keeping in chains the literary muse:
You must read this must-read which you need to read
(now back to weaving
tapestries of this and that)
Monday, November 22, 2021
The Number of the Beast is .556 - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Number of the
Beast is .556
“This is my rifle. There are many like it”
Because they fall off assembly lines everywhere
Probably even in the Khyber Pass
And frankly, son, you don’t need the damned thing
A rifle is not your friend; it is a mechanical thing
A rifle is an engine of destruction
It is made for killing your fellow humans
The last one alive wins madness and guilt
You never made the first day of boot camp
(neither
did John Wayne)
You need to know what John Wayne never knew:
A .556 disintegrates a child
A .556 vaporizes your soul
A variant:
The Number of the
Beast is .556
“This is my rifle. There are many like it”
Because they fall off assembly lines everywhere
Probably even in the Khyber Pass
And frankly, son, you don’t need the damned thing
A rifle is not your friend; it is a mechanical thing
A rifle is an engine of destruction
It is made for killing your fellow humans
The last one alive wins madness and guilt
You never made the first day of boot camp
(neither
did John Wayne)
You need to know what John Wayne never knew:
A .556 disintegrates a child
A .556 vaporizes your soul
If you
finish recruit training and A.I.T.
And
have your orders in hand
then I’ll listen
But
if you come back
you’ll not want to talk
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Giving Thanks for all Our Thanksgiving - weekly column, 21 November 2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Giving Thanks for
all Our Thanksgivings
For a child Thanksgiving is sort of like Christmas only
without any toys. It’s interesting enough: lots of relatives come to dinner,
and there’s turkey and “the good china,” but without Santa Claus and toys it’s
not that big a thing.
Thanksgiving is also probably not a big thing among the
First Nations.
The absence of toys and their distraction makes Thanksgiving
a time when a child can more easily focus on the behavior of the adults in his (the
pronoun is gender-neutral) life.
For one, there is always an uncle, sometimes a
grandfather, who is convinced that everyone at the table is eager to hear about
his latest symptoms and diagnoses.
Another helping of irritable bowel syndrome, anyone?
And there comes a Thanksgiving when the child realizes
with a shock that some of the adults he has loved all his life don’t really
like each other, or that an aunt or uncle who was here last year is “visiting
friends” this year, and that topic is not mentioned further.
A painful moment is the remembrance of a beloved MeeMaw
or PawPaw who was laughing and joking around the table last year and is now in
Heaven with Jesus. And, yes, we spare a moment for happy memories and an
awareness of the transitoriness of life.
The matter of the children’s table is awkward. A little
kid loves it – it’s a rare occasion when the children sit together as a peer
group with somewhat less adult supervision than usual. An occasional crepe-y
arm hands across more turkey or rolls, and that’s close enough.
At the age of twelve or so a kid perceives that the
children’s table now reflects a lower social status. A girl cousin of the same
age gets to sit at the adult table and the boy is stuck with the rug-rats and
an admonition to “watch” them.
Humiliation.
After the dessert, when the adults are enjoying their
coffee and the heart-valve replacement stories arc through the air in one
direction while the hip-transplant narratives are flying the other way, the
young ‘uns can escape outside (“Don’t forget your coats!”). The little ones
fling leaves and little plastic balls around, and the older ones share school stories
and, perhaps, confess an attraction to a cute girl or guy in the sophomore
class.
Once upon a time a child would never have left the table
without asking the appropriate parent or grandparent for permission to do so.
The last time this occurred was in Gatineau, Canada in 2005. The occasion was
read into Hansard at the next Parliament.
And again, once upon a time a child would never have
rejected the turkey, ham, several kinds of dressing, sweet potatoes, mashed
potatoes, new potatoes, rolls, biscuits, pecan pie, apple pie, and other
wonderful gifts of food prepared by loving hands with a plaintive cry of, “Can
we go to town for pizza?”
Nor would an adult have asked about vegan options.
Such would have been dismissed as ungrateful by those who
grew up hungry during the Depression and the Second World War.
But that generation is mostly gone now, and with them the
core of that post-war world of industry, optimism, thrift, progress, a new
openness among peoples, and wonderful hopes for the future.
For them, simply to have survived and now at last to have
work and enough food to eat would have been among their many reasons for giving
thanks.
We do well to remember that, and to give thanks for them.
May your Thanksgiving be a happy one!
-30-
An Empty Cross - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Empty Cross
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
Fragments of bone and flesh forever stain
The spikes, the wood, the cross, the bloody cross
Is not a cute designer collectable
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
His crucifixion takes away our sins
But the bloodstains remind us
It was our sins that drove the spikes into Him
An empty cross?
There is no empty cross
There won’t be, not until the last day of all
Saturday, November 20, 2021
Renegades - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Renegades
They sell themselves as precious Renegades
Two ossified establishment millionaires
As desperately cool as Nehru jackets
But don’t you fail to mind their copyrights
Renegades
Trademarks, podcasts, deluxe signed editions
They’re, like, authentic ‘n’ stuff, for a price
In carefully edited openness
They feel your pain and your credit card
Renegades
They wear suit coats with their collars open
How awesomely workin’ class hip is that!
Renegades
Friday, November 19, 2021
Thanksgiving Dinner at the Children's Table - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thanksgiving Dinner
at the Children’s Table
Thanksgiving is Christmas without any toys
And you get stuck at the children’s table
For more years than is strictly necessary
Because some extra old people show up
The uncle who has a diagnosis story
For every course, including the pies and cakes
Another helping of irritable bowel syndrome?
And the auntie who tries to hush him up
The cute second cousin you never met before
She’s your age but gets to sit at the Big Table
(And after her first glance she never looks
at
you again)
Thursday, November 18, 2021
Thanksgiving Essentials are out of Stock - poem
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Thanksgiving Essentials are out of Stock
-Thus saith
the news
A house, a book,
a dog, a good warm coat
A job, a ride, a
friend, someone to love
A dream, a hope,
a plan, coffee with you
A family around
the table, something to eat
And gratitude - all
the essentials are in stock
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Upon Reading Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Upon Reading
Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita
Margarita flying naked over Moscow
She might have caught a cold doing that, you know
A big ol’ cat shooting a Browning Hi-Power
He was certainly amusing for an hour
The Secret Police were like the Keystone Kops
Not to be trusted even with traffic stops
And Pontius Pilate ordering a death
Almost with every other tortured breath
There were two burnings of the Master’s book
But yet at the end someone gave it look
The Master’s book…hmmmm…
I have finished this book; I thoughtfully read it
And I must confess that I just don’t get it
Tuesday, November 16, 2021
Ten Knots along a Cord - poem
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Ten Knots along a
Cord
A
trewe swinkere and a good was he,
Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee
-Chaucer’s Prologue
See the plowman walking home from the fields
He plods along with the pace of centuries
There is no haste, for time hardly exists
Only the seasons, rolling like cosmic tides
And in his hand, ten knots along a cord
To count each Ave as it passes his lips
And through his heart and hopes and gratitude
His soul secure along the links of being
See the plowman dreaming home from the fields
His feet upon the earth, his head among the stars
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