Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

A Pinball Game with Some Come-to-Jesus Music

The ritual signing of a padded book

And then invisible paddles launch us into the game

Among electrical bumpers of whisperers

Clustered in their several corners and slots

Suspicious smiles that don’t conceal holy hate

As they repel outsiders through platitudes

Invisible daggers fly through the sacred air

The silent sibilant hisses are heard all the same

The dear departed in his old Sunday suit

Seems to smile in peaceful anticipation

of being rid of all of us

Ka-Ching!

Exit the Hurricane, 2017

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

a repost from 2017

Exit the Hurricane, 2017 (not the catchiest title, eh?)

What is that silence? It is the not-rain
The first not-rain since Friday this past week
Every loud frog gloats in unseemly song
As old, sour water recedes from the door

The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of clothes unwashed because the drains are dammed
Of smelly shoes and even smellier socks
Of refugee gear flung casually about

The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of too many people – and isn’t it wonderful!

Lunch Poems and an Olivetti - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

oz.Typewriter: Poet Frank O'Hara and the Olivetti Lettera 22 Portable Typewriter

Lunch Poems and an Olivetti

When Frank O’Hara poemed on an Olivetti

At a typewriter shop on Fifth Avenue

He pulled out a sheet of paper which did not read

Error 1101 Ray ID: a324930b6bd1e5a5 • 2026-08-28 16:08:24 UTC

Worker threw exception

Lunch Poems and a Subaru - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Lunch Poems and a Subaru

“The world is full of people who want to tell you how to live…”

-attributed to Gus in Lonesome Dove

When I picked up a copy of Lunch Poems

I didn’t know I was required to be gay

And when I bought a fine new Subaru

I didn’t know I was required to be

a feminist lesbian professor with big round glasses and short grey hair

The World's Tallest Wooden Skyscraper - a poem written on a matchstick

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The flat-pack skyscraper: how wood can shape the cities of the future | Green building | The Guardian

The World’s Tallest Wooden Skyscraper

Anybody got

A match?

Thursday, August 27, 2026

After the Drought: Living Water - a modest attempt at Haiku

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

After the Drought: Living Water

Sweet rain greens the grass

Like baptism or mikvah

Making the world new

Today Lake America, Tomorrow the World! - intemperate political poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Today Lake America, Tomorrow the World!

The USS Trump has departed the Straits of America

And is sailing across the South Trump America Sea

Enroute to ThaiTrumpland, His fifty-fifth state

For a Trumptorious port call at Trumpkok

From thence across the Trump America Ocean

The bigliest Trump ship the world has ever seen

Helmed by General Admiral Trump, Our Trump

Who declares victory over loser Canada

And awards each sailor and Marine

The Golden Order of the Reflecting Pool

Good for discounts at the catering truck

Thank you for your attention to this matter

I Hadn't Realized How Young We Are - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

I Hadn’t Realized How Young We Are

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

-Mary Oliver, "Sometimes"

I hadn’t realized how young we are

As through this field we stroll, your hand in mine

But love has seen us safely through this far

With hearts in time with each other, with eyes that shine

We were young once, and how wonderful to be

Still young in the promises we made

And in our long togetherness thus free

To love as one in this moonlit summer glade

As through this field we stroll, beneath the evening star

I realize how wonderfully young we are

Tuesday, August 25, 2026

"Just One More Thing..." - for Peter Falk

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

“Just One More Thing…”

For Peter Falk

Of Happy Memory

A well-chewed cigar

A seven-years’ rumpled coat

A fine-tailored heart

Monday, August 24, 2026

The U.S.S. Doris Miller - a Tall Ship for a Tall Man

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The U.S.S. Doris Miller – a Tall Ship for a Tall Man

"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"

-John Masefield, “Sea Fever

Iron and Steel

For now she is only numbered heaps of steel

Laid out in structure-order at Newport News

Muscled into being through thought and power

Strong craftsmen of the builders’ brotherhood

CVN 81

The lifts, the links, the wirings, the welds, the works

Plans, bolts, tools, heat, sweat, pain, maybe some blood

A touch of salty language for motivation

And then someday

“God bless this ship and all who sail in her”

The Soul of a Ship

The Doris Miller will sail, will range wide and far -

And Doris Miller himself will be her star

An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief - intemperate political doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap

-Kipling

Americans are a couch-bound people who

Applaud a souffle being fluffed on t.v.

And argue the fine points of Chef So-and-So’s roux

While their sailors and Marines go hungry

across the sea

Sunday, August 23, 2026

"I Don't Know What's Going on in There!" - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

“I Don’t Know What’s Going on in There!”

“Oh, you have made me very angry, very angry indeed!”

-Marvin the Martian in a Bugs Bunny cartoon

The convention would be to say he stormed out of church

But in his time of life he can’t storm at all

Except maybe like Marvin the Martian

(If Martians suffer arthritis and age) while I held the door for him

(No, not for a Martian, for a creaky, cranky old earthling)

“You saw me come in! I came to Mass! Now I’m going out!

I don’t know what’s going on in there! It’s all a mess!

And I don’t have to put up with it! I’ll watch Mass on t.v.!”

I never learned what was going on in there

Divine services are like that – what do we really know?

But he, and I, and you – we just do our best

Friday, August 21, 2026

Music for Biology Class - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Music for Biology Class

for Miss Rose Althea Holmes

of happy memory

According to the curriculum code

This week we are in dissection mode

Each waving a tiny knife and prick and goad

Let us now sing “Song of the Open Toad”

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Hot Scrambled Verse Comin' Right Up! - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Hot Scrambled Verse Comin’ Right Up!

Too hot to read

Too hot to write

Too hot to think coherently

Too hot to sort an iamb from an iambnot

(Gasp!)

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

When I Was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

When I was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur

There are not going to be many more dinosaurs

-C. S. Lewis, “De Descriptione Temporum,” 1955

When I was a child I saw a dinosaur

A dinosaur at the end of the lane

Rearing its head high above the pasture gate

It might want to eat little boys, I feared

So I held really still, and closed my eyes

And closed my eyes, so tightly closed my eyes

And closed my eyes, and then…opened my eyes –

The dinosaur (it didn’t roar) was still there!

When I was a child I saw a dinosaur

A real-life little-boy-hungry carnivore!

I wish I could see it again

A Typewriter Maps the Battlefield of the Mind - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

A Typewriter Maps the Battlefield of the Mind

Everyone who survived began a book

In basements, cheap apartments, or rented rooms

Underwoods clattering in anger, in rage

For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

Coffee cups, beer rings, stolen motel ashtrays

Cigarette smoke wreath around the keys

While muses watched from the crumbling plaster wall

Maybe a crucifix, maybe Miss March

Cheap typing paper from the corner store

A sandwich falling apart along with life

A last assault through a paragraph

Before rushing to the bus stop for the night shift

“Y’all wasn’t in a real war,” the old men said

But the memories and the typewriter keys

Still bled

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

A Critical Topic in Jewish-Catholic Interfaith Dialogue - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

A Critical Topic in Jewish-Catholic Interfaith Dialogue

When eating hot dogs made with Hebrew National franks

Do we say grace with “Toda”

“Grates”

“Thanks?”

Monday, August 17, 2026

Cute Little Biological Markers - poor attempts at Senryu

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Cute Little Biological Markers

For our Emily

Who set a thoughtful challenge

To define the term

The lives of our frogs

Biological markers

Tell us of toxins

If frogs have clean air

And fresh clean water and bugs

We will have clean frogs

Healthy little frogs

To celebrate our health too

They give us great joy!

"They Knew What They Signed Up For" - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

“They Knew What They Signed Up For”

That cruel dismissal is from some keyboard commando

Who memorized every line from Patton

But never volunteered for anything himself

Except for a two-layered two-fer at McDonald’s

Sunday, August 16, 2026

Tom Swift of I.C.E. and His Electric Gloves - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love