Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
To Always be Splitting Infinitives
Those who neither know nor care
[about split infinitives]…are a happy folk…
-Fowler’s Modern English Usage,
1926
I seem to always be
Splitting infinitives
And between you and me
These are definitives
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
In the Season of
the Perseids
Most people find beauty in everything:
An old Peterson’s pipe, crickets, Irish coins
Fire trucks, fountain pens, a favourite old book
Cattails growing in ditches along the road
Short strings of words that breathe and sigh as songs
Sunflowers fainting in the afternoon
A treefrog pulsing on the windowpane
Ladybugs drowsing on a tomato leaf
Even so, how hard it is to feel beauty
In late July’s wearying, withering heat
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Paper Sacks I have Known – 2
Like a block of marble
waiting to be carved
A paper sack is art
waiting to be made
Because after Mom puts the
groceries away
The empty sack is full of
possibilities:
A royal crown with
construction-paper jewels
A Robin Hood hat if you
fold it just right
A Halloween mask for a
scary trick-or-treat
(Smell my feet; give me
something good to eat!)
A boat
A puppet
A pinata
A brave knight’s armor
A cat toy
A three-year-old-daughter
toy
A pony express rider’s
mail pouch
A kite (I could never make
mine fly)
A book cover without adverts
A canvas for crayon art
A luminaria
A matte to be cut out,
crayoned on, and framed
And after your art is sent
into the world
That tuckered-out sack,
that sleepy little sack
Is tucked into bed in the
warm garden soil
To awaken in the spring as
flowers for you!
Childhood - no batteries
or programming required
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Paper Sacks I have Known - 1
When I was a lad I was a
sack boy at Mixson’s
I stacked and sacked
coffee and corn and beans
To carry out to cars along
the street
In a little town that no
longer exists
Sacks in three sizes were
my tools of trade:
The little ones for Papa’s
cigarettes
The mediums for tonight’s
milk and bread
The big ‘uns for the
Saturday in-towns
Mixson’s is closed, as is
my little town
And paper sacks, too, just
cannot be found
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Cardiac Clinic Consulting
Room
One’s bubble goes off-bubble a few degrees
For now there is nothing to do but sit and wait
No longer in control of anything
“Is there in your family any history of…?”
Pleasant young people in scrubs come and go
With papers and charts and machines that buzz
And in between the book is open but unread
While silent morning light louvres across the walls
The doctor enters with paperwork and optimism:
There are still possibilities in life
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Abject Horror in the
Microwave
There are few crimes more likely to drive a man
A man, a sensitive man, a thinking man
To existential despair
Than the foul stench of cooking broccoli
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Pre-Existing
Conditions
The topic of trust came up the other day when one of the prisoners I visit each week remarked on the challenge of knowing how to find reliable
information about the Virus-of-Many-Names.
Trust is a big deal – after all, Jesus was murdered
because a provincial governor believed gossip. And it may be that some governors
still fail to think critically.
When I was a small boy I did not know that the key to a
car or pickup was removable. I understood that the key was a part of the magic
that made the engine go, but I thought it was a fixed part of the vehicle, like
the starter switch on the floor and the gearshift on the steering column.
I was surprised when in a movie at the Palace Theatre of
happy memory I saw a driver park his car and remove the key, and I asked my
parents about that curious behavior.
My father explained that in cities people stole things
from each other and the character in the movie removed his key so that wouldn’t
happen.
When some years later my parents decided that locking the
house when they were gone had become a necessity, they had to look for the door
keys. That was also about the time they began pocketing the key to the pickup
truck.
The trust was broken.
When later in life I had occasion to visit London with my
mother and daughter we noticed that because of the compactness of so many shops
young mothers often left their babies in prams at the door, along with the occasional
dog. This was surprising, and especially troubling to my mother, who asked
someone about that. A nice lady assured her that the children were in no danger
because everyone who walked by was as a matter of routine looking at each baby
to see that all was well.
We observed for a few minutes, and yes, that was exactly
what happened – everyone walking along – teenagers, men in overalls, men in
suits, rough-looking lads with cigarettes and attitudes, women dressed for
business, shop girls, hippie chicks – gave each child a visual check while
passing.
Which is the way it’s supposed to be.
This is no longer a practice in London; indeed, children everywhere
are the targets of knifings and shootings and abductions. When we read of a
child being shot because one group of idiots chooses to shoot at another group,
the topic of trust is far beyond car keys.
Which is not the way it’s supposed to be.
As for the question of the Virus-of-Many-Names, my
response, as always, is that the best source of knowledge is the MD or NP
sitting across from you in a consulting room.
“I saw a doctor on tv, and she said…” won’t do.
“I saw a doctor on the news, and he said…” won’t do.
“I read on a reliable site on the InterGossip that…” won’t
do.
“My buddy said that his doctor said…” won’t do.
“My favorite guy on the Hamster Network said…” won’t do.
“All my friends at work said…” won’t do.
“My cousin in Houston who almost finished nurses’ aide
school said…” won’t do.
What will do is the MD or NP whom you know and who knows
you. And then you must put on grown-up thinking skills – not feelings or trends
or moods - and make an adult decision about what’s right, not for you but for
MeeMaw, babies, children, and other vulnerable people around you.
Sometimes you get the idea that there are among us some
who, if they were transported back in time to July 5th, 1863 to see
the 50,000+ dead on the fields around Gettysburg, would dismiss all those young
men with, “Well, they must have had pre-existing conditions.”
-30-
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Too Much Coffee Can Cause Your Brain to Shrink
(Hey, it was on the InterGossip; it must
be true)
Coffee causes your heart
to beat too fast
Coffee causes your heart
to beat too slow
Coffee causes your heart
to beat just right
Coffee alters your DNA and
your mind
No, it doesn’t!
Yes, it does!
Doctors say…!
Studies show…!
Say yes, say no, say so,
whaddaya know?
Now pour me another cuppa that
joe!
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Texas, Our Texas,
All Hail the Secret State
"The Biden administration is
not being transparent…”
-Governor Greg Abbot
Governor Abbot so loves his Texas folk
That he orders state troopers to keep them away
He surrounds himself with a security cloak
And with his good ol’ boys, the ones who pay
God forbid that the people who voted for him
Should forget their place, and dare to approach
The corporate hangar guarded against them
And risk his Praetorians’ stern reproach
Even the press is locked out, alone and lonely –
The government of
Texas is for Members Only
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
The Last Time I Saw Van Horn, Texas
Van Horn, Texas is a
penile colony
Eruptions delivered through
a cosmic gap
Woo-hoo emissions into
curvy space
And then limply falling back
down, down to earth
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Daily Lesson Plans
This day is part of our
assignment on earth -
I think I need to take
more careful notes
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo…
They say (because there’s always
a “they” to say)
That a new variant has
come to harry us
With death, the fear of
death, the denial of death
Even along crowded
corridors of death
Where masses stumble over
war metaphors
In the torchlight of
perpetual outrage
While clenching fists and
chanting molossus shrieks
In their world lit only by
glowing screens
But you and I – we have our
garden to work
Children to raise, and poetry
to write
And God in Whom to trust
(Molossus
– the three-beat metre, not the dog)
(Grow up, get the jab, wear the mask, and don't yell at people.)
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
A Brief and Self-Indulgent Morning Offering
Dear Lord,
Thank you for this day
I ask you that I may
Pray it
Play it
And
Work it
Most to your pleasure
To the pleasure of those
whom I love
To the pleasure of
everyone I meet today
Rather more for me that
you did yesterday
(but we’ll say nothing more about that)
And nothing for Satan
‘Cause he’s an ass
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Bob Newhart and the Treadmill of Sisyphus
“Hi, Bob!”
Exercising While Watching Bob
Newhart
Several times each day I
roll myself up
The torturous treadmill of
Sisyphus
I am more of a marshmallow
than a rock
Which is the point of this
tiresome endeavor
Several times each day I
find myself back
At the foot of the
devilish device
To wheeze myself wheeze
step wheeze step wheeze step
To promised abs of steel
at the rainbow’s end
Dr. Hartley is on line one
because
Sometimes you need
A telephone call from your
driving instructor
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
This Poem is Your Work Too
This poem is your work too;
you are its hope
Every poem is for the
reader who gives
The poem a mission in its words
and lines
A safe place to land, as
McKuen says
This poem is your work too;
you are its voice
So, please, dream it, breathe
it, build it, shape it
Into something you want or
need or love
Arrange it in a vase of
summer flowers
This poem is your work too,
a gift of caritas
Think it by lamplight;
play it in sunlight
After all, you are its
reason for being
Thank you
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Some Nights Around
0400
Some nights around 0400
The silence calls you up for a dreamless dream
About your future and about your past
About that somenight when your dreams are done
The dancing figures of the flickering past
Figure across the pages of the night
Some as happy memories
Some in sorrowful rebuke
Your scope of activity is limited now
But what will you do in the morning?
Lawrence
Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Happy to be Bourgeoisie
All
cozy in my clichéd’ atmosphere
With a
hammock beneath a backyard tree
And my
riding lawnmower and a can of beer:
I am
happy to be bourgeoisie, you see
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Because That’s
What Momma Would Have Wanted
We’re angry – Momma attended this church
Thirty years ago, and no one remembers
No rosary; we’re not Catholic, praise God
Not since we put Momma in the nursing home
We’re angry – the priest shoulda remembered her
Even if he wasn’t even here then, and no music
Because that’s pagan; just get it over quick
And then let’s get on to the cemetery
We’re angry - just a damn’ Cath’lic service, okay?
Because that’s what Momma would have wanted
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Dressers of Sycamores
“I am a herdsman and a dresser of
sycamores”
-Amos 7:14
Amos speaks blunt truth in
humility
And being commanded from
the fields to the roads
To remind us of our duties
to God and His People
Is a disruption, not a
promotion
We all dress sycamores in our
own ways:
Carrying groceries,
tending the sick
Plowing a field, repairing
a broken truck
Mending a fence, taking a
child to school
We should listen to Amos
and to ourselves
For our service is noble
if for the King
Lawrence Hall
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
If Everyone is an Iconoclast, Then There are no
Iconoclasts
They pose as ever-bold
iconoclasts
Though they never met an
iconophile
And do they even know what
an icon is?
Icons are flat;
iconoclasts are flatter
