Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Field Medical Service School

Shivering in the rain, up in the hills
Of Sunny Southern California
Kerosene cookers and their gust-blown smoke
Squid-wet Corpsmen in flying wet slickers

Mess kits held out to sullen, cursing cooks
Slam-slopping glops of sausages and eggs
Cold coffee in aluminum canteen cups
No cover, no shelter for floating food

Or for sergeants bellowing in the dark –
And we laughed through it all, for we were young

Alexandria in a Seabag

The barracks is a university
So too the march, the camp, the line for chow
McKuen shares our ham and lima beans
John Steinbeck helps with cleaning guns and gear

(You’re not supposed to call your rifle a gun)

The Muses Nine are usually given a miss
But not Max Brand or Herman Wouk
Cowboys and hobbits and hippie poets
And a suspicious Russian or two

Tattered paperbacks jammed in our pockets:
All the world is our university

Central Standard Dachshund Time

Turn back the clock, but not a dachshund’s tail
Since dog and tail will turn right back again.
And then around three times, and without fail
She’ll want outside, and then –
                                                        She’ll want back in

To spin, for that is what a dachshund does
A doggy dance, a prance, and all four paws
Buzz, and where she is isn’t where she was
In violation of space-time and Newton’s laws -

On Saturday night we turn back the clocks
But there’s no winding down a baby dox

Lawrence Hall

          No Way, Shape, or Bombshell, Actually

No way, shape, and form literally dropped
A bombshell to the next level, with no
Ifs, ands, or buts defining a generation
While living in the shadows of America

Where the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
Going viral in trending a hashtag
Through user-generated content link-bait
Engaging the meme traffic actually

Cloudwising virtual reality
Thinking outside the box form shape way no

(And let the people say “icon”)

Not-So-Wildflowers

Wildflowers are not really wild, you know
They are not forward like catalogue blooms
Demanding the best seats in the garden
And the most delicate of drinks and soils

Wildflowers smile softly, sweetly at the sun  
Shy fairy-folk of forest, field, and fen
Dancing through the warm mid-year months and then
Withdrawing quietly at summer’s end

Like children yawning, and wanting their beds -
Wildflowers are not really wild, you know

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Following a Path Worn by Pilgrims
                         -Doctor Zhivago, p. 75

No one is first along a pilgrim road
Other footsteps began our journey for us -
To Bethlehem, Emmaus, Damascus –
Wherever the heart is centered in hope

Someone has stepped on this cactus before
And sat on that rock to pull out the spines
And muttered about the indignity
Of a holy man pestered with stickers

But humility is part of the search

Because

No one is last along a pilgrim road

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Ella’s Unicorns

There is no reason why pale unicorns
Should not cavort in frosty fields at night
Or dragons play around the moonlit pond
Annoying the naughty naiads bathing there

For startime is the magic dreamy time
When flowers and leaves are given whispering speech
And laughing faeries flit from tree to tree
In games of hide-and-seek until the dawn

The world would be strange without unicorns
Cavorting in the frosty fields at night