Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         It Wasn’t the Fourth of July

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

                                 -Henry V IV.vii.75-76

It wasn’t the fourth of July, but it was about then
Near the Cambodian border, on the Vam Co Tay
Searching for two American airman whose machine had gone down
Down, down into the steaming green Vam Co Tay

Bloated and floating, quite still when we saw them
The sloshy prop wash bumped them about a bit
Empty eye sockets, mouths open in silent screams
We poncho-linered their bodies aboard the boat

Cigarettes of despair against the stench and rot
This was not what we sang about in school

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The Haunted Electric Toothbrush

This morning at dawn
I was alone
I heard a moan
A mysterious groan
A ceaseless drone
It wasn’t the ‘phone

It was my toothbrush

It had on its own
Turned itself on

My Philips Sonicare ™© and (legal protections in a peach tree) has done me good service for years. This morning it turned itself on atop a glass shelf with other little bottles of this and tubes of that, making an unusual moaning / groaning / droning that took me some time to sort out. It is a great device; when it finally hands in its lunch pail (as Bertie Wooster would say) I will buy another just like it.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              An Old Crucifix on the Garden Gate

Summer is better in theory than in practice
A vision through the window of a shady lawn
All green beneath perfect Robin Hood oaks
Bright leaves, a chair, a book, a glass of tea

But the thermometer stands at 97
Even the shade itself wants to burn one’s skin
Wasps seem to seek their end in suicide dives
Wanting to die beneath the swing of a hat

Summer is better as abstract theories
And in our happy childhood memories

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   The Honor of Being Posted to an Enemies List

             Trump Amplifies Calls to Jail Top Elected Officials,
             Invokes Military Tribunals

                                        -DNUZ, 1 July 2024

Our leaders are making lists of enemies
We should want to be at the top of them:
Resistant and insolent, contemptuous
Of tyrants and their pathetic disapproval

I fear that I am not important enough
To be on anyone’s national list
But then perhaps the local party faithful
And their Q Boys will write me up instead

True Americans will be booed and hissed
But what an honor to be on that list!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Shakespeare: But I Gave You Your Start

                          Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 79 & 80

Once upon a time you and I were alone
I wrote of your virtues and your beauty rare
You posed for me, for a portrait painted in verse
You gave my poor iambics a forever glow

Your best is so much better than my good
And so I understand if you have found another pen
To pleasure you with far more skillful words
While I am left with an empty, unmade page

There are other poets of superior art
But please remember that I gave you your start

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         The Principal Who Liked His Pizza

If test scores made HIM look good – pizza for all
And a hallway plaque with HIS NAME at the top
If HE could claim an academic win – pizza for all
And another plaque with HIS NAME at the top

If the drama team won a competition – pizza for all
And another plaque – HE was HIS favorite topping
If the football team won district – pizza for all
And a bigger plaque with HIS NAME at the top

And when the evening sun set over the gym
Five or six of those pizzas went home with HIM

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  James Bond Faces Aunt Agatha’s Inquisition

                   No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to REDACTED

                   Rewriting James Bond: Offensive references to be
                   removed from Ian Fleming’s 007 novels | Euronews

Ian Fleming’s novels are *******; that’s the point
Laddy boy books for laddy boys and laddy dads
An escape from duties and domesticities
With the weekly cigar and the weekly glass

The sentencing:

Assign him Jane Austen as his reading list
No car chases, gunfire, or bikinis
Henceforth he may drink only herbal tea
And breathe only candle-scented air

Reduce him to a weakling all pale and harried
And then complain that he’s not the man you married