More Real and More Beautiful - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

More Real and More Beautiful

 

“This is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the stable door!”

 

-Lucy in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle

 

More of the old family land is to be sold off

Forests of my childhood and happy fields

Where breezes still ripple the summer grass

Soon to be beaten and carved as lots and plots

 

The bales of hay, each barefoot day – all lost

And down the hill where runs a magic rill

My Sherwood Forest will be cleared of good trees

Its dreaming paths overlaid with sewers and streets

 

And along the fence little tufts of grass

Where all those noble dogs of long ago lie buried

My companions in all adventures

Awaiting my whistle to roam with me again

 

Well, I will pack them and all my childhood up -

And someday pour them from a golden Cup

Camouflage in Trump Country - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Camouflage in Trump Country

 

I walk into the cafe’ wearing a boonie hat

Although the boonies were fifty years ago

But I don’t look like a worthy comrade -

In Trump country you need good camouflage

 

I walk into the store wearing a barn coat

Although I have never owned a barn

But I don’t look like an NRA-rade -

In Trump country you need good camouflage

 

A patriot shouldn’t need to be a mirage

but -

In Trump country you need good camouflage

Participation Ribbons

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Participation Ribbons

 

John Wayne as Steve Williams: “How'd you do last season?”
Charles Coburn as Father Malone: “We showed up for every game.”
Steve Williams: “I'd say that was raw courage.”

 

-Trouble Along the Way (1953)

 

I’ve heard of participation ribbons

But I’ve never seen one. Do they exist?

People seem to disapprove of them

But participation means showing up

 

There are those who wake up every morning

Feed the kids breakfast, fire up an old car

Make the school run, and then are off to work

At the cafe’, the store, or the auto shop

 

That’s participation, all right, and courage

A ribbon? Most folks deserve a medal

 

 

 

 

As a farm boy, a university dropout, a brown-water sailor, an ambulance driver, an offshore worker, a factory hand, an LVN, a teacher, and a father I have never seen a participation ribbon. If you, dear reader, were ever given one of those mythological constructs I’d sure like to hear from you. And I do mean you, about the one you received, not what you’ve read or heard.

Each Altar is Minas Tirith - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Each Altar is Minas Tirith

 

Each Altar is Minas Tirith these days

A city of kings and of the true King

Behind whose twice-barred gates and golden doors

The faithful may find refuge for a time

 

From here the King, enthroned, rules over us

At his Table He gives us seats of honor

And serves Himself to us as food and truth

Even as dark armies swarm outside

 

We are often told that we are hopeless romantics

Oh, no

For we are hopeful romantics, and will not yield

For Jack on his 16th Birthday - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

For Jack on his 16^th Birthday

 

Music, Magic, and Father Brown

 

In the long ago I was reading a book

(And doubtless thinking many brilliant thoughts)

Sitting in my car outside Our Lady’s Church

Waiting for some old-lady meeting to end

 

And suddenly, silently, there you were

A little boy standing at my shoulder

Peering through the window, and then you said

These thoughtful words: “You look like Father Brown.”

 

And suddenly, silently, here I am

Standing at your shoulder and looking up

For now you are taller than I – and that

Is in the nature of how things should be

 

But a blessing now on your birthday, you see

For you and Cate are always a blessing to me!

Worship at the Super Bowl - rhyming couplet

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Of Course I Didn’t Worship at The Super Bowl

 

As a man who had better tend to his soul

Of course I didn’t worship at the Super Bowl

Disney's MACBETH - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Disney’s Macbeth

 

Upon the release of Joel Coen’s version

 

I want to see Macbeth in Technicolor

Almost Disney-ish, in cheery pastels,

With bright-lit halls and sunny fields of flowers

And maybe Annette as Lady Macbeth

 

And let Macbeth be a comely youth

With muscular hands that wield both sword and pen

An honest merry face that smiles with ease

Sweet words and penitent Aves on his lips

 

The world is well-lit ever since the ark -

It is the human heart that lurks in the dark

We Few, We Abandoned Few - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

We Few, We Abandoned Few

 

“...the dead uncharitably enclosed in nuclear dust...”

 

-not Henry V

 

Let us not go to war this week or the next

Poking our explosives into other folks’ business

Military contractors shedding the blood of families

(Hell hath no fury like a balance sheet)

 

Let us not go to war this week or the next

Flinging the children of the poor to their deaths

While the rich party through graduate school

(They say the fighting is rough in Harvard Yard)

 

Let us not go to war this week or the next

But instead offer up all issues to God

The Morning of the Funeral - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Morning of the Funeral

 

Mostly waiting. Coat and tie, Sunday shoes

Quiet conversation. How was your breakfast

Who’s driving the cousins to the airport later

Do the animals have water and food

 

He’s in a better place now. Have you got the readings

Sunlight slanting to the floor where the puppies sleep

Who’s going to unlock the church for the flowers

Who wants a breath mint. Are we ready to go

 

I’m glad we’re having a Mass. Fr. Ron is so good

Mostly waiting. Coat and tie, Sunday shoes

Everybody's Subversive Now - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Everybody’s Subversive Now

 

Speaking truth to power my truth your truth

Interrogating the great reset iconic

The Davos crowd the world economic forum

Break the rules no wrong answers deep state disruptive

Buzzwords without borders globalist power

Synod on synodality

Social media toolkit inclusive

Sustainable neocolonial

Decolonise postcolonialism

Finding your voice authentic community

Who is this Stranger? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Who is this Stranger?

 

Who is this stranger sitting beside me

On the road from one place to another

A nephew who in the long ago

Was my partner in Dark Tower and chess

 

He is a grown man now, balding a bit

Who wants to save my soul from damnation

A religion he invented last year

He’s got a website; I could look it up

 

As a boy he was so good at chess

As a man he can’t sort out all the pieces

A Raggedy Old Friend - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Raggedy Old Friend

 

The day at work was rotten and the news was bad

The someone you hoped would ‘phone was silent

And your call reached only a plastic voice

Which seemed to disapprove of you anyway

 

But when you step out of the shower

An old friend waits for you – that ragged old robe

That everyone says you need to throw away

As if a cottony hug could ever be disposable

 

Your bathrobe hugs you like the friend it is

And tells you that everything will be okay

Put Down the Rosary and Step Away from It - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Put Down the Rosary and Step Away from It

 

                Police interrupted a Catholic mass in Australia on Thursday after they received a tip                          that some parishioners may be violating a COVID-19 mask mandate

-Police stop church service to make sure parishioners are wearing masks (msn.com)

 

Police have bravely raided a church in Perth

Some old folks at prayer on a Thursday night

Acting on a serpent’s tip (for what that’s worth)

Thus giving the wicked a righteous fright

 

Advance, Australia, thou land of the free!

Where prayerful insolence will be suppressed

And by the way, how much was the Judas-fee?

(Thirty Woolworth’s gift cards?)

We would want a snake to have only the best

 

One doubts this was only about some masks

What other reasons might there be? one asks

Ice in February - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Ice in February

 

There is the fireplace, warm with summer oak

But you are not here to share it with me

There is the coffee pot – or I could brew tea

But you are not here to share it with me

My Songs are off Spotify - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

My Songs are off Spotify

 

I’m going to take my songs off Spotify

Not that I know what Spotify might be

Or that I have any songs to take away

Only that it seems to be a thing these days

 

I want to be censured by Republicans

Not that Republicans know what they might be

Or that they ever notice me at all

Only that it seems to be a thing these days

 

I want to think today and pray for you -

Now those are exactly the things to do!