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Wednesday, April 3, 2024
To a Political Friend Who Politically Accused Me of Having My Head in the Sand Politically - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
To a Political Friend
Who Politically Accused Me
of Having My Head in the Sand Politically
Our lives no longer feel ground under them
-Mandelstam, “The Stalin Epigram”
I have no illusions
I have no solutions
I have Mr. Biden and
Mr. Trump
(And occasional
basal cell carcinomas)
I can be silenced in fear
By their suicide sides
But I have a brain
(“…an
ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.”)
And so to them
I am dangerous
If I am noticed at all
His Sacred Majesty - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
His Sacred Majesty
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 7
We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
Nor even truth, but rather each shiny new toy
Powered by batteries and our unhappy wants
Endlessly discharging our minds and souls
We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
But rather the mechanical fabrications of our hands
Upon the orders of our Lilith-draped masters
To STEM the possibility of thought
We probably shouldn’t worship the sun
But we are still free to think highly of him
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Thank God That's Over - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Thank God That’s
Over
St. Therese of Lisieux is said to have said
After an especially long liturgy
“Thank God that’s over!”
And who am I to argue with a saint?
Make Worms Thy Heir - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make Worms Thy Heir
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 6
Let us speak of the
utility of worms
There is much in them,
including our ancestors
But without them we might
not live at all
They enrich the earth,
even with our earth
All children are our heirs;
in them we live
They are God’s treasures,
and we must treasure them
After the Order of Saint
Joseph, and when we pass
Our children will say that
God is passing by
Let us praise the nobility
of worms
Reminding us that we are glorious
dust
Monday, April 1, 2024
Is There No Sulky Gas? - doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Is There No Sulky Gas?
To the dentist this morning but woe and alas
Only a cleaning - no laughing gas!
Ha, ha, ha!
Time Will Play the Tyrant - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Time Will Play the Tyrant
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 5
Time need not play the
tyrant; we have tyrants enough
But it is true that we
must go away
When time and God say we
have played our game
And must withdraw into
another world
We sneak past time with
our words and songs
Arcing over mortality with
truth
Distilling each day into poetry
That lives long after our hearts
and hands are stilled
Time need not play the
tyrant, for tyrants only bluff
And their poor poisons
with their masters die
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Unthrifty Loveliness - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Unthrifty Loveliness
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 4
I had told her how beautiful she was
(she knew that through the mirror, mirror on the wall)
For her bold eyes were upon herself
As she magicked with lipstick and mascara
I had
hoped her blush was for me to gaze upon
Her hair,
her perfect lips, her slender hips
Over
candlelight at the Starlight Roof
Then the telephone, not nature, called her away
I had told
her how beautiful she was
That sports-car
guy, far handsomer than I
Had said
so too
Saturday, March 30, 2024
The Discount-Store Patriot and the Bible Salesman - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Discount-Store
Patriot and the Bible Salesman
Two greedy old men a-shakin’ their Jesus cup -
No, son, for that I ain’t a-standin’ up
Look in Thy Glass - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Look in Thy Glass
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3
I look in the mirror and
ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my
mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and
an impish grin
But later they said I had
to become a man
She had her April, and
then so did I
And there are Aprils
enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils,
but they will do
Every April reflects our
youth back to us
I look in the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother
Friday, March 29, 2024
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Did a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook
Rushing to his topside battle station
But remembering the chief’s daily admonitions
And the way his mother kept her kitchen clean
Notice on a galley table a speck of dust
And pause to brush it away
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
A Tattered Weed - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Tattered Weed
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2
Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady
oak
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
After my morning’s work,
creaking into my chair
And reaching for my iced
tea and a book
Sipping on both for a
vision of youth
My Hercule Poirot body is made
almost young again
By strolling through Arden
with Rosalind and Orlando
(Only for a while; they
would much rather be alone…)
And then the iced tea tells
me of Ceylon
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
But sometimes - forever
young
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The World's Fresh Ornaments - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Word’s Fresh
Ornaments
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 1
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
In a springtime glow of iridescent greens
A sweet Creation scene of little bare feet
And puppies’ paws scampering across soft lawns
Bold pirate ships patrol the honeybees’ pool
And mockingbirds offer flights to the tops of the oaks
A line of waving crocus borders this Narnia
Oh, could there ever be a happier world?
The sun, the green, the bees, the endless day
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Look at How Much Sevin Dust is NOT in the Container - photographs
Brand-new container just now opened
Sevin (r) is good stuff, but while we admire the biologists and scientists who make gardening and food production possible, the alligator-shoe boys in marketing are not to be trusted.
Sunday, March 24, 2024
My New Career as a Doorman - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
My New Career as a
Doorman
“The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”
-in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed
I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night
Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello
And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Make America Pray Again Otto - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make America Pray
Again OTTO
We see the bills of their uniform caps
“OTTO” is the legend beneath the peak
Which reads “Make America Pray Again”
The operative word is “Make” – we must be forced
Then who is OTTO, and whence his authoritative voice?
Is he a god come among us with a rod
To beat us down until we bleed and bleat
A great American Ave or Shema?
A cultic cap is neither theology nor art
And I will never invite OTTO into my heart
Whistling Past the Graveyard - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Whistling Past the
Graveyard
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Not with the radio on and the windows up
Though in our barefoot childhood long ago
Walking home alone at dusk – we whistled
But there is no need to whistle now
The cemetery is not a place of spooks and haints
But of those childhood friends with whom we walked
Past our ancestors to the swimming hole
No one whistles past a graveyard now
Because those whom we love are silent there
Friday, March 22, 2024
We Serve Our Princess Catherine - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Serve Our Princess
Catherine
“We be the King’s men”
– Thomas Hardy and others
We are the King’s people
After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc
Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna
Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles
We are the Queen’s people
And because we are the Queen’s people
We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess
And every woman of our isles a Queen
To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith
We are the Prince’s people
We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –
But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more
Monarchy can easily be ‘debunked;' but watch the faces, mark
the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been
cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom
pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire
equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they
honour millionaires, athletes or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or
gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it
food and it will gobble poison.
-C.S. Lewis, “Present Concerns,” 1948
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Cattywampas - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cattywampas
Cattywampas? You don’t know what cattywampus means?
Cattywampas is:
When you discover in your apple only half a worm
When your planet is out of its orbit
When you lose your lover, your job, and your cat
When your DNA is flagged by the FBI
Cattywampas is:
When a traffic light is forever red
When the car wash strips out the rubber seals
When the doctor says you’re okay…for a man your age
When your neighbor on disability jogs every day
Cattywampus is:
When you have life sorted, indexed, and filed
And then find yourself staring into those eyes…
Years on the Night Shift - couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Years on the Night
Shift
Today’s student loans need not be met
How privileged of me – I paid my debt
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