Reality Will See You Now - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

                                            Reality Will See You Now

 

I am a student of medical waiting rooms

The same Motel 6 paintings and decor

Receptionists giggling behind rippled glass

About weekends and boyfriends and inadequate husbands

 

Patients waiting as patiently as Russians

Tattoos and ball-caps lined up in plastic-chairs

Clutching bills and lab reports in nervous hands

Or greasy, year-old copies of Reader’s Digest

 

Or bending over their MePhones in a servile bow -

“Mr. Hall? The doctor will see you now…”

A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life - a sort-of-poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life

 

Optometrist 17 March 0845 Netgear DirecTV Viasat Verizon Spectrum Xumo? Xuumo? Carlos 1775 1812 PSA Eliot Cohen BRING PLANTS UNDER COVER computer paper brekker c Max 0800 Tuesday find quote from Doctor Zhivago When is Gonculator Day? Intek 10.5 “Did civilians write poetry back in the day?” Subaru password username amazon apple Christus patient portal HUMMINGBIRDS! Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund visitation Sat 5-7 funeral Sun 2 1030 St. Elizabeth’s Refresh+ or Lumify water co-op board meeting Kirk Santiago de Compostella breakfast singles orange juice cheese creamer cat food detergent pods taco shells 0900 dentist Epiphany prison at 1700 cancel DirecTV cancel Viasat Mary Oliver OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE Q EDITION LONESOME DOVE as DIGENES AKRITAS life is the meaning of what? Jaw-dropping breaking silence breaking cover breaking bombshells shocking bombshells the shell of a bomb the Alien and Sedition Acts and Frodo

 

Nazis wear ball caps

 

The building has left Elvis

William Ernest Henley Never Owned a Snapper Lawnmower - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

William Ernest Henley Never Owned a Snapper Lawnmower

 

Unsparkus

 

Out of the oil that covers me

          Black as the pit of a president’s soul

I resent whatever flawed designs may be

          With my unmechanical soul

 

In the fell clutch of a slippery clutch

          I have often winced and cried aloud

Under the bludgeonings of that son-of-a-Dutch

          “I’ll junk this [mess]!” I have avowed

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

          Looms but the horror of engine-part prices

And yet the promise of a case of cold beers

          Finds me hammering again at these devices

 

It matters not how high the grass

          How charged with prices the hardware store bill

I am going to whip this foul machine’s [self]

          Or bury the [buzzard] in the nearest landfill!

The Curse of the - Dramatic - Dash: doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Curse of the – Dramatic - Dash

 

The dash for – dramatic pause – infests

Almost every – essay – these days

Such errant usages - have become pests

And thoughtful writers - might want to mend - their ways

 

A clear English sentence  - is tight - and terse

A model of - artistic - clarity

But all those pointless - dashes - just make it worse

Compromising its - structural - harmony

 

If in re-writing you find – you’ve placed a dash

Just rip that sucker - out – and toss it in –

                                                          the trash!

That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting

 

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old man

Booming his gassy voice at every meeting

Whatever the topic he leads the van

Interrupting with his self-obsessed bleating

 

He was a banker, he tells us repeatedly

He knows about finance, more than the treasurer

And he was a cop, too, he yells out heatedly

And arguing the reports gives him much pleasurer

 

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old gent

He doesn’t know Jacques Merde, but he will always vent!

 

(He’s not unlike our current president)

A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer - senryu (maybe; people argue about senryu and haiku and cuckoo)

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer

 

If only the day

Will live up to the promise

Of this golden dawn

Valkyrie Flight of the Lawn Chairs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Flight of the Lawn Chairs

 

The Lion-Winds of March

 

Wild winds now rise to a Valkyrie’s strength

And dark clouds roar to the hammer of Thor

While lightning traverses the poor earth’s length

As if our Nordic gods have gone to war

 

As if our Nordic gods have gone to war

The walls and windows rattle against the rain

Foul enemies batter against the door

The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain

 

The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain

Have set my old lawn chairs to flying again!

A Ghost Road Through the Marsh - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

A Ghost Road Through the Marsh

 

 

The days are gone

When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;

 

-“The Seafarer”, Burton Raffel translation

 

 

Water ran in rivulets among the weeds

The wind was lowering, the rain had stopped, the sky

Was low and grey over a landscape bleak

With wreckage and windfall from the passing storm

 

An old man slowly worked to clear the road

While the young impatiently hooted and honked

Their displeasure that the world they hadn’t worked

Wasn’t working quite right for them today

 

The old man sometimes spoke with the ghosts of Rome

Who had built and marched their roads until

The egos and angerings of emperors and kings

Abandoned all good work to slow decay

 

The young one-fingered past him among the brome

And disappeared forever into the gloam

Soups as a Medium of Exchange - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Soups as a Medium of Exchange

 

In today’s trading soups were generally down

Although vegetable beef found a brisk trade

Potato soup was bullish in Block D

And each minestrone was five cigarettes

 

The market closed slightly up at evening count

But this could not compensate for the day’s fall

Naked-lady tats are expected to go high this week

Ten soups for an inked image of yo’ mama

 

The morning market will open in this metal hell

When some dumb **** rings that ****ing bell

The List is Death - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The List is Death

 

There is said to be a list – but whose?

Who wrote it? Where is it? Where has it been?

On what teakwood desk does it now repose

Around which names and lives are negotiated

 

The matter is not that names are being removed

But that your name might be written in

Because your attitude has been noticed

The hand that once shook yours signs away your life

 

Someone pencils your name upon The List

That’s your loyalty reward (you won’t be missed)

 

Thoughts ‘n’ prayers as in Two Corinthians

Authority Over Everything on the Earth - rhyming doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Authority Over Everything on the Earth

 

Sirach 17:1-15

 

You can’t be authority over all the earth

If in the end you are buried under it

What are man’s honors and dignity worth

When man is nobly dropped into a pit

Prancing Chainsaw Dude - senryu

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Prancing Chainsaw Dude

 

Prancing chainsaw dude

Humiliates all of us

But we obey him

The Seven Seeing-Stones - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Seven Seeing-Stones

 

Good Tolkien writes of spring far better than we

With layered allusions to Celtic and Nordic myths

His Fairy Folk sing clearly in rainbow rhymes

Among the crocuses abloom ‘round ancient trees

 

My crocuses bloom ‘round a shaggy lawn

With garden furniture in need of paint

And morning coffee in a Tupperware cup

To serve as a greeting to the rising sun

 

Friend Tolkien writes of spring for you and me

And through his Seven Seeing-Stones – we see!

Scriptual Textual Analysis Applied to Act II of Macbeth - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Scriptural Textual Analysis Applied to Act II of Macbeth

 

The Book of Steve Jobs 43:13-16

 

“Oh, no, Mr. Hall!

It’s right here in the Bible!” she exclaimed

Standing up suddenly from her desk

Eagerly waving her MePhone aloft

 

And then she paused

Appeared to be slightly embarrassed

Laughed

Took a selfie

 

And laughed some more

 

As did we all

 

Happiness

You Were Dancing Up the Lane - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

You Were Dancing Up the Lane

 

In an old lawn chair I sat and dozed

And felt amber dusk sealing the day

Though I was weary and my eyes were half-closed

I heard you – you, whistling a romantic lay

 

You were skipping barefoot up the lane

Your skirt all a-dance for your heart’s desire

O Lady-Queen of our happy demesne

With flowers for me, your most devoted squire

 

I awoke, I blinked – I was all alone -

The sun had set on us, many years gone

 

But I saw you dancing up the lane…

The Church Garage Sale - doggerel

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Church Garage Sale

 

(Although the garage sale is in the parish hall because there is no garage)

 

 

A garage sale is a rebuke to us all -

The metaphysical finger having writ

Turns now from that lost Babylonian wall

And points at us as if to scribe this bit:

 

Why did you buy these masses of junk at all?

Candy-Colored Canes in the Waiting Room - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Candy-Colored Canes in the Waiting Room

 

In the waiting room: rows of colored canes

Aluminum canes for the weak of breath and gait

For us who suffer from imbalance and pains -

We also swerve who only sit and wait

I Believe in Love, NOW STAY AWAY - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

I Believe in Love, NOW STAY AWAY

 

In the tiny coffee shop all the tables were full

A man kept his table to himself

And would not acknowledge anyone

Defensive behind his deep-thoughts book

 

The rest of us shared our tables and space

Exchanging greetings, pleasantries, and thanks

Passing the cream and sweeteners and napkins around

All

Except for that one poor sullen man

 

On the cover was a drawing of a Christian dove -

His book was entitled I Believe in Love

Graveside Service on a Blustery Day - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Graveside Service on a Blustery Day

 

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new”

 

Tennyson, Idylls of the King

 

The widower assisted to his place

Mourners in unaccustomed dresses and suits

A bible, leaflets fluttering in the wind

And gangly teens unsure what they should do

 

February clouds roiling and boiling

Even the officiant’s words are blown away

Prayers lifted into silence by the wind

They may have fallen by the gravediggers’ tractor

 

Or were blown through the leaning chain-link fence

Into the deeply darkening Grendel-woods

 

But still – in back –

                                a boy and a girl shyly touch hands

The Problems with Self-Publishing - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Problems with Self-Publishing

 

The problems with self-publishing are self-publishers:

“Everyone just loves my book; tell me what you think

It’s about my cousin who was a Navy SEAL

And then became a millionaire and then a priest

 

“He saved the nation from nuclear warfare

In a mission so classified that we can’t talk about it

(But he told me all about it, of course)

And then he saved souls and counseled with popes

 

“My book is inspired by the Holy Spirit

So read it tonight and tell me what you think”