What if the Banker Had to Stand in Line at Your House? - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

What if the Banker Had to Stand in Line at Your House?

 

HOURS 1000-1100 and 1400-1500

 

What if the banker had to stand in line

          (six feet apart, please)

While you stared blankly at a computer screen

And finally mumbled, “Howc’nIhelpyoutoday”

While chewing gum and hardly looking up

 

What if the banker asked you a question

          (a mask is recommended)

And after a long, unproductive silence you mumbled

“notatthishouseyoucoulddoitonline”

Or “that’snothowyournameisinthesystem”

 

What if the banker actually did her job

          (WHAT!?)

Instead of balancing out her resume’?

Upon Reading C. S. Lewis' THE ABOLITION OF MAN - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Upon Reading C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man

 

For Grace

 

“…the doctrine of objective value…”

-p. 29

 

At least I think I read it, did I not?

The book exists and was read, but by whom?

I’m beginning to feel that I’m the trousered ape

Who feels that a slide rule is for scratching one's back

 

But reality obtains – if a tree falls

That tree forever falling in the forest

In 7^th grade science, and no one hears it

It sends a sound into the universe

 

I think I understand about truth and space

But if I’m confused, I’ll simply ask Grace!

Sunday Morning: A Dead 'Possum and Broken Glass - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Sunday Morning: A Dead ‘Possum and Broken Glass

 

After the buzzards pluck the ‘possum’s eyes

Like businessmen at the airport Holiday Inn

Choosing olives for their plates at the buffet

It will still be grinning at the sun

 

After the beer bottle’s empty promises

And the powderings of broken glass have worn away

Along with the tire-tread promises of ads

A cardboard temptress will still be grinning at drunks

 

“We moved 84,000 cases this month”

The latest life-partner pukes on the trailer floor

Independence Day and a Government of Merovingians - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Government of Merovingians, by Merovingians, and for Merovingians

 

John LeCarre’ asks what you owe to your country when you no longer recognize it.

 

-cover blurb, Silverview

 

Inadequate klansies in gas-station shades

Bullhornistas polluting the civic peace

Q-Anonsters lurking behind their screens

Purported patriots hiding behind their masks

 

Doxers sneaking and spying like Milton’s Satan

Gollums clutching their “My Precious!” black rifles

Censors memory-holing literature and art

Anti-Communists Communisting our lives

 

Drug gangs and firebombs, looters and spies:

This is a nation no one can recognize

(So work, vote, volunteer, and, as Mr. Churchill said, never give in.)

Summer on the Lake - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Summer on the Lake

 

Children slosh noisily about on a catamaran

While lovers in the shade sit with crosswords and drinks

Or barefoot stroll along the lakeside sand

Each wondering what the other thinks

 

Minnows hover in the amber shallows

Dragonflies search among bright waving flowers

Sheltered beneath wind-trembling Chinese tallows

Throughout the drowsy, dreamy summer hours

 

This is early July, soft winds in the dales -

Which means it’s time for back-to-school sales

Q - doggerel (or perhaps sheeperel)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

Q

 

Where they go one, they go all

Just like sheep in a rented U-Haul

(Bah, bah, bah!)

Come Laughing Home at Twilight - for Canada Day

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

 

A repost for Canada Day:

 

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

 

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

 

And, O!  Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,

A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –

As if he owned the very paving stones!

He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,

The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;

A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,

Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

 

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

 

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –

He was my finest, him and his Da,

His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,

They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.

But no, he too was killed on the first of July

Only it took him months to cast away,

And drift away, far away, in the mist.

 

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

 

I need no Kings nor no Kaisers, no,

Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,

Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:

I only want to see my men come home,

Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,

An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,

Come laughing home at twilight.

An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

An Exercise in Humility and Colombian Coffee

 

I once saw one of those slogan coffee cups

(I’m sure it would have served as well for tea)

Which read something like this:

 

                                                   The beginning of faith

Is to realize that you are not

The ruler of the Universe

 

And it is so – I am not very good

At ruling even myself

A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited

 

Long, long ago

 

In the station at Tucson we waited

Someone said the locomotive had burned in the desert

A girl with earphones chewed gum through the hours:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

 

Her eyes were closed, her music was her god

She clutched a leatherette case of tapes

Just as some clutch a Bible, and chewed:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

 

Her mechanical chomps could have been the rhythm

Of the passenger train that wasn’t there

My paperback novel never joined in:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

 

I don’t remember her boarding the train

That in the evening finally arrived

She might be in the Tucson station still:

Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

 

Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                 

Fashionable Death Cults Then and Now

 

After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union and Einsatzgruppe mass shootings of civilians, the Nazis experimented with gas vans for mass killing…

 

-Gassing Operations | Holocaust Encyclopedia (ushmm.org)

 

Dozens of migrants were found dead in an abandoned big rig in San Antonio on Monday in what appears to be the deadliest human smuggling case in modern U.S. history.

 

 

-At least 50 migrants found dead inside a truck in San Antonio, officials say (cnbc.com)

 

We have our death vans too, not well-organized

But rolling down the American road

Unseen by our leaders in their personal jets

Flying to Frisco or maybe Cancun

 

Bombings and shootings on the street and in church

Job lots in hospitals, by the dozens in schools

For we too specialize in genocide

And may Moloch and Herod bless our AR-15s

 

If any children survive, we’ll call them Generation Something

And tell them each day how inadequate they are

The Narthex as a Barricade - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Narthex as a Barricade

 

I have become a greeter in my old age

(Why is that pickup truck circling the parking lot?)

How good to see you! What happy children you have!

(Any bulges in that unknown man’s pockets?)

 

The Altar servers are in place for the processional

(Why is that man just sitting in that car?)

The lector gives everyone a word of welcome

(Pssst – do you know that guy sitting in the back?)

 

I open doors and hand out bulletins

And watch

To Please Her Man - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

To Please Her Man

 

She underwent the stomach-stapling knife

To please her man, to tighten her tummy and cheeks

While in recovery she bled out her life

He married his girlfriend within a few weeks

The Pale Lady of the Well - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Pale Lady of the Well

 

I am mostly English, which is now uncool

And my soupcon of West African genes

Along with a whiff of Russia and First Nations

Protest Northumbria and East Anglia

 

But when outside at dusk with poetry and pipe

And a whisper of single-malt offered to the earth

Sometimes I seem to see visions proper to a Celt

And hear soft songs from the dawn of time

 

How is it that an Englishman can still

Sense the White Lady near the well at dusk

At Noon, After Mowing - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

At Noon, After Mowing

 

I sat in the shade and mended a hose

A water hose whose fittings had parted ways

And on the grass some mockingbirds and jays

Argued and shrilled – but why? Nobody knows

 

I cut away the plastic (hecho en China)

And fitted brass (hecho en Mexico)

For repairs that is the best way to go

To make a hose secure – what could be finer?

 

And what could be finer than to sit a while

In the dreaming shade? Yes, that’s my style!

The Lawnmower Man - poem with hammers

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Lawnmower Man

 

He came at last, with pickup truck and tools

And for some two hours there was hammering:

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

(Dang!) Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang!

 

And then he went to the store for a bigger hammer:

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

(Dang!) Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! (Dang!)

 

Heat, humidity, grease, the wrong wrench

The grease gun’s empty the wrong hex key

Dead battery, no brake spring maybe next week

 

The evening was concluded with a lecture

On the wonderfulness of Donald Trump

(In the event the lawnmower runs fine now)

We Know Where You RINO Traitors Live - doggerel

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

We Know Where You RINO Traitors Live

Some Christians by a newer word seem to abide:

For they preach Trump, and Him crucified

(As Charles Spurgeon did not say)

The Morning Radio Guy Turns Himself Off - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Morning Radio Guy Turns Himself Off

 

He was much of my mornings for years

His news, his jokes, his notes, his anecdotes

His affirmation of the goodness of man

Began each day with good humor and wit

 

But now he brandishes the radio waves

Like an old man threatening with his cane

By-Godding both the future and the past

Trapped forever in a 6^th of January

 

Poor man! All he does now is scorn and scoff -

It’s like he’s turned his own radio off

The Metternich System - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

The Metternich System

 

Like Metternich

We seem to be shoring up crumbling institutions

Institutions that have no use for us:

Heavy-lipped Habsburgs, an ossified Church

 

Like Metternich

We ask if the revolutionaries have permission

To murder each other for the Goddess Reason

While princes and oligarchs flee for their lives

 

Like Metternich

We wonder if Napoleon won after all

CLASS OF 2022!!!!! - free clothes and groceries Tuesdays and Thursdays

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com 

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

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

 

CLASS OF 2022!!!!!!

 

“CLASS OF 2022!!!!!” is still painted on his pickup truck

Which is parked in front of Christian Outreach

Free food and clothes on Tuesdays and Thursdays

He’s got his MePhone and a box of stuff

 

And some accuse the young of not planning for their future

Midsummer Sunflowers - weekly column, 19 June 2022

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Midsummer Sunflowers

 

Colonel von Luger: “Fliers are gentlemen, not peasants to dig in the earth.”

 

Group Captain Ramsey: “The English have always been very keen on gardening.”

 

Von Luger: “Yes, but flowers. Is this not so?”

 

Ramsey: “You can’t eat flowers, colonel.”

 

-The Great Escape (1963)

 

But of course the seeds of some flowers are edible. Now that we are at the summer solstice the sunflowers are ripening quickly. Mine are a great success, the third crop of native American sunflowers I planted last year. The package I bought from CowCreek.Com (or something like that) contained 15 or so different varieties of real sunflowers in all sorts of colors, presumably much as the First Nations cultivated them.

 

I planted zinnias, the spouse-person’s favorites, in a parallel plot but they and the sunflowers have become great friends and share the patch. They have required lots of watering this year, but together the sunflowers, zinnias, and to a lesser extent the tomatoes make a colorful show. The peppers gave it up early.

 

Even now the sunflower heads are maturing into seeds and in the next week or so – I don’t want to rush them – I will begin harvesting them and storing them in the refrigerator in paper bags. The birds will certainly enjoy a feast, but many seeds will fall to the ground for the second crop. When both the sunflowers and zinnias are pretty much gone in July I will mow everything down and then simply wait for the second crop. Unless there is an early freeze that second crop will be just as beautiful when autumn comes.

 

The bees are happy and I have a fine crop of tree frogs, very useful little creatures and reportedly reliable biological markers: if you have bees and tree frogs you have good air, soil, and water.

 

This week is the summer solstice, also observed on St. John’s Day, which is also known as Midsummer Day.  The eggheads time the arrival of summer to the hour, although any schoolchild knows that the first day of summer is the first day after school lets out. Functionally this week is midsummer, when the sun is at its apogee and the daylight hours at their longest. Our nifty little solar system will slowly, slowly begin altering the courses of the planets and navigating toward the winter solstice and the Nativity six months from now.

 

The ancients sorted all this out with their observations of stars and shadows and the Great Dance (C. S. Lewis) of the planets from pyramids and ziggurats in the Middle East and stones planted on Salisbury Plain. We don’t have to eyeball the sunlight through Stonehenge or climb a roof in Israel to track the stars; all we need do is call up one of the weather applications on our MePhones to note the changes.

 

Just now a cold front would be the most welcome seasonal marker of all.

 

And Colonel von Luger was wrong: gentlemen dig in the earth.

 

-30-