Lawrence Hall, HSG
We Are Offered Two Candidates for the Presidency
I am afraid that one of them will win
Sunday, October 6, 2024
We Are Offered Two Candidates for the Presidency - not nearly a poem (but then not nearly a valid choice)
Friday, October 4, 2024
Falling Into Truth - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Falling Into
Truth
The fall of October’s leaves
is nothing new
Except that it is – this leaf
never fell before
And we were never here to
watch this leaf
Because we and the leaf were
somewhere else
Except that we were, we are,
we will be
A little leaf, each of us, springtime-new
Then dancing merrily the
summer through
Now floating gently into a
winter’s sleep
A coverlet soft, a hymn, a
night-light moon
Sleep - sleep – another
spring is coming soon
Thursday, October 3, 2024
WE ARE AMERICANS! We Buy Toilet Paper and Fight, Fight, Fight! - a sort-of poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Dock Workers’ Strike – BUY TOILET PAPER!
WE ARE AMERICANS!
Whenever threatened by enemies furry or domestic
By hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, storms
By shortages of food, water, and electric power
By aliens stalking us and eating our cats
By famine, fire, dispossession, revolution
WE BUY TOILET PAPER! WE ARE AMERICANS!
We are armed with our AK-16s and AR – 47s
Uniformed in our Wal-Mart camo from China
Size 89XXXXL-Lard-ass
And we will by God stand together as ONE -
And fight each other to the death for toilet paper!
Oh, and do you know Jesus?
Saturday, September 28, 2024
His Check Engine Light is On - weak excuse for a poem but there's a nice fresh metaphor
Lawrence Hall, HSG
His Check Engine
Light is On
He came by today, a friend from long ago
“I haven’t seen you in a hamster’s age.”
“Yep, too long.”
“How ya doin’?”
“Good enough for government service.”
“Wanna beer?
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Kids all doin’ good?”
“Yeah; real proud of ‘em. All grown and gone. Yours?”
“Oh, yeah, doin’ doin’ just fine.”
“Heard you was in th’ hospital last year.”
“Yep, made almost about three months of of it.”
“Too much fun.”
“Yep.”
“At our age…”
“Yep.”
“Kids these days.”
“Yep.”
“You okay now?”
“Better’n I deserve. You?”
“Well, you know, my Check Engine light’s on.”
Fresh metaphors are scarcer than crocodile feathers. Thanks,
Chris.
Meditation and Merriment in Early Autumn - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Meditation and Merriment in Early Autumn
We cannot stay young and strong for long -
Both of us have grey hair at the temples
-Du Fu, “To the Recluse Wei the Eighth”
After summer rains the earth is still green
In the cooling breeze oak leaves dance happily
Old lawn chairs are the humble chairs of poets
Old lawn chairs are the glorious thrones of kings
The seasons remind us of our mortality
We sit and ponder the mysteries of change
We will die, to be replaced by other poets
Who will sit and ponder the mysteries of change
And still, whatever these deep thoughts betoken -
I need to mow, but the lawn mower is broken
Three Hundred Tang Poems
Translated by Peter Harris
London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009
An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Summer Bugs - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Summer Bugs
(He was small in the spring)
When a tree frog moves up in
the world
He becomes a fashionable window
frog
No longer the pain of a rough
tree bark life
But rather the pane of easy
living
(He grew larger during the
summer)
My bedroom window is his
buffet
An all-he-can-eat buffet of bugs
Delicious summer bugs shared
around
With an uncommon house gecko of
style
(He’s really big now)
I look out at a hungry tree
frog, you see
But now – is he looking
hungrily in at me?
The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund
Why is the resistance
factor
In shifting a six-pound
dachshund
Who does not want to be
shifted
Greater than that of tons
of iron?
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware Coffee Cup - an elegy
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware™
Coffee Cup
“The days are gone…
When wonderful things were worked among them”
-The Seafarer, trans. Burton
Raffel
My Tupperware coffee cup is
as a chalice
With which I salute the beginning
of each day
Cool, colorful, comforting craftsmanship
An honest, utilitarian work
of art
We are told such things will
be no more
“Made in USA” is “Factorum
Romae”
Younger nations will find us
camping among the ruins
Of works and arts we no
longer comprehend
A colonial soldier might note
that once we were a great people
His colonel will reply, “Tosh!
They’re simple savages.”
Smart*ss Watch - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Smart*ss Watch
It clings to my wrist like a faithless
friend
Good fun to pal around when
we met
But getting just a little
tiresome with time
Unreliable in his many
promises
He fails to make the
appointments that we set
Or note the weather or mark
activities
I dunno; maybe he’s making
time with that Timex
My long-time steady who could
sure tick my tock
Sweet face, delicate hands -
she’d been around, but
Maybe I was wrong – I think
I’ll dial her
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
On Reading a Poem by Du Mu - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
On Reading a Poem by Du Mu
Everything is far away
China is ever so far away
The dynasties are far away
A golden dragon might fly us there
The moon is across the river
The blue-black river in the mist
A fishing boat is tied to the gate
The water-gate of our inn
What do they mean, the moon and boat?
Maybe the moon and the boat mean nothing
They simply are; they are themselves
Or perhaps we mean the moon and boat
Because of Du Mu and his words
The moon and the boat are forever
The blue-black river is forever
In reading of them so are we
“A Night at the Inn While Travelling”
Three Hundred Tang Poems
Translated by Peter Harris
London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009
Monday, September 23, 2024
Hobbit Day (short poem)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Hobbit Day
22 September
I read that today is Hobbit
Day
On the autumn equinox every
year
I was both delighted and
surprised
Even though in our shared
adventures, dear friends,
Every day is Hobbit Day
I first read The Hobbit in Viet-Nam in a discarded paperback I found at the Station Hospital in DaNang
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Someday Such Men Will Live in Palaces - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Such Men Will Someday Live in Palaces
Cf. Saint Matthew 11
I am only a visitor here, unqualified to speak
Of the incessant sufferings of men of God
Who may not go beyond the compassing wire
To see a reed shaken with the wind
For they sometimes are wind-struck reeds themselves
Planted for a time in this desert of penance
But they are men, and do not easily shake -
When the bitter wind blows they stand up straight
They do not raise their fists against the wind
But rather their hearts in manly strength and faith
Such men will someday live in palaces
Friday, September 20, 2024
At Rao's Bakery - Coffee, Croissants, Children, and the Constitution - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
At Rao’s Bakery - Coffee, Croissants, Children, and the
Constitution
At dawn - hot coffee and a fresh croissant
A family grouping at the table next
And a little child whispering to her
mother
The Preamble to the Constitution
I turned and said, “Oh, I want to hear
that again”
Proudly the little girl stood beside
her mom
And in a strong, clear voice began: “We
the People…”
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
I can’t do that anymore. Can you?
The child certainly earned an ‘A’
today
This coffee / croissant / American
day
A Road Crew Singing "Red, Red Wine" - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Road Crew Singing “Red, Red Wine”
A road crew of only two
riding with the fill
In the bed of a county pickup
truck
Patching potholes in the late
summer heat
Singing “Red, Red Wine” over
and over
“Red, Red, Wine”
One takes off his sweat-soaked
striped shirt
A voice from the cab tells
him to put it back on
They stop and take shovels
and out they leap
To shovel with the shovels
fill into holes
“Red, Red Wine”
They sing those three words
over and over
The only words of that song they
know
“Red, Red Wine.”
On a road cratered with holes
and emptied dreams
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Move the Metaphor; Move the Needle - short poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Moving the Metaphor
“Moving the needle” isn’t moving anymore
As a metaphor it is out of the groove
Although politics are spinning at 78
The needle is quite worn down, and so am I
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
If Mr. Vance Says You Ate Someone's Pet Cat Then Obviously You ate Someone's Pet Cat - not really a poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
If Mr. Vance Says You
Ate Someone’s Pet Cat
Then Obviously You Ate
Someone’s Pet Cat
“Show me the man and I will show you the crime”
-many attributions, usually to Lavrentia Beria,
sometimes to Stalin
"In Springfield, they're eating the dogs…They're eating
the cats.
They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”
-Presidential candidate Donald Trump,
10 September 2024
"If I have to create stories so that the American media
actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's
what I'm going to do."
-Vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance on CNN,
Sunday, 15 September 2024
Little children in school are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
Patients in hospitals are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
City office workers are threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
A Lutheran university is threatened with bombs
Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
A few Proud Boys [sic] stumble around in the street
Because two Heroic Men of Destiny said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat
Monday, September 16, 2024
I’m Proud of My Childless Cat Lady Daughter - two lines to rebuke certain stuffy old politicians
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I’m Proud of My Childless Cat Lady Daughter
Some call her a childless cat lady
At work the staff call her “Doctor”
The Terrifying Creepy Chilling Iconic Sniper’s Lair - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Terrifying Creepy
Chilling Iconic Sniper’s Lair
Some call it the sniper’s lair, some the sniper’s nest
Some call it a creepy lair
Some surely call it chilling and iconic
Because to InterGossip posters everything
Is chilling, iconic, jaw-dropping, and a bombshell
It’s just a sad, sagging old chain-link fence
With some sad old man’s wannabe G.I. Jerk
Army wannabe soldier-toys hanging from it
The Kalashjackov was real enough
The poor fool’s mind, not so much
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Runes Recently Discovered - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Runes Recently Discovered
We have mysterious runic messages still
Appearing this morning – there, on the road – see them?
Some say these irregular scrawls mark utilities
But you know, there are Wee Folk in these woods
15 September 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
If Li-Po Were my Houseguest - quatrain
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
If Li-Po Were my Houseguest
If Li-Po were
my houseguest tonight
I’d probably
have to drag him inside
After he’d
been drinking to the moon’s silver light
And heave him
into his bed with a gentle chide
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