Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      “Anglo-Saxon Students Would Not Like to Be Taught by a Jew”

                                                      cited in
                   -Stanley Kunitz Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius

To the Privileged Youth of Columbia University:

As a child of situational poverty
I am so grateful for all my Jewish teachers

Including

Moses
Joshua
Jeremiah
Samuel
David
Solomon
J­esus, Mary, and Joseph
Saint Peter and the others in The Twelve
Saint Paul
Elie Weisel

Chaim Potok
Herman Wouk
Leon Uris
Franz Kafka
Leonard Cohen
Anne Frank
Bernard Malamud
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Philip Roth
Osip Mandelstam

Saul Bellow
Isaac Asimov
Woody Allen
Mel Brooks
Edna Ferber
Yip Harburg
George Cukor
Mel Brooks
Oscar Hammerstein
Alan Lerner

Carl Reiner
Rod Serling
Franz Werfel
Alan Arkin
Claire Bloom
Leonard Nimoy
Chaim Topol
Ed Asner
Mel Brooks
Peter Falk
Werner Klemperer

Jack Klugman
Walter Matthau
Tony Randall
Mel Torme
John Banner
Kirk Douglas
Lorne Greene
Eli Wallach
Sam Wanamaker
Morey Amsterdam

Leo Genn
Otto Preminger
Jack Benny
Leslie Howard
Ernst Lubitsch
Cecil B. DeMille
Mortimer Adler
Allen Bloom
Harold Bloom
Irving Berlin

Boris Pasternak
Emil Ludwig
Eric Wolfgang Korngold
Elmer Bernstein
Max Steiner
George Gershwin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Samuel Fuller
Alexander Korda
Zoltan Korda

Emeric Pressburger
Erich von Stroheim
Billy Wilder
William Wyler
Fred Zinnemann
J. J. Abrams
Peter Bogdanovich
Michael Curtiz
Stanley Donen
Stanley Kramer

Howard Caine
Leon Askin
Robert Clary
Dinah Shore
Stephen Sondheim
Volodymyr Zelinsky
Simon Schama
Louise Gluck
Siegfried Sassoon
Isaac Rosenberg

Joseph Brodsky
Rob Morrow
Vasily Grossman
Stanley Kubrick
Viktor Frankl

And more, so many more, a cloud of witnesses
Whose names are written in gold on a scroll in Heaven

But somehow, in this world of beauty and truth
And humanity’s aspirations to the good
All you have found are bullhorns, trash fires, chants
Clinched fists, obscenities, lies, and shrieking hate

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Anticipating Eye Surgery

I hope when this is done, when this is through
I’ll see the moon as one, and not as two!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           Humility Through the Looking Glass

                                 Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 22

My glass surprises me; it tells the truth
“Who is that old man?” I ask myself
And it rebukes me for that foolish question
I must admit to the glass that I am old

But when I turn and look outside myself
And greet the happy sun and breathe the dawn
Of a day rich with possibilities
And think of you – then I am young again

I tell my glass it is a silly glass
And it tells me I am a silly ***

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Marcus Aurelius at the Auto Repair Shop

Marcus Aurelius down at the auto repair –
Now there’s an image, him being an emperor and all
One of those philosophers who think about stuff
Who ask questions and read and write and stuff

If a man complains about the cost of new tires:
                    Meditations V.9 – “Be not unhappy, or discouraged…”
And
                      II.4 – “Remember how long you have been putting off these things…”

If a warranty has expired:
                       VI.53 – “Accustom yourself to listen carefully…”
And
                       VII.24 – “A scowling look is quite unnatural.”

If the engine is blown:
                        X.33 – “Now it is not given to a cylinder to move everywhere…”
And
                        VII.54 – “…it is in your power to accept…your present condition…”


And with that, Marcus steps outside for a cigarette.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­      But Truly Write

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 21

                    …poems are gatherings of words, in good order, in
                    simple order, plain and appealing.

                          -Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 77

A line of contemporary prosetry
Is a catalogue of florid structures and worn-out cliches
Pancaked with adverbs and tiresome metaphors
Flung down in a confusion of unconnected gasps

If you have something to say, then say it
Then tidy up the lines – like washing your face
With soap and water and a cotton towel
And then admire the sunlit, fresh-air truth

Craft your lines of transcendent poetry
As clean sharp-edg’ed truth in well-scrubbed words

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Maybe Edmondson and Wells are Right

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 20


                  I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.

           -St. Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons


How awkward that a beautiful woman
Might not be a woman except in her heart
And in her bearing, demeanor, and dress
Making a choosing, and not a demand

But if I am asked about matters of DNA
I hope I may freely reply, “Coffee? Or tea?”
Neither censured nor restrained nor vilified
Beneath the Cross free to accept or not

We are all children of God, woman, and man -
Let us all care for each other the best we can

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Fire Ants are Elizabethans

No fire ant sees another as a brother
They fight all other ants with venom and spleen
They eagerly share ant poison with each other -
They even pass it ‘round to **** their queen!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              Shakespeare, Venus, and the Travelling Salesman

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 19

Dear Will,

About your obsession with mortality:
Transitions and death are essentials in life
And we must face the obsequies of ashes or earth
But there are other topics upon which to write

Let us not consider funerals today
Let us sit upon the lawn and smoke our pipes
And write about new leaves on ancient oaks
(You’ll pen far better lines; you always do)

Today we’ll ignore our own mortality
And tell inappropriate jokes about Venus
                                and a travelling salesman

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 What Would Matt Dillon Do?

Wyoming Wolf Abuser Could Get Hunting Privileges Taken Away | Your Wyoming News Source (cowboystatedaily.com)

A two-legger who tortures a creature from the wild
Might tomorrow torture his neighbor’s child

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    I Will Not Compare You to a Summer’s Day

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

I will not compare you to a summer’s day
Summer is heat, humidity, and drought
A disapproving sun burning the earth
A dusty, weedy landscape fit only for snakes

Instead, you are a perfect autumn day
A day of good old sweaters and leafy walks
Invigorating winds all fresh from the north
And inside, cups of cocoa and a merry fire

I will not compare you to a summer’s day
Your autumn is far more lovely and temperate

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        American Children Begging in the Streets

                     (Let’s all feel good about child endangerment)

Children with plastic buckets run up to the cars
Hopelessly trapped by the traffic lights
They bang on the windows, they dash across lanes
Life-lessons in begging instead of work:


IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US GO TO DISTRICT PLAYOFFS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
PLEASE SEND OUR TEAM TO STATE
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SEND OUR BAND TO DISNEY WORLD
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SEND OUR CHEERLEADERS TO CAMP
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SOFTBALL TEAM GO ANGELS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR MISSIONS FOR JESUS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SPONSOR OUR DANCE TEAM
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US BUY NEW SOCCER UNIFORMS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SUPPORT OUR MISSION TRIP TO COLORADO
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SAFE GRADUATION


Adults in charge of these dear little souls:
Don’t send them into danger with begging bowls

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Men of Less Truth than Tongue

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 17

Poets can lie, or be perceived to lie
In the matter of limning beauty and truth
Through the mists of negative capability
Through the chaos of personalities and life

Iambs stretched neatly out in flowing lines
Are aesthetically pleasing in themselves
But even the cleverest metrical feet
Should in their ordered elegance speak for good

Poets can lie, or be perceived to lie
But in your beauty is truth, truth passing by

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Time is not a ****** Tyrant

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 16

Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing
Like bluebonnets, butterflies, and bumblebees
Painted with pencil or pen by a Hand divine
And set in place as a measure of being

Time cannot be our enemy; we live along it
And like the ground it stabilizes us in place
And like our eyes it gives us vision to see
Each other in our Spirited nobility

Life is not what we take nor what is taken
But what we bring -
Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 A Dollar Box of Crayolas®™

I wanted the biggest box of Crayolas
I had to have the biggest box of Crayolas
I could build worlds with the biggest box of Crayolas
I needed that biggest box of Crayolas!

But the wise voice of situational poverty spoke:
“I am not spending a dollar on a box of Crayolas.”

The biggest box of Crayolas is now about four dollars
Allowing for inflation, much cheaper than in ‘55
I should go buy the biggest box of Crayolas
Maybe I can find a Big Chief Tablet®™ to go with it

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             In Perfection But a Little Moment

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 15

Apparently the stars are talking about us
Pondering the transitoriness of our lives
And how we, though in the beauty of our youth
Must eventually decline, decay, and die

But we are promised an immortality
Possibly not granted even to the stars
The promise is in the springtime of our lives
The promise itself is an open tomb far away

Apparently the stars are talking about us
(You would think they have other things to do)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

        On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines

                            (Scribbled with a little help from Shelley)

Look upon my Verbs, ye Mighty, and despair!
No more lines remain. Round the decay
Of my online Competition, of vocabulary bare
The lone and level squares stretch far away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Methinks I Have Astronomy

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 14

                                       Monday, 8 April 2024

Methinks I have astronomy; it must be so:
Today the moon eclipsed the jovial sun
And through the clouds and rain a darkness ruled
But with my little car’s headlights I backed it down

Forswearing lenses I watched the world instead
The springtime greens darkening almost to grey
And boiling clouds darkening almost to black
And from the thunder rain wreaking rivulets

Methinks I have astronomy; it must be so:
I see beyond this darkness your eternal glow

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         A Lucky Dachshund’s Foot

Luna-Dog sat with a stick in her jaws
The sort of thing a little dachshund gnaws
(chewing everything is one of a puppy’s laws)
But a look in her eyes gave me some pause –

It wasn’t a stick; it was one of a bunny’s paws!

Yuck.

Time for church.

                                                      -The End-

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             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

And we are ourselves, of course we are -
Eccentrics together, following a star!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                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
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                        ­  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

That 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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Fifteen Minutes at a Dead Man’s Desk

No one wants to clear his desk away
The computer still open but the screen dead black
A sheaf of files still needing his attention
Rainbows of Post-It notes around and up

His trusty old Radio Shack calculator
The client-filled, smoked-plastic Rolodex
The reading lamp still angled exactly right
Telephone calls that will never be returned

To-do lists that will never be fulfilled -
No one wants to clear his life away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Second Star to the Right Past Solitude

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 9

Tears sometimes obtain in a widow’s eye
And sometimes contempt, or secret relief
But none of this is the fault of a single man
Whose basic purpose is to serve as a fourth

His love does not lead to family rows
And though his bed is couched in solitude
This solitude is a dreamy, pillowed peace:
Nocturnes from Chopin, a book beside a lamp

Tears may obtain in a widower’s eye
But a single man sleeps beneath that second star

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             The Eclipse – We Have Been Warned!

The world is coming to an end yet again
The InterGossip and Q have determined it’s so:
“It’s in th’ Bible!” she shouts, “It’s full of sin!
I’ve got my freeze-dried food; I’m ready to go!”

Twelve easy payments until the Apocalypse
(Just don’t invest in any green bananas)
“They’ll take us away in U.N. spaceships
Giants from the deep, up from Atlantis!”

The world is coming to an end yet again -
“Jesus warned us!” she yells as the nurse checks her in

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    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?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                For a Political Friend Who Politically Accused Me
            of Having My Apolitical 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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       The Ekonomia of Easter Sunday as Observed

Our blue-haired fire hazards block the aisle
And verily, yea, verily, the narthex too:

“These young women these days, they just don’t know
How to hide Easter eggs, in my day we had to hunt
And now they just make it all easy for these kids
We were up all night filling plastic eggs
And these young women, they just don’t help
And these kids, they just take the empty eggs away
Don’t they know how much things cost these days
You’d think they’d leave them for us to fill next year
But no, they just leave them all over the place
And we have to go around and pick them up
These young women these days, they somehow think
That things just happen and they don’t help at all
I can’t imagine why they don’t want to work with us
These young women these days…”

This was not true of the first Easter Sunday
But it was probably true of the second

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­    Look in Thy Glass

                                       Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3

I look into 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 into the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          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
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            A Tattered ****

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady oak

Okay, sure, sometimes I feel like a tattered ****
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 ****
But sometimes - forever young

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            A Book of Numbers with a Picture of a Naked Man

Once everyone owned a book of numbers
No, not the one in the Bible; that’s still in use
But a book of telephone numbers, four digits each
Although you knew your friends’ numbers anyway

On the cover stood a winged Mercury
A handsome man wearing a funny hat
And nothing else, but no one mentioned it
Too much else going on through the party line

A picture of a handsome naked man -
Really, you’d think someone would have noticed

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 With the Words of Donald Trump Printed in Red?

The Word of God, or maybe the word of odd
Only sixty dollars – is that real leather?
Including these more recent canonical texts:

           Handwritten chorus to “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood
           The US Constitution
           The Bill of Rights
           The Declaration of Independence
           The Pledge of Allegiance

No copy of the Oath of Enlistment, though






God Bless The USA Bible

Trump endorses a $60 bible one day after comparing himself to Jesus (msn.com)

It's Holy Week, and Trump is comparing himself to Jesus once again – Baptist News Global

Trump Sells $59.99 Bible That Isn’t Even Gold (nymag.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Children Abandoned in the Rain

I abandon my children to the cold spring rain:
Tomato seedlings in peeling peat pots
Greenhouse-grown marigolds in muck-splashed rows
Poor pitiful peppers paling along the perimeter

I abandon my children to the cold spring rain:
Sunflower seeds in a desolation of mud
Five different varieties, the packet said
Floating among the zinnias and peonies

The sun will come again to warm each chilly grain
But for now
I abandon my children to the cold spring rain

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   My New Career as a Doorman

                “The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”

               -in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed

I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night

Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello

And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Old Hippies can be Dangerous

                            (I groove to Rod McKuen myself)

Old hippies can be dangerous, he sez
They’re ready to strike a light, a fire, a pose
If you swing to the right of Joan Baez
Or anywhere left of the Country Joes

They weep nostalgic tears about mary jane
And rattle on about tokes and scores and hits
Waving their walkers to Jefferson Airplane
While shuffling slowly in their tie-dyed outfits

Old hippies can be dangerous – with every breath
They’ll bore you first to tears, and then to death

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Make America Pray Again OTTO

We see the bills of their uniform caps
“OTTO” is the legend beneath the peak
Which reads “Make America Pray Again”
The operative word is “Make” – we must be forced

Then who is OTTO, and whence his authoritative voice?
Is he a god come among us with a rod
To beat us down until we bleed and bleat
A great American Ave or Shema?

A cultic cap is neither theology nor art
And I will never invite OTTO into my heart

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Whistling Past the Graveyard

No one whistles past a graveyard now
Not with the radio on and the windows up
Though in our barefoot childhood long ago
Walking home alone at dusk – we whistled

But there is no need to whistle now
The cemetery is not a place of spooks and haints
But of those childhood friends with whom we walked
Past our ancestors to the swimming hole

No one whistles past a graveyard now
Because those whom we love are silent there

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                  We Serve Our Princess Catherine


                                           “We be the King’s men”

                                       – Thomas Hardy and others


We are the King’s people

After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc
Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna
Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles

We are the Queen’s people

And because we are the Queen’s people
We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess
And every woman of our isles a Queen
To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith

We are the Prince’s people

We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –
But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Spilling the Tea

A friend and I were sitting at the table
The kitchen table, with the stove as reredos
To that Altar of rural celebrations
Of breakfast, crosswords, cigarettes, secrets, and life

“Okay, now spill the tea,” she whispered to me
And I did
But with a kitchen towel we mopped it all up