Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Monsoon Coffee

The old men argue whether we have monsoons
Or if our afternoon thunderstorms are unworthy
Of scientific labels, notations, or marks
To be discussed on the six o’clock news

Each day at four I take my coffee outside
To sit beneath the oak and take the air
With a book, the Wordle, or an empty mind
As thunderheads rise like monsters in the east

Fearsome clouds menace the sky-paling moon
And breezes wind themselves up for the daily monsoon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­  Double Haters

                            The windiest militant trash
                            Important Persons shout

                      -W. H. Auden, “September 1, 1939”

No
I am not a double hater
I am a single writer
Since both parties chose to crater
I refuse to choose either blighter
They offer us only Stink and Stank
So I will leave my ballot blank

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               You Are Not Something Burnt into the **** of a Cow

So many people want to be brands
I hope you are not a brand
I want to read your words, not your brands
You are a poet
You are not a label on a tin of tomatoes
Or something burnt into the **** of a cow

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      The Percolation of Our Beautiful Green Earth

Like MeeMaw’s aluminum coffee ***
The earth percolates through all the seasons
Of rain and drought and freeze, of dust and mud
The ground we work gives up its annual troves

The tiller’s tines turn up old pocketknives
Old nails, old screws, old bits of window glass
An unfired flash cube from a party long ago
Gardening is also archaeology

I excavate from the machine while sitting in the shade
Decades-old fence wire wrapped around the blade

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Waiting-Room Art:
      Same Old Bicycle Leaning Against the Same Old Sunlit Wall

We’ve all seen that bicycle, that sunlit wall
In photographs taken in Italy
And Austin (don’t forget the bike-lock now)
In paintings from old-lady art classes everywhere

Perhaps that bike and wall are a Statement
About Milieu and Patina and, like, stuff
Neoformalist New Socialist Realism
Inverted kitsch deflating the patriarchy

I propose a fresh vision: what I would like
Is that old wall crumbling, and crushing that bike

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     You’re in Good Shape – for a Man Your Age

                         Which is what my NP and doctors say

My heart has a gadget to make it tick
I stumble about with a walking stick
My brand-new glasses are ever so thick
My neck it suffers a perpetual crick
And I just don’t get around so quick
But I’ve still got my hair; it’s pretty slick
And I’m young in spirit, still doing my schtick!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Giv­ing People The Bird

                                An Empty Chick-fil-A Car
                      Idling in the Medical Clinic’s Red Zone

Blocking the patients-only zone is a bit absurd
Or maybe Chick-fil-A is simply giving us The Bird