We have no fine old paneling of oak
No ancient silver on a sideboard new
When Charles the First still wore his handsome head
We have no Latin, we may not smoke, but still -

Between the cinder blocks and coffee urn
Dining upon the finest plastic foam
We laugh at yarns that Saint Augustine thought
Well out of date when Africa lost Rome

We have no fine old paneling of oak
But every day we share a fine old joke

S/he who is coerced
To move with
A straitjacket
Above the dead
And below the living
Is whose fate.

A horse dragging
A cart
Unable
A genuine message
To impart
In fact
No better than
A doormat
Unloading words
With a servile pen
On a bread-winner journalist
Inflicts a harrowing pain.

Poor sailors and poor students parse the past
Between the paper covers of poor Penguins
Poor crumbling pages and crumbling civilizations
Held together with rubber bands and Scotch tape

And when in middle age The City of God
At last succumbs to the barbarians of time
A fresh one is built up in Oxford blue
By Vivian Ridler, who saved for us the words

And yet - the arguments of several Romes
Were somehow fresher at $3.75

“Every herd is a refuge for giftlessness…Only the solitary seek  
       the truth, and they break with all those who don't love it
       sufficiently.”

                          ― Boris Pasternak,  Doctor Zhivago


You cannot write with your fist clenched in hate
You cannot sing with a conscripted voice
You cannot dance if you are made to march
You cannot love if your heart is not free

You cannot think if they slogan your mind
You cannot play if they deny your joy
You cannot dream if they program your spirit
You cannot pray if they poison your soul

You are an artist, a seeker of truth:
And no one should finish this line for you

Immediately after I
Fetched my salary
From a Bank
When I get drunk
Getting into a bar,
From my home not far,
No longer subject
To my inhibition
I become bold
To make an
Open breast of my love
To my inaccessible dove,
For on such state
I become easily capable
My financial challenges
And physical appearance
Anxieties to dissolve.

I crunch her number
Getting no answer
"U R Z best Chick
On earth! "
I SMS her
But go not any further.
It is early in the morning
I ask myself
"What possibly could
Be her feeling! "

Also into a bar
When I make
A divine entrance
To rub shoulders
With colleagues
I stand a chance
Or above them
On the ladder of success
A bit advance.

Also when at night
When I see
Pub's dazzling light
My timidity
No longer in place
Myself assertiveness
Proceeds apace!

Also I bet
Alcohol, dunker's pet
To tension management
Has some effect.

On the morrow
It is when I get
Out of pocket
My spendthrift bent
I regret.

Aside from my health
Going downhill,
I am becoming
Incapable to foot
Electric and water bill.

Tipsy, at times
Blunt, for a fight
I begin to hunt.///

Cooperating with the Feds in Exchange for Immunity
                                                (and a book deal)


Dear Feds:

I wish to apply for immunity
Though I have done nothing with impunity
Show me how to conspire
So that I might acquire
Largess from the working community

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall