https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
So was I Born to Wear a
Slogan Tee?
So was I born to wear a
slogan tee
Or an influencer’s
autographed g-strings?
Is this why the Lord God
created me -
To be a follower, a buyer
of things?
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Our Dreams are Lost
Somewhere along the Supply Chain
I needed
a dream but I wasn’t given one
So I had
to construct it for myself
It
wasn’t very good. Dreams should be left
To the
professionals, but where are they?
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Whatever Happened to all our Little
Notebooks?
We all saw the same
old bumper sticker:
This is not a
rehearsal; this is your life
And so we carried
little notebooks around
Discreetly jotting
down the overheards
In coffee shops and
class, the mid-night shift
The bus to work, the
elevator up
The escalator down,
the line at the bank
For the poems or
plays or novels we’d write
The cafeteria was a
notebook itself
Between the salad and
dessert we fell in love
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
What Awakened You?
The bedside clock glows an
hour you cannot read
Because your eyes of full of
fuzzy sleep
And your mind of
half-remembered dreams
Of a better time when – but
it’s slipped away
Moonlight and moonshadows
silver the silence
You went to sleep in a
different world
And woke up in this one – is
it the same?
At magic o’clock this one
seems more real
What woke you up? A breath, a
sigh, a song?
What woke you up? Maybe it
was love
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Who Betrayed Anne
Frank?
A spokesman for the F.B.I.
Notes that Jewish hostages were taken
At a synagogue on Shabbos
And concludes that the attack
“Was not specifically related
To the Jewish community”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Rod McKuen at a Garage Sale
We don’t know who Baby Booger
and Tommie were
They sent each other notes
and underlines
And colored slips of paper
from page to page
In Someone’s Shadow (“Hardbacks 25 Cents”)
The exuberance of adolescent
arcs
Reminds us of our long-ago
callow youth
When we thought we had discovered
something
In secretly sharing free
verse in home room
And we had – indulging in
forbidden lines
Is still good therapy for
being sixteen
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Serpent and his
MePhone
“Truth? What is that?”
-Pontius Pilate
The tactical response to the hostage situation in
Colleyville, Texas last week was brave and brilliant. All other questions remain open.
The terrorist’s family assures us that the terrorist was
not a terrorist, that he instead suffered mental issues [British synagogue terrorist's family apologise to hostages
and reveal they spoke with him during siege (telegraph.co.uk)]. If
this is so:
1. How did a man purportedly suffering mental issues acquire
a passport?
2. Who funded his international and local travel?
3. How did a British subject acquire a firearm in this
country?
4. If the man carried explosives (as of this writing this
has not been confirmed), how and where
did he acquire them?
5. Why did he identify and target a small synagogue in Texas?
These are all complex skills requiring a purpose and a
plan in following sequenced steps. Someone with diminished capacity could not
carry them out.
According to CBS [FBI Dallas
Identifies Colleyville Synagogue Hostage Taker As Malik Faisal Akram – CBS
Dallas / Fort Worth (cbslocal.com)], “FBI Special Agent in Charge
Matthew DeSarno…said the hostage-taker was specifically focused on an issue not
directly connected to the Jewish community…”
If this is accurate, why did the man target a synagogue
instead of a cinema or a coffee shop or a church? Does the F.B.I. expect us to
believe that a terrorist attacking Jews at prayer in a synagogue wasn’t really meaning
to attack Jews at prayer in a synagogue?
One thing we can know, even if it is only by inference,
is that somebody taught poor Mr. Akram to hate. He was unable to still the echoing
voices in his head even for an hour and listen to Rabbi Cytron-Walker, by all
accounts a reconciler honored by all who know him.
Unfortunately, hate is a valuable commodity among us now,
attracting advertising revenue by appealing to the evil that, like the serpent
in Eden, still slithers in us. To consider the reader responses on popular news
sites on the InterGossip is to realize that the psychology of the lynch mob and
the witch-burners is perhaps stronger among us than ever. The responses to a
news report of some alleged crime are frequently demands for the immediate
death, usually by grotesque tortures, of someone unknown to the reader.
There is no evidence beyond the tiny images on the
MePhone, but they are enough for anger and indignation and profitable advertising
points. It is an essential of what is known as the cancel culture.
And if telescreened gossip results in anger and indignation
and even violence turned against you or me, well, the advertisers will like
that just fine.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Rubik’s Cubicle
When a problem is solved, another
spins ‘round
When that problem is solved,
two others spin back
When those problems are
solved, chaos begins
Everything depends on
everything else
When a date is set, another
unsets
When that date is set, two
others get lot
When those dates are found,
chaos begins
Everyone depends on everyone
else
A wise man learns that chaos
begins
When the Rubik’s cube of life
backspins
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Butch and Sundance: The Latest Remake
Union Pacific: Train Robberies Up 356%...
-News Item
Narrator, old cowboy geezer sitting on the
porch and smoking his pipe:
Well, now, Butch and Sundance
(I’ll tell you no lies)
Stop the U.P. right in its
trackages
And glaring at the passengers
one of ‘em cries:
“All y’all hand over yer
Amazon packages!”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Aspirin as One of the Basic Food Groups
An inhaler for each wheezery
lung
Aspirin for the pain that has
gone to my head
Gargle for the gunk that’s
coating my tongue
Green slime by the cup when I
go to bed
Whatever it’s all from –
dust, must, or mold
I just wanna be rid of this
miserable cold!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Little Lady Smoking a Big Cigar
In the drive-through line at Jenny’s Fried Chicken
Middle-aged, petite, wearing
a pixie-cut
Dangly earrings and old blue
overalls
And a frown on her face, she
left her car
And walked around it
disapprovingly
Her inspection complete, she
stepped back in
But she still wasn’t happy
with the world
Given the defiant angle of
her cigar
A thrust against all
importunities
Her smoke was a warning to
all: you’d best keep clear
And I don’t know why (I
didn’t dare ask)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Electric Light Bulb
An
electric light bulb is a marvelous thing
A globe
of glass and gas and wires within
You can
almost hear the filaments sing
When
light upon a page lets your reading begin
By what
magic does this wonderful device
Receive
invisible aethers from long wires
This
strange glowing pearl beyond any price
As it
relights from Sol its little fires
An
electric light bulb is a poet’s delight
Framing
pentameter all through the night
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Even So, Someone’s Got to
Milk the Cows
U.S. Covid-19 Cases Set to Triple Pre-Omicron
Record
-Wall Street Journal, 10 January 2022
The
pharmacies have no more Covid tests
The
supermarkets no paper for the loo
The people feel that masks
and jabs are jests
The
government replays each Fauci-boo-boo
The
Qanons tell us it’s just the ‘flu
The
sheeple, they say, are easily led
Others
that horse paste is the thing to do
The
hospitals haven’t another bed
The
cynics assure us we have nothing to dread
But some
use their stimulus checks to bury their dead
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Looking Back on the Day
Looking back
on the day – did I give thanks?
I lazed over
my coffee and the morning news
Noted the
crows and the morning’s light frost
But that’s not
good enough
I washed the
dishes and a load of clothes
Looked into a
novel and a poetry book
Sorted laundry
and fed the squirrels and birds
And that’s not
good enough
One give
thanks for another day of life
By making that
day what it should be
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Covid Memory Gaps
A child in the second grade who has built himself (the
pronoun is gender-neutral) a good vocabulary, reads little chapter books, is
more adept than his parents at working all those little electronic boxes that
light up and make noises, is making the first rudimentary efforts at team and
solo sports, doesn’t have to be reminded to feed the dog, and can tell you why
Randolph Scott is far cooler than Buzz Lightyear might be missing this part of
his development: he doesn’t remember a time when there weren’t face masks and
nervous and sometimes angry discussions about Covid, immunizations, symptoms,
isolation, and what’s not available at the grocery store this week.
And yet, fifty years from now he might not remember the
Covid at all.
Does anyone remember the Hong Kong ‘flu of 1968-1970? Some
100,000 Americans died from it and perhaps 1,000,000 worldwide [1968 Pandemic (H3N2 virus) | Pandemic Influenza (Flu) | CDC]
yet it is now forgotten. A child who was seven in 1972 is now 58, and the Hong
Kong ‘flu doesn’t exist for him.
Despite books and films and archives of source materials,
history sometimes disappears, often by accident.
When I’m wheezin’ on the treadmill I make the dullness of
exercise go better by watching DVDs of The Bob Newhart Show, Gilligan’s
Island, The Prisoner, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and other oldies, all
products of the era and all without any mention of Viet-Nam, Laos, Cambodia, freedom
marches, or the Civil Rights Act – to young moderns these things simply don’t
exist.
In The Bob Newhart Show Bob makes a few oblique
references to being in the Army during the Korean war but otherwise Korea, too,
is invisible in pop culture.
Certainly the news of the era can be found by digging
through the InterGossip, but the reality is that a child or adult finds Hogan’s
Heroes more interesting and more available than The Mills of the Gods
(1967, The Anderson Platoon (1967), Winter Soldier (1972), Hearts
and Minds (1974), and others.
News broadcasts and documentaries from the 1960s and
1970s are not censored by that mythological Deep State (shudder); they are
freely available. They are also freely ignored.
Last year a few fictional television series made some
effort to be timely by having the characters in masks, but this was only
briefly. When in fifty years a new generation watches old episodes of N.C.I.S.,
L. A. Law, Hawaii 5.0, or anything else in production now they won’t see
masks or be aware of anything Covid.
This is not some sort of plot or conspiracy; it’s just
that guns and explosions make more interesting television than face masks and nasal
swabs, even when a disease such as the Hong Kong ‘flu kills more people than
some wars.
As for our seven-year-old, someday he will be free not
simply of masks but of hearing about masks. We can hope, however, that he will
not forget the challenges of some of his formative years. Vaccinations for this
and that in this nation date back as far as the war against England [How Crude Smallpox Inoculations Helped George Washington Win
the War - HISTORY] and will continue, but I look forward to making a
bonfire of the masks.
Nota Bene – I am the only man in America who doesn’t
know a thing about the Covid.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
No, Mr. Sandburg
The fog doesn’t
come on little cat feet
It stinks and
slinks across the fields
Maybe Grendel creeps
within it -
He wants to eat
us before dawn
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Great Canadian Dairy / Diary Dispute of 2022
"Canada
must now do the right thing and come into full compliance with its obligations
on diary [sic].”
How many nights have
Americans lost sleep
Through fear and
righteous anger that in the darkness
An illegal liter of
perfidious Canadian milk
Might sneak across
the 49th Parallel
The lights burn late
in the Pentagon tonight
While border guards watch
the wicked north
Lest a stick of malicious
Canadian butter
Attempt to overthrow
our Constitution
We watch all our
borders constantly now
Against Canadians
hiding in a Trojan cow
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
I Have No Words
The commentator
Says she has no words, and so
She writes a paragraph
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Anticipating a Root Canal Tomorrow
Sometimes you
don’t need anesthetics to be goofy -
Anticipating a
trip to the dentist will do
To confuse today’s
plans into nothingness
And scatter
all focus from a favorite book
People have such
dentistry every day
You tell
yourself, only your self is not listening
Should I go to bed early, or get up late
What will it
be like in The Chair tomorrow?
A sigh, a
whisper, a desperate wheeze –
Just a little
more nitrous oxide, please!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Snow Globe and a Discarded Child
A dreaming child
peers into a little glass dome
Where snow
falls upon a tiny world:
A mountain, a
forest, a tunnel, a village, a train
A kingdom
where there is safety and love
He cradles it
in his hand lest it be lost
Among the
emotional wreckage of lying adults
Cold pizza,
unexplained screams from the other room
300 channels
of satellite tv
A beaten child
peers into that magic dome
And wishes
that somehow it might be his home
