Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Do You Miss Your Trapper-Keeper?
This is the middle of June so why
Haven’t the back-to-school sales begun?
This year’s cooler than cool styles
Have been stored in shipping containers
For months or years on Indonesian docks
Or in warehouses in Long Beach
The teeny-boppers who modelled those clothes
Might be in graduate school by now
If school were as cool as the ads
Taylor Swift would be the principal
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Old and Unselected Poems
Why do publishers entitle
volumes of verse
New and Selected Poems?
Is it the editors’ lack of
imagination?
Or is it some sort of
secular rubric
An inky “We’ve always done
it that way?”
When you finish writing a
poem it is new
It didn’t exist before
you, and now it does
And someone who reads your
poem has selected it
It wasn’t selected until
someone picked it up
Every poem is forever new
and selected
And to the joy of your
friends, so are you
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Somewhere in New Mexico I Tipped a Waitress 25%
NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself.
-Walt Whitman
On a cool autumn morning in New Mexico
A greasy spoon along the interstate
Walt Whitman and I enjoyed breakfast together
Bacon and eggs, hash browns, coffee and toast
And it was very good – no heaves of gas
But Whitman found an errand in some other soul
And sang a different self to California
McKuen rode with me the rest of the way
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Mockingbirds at Dusk in a Time of War
They might be fighting;
they might be he-ing and she-ing
Their leaf-rich oak could
be their arena
Or it might serve them as
their bower of bliss
For love in this
magnolia-scented dusk
They’re still at it,
whatever their “it” might be
But breaking off to blitz
the subtle cat
Sneaking about in quest of
a bunny or squirrel
But who from feathered
fury must now retreat
They might be fighting;
they might be he-ing and she-ing
But then
They
might be mocking the rest of us
Bower of
bliss – cf. Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent
I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it
absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections...
it's suddenly trivial now.
-Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago (film)
In the evenings I sit on my summer lawn
Slouched in an old, much-painted metal chair
That symbol of petite-bourgeois respectability
With a little table for my drink, my pipe, my book
(The cat pads by on errands of his own)
At dusk a friend or two might amble along
And join me for a glass, a smoke, a talk
We casually swat at mosquitoes and rumors
And argue about Doctor Zhivago and Lonesome Dove
(A fast-diving mockingbird mocks the cat)
In a fallen world of chaos and suffering
With fear of revolution in the air
Is it right to indulge ourselves with such trifles
As sitting and talking with old friends in the twilight?
Oh, yes
(The cat and the mockingbird continue their game)
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!
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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)
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”
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
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
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.
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
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!
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
