Lawrence Hall, HSG
The White Lady of the Well
She visits at dusk
She’s watching you;
turn around -
She’s just over there
Friday, September 13, 2024
The White Lady of the Well - a senryu
Thursday, September 12, 2024
We Have all Written Poems about September - and, yes, this is a poem about September
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Have all Written Poems about September
(Not applicable on that half the planet where September is a springtime month)
(Certain taxes and fees might apply)
(Offer void where prohibited)
(Some assembly required)
Everyone writes poetry about September
The cooling of the summer-sun-beaten earth
A few more hummingbirds with maps of Mexico
A first leaf skittering across the grassy lane
The sky looks a little different somehow
A fresh breeze rises with the gentle dawn
Sitting outside at dusk is comfortable now
Notebook and pen are easier to the hand
Everyone writes poetry about September
As every worker and dreamer ought to do
We Have All Written Poems about September - and, yes, this is a poem about September
Lawrence Hall, HSG
We
Have all Written Poems about September
(Not
applicable on that half the planet where September is a springtime month)
(Certain taxes
and fees might apply)
(Offer void
where prohibited)
(Some assembly
required)
Everyone writes poetry about September
The cooling of the summer-sun-beaten earth
A few more hummingbirds with maps of Mexico
A first leaf skittering across the grassy lane
The sky looks a little different somehow
A fresh breeze rises with the gentle dawn
Sitting outside at dusk is comfortable now
Notebook and pen are easier to the hand
Everyone writes poetry about September
As every worker and dreamer ought to do
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
For English Pick Up the Anglophone - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For English Pick Up the Anglophone
For English pick up the Anglophone
For French the Francophone
For others in Canada the Allophone
(“‘Allo! ‘Allo!”)
For Mandarin or Cantonese the Sinophone
For Portugal the Lusophone
In Deutschland perhaps the Deutschesphone
(or perhaps not)
And in Russia the Russophone
Please phone in, everyone
Because isn’t it wonderful -
So many phones, and each with a direct line to God
Monday, September 9, 2024
Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain
Li Po, “Ancient Air,” p. 84
A Book of Luminous Things, ed. Czeslaw Milosz
We read of the poets of China
In the days of the Golden Tang
In the time of The Gathering of Kings
When The Silk Road carried dreams
Government officials were the poets
And poets were the government
officials
Who knew The Five Classics by heart
And wrote of China in Tang quatrains
They were writing to the Emperor
And now they are writing to us
Sunday, September 8, 2024
God in the Hands of Angry Sinners - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
God in the Hands of Angry Sinners
As Jonathan Edwards did not say
How do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why do they bind their scriptures and
themselves
In anger, duct tape, and camouflage
Why do they raise high the AR and
their fists
Instead of salvation and the Holy Cross?
Where do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
Why have they abandoned the altars of
Truth
For the flagpole idolatry of the pagan
state
In coven-circles facing each other and
a pole
Like Canaanites and their wooden Asherim?
Why do they find so much hatred in
their Book?
If they would look beyond their own perimeter wire
They would see
A Maiden dancing
In
Galilee
For Booger-Dog of Happy Memory - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
For Booger-Dog of Happy
Memory
And for his
pet human Max
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves
ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
-George Graham Vest
His
fuzzy little bed is empty today
His dinner
is untasted, his water bowl full
Awaiting
his ungentlemanly slurps
And
his favorite toy seems lonely and lost
He
will not claim space on my pillow tonight
Nor
chase dream rabbits while cuddling with me
Nor
lick my nose to wake me up at…
(Geez, Booger, do you know
what time it is!?)
Leaping
and barking to be allowed outside
He
will not bound into the kitchen at dawn
Happily
barking his joy unto God
Circling
and snuffling for his breakfast treat
A
bit of bacon or egg from a loving hand
Because
his brave little soul has flown
To
wait for me at the foot of that glorious Throne
Friday, September 6, 2024
Cleaning a Metaphorical Rifle - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Cleaning a Metaphorical Rifle
The Detachable Magazine Holds Ten Lines
There is no such thing as an unloaded word
And once a word has left the barrel it’s gone
You cannot call it back – were you sure of your aim?
Draft Beer, Not Students - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Draft Beer, Not Students
A slogan from the 1960s
In illo tempore:
A young man swaggers across the
‘versity quad
Smoking a Marlboro or affecting a
pipe
‘Way cool in his sports coat and
turtleneck
Shakespeare or physics held loosely
in his hand
A young woman passes through the
‘versity quad
Smoking a Parliament or checking her
mirror
‘Way cool in her pencil skirt and
layered look
Shakespeare or physics held closely
to her heart
Sed in tempore nostro:
Pronouns galumph across the ‘versity
squad
One fist raised in hate, the other
clutching a glowing box
Thursday, September 5, 2024
You are not a Banana - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
You are not a Banana
Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered
A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)
If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so
Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun
But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses
Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas
And our brothers and sisters are not bananas
Barefootin' Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Barefootin’ Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon
For J. W., His Dad, and His Uncle
Brandon
J. W. is blessed with
family and purpose and love
Guided study and chores
and structured faith
Happy barefootin’ days
among the watermelons
A fishing pole and
buzzing-bee summer afternoons
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Feeding the Squirrels and Birds at Dawn - very short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Feeding the Squirrels and Birds at Dawn
A squirrel sits upon a little mound of corn
And faces the east with its nimble forepaws
Clasped gently together as if in prayer
Friday, August 30, 2024
The Grave Robber of Fifth Avenue - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Grave Robber of Fifth Avenue
Unferth postures upon the ashes of
warriors
The warriors he has despised all his wretched
life
Because he is unworthy to be one of
them
Warring with only his mouth and never
a spear
He mocks their wounds, their missing
limbs, their graves
He steals their widows and orphans
for himself
As ornaments to his manic caperings
While arrogating honors he could never
win
But when the Dragon comes…
But when the Dragon comes, lashing
its tail
Unferth will be ghosted away as a howling
wail
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
J. Alfred Prufrock and the Giant Peach - not really a poem, just three frivolous lines of blank verse
Lawrence Hall, HSG
J. Alfred Prufrock and the Giant Peach
“Do I dare to eat a peach?” He asked
“Yes, yes. just eat the stupid peach and stop
Banging on about it,” I replied
Monday, August 26, 2024
Kafka and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk - a bit of fun
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Kafka and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk
Those who have never suffered through Kafka
Should not employ the adjective “Kafkaesque”
The landgraf would not approve
When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning
from unsettling dreams, he found
himself changed
in his bed into a monstrous self-service
checkout kiosk.
Someone must have traduced Joseph K.,
for without doing anything wrong
he was arrested in the checkout line
one fine morning
It was late in the evening when
the supermarket supervisor arrived.
Kafka, The Metamorphosis.
Trans. Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton. 1972
Kafka, The Trial.
Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: The Modern Library. 1956
Kafka, The Castle.
Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: Schocken. 1982
The hell of self-service checkouts is becoming Kafkaesque
(yahoo.com)
To God, Who Still Gives Joy to Our Youth - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
To God, Who Still Gives Joy to Our Youth
Introibo ad altare Dei
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutam meum
Missals calendaring the liturgical year
Mantillas in reverent rows marked out by children
Children as rosary beads sorting out the Aves
And men in this-is-choking-me suits and ties
Candles in colored glass in reverent rows
Decades of prayers, centuries incensed with prayers
Corinthian columns in reverent rows of awe
Or perhaps the humble Doric, upholding Heaven
Fiddleback chasubles in liturgical colors
Sequenced by seasons in prismatic reverent rows
Sewn long ago by loving reverent hands
Each stitch enriched with a Latin prayer
Fidgety altar boys in their Sunday shoes
The processional cross their grandfathers knew
Nonnas, Nanas, MeeMaws in reverent rows
The occasional bead-bang of a rosary against a pew
The occasional knee-pinch to a squirming child
Latin responses in sequenced reverent rows
Latin, which later we were told we didn’t understand
Quia putabant nos stulti essemus
And on the Altar the eternal Sacrifice
Which no tyranny can ever take away
Sed fuit, est, erit
If a Book Could Take Just One Human to a Desert Island - very short not-really-a-poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
If a Book Could Take Just One Human to a Desert Island
Who would it take?
You?
Me?
Dostoyevsky?
A librarian?
Upon Re-Reading William L. Shirer's THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Upon Re-Reading William L. Shirer’s
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Perhaps one day America will go fascist democratically, by popular vote.
-William L. Shirer, New York Times, 29 December 1969
We do not live Samsara, for Samsara has meaning
So this is not Samsara; this is a cascade of deaths
We live in linear time – or maybe we don’t -
And the gods of hate sneak in ahead of us
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Before Me Sits Young Pablo Neruda - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Before Me Sits Young Pablo Neruda
On the paperback cover of Residence on Earth
Before me sits pensive Pablo Neruda
His young face resting upon his
slender hand
He looks a little to the left of the
photographer’s eye
He appears to be thinking great thoughts
Or he might be thinking
Why am I posing like a high school senior?
Residence on Earth, introduction by Jim Harrison
New York: New
Directions Publishing Corporation
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Assembling a Metal Lawn Chair with Great Care (and a Ball-Peen Hammer) - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Assembling a Metal Lawn Chair with Great Care
(and a Ball-Peen Hammer)
A friend gave me a lawn chair in tangerine
Bright tangerine, with instructions in English
Which I followed most assiduously
Which parts of the chair most surely did not
The instructions did not mention a ball-Peen hammer
With brutality and words which must not be spoken
(Think of Vulcan and his mighty strokes)
I finally assembled the chair to my satisfaction
And then I sat down
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