Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
An Asymptomatic Sinner
I burned a television set
today
Which was a rewarding
experience
A bonfire of the vanities
indeed
Burn, you 140 channels,
burn!
I am in quarantine,
‘though symptom-free
And there was an old
television around
And so I burned it. And
I’m glad, ha-ha!
Tomorrow I will rake the
ashes for its guts
While in quarantine,
waiting for my test -
A burning television is a
merry jest!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Merely to see the magic is
not enough
The children do not merely
see Aslan
Nor does Uncle Andrew
merely see the witch
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Merely to see the Truth is
not enough
The Magi do not merely see
the Star
Nor do the shepherds
merely see the Child
Behold!
A story requires an
occasional “Behold!”
Or else the magic isn’t
truly told
Behold!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Seraphim of Sarov
And the Bear
And the Robbers
Saint Seraphim was seen
feeding a bear
He would have fed the
robbers too, poor men
With both the little in
his larder bowl
And healing from the
greatness of his soul
With his own axe they beat
him near to death
Before looting his cell of
its rumored riches
They found indeed a
treasure of great wealth:
A peasant’s Ikon of the
Mother of God
For the rest of his life
Seraphim leaned upon his
axe and upon God
Taking our brokenness upon
himself
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Useful Things
Aboard a Delivery Truck on New Year’s Day
A new clothes-dryer for our little house
“MADE IN AMERICA” – but is it really?
By hand to the hydraulic lift, and down
And by dolly trolley into the laundry
It made its journey with someone’s new washer
A refrigerator, and a cast-iron cooker
Useful things delivered by working men
Wrestling trucks and freight for the common good
When their day’s work is done I hope that they
Can relax
(around a cooker, with a cold one in hand)
and say, “This was a good day.”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Happy Roman New
Year - Join me for a Cuppa!
“I went, and I am still going.”
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“Zima Junction”
The dogs and I are out on our morning patrol
Greeting the new day, new month, and new year
Greeting the sun as he sings through woods
His song of Creation, Creation-fresh
I have fed the animals, lit the fire
Made coffee to enjoy at my old desk
With Edmondson, Wells, and their pal Shakespeare
And John Senior with his awfully thinky words
Fresh coffee, fresh words for me and for you –
Join me, won’t you, for a merry cup of brew!
I have no connection with
the authors or publishers:
Edmondson, Paul and Wells.
All the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2020
Senior, John. Pale
Horse, Easy Rider. Lawrence, Kansas, Shakespeherian Rag Press, 1992
The possibilities were good, but this is poor stuff. I hope someone will take the gag and make it funny:
Lawrence Hall
Dostoyevsky Writes
to the Coronavirus
More than one scribbler has re-written the first lines of
famous novels as humorous takes on the covid-time. I go them one better in
re-writing the first lines of famous Russian novels:
Alexey Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor
Pavlovich Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day and
still remember among us due to his tragic death when his stockpile of hoarded
toilet paper fell and crushed him.
-Dostoyevsky, The
Brothers Karamazov
Reveille was sounded, as always, at 5 a.m. – a hammer
pounding on a rail outside Camp Fast-Track Vaccines H. Q.
-Solzhenitsyn, One
Day in the Live of Ivan Denisovich
On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man
came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as
though in hesitation, towards K Bridge in search of P. P. E.
- Dostoyevsky, Crime
and Punishment
“Well, Peter, still no sign of the promised disinfectant aerosols?
-Turgenev, Fathers
and Sons
On they went, singing “Rest Eternal,” and whenever they
stopped there was a sign reminding them to maintain a distance of six feet from
each other.
-Pasternak, Doctor
Zhivago
I am merely copying out here, word for word, what was
printed today in the State Gazette: Glass rooms in glass buildings are not
enough – you must also wear your glass masks.
-Zamyatin, We
“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family
estates of the Microsoft Corporation.”
-Tolstoy, War
and Peace
Happy viruses are all alike; every unhappy virus is
unhappy in its own way.
-Tolstoy, Anna
Karenina
Every day the factory whistle bellowed forth its shrill, roaring,
shuddering noises into the smoke-begrimed and greasy atmosphere of the
workingmen’s suburb where vaccines were developed.
-Gorky, Mother
The Melekhov farm was right at the end of Tatarsk village,
next to Dr. Fauci’s house.
-Sholokov, And
Quiet Flows the Don
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
31 December 2020 –
Time Out for a Penalty Flag
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways
-Tennyson, “The Passing of Arthur”
Change does not lie in
calendars or dates
But in the seasonal
turnings of the year
And in the ordered ways of
God with us
Compassing us truly in
spite of ourselves
Years are but our usages
and measurings
Tools lent us for a time for
learning Creation
For balancing the better
against the good
And the transcendent against
the transient
Life is not lived in
calendars or dates
But beyond all time, and
only in Truth
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Our Fearless Leaders / Have Got / The Shot
But as for us, well, we
have not
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
First Communion in the Virus-Time
For Veronica
True Ikon of the Lord
A little girl’s mantilla
is a crown
A crown an empress might covet
for herself
Wore she not her own First
Communion mantilla
Forever within the
recesses of her heart
A little girl’s white
cotton dress is a robe
A royal robe of courtly majesty,
Worn in the presence of her
Lord and King
A little girl on First
Communion day
Awes even the angels in
her imperium
Reading is a Suspicious Activity:
Blue-Penciled in Solovetsky
“…Soviet writers failed to write
about their personal thoughts.”
-Yevtushenko
Reading
is a suspicious activity
Unless
it’s a technical book of instructions
Or
a hunting magazine with centerfolds
Of
seductive semi-automatics
Writing
is a forbidden activity
Unless
it’s a grocery shopping list
Or
the code to a new computer game
Of
zombie valkyries with swastika tats
They’ve
only gotten as far as statues thrown down
They’ll
destroy the libraries next – and maybe you
Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Washing-Machine Archaeology
History
passes, and so do washing machines
Rattling
and spinning to the end of their span
Their
dutiful cleanings cleaned out at last
Whited
sepulchers around silent drums
The
householder as Howard Carter finds
Behind
a dead machine “Yes, wonderful things!”
Clothes
hangers, metastasized dust bunnies
Inexplicable
stains that hiss and spit
And
in a midden, he discovers with a shock -
Almost
embalmed – that famous long-lost sock!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Feast of Saint Stephen as Observed
at the Truck Stop
On the occasion of meeting a friend
for breakfast on the Feast of St. Stephen
Now the overpass
looked down
On the Feast of
Stephen
With some garbage
strewn about
Moldy and uneven
Brightly shone the
neon light
Though the frost was
cruel
When a poor man came
in sight
Pumping diesel fuel
(This is gonna be one of the Greats,
eh!)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Christmas Day in the
Covid-Time
There are no children around the tree this year
To make Christmas complete with their happiness
No Barbie dolls, electric trains, or bikes -
We are distanced in everything but love
No relatives come and go, not even the one
Who will park his pickup truck on the lawn
No fruitcakes given and received, no hugs -
We are distanced in everything but love
But still there is the fire, the dog, and us -
We are distanced in everything but love
Lawrence Hall
The Turning of the
Year
It was Christmas night in the Castle of
the Forest Sauvage…There was skating on the moat… while hot chestnuts and
spiced mead were served on the bank to all and sundry. The owls hooted. The
cooks put out plenty of crumbs for the small birds. The villagers brought out
their red mufflers. Sir Ector’s face shone redder even than these. And reddest
of all shone the cottage fires down the main street of an evening.
T. H. White, The
Once and Future King
From the first Sunday in Advent to Plough (or Plow)
Monday after the Feast of the Epiphany we live within the turning of the year.
Advent begins the new liturgical year with final harvest
activities and customs giving way to preparing spiritually and, through the Incarnation,
physically for Christmas. Christmas itself begins at midnight on the 24th
of December and concludes with the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th
of January. In England the first Monday after the Epiphany is Plough Monday,
when, by tradition, the soil is turned in anticipation of spring, blending the leaf-mould
into the soil, enriching it, and becoming part of it.
The unhappy Puritans banned Christmas in the
English-speaking world for generations, and when it was restored in the 19th
century it was an odd Dickens sort of
thing, amusing but pale, not based in the faith or in the annual cycle of
nature given to this world by God. The cliché that we must put Christ back into
Christmas is inverted; it is the Mass – religious observance – that needs
putting back into Christmas, not more noise.
Christmas has long been discussed, but not amended, for
the tension, unhappiness, and even near-hysteria which attends it – compulsive shopping
and forced merriment in which people who don’t much care for each other for the
rest of the year are made by the secular liturgies and advertisements of unreasonable
expectations and closeness to despise each other.
A Christmas which does not end with tears and sulks and
slammed doors is an unusual one, but that is the fault of Charles Dickens and
his successors, and of ourselves, not of Christ.
But all bad things come to an end, and some of the most
joyful and peaceful days fall after the 25th, when the gifts have
lost their mystery but not their newness and leftover turkey is still on the
menu. Even the tree seems at peace, giving us light on dark afternoons while we
doze over a new book or perk up with a cup of pinon coffee from New Mexico.
Visits from friends – forbidden this year - are free from any expectations
other than conversations about the kids and prospects for the new year.
Hundreds of thousands have died this year, and the government
has collapsed, all because of the New Men – and the New Women - who, unlike Sir
Ector, grasp at power and ignore their duties.
By the grace of God a great many good, sturdy people in service
to humanity are on duty through all this, health care workers from great
surgeons to the nice lady who cleans up after them, police officers,
firefights, and the watchers of gauges and the wielders of wrenches who keep
everything going.
Is this, then, a time for anyone to drowse before a warm
fire?
Well, we can only hope that all will soon be able sit in
a comfortable chair and look out their own windows at the cardinals
Christmas-feasting at the feeder, and maybe a squirrel loping across the frost
for its share of seeds, and with no shopping to be accomplished and no work for
a day or two, and no immediate obligations except tending the fire.
The year is turning, and for a day or two we may quietly enjoy
the mystery.
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Why Can’t You Come Home for Christmas, Daddy?
Christmas eve – and the
conversation is low
The chaplains have left
the men with their blessings
And have in their turn
been blessed by the men
Who gather now with powdered
coffee, with words
Christmas eve – written in
a little child’s hand:
“Why can’t you come home
for Christmas, Daddy?”
And a crayoned Santa Claus
who can fly
Above the razor wire, and
far away
Christmas eve - midnight’s
canvas-pillowed tears
Christmas at home someday
- only ten years
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Christmas Eve Eve
Eve
Winter arrives, they say, at 8:31
And how do they know? The light doesn’t change
The soft pale light filtering through the fog
Upon the grey-brown fields who have fallen asleep
While we speak of lockdowns and rollbacks and deaths
And plan for the least-attended Christmas Mass
The fields and forests hardly speak at all
Only in their prayerful whispers of the Eternal
Time is told to us
by the sun, moon, and stars -
And all the seasons arrive in God’s good time
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Everyone Writes a Drivelly Poem about the Winter
Solstice
And entitles it
“Winter
Solstice,”
And yet Somehow the World Goes On
The sun seems to stand
still, and too, the world
An Ouroboros of lockdowns
and masks
And the increasing
divisions of partisans
In yet another republic
devouring itself
There is an insubstantial
Christmas truce
Undeclared, a catching of
breath and will
In hopes that two-faced
Janus will close his doors
Against the failings of
the coming year
The sun seems to stand
still, and too, the world
We also wait, and search
the skies for a Star
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Bifocalism for the Masses and, Like, Stuff
Bifocals – the upper lens
sees far away
The sun and the moon and
the dancing stars
All in their appointed
places above
Great mountains and oceans
and thunderstorms
Bifocals – the lower lens
sees the end of your nose
The sweep hand dancing
around your Timex watch
The book you are reading,
the book you are writing
Your thoughts encoded in orderly
lines
Bifocals – both lenses
balance your sense of vision -
But take the stairs with
care and precision!
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
And He Liked Really Cool Cars
For George Ebarb
Of happy memory
Who served God, his family, prisoners,
And all who were blessed in knowing
him
With unfailing love and generosity
(And he liked really cool cars!)
A convention is to say
that when we die
God will not ask us about the
cars we drove
But we may hope and pray
that in George’s case
A happy exception was made
for him
George
was my mentor in prison volunteer service. I didn’t know he was a rich man, for
he wore his wealthy lightly, and I didn’t know he gave much of his wealth away,
for he was also rich, as Chaucer says of the Parsoun, in “hooly thought and werk.”
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Keep a Sharp Lookout – This Fog Won’t Last
My country was made for noble hearts
such as yours.
-Aslan in Voyage of the Dawn
Treader
When we can’t turn
outward, we turn inward
That might not be such a
good thing, you know
We are probably
out-of-practice, busied
With meetings and work and
coffee-shop dates
For now our lives are
solitude and screens
Pajama feet and emptiness,
and if
We call someone, who is it
who answers us?
“Be still, and know that I
am Internet?”
Oh, no. The night is misty
indeed, but the stars -
The stars still shine; be
brave, and look for them
