Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Where do Sunflowers go in August?


                 May our love for the Sun, the will of God, be as strong
                 as the sunflower’s…

                                     -attributed to St. John of Tobolsk


With the mower I took the sunflowers down
The withered remnants, stalks and heads and seeds
Those few remaining seeds rejected by the birds
For reasons of their own

With the mower I circled ‘round and round
Building a thickish thatch as a sort of nest
For seeds in anticipation of autumn
The seasons know their own

With the mower I saw high summer gone
I mowed – or had I mown?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

     Comparing Our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                            Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Fife

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                              Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Barney Fife

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
14 August 2024

    Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                          Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Barney Fife

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                               The Boy in White

He paused in the sun, unsure where to go
His uniform was new and neatly pressed
He carried a new blue mattress and two plastic bags
Containing his prison issue for the next three years

No guards were near so I talked with him
I didn’t ask him; he wanted to be heard
He told me his story; it might be true
And then
Authority told me to move on. I wished him well

He was paused in life, unsure what to do
A frightened teenager in new prison whites

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Why are the Candidates Yelling at Us?

The candidates bluster and scream on TV
But I will never vote for anyone, you see,
Whose concept of leadership is yelling at me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                               12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                                   the Jews.”