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

                               For the 20th of January
                                      1961 and 2021


                 The deed of gift was many deeds of war

                                         -Robert Frost

Miz Hawkins brought a television to school
So we could watch the inauguration
Of a president “born in this century”
But he seemed really old to us anyway

God looked like President Eisenhower
And God was surely a Methodist
President Kennedy was a Cath’lic
(In their basements they hid shortwaves and guns)

Shortwaves tuned to the Vatican and that ol’ Pope
So could a Cath’lic be a good American?
But the nation was young, and so were we
And America was God’s best creation

And because America was the Leader of the World
And we had whipped the Nazis and the **** [sic]
All by ourselves, and invented the Bomb
We were the blessing of democracy over all

Robert Frost spoke grand words in the January frost
I was hoping for his “Stopping by Woods”
Because I had memorized that in school
But he gave us something else, “The Gift Outright”

And then with frosted breath the President
Asked us what we could do for our country
Our country later asked us about Viet-Nam
But for now Miz Hawkins shushed all us deeds of gift

The nation was young that day, and so were we –

And everything seems so much older now
Our long ago optimism a deed of gift
To angry old men whose voices rattle

Rattle from behind armored glass and barbed wire
Barbed wire left over from DaNang and Saigon
And a thousand abandoned desert posts
Each a gift outright to Ozymandias

Who late bestrode the littered Capitol steps
His wrinkled lips loud-yelping in command
Over our increasingly antique land
“Made it, Ma! Top of the World!”

The happy crowds of ’61 are sand
There are no crowds in ’21, only silence
Behind ranks of soldiers (properly vetted)
Standing in empty streets, waiting for a Traveller

References:

Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright”
Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Warner Brothers, White Heat (film), 1949

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

                        An Orderly Transition of Power, They Say

             Is’t night’s predominance, or the day’s shame
             That darkness does the face of earth entomb
             When living light should kiss it?

                              -Macbeth II.iiii.9-11

On Inauguration Day there should be:

Children waving sparklers, avenues of light
High school bands and Boy Scouts in formation
Merriment along streets scrubbed clean and bright
A happy people in love with their nation

But we are given:

Soldiers, concertina wire strung between Corinthian columns, secret service, chain-link fencing, police, checkpoints, soldiers, roadblocks, secret service, rooftop marksmen, police, missile batteries, soldiers, no-go zones, secret service, lockdowns, police, lockouts, soldiers, security gates, secret service, identification checks, police, radar, soldiers, radios, secret service, body scans, police, x-rays, soldiers, sniffer dogs, secret service, permits, police, passes, soldiers, patdowns, secret service, badges, police, questions, soldiers

Fear

Why?

talking of despair,
so many suicidal,
so many depressed,
better to return to nature
watch the birds,
see the moon,
mesmerising stars,
lifting me out of this gloom.
Some daily selections
one caught in malediction.
Maybe  settled for the fiction,
that God doesn't exist,
have all here, embraced the diminishing tide,
death cult, baal worshipping
darkside?
Outside, green shoots emerge,
thinking of cancelling this subscription,
with rising sun,
new horizons,
future bright,
with these pages
almost done.
In another timeless place,
floating high above in space,
God won.

Darkness slays the sun. Descending, he dies.
To hide his glowing countenance and wait;
Until his resurrection flood our skies
With promise of a greater solar state.

Oh mourn and weep, ye gaining shades of night;
An orange sunset lingers in the west.
The trumpet sobs a reveille; the light
Is dwindling on the presidential fest.
And cypresses are sighing in their shame
For Orange Man has forfeited his game.

The technocrats and leftists, as a mass
Opposed his righteous reign with godless spite.
Not once did they relent, but dogged his ***
In jackal-packs still slavering to bite.
And yet he is deplorably adored,
Nor friend nor foe politically bored.

Vile virtue-signalers (with none to show),
Despised all those who dared support his plan;
And prideful with each whining coward blow
Confirmed themselves inferiors to the man.
Pink feminists, at odds with all that's right
Displayed themselves as ******* in the fight.

They could not stand the mention of his name.
The Globalists and other Euro-trash,
With Luciferian bankers, void of shame,
Resume their one-world plotting in a flash;
Preparing for re-set. (We wish they would
Let God reset them for their own **** good.)

So DRUMPF's Fourth ***** must sadly reach its end,
And Jared's **** wife return her shoes.
His Völkisch warriors shall no more defend
Republics that weak RINOs all refuse;
And Milquetoast Mitt, and Bush, his parting hail
Grown tired of winning, longing yet to fail.

My Einsatzgruppen uniform: no more
To wear the holy garment in my pride.
My shimmering hood and robe I now must store;
Well-pressed, I lay them tearfully aside.
My lynching rope I coil with loving care,
My Ku-Klux armband nevermore to wear.

Alas, the fascist father-figure goes;
His bigot minions, all my own, lament.
Misogynists and racists at the close
Have lost their weary way and all is spent.
He wasn't dictatorial enough;
We all grew tired of winning. It was tough.

But wait; a zephyr stirs the orange grove.
The dusk has not yet sighed its final breath:
Once more a scent of citrus wafts above . . .
Twas' premature, their festival of death.
Then TRUMP arises, grinning, from the bier
And all who wished him gone recoil in fear.

Fresh horror now the adversaries sweeps;
The trembling crypts foreshadow his rebirth.
Progressive politics despairs and weeps
While liberal dread supplants their vengeful mirth.
Then Donald rises, leering like a ghost
To fill with panic every heartless host.

Mere hopium, this horror-movie plot.
It looked like he might pull it off— but no.
Now darkness teaches light what it is not
And half the nation jeers at him to go.
Healing urged—but fake. Polarization
Shall characterize our waning nation.

Hopes of resurrection vanish with night. 
The scapegoat's legions waken from the dream
To seek nocturnal solace from the fight:
The tepid normie water's middle stream.
And Q-**** numerologists learn code.
(The rest of us just wonder what we're owed.)

Saint Orange must diminish, half-impeached;
And sunset velvet now becomes his hue.
The ballot urns of Georgia never reached;
Our judges sat to stifle what we knew.
The monoparty's monkeys steal the show;
His puppet masters hiss him. Let him go.

Now Dixie's juiceless orchards sing his dirge.
The willows hang their boughs in leafless grief . . .
Disgust for all the traitors starts to surge;
And clown-world tries but cannot bring relief.
Orange Savior's promise: undelivered;
The funeral expires—and all is withered.