Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             I Will Write of Your Youth

                           Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 63

I feel weary and weak and worn-out tonight
Because I am indeed all of those things
And none of this was part of my master plan
Which never was; I lived, and now I am old

I watch you in your youth and your kingly grace
Limber and lithe for hunting, warring, and wooing
A champion in all the arts of life, of love
Even as I was – maybe only yestermind

I limn in lines of ink the story of you –
Forever youthful, brave and brash and true

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Memorial Day: This ****** Field

                   That we may wander o’er this ****** field
                   To book our dead, and then to bury them

                                     -Henry V, IV.vii.75-76

Some say this day began
                    As a memorial to the Confederate dead
Some say this day began
                    As a memorial to the Union dead
We only know that now it is a memorial for those
Who died for causes far beyond themselves

The glory of our soldiers is in the orphans they fed
The huts they helped repair, the ponchos they gave
To the shivering cold, reassurance to the terrified
Poor comforts to the bombed-out and the dying

The glory of our soldiers
Is not in some strident Man of Destiny
Bellowing fancy words from a prompter screen
But in hungry men who gave their C-rats away

Before they died in some ****** ****** ditch

In their honor, then

Let us quietly work in causes beyond ourselves
And risk being made into sacraments

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Racism is Popular with All the Cool Kids

Germany ‘would arrest Netanyahu if ICC issues a warrant’ (thetimes.co.uk)

Anti-Semitism again is all the rage
It’s a popular topic in the daily news
Indictments, lists, aktionen, and the barbed-wire cage -
Germany’s long tradition of arresting Jews

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      But It’s Not About Me

                                   Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 62

I have always been convinced that the world revolves
Not around an axis but around me
That civilization began with my birth
And that in every way I’m pretty hot stuff

But in the mornings my mirror disagrees
And shakes an image of some old man at me
Slack in muscle, thin of hair, dull of eye
Something to set on the curb on garbage day

No, not even my small world revolves around me
But around you, you who keep me forever young

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Do You Deliberately Disrupt My Dreams?

                               Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 61

Do you deliberately disrupt my dreams
And send to me your flirtings and whisperings
So that sleep remains impossible?
Even your shadowy image keeps me awake

Do you deliberately send your spirit to me
To pry into my thoughts and hopes and sighs
To know what I am about in my desire for you
To ***** by night my happy thoughts of you?

Do you deliberately disrupt my dreams?
Oh, I hope so!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   The Campaign of 2024

Mid the sound of the drum, the fife, the flute
To Old Glory in her wave and waft
No one can execute a snappier salute
Than a puffed-up patriot who avoided the draft



Christian leaders react to Trump's 'God Bless the USA' bibles: 'More Trump than Bible?' (msn.com) / Getty Images

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          You are the Transcendence of Dreams

                                 Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60

Susurrant waves along the shore sigh our minutes
Sunrises and sunsets sign off our days
Seasons and feasts solemnize our years
But you – you are the transcendence of words

Words to graft your elegance onto the eternal
A wave that never falls upon the sands
The sands of an immeasurable dawn-lit strand
Where minutes, days, and years are memories

And you – you are the transcendence of dreams
Made eternal in the galaxies’ glowing streams