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, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

        Henry Kissinger Has Left His Multi-Million-Dollar Apartment

The bodyguards, the security details
The long black cars, the cooing movie stars
The expensive dinner jackets tailored just so
The best cigars, the rarest of champagnes
The jeweled watches and those golden cufflinks
The many underlings awaiting his call
The fawning bishops at the Al Smith dinners
The publishers eager to print his latest screeds
The voice that commanded armies and fleets
And left presidents quivering in fear

The millions of corpses rotting in the sun




I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

              -C. S. Lewis, Preface to *The Screwtape Letters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Romance of the Boeing 707

                                     Out on Runway Number 9
                                     Big 707 set to go

                                           -Gordon Lightfoot

Old Ginsberg wrote that the typewriter was holy
An airport of words for coming and going
On a runway of ribbon, platen, and keys
McKuen might have said it’s a safe place to land

But then came the Boeing 707
Dear Gordon Lightfoot’s silver wings on high
It flew our words and us all over the world
And became for us holy in its own way

The 707 – there was nothing finer
But the last one I saw was a roadside diner

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                           Like Children Dancing

Like children dancing, leaves form up in rows
Then skitter across each corner and street
As shoals in rolling ranks overflowing other ranks
Or little tornadoes laughing through circles and swirls

Like children celebrating their youth and strength
Leaves tumble and run before the shifting wind
‘Way up into the air and back to earth
In happy games of catch-me-if-you-can

Like children in the afternoon, just out of school
Autumn leaves joyfully mock every rule

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       The First Folio of...You?

                  On the 400th anniversary of the First Folio
                  Of some playwright or other in England

I fear that there will never, ever be
A First Folio of the works of – Me!
Bound in leather most luxuriously
For sale at a wildly exorbitant fee

Scanned for pleasure over cups of tea
And studied by academics thoughtfully
Beloved by the climbing bourgeoise
As much as by the high nobility

I can’t adorn my poems with a PhD
So will kind readers accept a high school degree?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Thanksgiving as a Singleton

Memories of a drive-through just won’t do
Set something on your table, if only for you
A turkey plate from the grocery store
Two side dishes from cans, or maybe more
And gravy even if it’s a store-bought broth
Silverware, real plates, and a tablecloth
Wash your hands, light a candle, say a prayer
And open your napkin with your special flair!

You are where you are meant to be, it’s true
And know that God is with you to see you through

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Decaying Orbits

Wild vultures swirl in distant elegance
Circling gracefully in the high, cold blue
Wings beating the downdrafts into place and space
Then orbiting down, a narrowing decay

And landing lumpishly upon the dead
Their distant grace was but foul deceit
Up close they know only ***** and filth
Their orbits have decayed into decay

Perhaps at a distance we seem beautiful
But would we want to know ourselves up close?