Lawrence Hall, HSG
Still Listening to
the Warm
Rod McKuen was the coolest of the cool
And now he’s not
Which makes him warmer than ever
On the pencil-marked pages of our youth
“Listen to the Warm” is still good advice
Saturday, November 23, 2024
Still Listening to the Warm - poem
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Politics and the Public Square - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Politics and the Public Square
Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where the Enlightenment works the guillotine
That’s where sensitive progressives murder Jews
And constitutionalists rubbish the Constitution
Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where those who kiss dictators deny the King
That’s where individualists join in mobs
And the last few children are hunted down and killed
Oh, yes, we know about the public square –
Where the screams of the dying poison the air
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
I'm Gonna Tell Santa Claus on You! - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I’m Gonna Tell
Santa Claus on You!
Nora and Theo
The children scamper across my grassy lawn
And bring me wiggly worms to identify
Big acorns to admire, lemons fallen weeks before
Sticks and leaves, pinecones, flowers, and bits of bark
They lose their shoes and socks beneath the oak
They drink from the water hose and don’t turn it off
They chase the dog and the dog chases them
They shriek out joyfully because they can
I growl that if I mow another bit of brick
I’m gonna tell ol’ Santa Claus on them
They laugh at me, and bring me another worm
When She Sold Her Old Ford Mustang - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
When She Sold Her Old Ford Mustang
Y’all need some more coffee? I got some fresh
That car was my dream; had it since I was twenty
When I got married it was our honeymoon ride
When I got divorced it was all I had
After me and my baby got away from the beatings
Your breakfast okay? We got a new cook
We sometimes had to live in it, y’know?
So like I had to tell my son I’m selling it
I promised it to him for his graduation
That car was our life. But it ain’t safe
Did I tell you we got a new cook? He’s pretty good
I’m been waitin’ tables in this old café for years
Watchin’ the world go by on th’ highway
Schrodinger's Turtle - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Schrodinger’s Turtle
Don’t let a quantum mechanic work on your car
A cat on a fence post probably got there himself
And may be observed to be alive or dead
A turtle in a box is not on a shelf
“And I don’t know why,” the scientist said
“Meow,” the poor little cat cried out in dread
Dump Metaphors into the Mixmaster and Stir-Whir-into-a-Blur - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Dump ‘Em into the
Mixmaster and Stir-Whir-into-a-Blur
Americans
iconic
cannot
icon
write
bombshell
without
axe to grind
employing
the knives are out
tiresome
gunning for
old
fwiw
metaphors
business-as-usual
Battleground states
Eye-watering
scores to settle
Cringe
Bloodthirsty
Guru
Meltdown
Woke
Wardrobe malfunction
Green light
Eviscerate
Breaks cover
Breaks silence
Jaw-dropping
Dump ‘em into the magical metaphorical Mixmaster® and
stir, stir, whirrrrr…
The Gates of Kiev are Smoke-Poisoned Skies - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Gates of Kiev
are Smoke-Poisoned Skies
The Gates of Kiev are now only the skies
Drone-battered-bombed by the Siloviki
Against the peace of churches and sunflower fields
Workers and scholars and pastoral scenes
The Gates of Kiev once opened to all the world
Musicians, artists, builders, priests, and poets
Departed as missionaries to every land
Civilization from the Kievan Rus’
But now
The Gates of Kiev are smoke-poisoned skies
Through which foul Satan falls upon Slavic lands
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Poet, Just Look at You - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Poet, Just Look at You
Just look at you, wrestling with your ideas
Perceiving beauty among the burning ruins
Gently shaping the sorrows of the day
Into comfort
Just look at you, wrestling with your words
Heart and mind in position of function
Boldly shaping the confusions of the day
Into meaning
Just look at you, putting your readers first –
You are good
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Who Shares Your Desk? - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Who Shares Your Desk?
Hundreds of friends share my desk with me
Leaving coffee and wine and tobacco stains
All over the place, their thoughts cluttering my mind
Dreams and possibilities for my heart
Yevtushenko and his Silver Age
poets
More Russian poets
Shakespeare in a worn college
omnibus
Larry McMurtry
(One
must understood that in Texas Lonesome Dove is a holy text)
The Oxford Book of Twentieth
Century English Verse
The Oxford Book of Narrative
Verse
The Oxford Book of Christian
Verse
The Oxford Book of
Seventeenth Century Verse
Leonard Cohen and his famous
blue raincoat
Cavafy at an oblique angle to
the universe
Wordsworth and Dorothy out for a
walk
Plath
Keats
Sondheim
Montale
Hopkins
The Oxford Book of English
Verse, the 1939 Q Edition
(Not
that Q!)
The Oxford Book of English
Verse, the 1999 Ricks Edition
Pasternak
Lewis
Frankl
The Oxford Book of Victorian
Verse
Kafka
Herrick
Milosz
Virgil
Tennyson
Wavell and his manly flowers
Claude McKay
300 Tang poets (they do
seem to drink a lot)
Mary Oliver and all her doggies
So there they are, in untidy rows and piles
(The Tang
poets simply will not behave)
They are patient with my slovenliness
Pens, screwdrivers, a Rosary, two light bulbs
(I don’t
know why)
A thermometer from my grandparents’ house
A 1962 Missale Romano and a toy fire truck
An Orthodox ikon from Tod of happy memory
A Tupperware coffee cup they don’t make anymore
Spare spectacles for seeing what comes next
Hundred of friends who ask the best of me
And who don’t mind my rows and piles of words
They talk to me, and I ask their advice
I pray that I am not a disappointment to them
Or to you
Monday, November 11, 2024
Which Karamazov are You? - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Which Karamazov are You?
Wise Dostoyevksy
Writes with holy words the mysteries
Of the Russian soul
Which Karamazov are You? - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Which Karamazov
are You?
Wise Dostoyevksy
Writes with holy words the mysteries
Of the Russian soul
Saturday, November 9, 2024
For Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day: An Old G.I. Belt Buckle - Poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
An Old G.I. Belt Buckle
For Storekeeper Third Class Thomas of Knoxville, Tennessee
“What he believed, he did.”
-Laurence Binyon
“In Memory of George Calderon”
An old belt buckle in the back of a shelf
Greening brass on a belt now much too short
Maybe the same one I wore on the Vam Co Tay
Scattered thoughts shift to Thomas; I don’t know why
A good man with a clipboard and a fifty-cal
Sitting on the edge of a bunk feeding a child
Spooning c-rats and making the kid laugh
“One for meeee…and one for youuuu!”
I wonder whatever happened to good ‘ol Thomas
I wonder whatever happened to the child
I wonder whatever happened to all of us
Friday, November 8, 2024
Atheist Chaplains Forging Mixed Metaphors - poem (of a sort)
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Atheist Chaplains Forging Mixed Metaphors
“Atheist chaplains are forging a new path in a
changing world”
-CNN 7 November 2024
One seldom thinks of chaplains at a forge
Work-weary, work-stained from hours of smoke and sweat
With mighty hammer strokes bending hot iron
To the will of the artisan in useful things
Some writers forge nothing but metaphors tired
From overuse, and mixed as verbal soup
In music, art, literature, and life paths can be
Cleared
Paved
Traveled
Surveyed
explored
Followed
Noted
Marked
Mapped
Found
But it is not in the nature of paths to be forged
Atheist chaplains and metaphor soup
Are nothing more than an ouroborosian loop
(Look upon this fresh
metaphor and neologism
And despair)
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Vice-President Kamala Harris’ Speech of Gratitude and Farewell to Her Faithful Followers in the Early Hours of 6 November 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Vice-President Kamala Harris’ Speech of Gratitude and Farewell to Her Faithful Followers in the Early Hours of 6 November 2024
Monday, November 4, 2024
Election Night 2024: Dry Bones - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Election Night
2024: Dry Bones
“All we are, basically, are monkeys with car keys”
-Grandma Woody in Northern Exposure, “Animals R
Us,” 1991
An early dusk falls under clouds from the Gulf
Yellow houselights wink on as daylight winks off
Supper in greasy bags from fast-fooderies
That everyone argues they can’t afford
Then like the lozenge in A Space Odyssey
A screen appears and dominates all
And family groupings center themselves around it
In excited cavortings before the images
Of brightly-colored cultic election scores
As fists swinging dry bones crush enemy skulls
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Nora, Theo, and Pushkin-the-Rescue-Cat - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Nora, Theo, and Pushkin-the-Rescue-Cat
After rough adventures Pushkin has found his way home
The children celebrate with him his happy new life
By crowning their purring prince with vines and flowers
And he is pleased to accept their adoration and love
Too soon children must leave their merriments
And rebuild civilization among the wreckages
In a time of hatreds and ideologies
When all seem to have forgotten the way to Jerusalem
And so for now
May children enjoy the springtime of their lives
For they (and the cat) remind us of our appointed path
Friday, November 1, 2024
Porta Coeli - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Porta Coeli
“I pray you, sir, remember the porter”
-Macbeth II.iii.20ff
We are all porters; we open doors for others
Sometimes we open them for ourselves
If we close a door, it is against the rain and cold
And not against each other
(Yes, in Macbeth
the Porter is drunk and inept, and when he says “remember the porter” he is
asking for a tip in spite of his incompetence. I put the line in anyway because
we are all porters.)
Monday, October 28, 2024
The Most Embarrassed Young Father in All of Christendom - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Most Embarrassed Young Father in All of Christendom
I will go in to the Altar of God.
To God who giveth joy to my youth.
The Roman Missal, 1962
The processional had hardly ended
With each minister and server in place
Each knee for a moment respectfully bended
In acknowledgement of God’s gentle Grace
When came to our ears a frightening assault
Of sirens and horns, and then flashing lights
Beneath the sanctuary’s sacred vault
A catalogue of wild electronic frights
To the narthex door a father rushed
Awkwardly in the sight of God and man
His handsome manly face was deeply flushed
His son’s toy helicopter was clutched in his hands
He carried the noisy gadget far away -
(A true helicopter parent we may say!)
We delight in our children; for them we pray
And thank God for all families this Sabbath day
I will go in to the Altar of God.
To God who giveth youthful joy to old age.
-Parenting 1301
Sunday, October 27, 2024
The Sunday Evening News in a Time of Elections - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Sunday Evening News in a Time of Elections
“Good things of day begin to droop
and drowse”
-Macbeth III.ii.58
Suddenly the yellowing afternoon
is still
For Indian Summer breezes
have slipped away
While clouds of silent
midges swirl against the sun
For reasons of nature known
only to themselves
The treeline is blue as
evening comes on
But the hayfields glow
golden for a little while
Until Old Sol falls asleep
at last
And the firstling stars
come out to play
A rabbit shyly nibbles at
the dewing grass –
The day is over; we have
to let it pass
Saturday, October 26, 2024
A Plumber's Assistant, a Nazi, and an Artificial Tree - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Plumber’s Assistant, a Nazi, and an Artificial Tree
Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden, 10 February 1939
Isadore Greenbaum wanted to punch a Nazi
And so he charged – he didn’t get very far
And was beaten up by Real Americans (cough)
(It took only four or five of ‘em)
And arrested by the New York City Police
One Nazi stopped kicking Greenbaum to set aright
An artificial tree that was about to fall
Which is a curiosity – what remnant of good
Was in that man that he kept a decoration in place?
Greenbaum is a hero in our nation’s history -
The tidy Nazi remains a mystery
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