Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Underneath that Mango Tree in 1962

                           Underneath the mango tree
                           Me honey and me make boolooloop soon

Maybe the honey is in her eighties now
Sitting underneath a mango tree
Playing with her grandchildren in the undertaker’s wind
Smoking a cigarette and remembering a handsome boy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                          Grooving in Area 52

Maybe…

The Beatles got it wrong back-then-ago
When groovy discs through grooves grooved out our songs -
For we now groove in an Area 52
Not in a groovy screen-door submarine  

Certainly…

We groove and grok in ******* behind chain-links
Where elderly men ****** their guitars
And middle-aged women dressed as majorettes
Jiggle duct tape and weight-loss medications

Maybe…

The Beatles grooved it right ago-back-then -
Old grooves, dull mediocrity still lock us in

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              When I Have Seen So Many Dependent Clauses…

                                 Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 64

When I have seen…
When I have seen…
When I have seen…

Oh, yes, I would miss her, very much so
But
Some of these dependent clauses have got to go!

(Maybe someone woke up on the wrong side
Of that second-best bed…)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    A Cranky Little Old Man Wearing a Bandage on His
                    Forehead  and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While
                    Standing in  Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which
                    Opened Five Minutes Late

“It’s crap, I tell you; it’s just crap! Hey, you bump me again and I’m going to whip your /ss! Why don’t these people walk in that other aisle!? Can’t they see that there’s a line in this aisle!? What’s that?  That’s just crap; I told you that! Hey! Why’re you people late!? I don’t want to sit down don’t tell me to sit down I don’t want to sit down this is all bullsh/t!  Hey! You people need to walk over there! No, I don’t want to settle down don’t tell me to settle down if these people had shown up for work on time they could have had our stuff ready by now but not they just come in a half hour late and they don’t care! HEY! Why aren’t these people on time I got things to do I need my stuff but they don’t care don’t walk so close to me go walk in that other aisle why are all these people here why isn’t this line moving I think that guy’s trying to sneak in no he’s at the wrong window! HEY! That’s the wrong window the line’s over here you won’t get no help there…!”

The bandage on his head needed no explanation.

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