Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                              A Carrier of Bodies

                                   My stretcher is one scarlet stain

                         -Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”

In illo tempore:

I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies; I was already up
There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun

Later:

Carrying bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes
Red fragments of flesh in the E. R. at night

Now:

In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older self, to a chair at dusk

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            A Catechism of Brokenness

The celebrant breaks the Body in two
The Body is broken
The celebrant is broken
The communicant is broken

Only the Word is whole: “This is My Body…”

The celebrant breaks the Body in two
That it may be shared
Broken again
And shared further along

Only the Word is whole: “This is My Body…”

The Celebrant breaks the Body in two
That in the sequenced brokenness
In all the little broken Pieces
One-ness may come

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 A Cat is Stillness in Motion

                                              For Tuxedo-Cat
                               Who Simply Moved in One Day

There is no stillness like a cat
To the laws of physics a stillness unknown
When all is still he is stiller still
Even stiller than a stick or stone

There is no motion like a cat
A silent slink upon delicate paws
A smoke-like current now still again
To eye a chameleon
                                                                ­       and sharpen his claws

The Poetry of John Keats is not Safe


You may find there “a cave of young earth dragons”
Or with a “sea-born goddess” fall in love
You might not escape “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
Or finish reading all your “high-piled books”

Yet “tender is the night” when sings the nightingale
And you are shown that all “Beauty is truth”
Through your soul, “The wanderer by moonlight”
And there “like pious incense” the hours pass

Though in that “season of mists” one’s life must end
“Go not to Lethe,” but sail on with the wind

1 “Ben Nevis”
2 “Endymion”
3 “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”
4 “When I Have Fears that I may Cease to Be”
5 “Ode to a Nightingale”
6 “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
7 “I Stood Tip-Toe Upon a Little Hill”
8 “The Eve of Saint Agnes”
9 “To Autumn”
10 “Ode on Melancholy”

“…things long by catholic consent accounted beautiful”

-Quiller-Couch

An act forbidden now, we go to weep
On Skyros at the grave of that rare youth
Where buried with him are the unities
Of all: the good, the beautiful, the true

For men have flung away their thoughts, their songs
Their verse, their noble instruments of work
And scream abuse at all those forms of art
With which their sires hymned chaos into peace

A cause forbidden now, we work to keep
For all: the good, the beautiful, and the true

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

           A Certain Bipedal Species (us) Returns to the Primordial Muck

                                   (The Self-Censored Version)

A visit with old friends from long ago
The conversation soon turned to _ and
They compared their head to toe
and

embrace
A that never – oh, ick, that ooze!
The price of each      disgrace
Discussed in   grunts and __ moos

So I left early for fear

The next topic might be (this is just a hunch)
About which visiting human to cook for lunch

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

             A Chewing-Gum Girl Waiting for the Sunset Limited

Long, long ago

In the station at Tucson we waited
Someone said the locomotive had burned in the desert
A girl with earphones chewed gum through the hours:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

Her eyes were closed, her music was her god
She clutched a leatherette case of tapes
Just as some clutch a Bible, and chewed:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

Her mechanical chomps could have been the rhythm
Of the passenger train that wasn’t there
My paperback novel never joined in:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

I don’t remember her boarding the train
That in the evening finally arrived
She might be in the Tucson station still:
Roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP, roundy-CHOMP-CHOMP

In fear a child curls up into a ball
A very little ball, a little soul
Desperately seeking approval, and love
And given only disapproval, and blows

Hiding a favorite toy from a screaming purge
Childhood vaporized in an angry hour
Withdrawing into books and shining dreams
Withdrawing behind a fear-frozen face

and forever

Somewhere out there, discarded in the wild
Brave toy soldiers wait for a little child

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  A Child of God and of Long Summer Afternoons

Do you remember lying on a grassy bank
On a summer afternoon, holding very still
Watching the minnows only inches from your eyes?
And do you remember the earthy smell

Of the amber-colored water?

How many moments in your adult life
Have been as good as that?

A Child’s First Safety-Deposit Box

For Kirk Briggs

A dime-store pocket watch that doesn’t run
A tiny magnifier for aiming the sun
A bit of chalk, glass marbles, crayon stubs
A pencil or two worn down to the nubs
A pair of dice gained in a school-yard trade
A cheap pocket knife with a broken blade
A pocket calendar from just last year
A bottle-opener that says “JAX BEER”
A shotgun hull, and little toy cars -
A box is for treasures, not Dad’s cigars!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               A Child’s Garden of Worse(s)

                   Some poets wrote verses which were not meant
                   to charm the reader but to get them a Stalin prize.

                  -Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, 1963

The children who are permitted to live
Are not permitted to read what they want
When they ask for adventures our censors give
Ideology, instead of a jaunt

The children who are not submissive to the code
Not following this week’s fashions in science
Or who presume to kick against the goad
Will be inclusively loved into compliance

And from the Hippocrene a taste, a drink?
Oh, no! Children are now forbidden to dream or think

A Child Whispers to Himself

Someday I will wake up in the morning
And not be wrong
Someday I will look outside the window
And not be wrong
Someday I will not make up my bed just right
(or maybe not make it up at all)
And not be wrong
Someday I will open the refrigerator
And not be wrong
Someday I will choose my clothes for the day
And not be wrong
Someday I will say something I think
And not be wrong
Someday I will toast a slice of bread
And not be wrong
Someday I will read a book because I like it
And not be wrong
Someday I will visit a friend of my choosing
And not be wrong
Someday I will admire the pictures I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will play in the leaves with the dogs
And not be wrong
Someday I will order from a menu
And not be wrong
Someday I will eat my dessert first
And not be wrong
Someday I will hug only people I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will buy the coat I want to wear
And not be wrong
Someday I will smile at the girl next door
And not be wrong
Someday I will write poetry openly
And not be wrong
Someday I will say, “That’s a pretty car”
And not be wrong
Someday I will say, “I like the fog and mist”
And not be wrong
Someday at the store I will buy some little thing
And not be wrong
Someday I will use the shampoo I like
And not be wrong
Someday I will take long, hot, soapy baths
And not be wrong
Someday I will tell someone about my dreams
And not be wrong

Someday…

Someday I will leave this unhappy house
And not look back
And not be wrong

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                  A Codicil to Sonnet 116

When shy young lovers flirt with each other
Make eyes across a parent-haunted room
Hold hands in the magnolia-scented night
And kiss for the first…oh, that very first kiss!

Do they anticipate petitionings
Investigations and bitter whisperings
Restraining orders, arrearages, fail nots
Decrees more absolute than youthful vows?

As old Shakespeare was never wont to say
Love is not love when arbitration binds

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           A Cold Call from the Hearing-Aid Place

A cold call from the hearing-aid place
I heard the young nice lady perfectly

A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-blown across the still-green summer grass
As autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when next
Diana dances ‘cross November’s skies.

The Grand Duke says “f//k”
The Czar says “s//t”
Rasputin is a schmuck
There’s not much more to it

A pompous pine lives down the road, a tree
So well aware of his own dignity;
I speak to him on evening walks, and he,
He nods a centimeter in courtesy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      A Connoisseur of Clinic Waiting Rooms

I could regale you with tales of puppy dogs
Painted with matching little argyll vests
And Kodachrome sunsets snapped long ago
Darkness and dust settling on a fading lake

I could detail for you leatherette chairs
In rows beneath the television on the wall
Facing old women shrieking in HD
And years-old magazines that no one reads

A door opens to a whiff of germicide
My name is called – and there’s no place to hide!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

      A Constitutional Argument for Disarming the Secret Service

                                “A well regulated Militia...”

They are a disordered militia
Whose ethics are silly and superficia
                    From their mischief God preserve us
                    Our drunken old Secret Service -
Go away, boys; we won’t miss ya

As culled from an arts magazine, 13 March 2019

Socialist Realism - The official doctrine in Soviet art and literature after 1932 that evolved from the traditional commitment to social and civic concerns into an all-pervasive general ideological mandate.

            -Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 20th Century Russian Poetry


collective exhibition space vibe community
interactive narrative brown neighborhood
defined commodified Indigenous
identity tone-deaf decolonial
narratives populist intertwined
exhibition curatorial vision
culture local artists arts district small galleries
DIY spaces speaking out against
gentrification displacing shelter
studio space elsewhere late stage capitalism
collective mantra underdog art savior
corporate entity partnering insensitive
ignorant collective brown people art
contemporary work that may not fit
into establishment art galleries
media advisory venture collaborate
creative community authentic
local statement of expression excitement
creative energy arts district project
many levels collaborate local
creative important creative
community what that collaboration
looks like ongoing local artists going
to be engaged in planning commissioned
project community buy-in consulted members of the creative community Indigenous artists curators museum
directors professors burgeoning landscape
cultural framework critique talk individuals
entities inclusivity open
dialogue opportunities project
conversations collaboration discuss
your projects share our work with you
common ground work together healthy sustainable
accountable decolonization

Metallic blue, a star among the weeds
Along the road, pulling against its string
With the little helium left in it
But weak, unable to launch itself again

Some say the downed balloon has had its moment
That its brief joy in a birthday escape
Should be enough for any bright balloon
And now, like wise balloons, must settle down

Oh, no; just give the string a tug!
                                                   More room!
                                                        More air!
There must be another party somewhere!

A Conversation about Whiteness

Wedding dresses, clouds in a summer sky
Those new tenny-runners in junior high
The towels the Navy issued all of us
Liquid Paper™ for covering typos

Wild geese winging the seasons, moved by God
The much-prayed pages in MeeMaw’s Bible
A sidewalk made playground with colored chalk
A blank page in the typewriter positioned

Ready, waiting for the next Langston Hughes
To write about rivers, or about…you

The homeowner:

“O should we warn your kids that my yard fence
Is now electrified against possums
And foul raccoons most pestiferous?”

The stepfather:

                                                                     “No.”

A Conversion Experience at the Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple Outreach of the Lord Jesus Christ 501C3 of the Lamb Ministries the Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Apostle Brother Billy-Bob Hairdo and His Honored First Lady Disciple Irma-Mae a-Brangin’ Messages and a-Suckin’ in Government Grant Money


Here is a list of the thangs we is aginner
If you do any of this stuff, yew air a sinner

Th’ Lord accepts all major credit cards for His work

A copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse Remaindered from
the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Public Libraries




This happy gift of 1939
Rescued from the good comrades’ loving fires
From the liberation of censorship
From the gentle criminalization of thought

This little book and its happy, dancing lines
Crafted with thought and care and art and love
A celebration of civilization
Oh, save it, read it, love it, smuggle it

Because

More dangerous to tyrants than weapons
Are the poems of a people living free

Hart-Bevil Cemetery, Tyler County, Texas



From service as Companions of the Conqueror
To the democracy of death and dust


This was family land in the long ago
Now alienated from the living
Accessible through permissions and locks
But we and the ghosts are okay with that

They say that only four of them were hanged
The dealer in false deeds died of old age
Some possibly were saints; hard to believe
For after all, we are de Beauville’s kin

From Normandy, and then green Chesterton
And then dispersed to the colonies
At the convenience of His Majesty
De Beauvilles and Bevilles and then Bevils

And some are buried on this lonely knoll
Dim mossy bones and stones among the pines
Across the fence a little heap of glass
Broken flower vases from the dime store


Now the democracy of dust and death
But once
                    Companions of the Conqueror

A Poem for June


Just why a cucumber should be so cool
Eludes the logical; a cucumber’s just
A vegetable a-lying on the ground
Awaiting consumption.  But let’s accept
This vegetarian cliché’ simply
To get on with this cool descriptive task:

Whatever’s cool in the falling June sun
Descends through oak leaves, dark and summer green
And dancing down the air falls happily
Upon this cool cucumber cave where sits
Upon a wooden bench a lazy man
Who should be taking now another turn
With lawnmower, shovel, or shears against
The wild greenness of happy midsummer.

But, oh!  Persephone surely won’t mind
If her allotted garden tasks are paused
By her appointed minion rustic who
Takes now his ease in her delightful shade.
For summer after all is more than work;
She calls for dozing too, and dreamily
Watching busy bees buzz among the flowers,
Like fussy matchmakers arranging marriages,
And hummingbirds humming in and out of leaves,
Their sanctuary leaves, to argue at
The nectar-feeders, as if there weren’t
Enough for all.  The squirrels in the trees
Would never condescend to chitter there;
They glare at humans disapprovingly,
Like old teachers unhappily aware
That, oh, somewhere, somehow a child might be
Enjoying life, and that would never do!

Even the ribbon of smoke from the morning’s
Trimmings and cuttings and sawings appears
To be taking a nap in the summer noon,
There gently snoring up wisps of ashes
Instead of roaring, hissing manfully
As it did in the early hours.
                                                     The bench
Along the fence where the tired old man sits
Creaks as he shifts his weight, and watches
His backyard world doze in the leaf-laced sun;
He lights a well-deserved cigar, and sees
Its soothing smoke join with the ******* fire
Ascending heavenward with peaceful thoughts.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               A Cup of Tea in the Hand,
                       a Pointless Neologism on the Lips

                “Tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation”

                 -George Orwell, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” 1946

In the afternoon (and you can look this uppa)
I don’t want a teafluencer; I want a cuppa

For Liesl-the-Wonder-Dachshund, of Happy Memory

A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-strewn across the still-green summer grass
As Autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when soon
Diana dances across November’s skies.

A Dairy Queen Waitress in Tuscany

Eat, drink, pray, love, hamburger, shake, and fries
Boyfriend, baby, trailer park, sad tired eyes
Creepy men, cranky boss, and ice-cream floats
A wheezing Honda with overdue notes

Cinder-blocks, fluorescents, grilled cheese to go
No child-support this month, another cup of joe
Ten-year-reunion, can’t go, how time flew
Two shifts that day, the trailer rent is due

Baby at Mama’s, boyfriend still in bed
He’ll look for work tomorrow, that’s what he said
“Order up!” the fry cook hollers, and she
Dreams of a someday-summer in Tuscany

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                                           A Dead Bug in the Hospital

Recumbent on a gurney, little to do
Except to wait and think and hope and pray
Not sure where I was in the surgical queue
Above me the fluorescents, where a dead bug lay

We were both quiet, he especially so
I would have asked him how he came to rest
On a panel of plastic; I wanted to know -
He had been blinded by the light, I guessed

I thought of this as I lay in my too-short bed
“You’re in recovery now,” a kind voice said

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     A December Sunflower but No Cigar

While walking in the garden, thinking about things
And wishing I had a cigar, I saw a sunflower
A volunteer, a brave young volunteer
From late summer’s glorious display

Most everything around it was brown and down
Except for a few tiny timid weeds
Some withering blades of tenacious grass
And a few scruffy zinnias along the fence

In January’s frosts it will disappear
But for now, the little sunflower - and we - are here

Cheaply manufactured in India
Its fake marbled cover fakier than ever
But not as fakey as this assignment
“Grendl symbolizes existential…”

Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout

“Grendl symbolizes…” my senior year
Nobody understands why I don’t want
To go to college, why I quit the band -
Grendl and I are both exiles, okay…?

Cross out cross out crossoutcrossoutcrossout

I love my fountain pen; its deep, dark lines

Just like me

Refuse to be MLA marginalized

“Grendl symbolizes…”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                A Deer and I Surprised Each Other

Silence
We paused
We looked
She leaped

I said
Goodbye
But she
Was gone

And I
Was left
There all
Alone!

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

-Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons

And yet how schadenfreude to imagine
The purported Melvin from Mumbai
Tipping the executioner for good service
(To Melvin a concept previously unknown):

          “Be not I understand afraid of your office I need your major    
            credit card and your date of birth you but send me I
            understand to that Limited Offer 30G in the Sky I
            understand.”

Or the executives of ISPs
Their eyes blindfolded with their own insolence
Standing before a new Customer Care Team
Drawn from a list of eager volunteers

Now look upon each techno-high-flyer

And

“Customer Care Team – Ready! Aim! Fire!”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                           A Discarded Cat

She adopted us several weeks ago
And after the usual hissings and spittings
Was accepted by the other cats
And the yapping dachshunds? Well, not so much

Cinnamon-Cat loves to be petted and fed
She follows me about my daily work
With plants and plots and pots and honeybees
But she doesn’t quite trust me, not yet

But I’ll do my best; you can bet on that
For she is no longer a discarded cat

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      A Disembodied Hand Doomscrolling
                       on the Wall of Tia Maria’s Barbecue

                                       - not Daniel 5

Tiffany was treatin’ the girls to barbecue
The merry ol’ girls from her bowling league
(Dazzling team colors in pink and blue)
She had made herself captain through cruel intrigue

When suddenly a disembodied hand
Appeared with a smartphone by the restroom door
And keyed strange lines that in flickerings scanned:
“You’ll be sacked this evening - your team’s 0 to 4”

That very night Tiffany’s custom ball was taken
And she cried in her trailer, her heart a-breakin’

A Diva’s Demands

Let be set out a wooden crucifix
Of indifferent and artless workmanship
Upon a table where the lamplight falls
In yellow circles on a book or two,
And sheets of paper and a quirky pen.

Let be set up a surplus Navy bunk
With mattress and blanket, and pillow too,
If Brother Guestmaster has them to hand,
Luxury enough for merciful sleep,
Or combat desperate against fearful dreams.

Let be set into the wall a hook or nail
To serve the office of a wardrobe there,
Burdened with little but perhaps too much:
A decent habit for the liturgies,
A worn-out coat, a hat against the sun.

Let be set into the cell an exile,
A man of no reputation at all,
Unnoticed in the streets, unseen, unknown,
But who delights in anonymity,
Here in this palace in Jerusalem.

On a Morning in June – a Doctor Seuss-Free Graduation Poem

The earth is all before me: with a heart
Joyous, nor scar’d at its own liberty,
I look about, and should the guide I chuse
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way.

- Wordsworth, Prelude, I.15-19

Soon you’ll depart for your own pilgrimage,
Seafaring through the life God has given you,
To the golden Canterbury of your heart,
Along the sunlit road you’ve chosen to walk,
A pilgrimage, perhaps, to Orwell’s dusty room,
Or deep into the mind of Thomas More
Or far-off Saint James of the Field of Stars,
Or sea-passages swift to Denmark’s shores,
Or fields of sonnets singing in the dawn -
All these you’ll find along your pilgrim road.

Take then, your haversack, and neatly pack
Your book, your song, your dream, a change of clothes
(Your dreams are happier when you wear dry socks)
A prayer that your parsoun will write for you
A cup, a bowl, a pocketknife, a pen;
And do take care to pack those useful words
Learned, shaped, and sharpened, polished from your youth:
The baby-sounds for supper, sandwich, cat,
The childhood sounds for play and your best friend,
Then words from Mom and words from books - and words from you.

Words flown by you in dreams like sunlit sails
Then shaped again in pencil or in ink
And flung in hope upon a waiting leaf
Words made by you for honest purposes
And never employed in wicked deceit,
For thieves might steal your book, your song, your hopes,
And time decay your purposes and strength
But your own words, oh, yes, your good, strong words,
Like an old pair of boots will see you through
To your heart’s desire at your journey’s end.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      A Dog, a Pocketknife, a Twenty-Two

               For Jared Allen Brandon, of Happy Memory

                             And Jared Walker Bess

A dog, a pocketknife, a twenty-two
The rightful possessions of every Texas lad
For working out the values he must live up to
The virtues that he learned from his solid ol’ Dad

A dog, a pocketknife, a twenty-two
Self-discipline, honest friends, a manly stride
A quiet voice that’s sturdy, firm, and true
A man of accomplishment and quiet pride

For you remember your own boyhood, yes, you do -
A dog, a pocketknife, a twenty-two

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
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   A Doom of Impending Sense

When you are driving away for the daily run
Of errands, appointments, disappointments
You know you’ll enjoy the company of your MePhone –

       Which you have left upon your desk at home

You buy a magazine in the checkout line
Or find a book in some cold waiting room
Or read an editorial in the local wipe
Or remember a poem from seventh grade

You glory in words, words and images dense
And feel a doom of near, impending sense

Let us now face the sun, and not ourselves
And so forswear the mirrored loop of Us
That zeitgeist chasing its ossified Now
Into a spiral of dark nothingness

A club that looks endlessly at itself
Sharing dismal, universal handshakes1
Can never see the Incarnation dawn
As joyful, laughing Light upon the world

His star is in the east, and too His sun -
Let us worship the Lord, and not ourselves

1Yes, pinched from John Milton

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   “A Dragon Has Just Flown Over the Treetops…”

                            “We must all show great constancy.”

                        -C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Dragons! They seem to land among us daily
Blotting out all happiness, all innocent joys
In appearance and demeanor ugly and scaly,
Suppressing silence through foul foolish noise

Dragons! They don’t like anything about who we are
Our words, our works, our walks, our dreams, our tunes,
Our happy memories of a long-ago star
Our lazy moments in barefoot afternoons

Dragons! They want to crush us in the end
But we’ve read the story – we always win

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Hellopoetry.com­

                                                 A Dream About Birdcage Walk

In the perfection of an impossibility
I was tagging along behind Margaret Thatcher
And Saint Thomas More; they were speaking
Of great and transcendent ideas

I asked them if we could go to Victoria Station
And look at the trains

Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother * *er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa **** troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes * you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right * dunal trumpf lunatic leftist *phile ** * in your * your ****** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you you donkey *s you lying * comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother * *er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa **** troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes * you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist *phile ** * in your * your ****** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you you donkey *s you lying * comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother * *er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa **** troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes * you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist *phile ** * in your * your ****** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you you donkey *s you lying * comrade Lefttard fascist libtard Russian troll loony mother * *er freaks stupid idiotic childish rant Antifa **** troll comrade idiots like you tide pod generation snowflakes * you Marxist serial felon MSM useful idiots street justice fanboy alt.right culy dunal trumpf lunatic leftist *phile ** * in your * your ****** loser freak pos pack heat ammosexuals smh screwball lefties community organizers trumptards professional agitators if we could ban idiots like you you donkey *s you lying ** comrade

*Employ all caps and strings of exclamation marks ad lib

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­  A Dusty Drum Kit

                             In a re-sale shop in Huntington, Texas

Fronting for decaying videotapes
And clocks that will never again chime the time
Through tinny mechanical syncopation
A drum set reposes without percussion

An arpeggio of silent despair
Whose cymbals and snare impatiently wait
As do the bass and other impedimenta
For the hand of a youth who has something to howl

The next kid through the door might bell the cat:
“There it is – I will rhythm the truth with that!”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Advent – a Gift of Becoming

                   “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”

              -“The Coming of Arthur” and “The Passing of Arthur”
                                              in Idylls of the King

There is much to be said for Ordinary Time
Its very ordinariness is kind to us
The daily hours that end with the Vespers chime
Free of formation and pageantry

But Advent comes as part of the dance
Of seasons wheeling through the universe
And we must shift our thoughts back into time
In anticipation of the Nativity

In solitary splendor a wonderful Star
Gives us light for our pilgrimage renewed

Advent at the Dollar Store

The *****, roachy desperation of
the unswept dollar store’s cellophane dreams
At Prices You’ll Love boxes of oilless
popcorn poppers deep-fat fryers massagers
to sweeten generational desperation
behind the counter cigarettes locked up
We Cash Work And Welfare Checks can’t afford
Lives collapsed so we console ourselves with
electric hair-curlers and boxes of chips
singing NFL coffee machines
shiny new bicycles to be stolen
before the end of January or
left out to rust in the February rain
dusty plastic holly shiny CD
players for the administration of
anaesthesia Jumbo Bargain Gift Wrap
for Your Happy Holiday Shopping Pleasure
No Shirt No Shoes No Service No, No, No
Hyphenated Industries of Chicago,
Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei wishes us
a Merry Christmas