Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             1957: The Year We All Became Soviets

                 “…we’re going to get science applied to social problems
                  and backed by the whole force of the state…”

              Mark Studdock in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength

Soviet Science launched a beeping toy into space
In the name of Progress; a mass-murderer ordered it so
And a month later Science launched and killed sweet Laika
Abandoned in orbit to die alone

Brave America suffered the Aunt Pittypat vapours:
We too must launch our slide-rules into space
And set our children to study Sovietism
Send civilization into orbit to die alone

Dogs and apes and men have flamed out in crashes
And Alexandria again is but pale ashes

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Mockingbirds at Dusk in a Time of War

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
Their leaf-rich oak could be their arena
Or it might serve them as their bower of bliss
For love in this magnolia-scented dusk

They’re still at it, whatever their “it” might be
But breaking off to blitz the subtle cat
Sneaking about in quest of a bunny or squirrel
But who from feathered fury must now retreat

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
But then
They might be mocking the rest of us


Bower of bliss – cf. Spenser’s *The Faerie Queene

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­ I Once Attended a Funeral...

I attended a funeral
Where the officiant did not
Talk about himself

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         A White Buffalo Along the Yellowstone

The alligator-boot boys will gather ‘round
Mahogany tables with sky-high views
And there intrigue how best to use this news
For the enrichment of all their plans and plots

The new-born calf could be sold for experiments
Or maybe enclosed behind a barbed-wire fence:
“COME SEE THE SACRED WHITE BUFFALO FOR ONLY
                    TEN DOLLARS
OR A HUNDRED DOLLARS PER CAR SELFIE PERMITS EXTRA!

But you and I pray that whatever gods we know
Will protect this blessing, this baby buffalo



Rare white bison calf reportedly born in Yellowstone National Park: "A blessing and warning" - CBS News

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent

                        I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire
                        it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you
                        agree? Feelings, insights, affections...it's suddenly
                        trivial now.

                   -Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago (film)

In the evenings I sit on my summer lawn
Slouched in an old, much-painted metal chair
That symbol of petite-bourgeois respectability
With a little table for my drink, my pipe, my book

(The cat pads by on errands of his own)

At dusk a friend or two might amble along
And join me for a glass, a smoke, a talk
We casually swat at mosquitoes and rumors
And argue about Doctor Zhivago and Lonesome Dove

(A fast-diving mockingbird mocks the cat)

In a fallen world of chaos and suffering
With fear of revolution in the air
Is it right to indulge ourselves with such trifles
As sitting and talking with old friends in the twilight?

Oh, yes

(The cat and the mockingbird continue their game)

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            You are Going to Write a Poem Today

                             A poet's words can outlive empires
                             and shake the foundations of tyrants.

                                              -Yevtushenko

You are going to write a poem today
Although you will never finish it
For the hours, or a person from Porlock
Will lead you to pause your thought for a time

Your poem will repose as a meditation
A word upon the altar of your mind
And even as you are distracted at Mass
Your poem becomes a tiny sip of salvation

All the truthing words that have come to you -
There on your mindful altar they bless the world

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 From Shakespeare: You are Golden

      Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 75, Robert Frost, and S. E. Hinton

To say that you are my dear golden girl
Would be a tired cliché and would be wrong
You are yourself, neither golden nor mine
I cannot grasp you, but I honor you

To say that you are my dear golden girl
Would be an exercise in futility
A metrical line in ten syllables
Wholly inadequate for any purpose

To say that you were my dear golden girl -
          Perhaps it was so in some other world