Lawrence Hall, HSG
But Who Else Could You Be?
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 13
O that I were myself? Of course I am
Who else could I possibly want to be?
No one rocks a morning mirror like me
(and probably no one wants to do so)
My beloved mother said I was special
(I think that was a compliment – maybe?)
And you’re pretty nifty yourself, you know -
I like the cut of your metaphorical jib
Lawrence Hall, HSG
An Afternoon LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Walk
Along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension
Dewberries LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sassafras seedlings LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Virginia creeper LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER pine cones LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crumbling oak leaves from last summer LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER winds sighing in the pine tops LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a little plum tree LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Canada goldenrod LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER poplar LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER swamp oak LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER mourning doves LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER slanting evening sunlight LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Chickasaw plum LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER nightshade LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER red spider lilies LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a skink bluebonnets LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER clouds in the west LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER spiderwort LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a long eared rabbit loping across the road LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sorrel LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a feather from a bluebird LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER waving field grasses LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER the neighbor’s cows browsing in peace LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a crane flying up from a pond LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crows fussing at me from the woods LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER…
Lawrence Hall, HSG
I Do Not Count the Clock
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 12
I do not count the clock
when I’m outside
I do not count the leaves,
fallen and sere
I do not count the silver
in your hair
Though I celebrate them
all the same
(But not
the clock; there is no love in clocks)
These golden days have
beauties of their own
Their richness born from
the promises of spring
The culminations of
summer’s growing days
Crowned with silver by the
first falling frost
I do not count the clock
when I’m outside
I do not count the clock
when I’m with you
Lawrence Hall, HSG
So Fast Thou Grow’st
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 11
I put something out there in the
universe…
-Chris-in-the-Morning, Northern
Exposure
You will make something
beautiful in any event
Even if only a silly
ceramic frog
Holding a perfectly
pointless umbrella
Upon the tree-stump where
you feed the birds
Your silly ceramic frog
will someday break
The stump will rot away
into the earth
The birds will live
through their generations
And you will be but
whisperings in the wind
But you make life
beautiful in any event:
It is a forever that you
put into the universe
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make Thee Another Self
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 10
I thought I heard you saying it was a pity...I never had any children. But you're wrong. I have. Thousands of them. Thousands of them...and all boys.
-Mr. Chips in Goodbye, Mr. Chips
After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are fathers
Commanded by God to protect all children
Permitted by God to protect all children
Empowered by God to protect all children
After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are teachers
With fishin’ rod and book and whittlin’ knife
With garden and plow and fixing what needs to be fixed
With clean and manly speech, example, and work
All men have children, thousands of them, because
After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are fathers
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Are We All
Prisoners of War?
My great-grandfather was a tailor, they say
Stern of mien, impeccable in his dress
I have one picture of him, from 1912
White-bearded, thin, resting on the family porch
My great-grandfather was made a prisoner of war
At Sailor’s Creek, for he had found the wrong side
And the government found his children for other wars
The Aisne in 1918, Zwickau in 1945, the Vam Co Tay in 1970
There are few tailors now, but lots of soldiers -
Maybe we are all prisoners of war
Cf. Sailor’s Creek / Sayler’s
Creek / Saylor’s Creek, 6 April 1865.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
One Pleasing Note Do Sing
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 8
V: Where is my shirt; I can’t find it anywhere!
R: Did you look in the closet? In the dryer?
V: Yes! And I put it in the washing machine yesterday!
R: You didn’t tell me! I didn’t wash clothes yesterday!
V: You always wash clothes on Saturday!
R: That’s a pattern, not an immutable rule!
V: You should have told me that you didn’t wash!
R: Am I my husband’s keeper? Have you not eyes?
V: Can we not with one pleasing note sing?
R: Can you not sing to the washing machine?
No Extra Charge for Opening Your Packages Before Delivery
Lawrence Hall, HSG
To a Political Friend
Who Politically Accused Me
of Having My Head in the Sand Politically
Our lives no longer feel ground under them
-Mandelstam, “The Stalin Epigram”
I have no illusions
I have no solutions
I have Mr. Biden and
Mr. Trump
(And occasional
basal cell carcinomas)
I can be silenced in fear
By their suicide sides
But I have a brain
(“…an
ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.”)
And so to them
I am dangerous
If I am noticed at all
Lawrence Hall, HSG
His Sacred Majesty
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 7
We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
Nor even truth, but rather each shiny new toy
Powered by batteries and our unhappy wants
Endlessly discharging our minds and souls
We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
But rather the mechanical fabrications of our hands
Upon the orders of our Lilith-draped masters
To STEM the possibility of thought
We probably shouldn’t worship the sun
But we are still free to think highly of him
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Thank God That’s
Over
St. Therese of Lisieux is said to have said
After an especially long liturgy
“Thank God that’s over!”
And who am I to argue with a saint?
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Make Worms Thy Heir
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 6
Let us speak of the
utility of worms
There is much in them,
including our ancestors
But without them we might
not live at all
They enrich the earth,
even with our earth
All children are our heirs;
in them we live
They are God’s treasures,
and we must treasure them
After the Order of Saint
Joseph, and when we pass
Our children will say that
God is passing by
Let us praise the nobility
of worms
Reminding us that we are glorious
dust
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Is There No Sulky Gas?
To the dentist this morning but woe and alas
Only a cleaning - no laughing gas!
Ha, ha, ha!
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Time Will Play the Tyrant
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 5
Time need not play the
tyrant; we have tyrants enough
But it is true that we
must go away
When time and God say we
have played our game
And must withdraw into
another world
We sneak past time with
our words and songs
Arcing over mortality with
truth
Distilling each day into poetry
That lives long after our hearts
and hands are stilled
Time need not play the
tyrant, for tyrants only bluff
And their poor poisons
with their masters die
Lawrence
Hall, HSG
Unthrifty Loveliness
Cf.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 4
I had told her how beautiful she was
(she knew that through the mirror, mirror on the wall)
For her bold eyes were upon herself
As she magicked with lipstick and mascara
I had
hoped her blush was for me to gaze upon
Her hair,
her perfect lips, her slender hips
Over
candlelight at the Starlight Roof
Then the telephone, not nature, called her away
I had told
her how beautiful she was
That sports-car
guy, far handsomer than I
Had said
so too
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Discount-Store
Patriot and the Bible Salesman
Two greedy old men a-shakin’ their Jesus cup -
No, son, for that I ain’t a-standin’ up
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Look in Thy Glass
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3
I look in the mirror and
ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my
mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and
an impish grin
But later they said I had
to become a man
She had her April, and
then so did I
And there are Aprils
enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils,
but they will do
Every April reflects our
youth back to us
I look in the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Did a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook
Rushing to his topside battle station
But remembering the chief’s daily admonitions
And the way his mother kept her kitchen clean
Notice on a galley table a speck of dust
And pause to brush it away
When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Tattered Weed
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2
Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady
oak
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
After my morning’s work,
creaking into my chair
And reaching for my iced
tea and a book
Sipping on both for a
vision of youth
My Hercule Poirot body is made
almost young again
By strolling through Arden
with Rosalind and Orlando
(Only for a while; they
would much rather be alone…)
And then the iced tea tells
me of Ceylon
Okay, sure, sometimes I
feel like a tattered weed
But sometimes - forever
young
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Word’s Fresh
Ornaments
Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 1
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
In a springtime glow of iridescent greens
A sweet Creation scene of little bare feet
And puppies’ paws scampering across soft lawns
Bold pirate ships patrol the honeybees’ pool
And mockingbirds offer flights to the tops of the oaks
A line of waving crocus borders this Narnia
Oh, could there ever be a happier world?
The sun, the green, the bees, the endless day
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
