Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Little Children are Much Like Dachshund Puppies
With wildly scattered toys the lawn is messed -
Little children came to visit – O how we are blessed!
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Little Children are Much Like Dachshund Puppies - rhyming couplet
Sunday, June 9, 2024
From Shakespeare: My Spirit is Thine, the Better Part of Me - poem
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
From Shakespeare: My
Spirit is Thine, the Better Part of Me
Cf.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 74
No kinsman could offer comfort there,
To a soul left
drowning in desolation.
-“The
Seafarer,” trans. Burton Raffel
When we die, our little things disappear:
Hairbrushes and pocketknives, fountain pens
Car keys, spare change, books, clothes, unopened mail
A souvenir coffee cup from Canada
An old uniform, a pistol from the war
A clock, a crucifix, Topsider shoes
Family pictures, a graduation ring
A magnifying glass, a radio
Bits and bobs, all sorts of trivial stuff
And a poem for you – it’s not enough
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Book Removal Training - poem
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Book Removal Training
The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn from their sentences.
-The Book Thief, p. 112
And now burning words must be torn from free people
For if people read they might think about things:
Why does the Party’s Jesus hate everyone
And why are weapons superior to ideas
Can a hangperson’s noose teach us to love
Burning crosses comfort a frightened child
Do the cult’s censors fly our flag upside down
While stealing books from our children’s hands
A state that trains people to purge library books
Is a slave state
Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry
Story by Douglas Soule, USA TODAY NETWORK
Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry (msn.com)
A Congressssssional Hearing - poem
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
A Congressssssional Hearing
“But hiss for hiss return’d with
forked tongue”
-Paradise Lost, X.518
Men in nice suits meet in
air-conditioned luxury
Ties perfectly knotted, Cain’s
mark on their lapels
Enthroned behind paneled
tables of polished oak
Where by the magic of a
secular oath, all are honorables
There is a chair, who is a
man, not a chair
Who wields an oaken gavel
of authority
As he smiles benignly and
modestly
An ‘umble adornment to the
Republic
Then “bash!” goes the
gavel, and yelling begins
And no one seems to know
why
The God of Children and Blueberries - poem
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The God of Children and Blueberries
For Theo (who is three today) and Nora (who is more than three)
“It is eaten, and renewed, every day.”
-Ramandu’s daughter in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
God is prodigal with his seasons and feasts -
This is the season of blueberries, each day a feast
Great clouds of fat blue globes hang upon the little trees
Water and sky shading into Prussian blue
This is a table-tree, all are invited
To stand with buckets and thirsty lips
To pick and take, to take and eat, each day
The feast magically renewed each dawn
Mockingbirds, robins, sparrows, rabbits, and squirrels
And children
Picking, pecking, plucking, nibbling, biting
All at Aslan’s Table, and all at peace
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
A D-Day Reminder to Every Neo-Nazi Oaf, Including Members of Congress and Justices of the Supreme Court
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
A D-Day Reminder
to Every Neo-Nazi Oaf
Including Members of Congress
And Justices of the Supreme Court
There is poetry in this:
Our flag was not
flown upside-down at Normandy
Monday, June 3, 2024
Shakespeare: Behold a Man - poem
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Behold a Man
Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 67 & 68
He is a man who needs no oils or scents
The arts of makeup, filters on a lens
A touch of blush upon his honest chin
A photographer’s vanity lights placed just so
He is a man who is his own manly self
Washed, shaved, and combed by his own rugged hands
Hands that know shovel, hammer, ax, and saw
A businessman’s hands, a protective father’s hands
He is a man who needs no frippery
For he is clean and honest and just, you see
The Doorkeeper of Notre Dame - doggerel
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
The Doorkeeper of
Notre Dame
“I pray you remember the porter”
-Macbeth II.iii.22
“‘Tis my limited service” on Sundays to mind the door
To open it to the faithful with cheerful greetings
This is pretty much my skill-level, this modest chore
Such is the ancient custom for Sunday meetings
A family of long acquaintance approached, almost late
They live some miles away and had a long drive
Their youngest son held his hand out at the holy gate
I thought his intent was a youthful high five
But with only one finger he greeted me!
And that was my lesson in humility
As for the boy
While the servers rang the welcoming bell
His momma yanked him outside and gave him (peace)
Thursday, May 30, 2024
A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING
“We shall never surrender”
-Churchill, 1940
Bed and bath grip bars,
universal crutches
Quadrupedal crutch tips, raised
toilet seats
Cleaning wipes, reaching
tools, bedside commodes
Walking sticks (but not
one with an Elvis theme)
Sitz baths and universal
urinals
Transport chairs, folding
walkers, rolling walkers
Commode liner bags, inflatable
cushions
Walker ski glides, walker
tennis balls
None of this is
depressing; it is inspiring:
“We shall never surrender”
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Cataract Surgery (I'll keep an eye out for you) - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cataract Surgery (I’ll
Keep an Eye Out for You)
Cataract surgery,
the left eye today
Which means I that
while I can see through the right
The left side of the
world is an iridescent pinkish blue
Through which only a
few shapes can be perceived
And that’s fine
(altho’ I keep tapping the wrong keys)
Sometimes we should
look at the world differently
Think of Ransom on Lewis’
Malacandra
Or John Carter on
Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars
When you can see
through only one lonely eye
Our home planet too
is strange and wild
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Grooving in Area 52 - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Grooving in Area
52
Maybe…
The Beatles got it wrong back-then-ago
When groovy discs through grooves grooved out our songs -
For we now groove in an Area 52
Not in a groovy screen-door submarine
Certainly…
We groove and grok in bondage behind chain links
Where elderly men fondle their guitars
And middle-aged women dressed as majorettes
Jiggle duct tape and weight-loss medications
Maybe…
The Beatles grooved it right ago-back-then -
Old grooves, dull mediocrity still lock us in
Monday, May 27, 2024
Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late
“It’s crap, I tell you; it’s just crap! Hey, you bump
me again and I’m going to whip your /ss! Why don’t these people walk in that
other aisle!? Can’t they see that there’s a line in this aisle!? What’s
that? That’s just crap; I told you that!
Hey! Why’re you people late!? I don’t want to sit down don’t tell me to sit
down I don’t want to sit down this is all bullsh/t! Hey! You people need to walk over there! No,
I don’t want to settle down don’t tell me to settle down if these people had
shown up for work on time they could have had our stuff ready by now but not
they just come in a half hour late and they don’t care! HEY! Why aren’t these
people on time I got things to do I need my stuff but they don’t care don’t
walk so close to me go walk in that other aisle why are all these people here
why isn’t this line moving I think that guy’s trying to sneak in no he’s at the
wrong window! HEY! That’s the wrong window the line’s over here you won’t get
no help there…!”
The bandage on his head needed no explanation.
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Memorial Day: This Bloody Field - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Memorial Day: This Bloody Field
That we may wander o’er this bloody field
To book our dead, and then to bury them
-Henry V, IV.vii.75-76
Some say this day began
As a memorial to the Confederate dead
Some say this day began
As a memorial to the Union dead
We only know that now it is a memorial for those
Who died for causes far beyond themselves
The glory of our soldiers is in the orphans they fed
The huts they helped repair, the ponchos they gave
To the shivering cold, reassurance to the terrified
Poor comforts to the bombed-out and the dying
The glory of our soldiers
Is not in some strident Man of Destiny
Bellowing fancy words from a prompter screen
But in hungry men who gave their C-rats away
Before they died in some damned bloody ditch
In their honor, then
Let us quietly work in causes beyond ourselves
And risk being made into sacraments
Monday, May 20, 2024
Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight
A powerful monster // living down
in the darkness growled // in pain…
-Beowulf, Burton Raffel
translation
In the sinister dusk //
they seek our blood
A ghastly enemy // of
disgusting thirst
Stealing up from the swamp
// and primordial mud –
Well, we stole their
habitat // – the mosquitoes were here first!
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate - rhyming couplet
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate
“No, sir, I do not bite my dentures at you, sir; but I bite my dentures, sir.”
-as a brawler in Romeo and Juliet I.i.57 does not say
Neither man is a coherent talker -
This might end as combat by walker
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
We Can't Take Our Books with Us When We Die - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Can’t Take Our
Books with Us When We Die
Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera.
-Apocalypsis XXI:V
We can’t take our books with us when we die
That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:
The copy of The Brothers Karamazov
I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?
But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow
And since He is the Word, all our books are His
How foolish of us if we fear that God
Has made no proper arrangements for them
Books are eternal
Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf
For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief
A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists - doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists
A question may be brought
about ownership
And the turgid content of
the daily trawl
But even before the question
of censorship
One
must ask
Why are adults on TikTok
at all?
Shakespeare: Will Needs an Intervention - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
William Needs an Intervention
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 42
Will,
we need to talk:
this is
all your grief
Your
friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all
I’ve
seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark
Catching
Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs
They
saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe
But
were mostly canoodling high up in the back row
I
cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse
Grieving
over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you
Give
over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors? - poem
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Did Saloons
Really Have Those Swinging Doors?
I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
In glorious CBS monochrome
Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow town street
And saunter through those familiar swinging doors
I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam
And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other
While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly
And for a while we are all at peace
I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered
outside
Monday, May 6, 2024
Shakespeare: I'm Not Going to Press Charges - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I’m Not Going to Press
Charges
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 40
I
gave her my love freely; she did not steal
It
only feels that way, for she is gone
She
could not steal that which she was given
And
she could not possibly leave it with me
The
lock is broken, my poor room is rubbished
The
neighbors saw nothing, my dog didn’t bark
The
unseeing eyes of any cameras are dark
Love
has no receipts, no inventory, no insurance
And
so, officers of love, there is no report
Except
that I lost my case in a higher court
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