Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             If a Book Could Take Just One Human to a Desert Island

Who would it take?

You?

Me?

Dostoyevsky?

A librarian?
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  Kafka, You, and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk

                            With thanks to Rowan Pelling


                  Those who have never suffered through Kafka
                  Should not employ the adjective “Kafkaesque” -
                  The landgraf would not approve


When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning
from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed
in his bed into a monstrous self-service checkout kiosk.

Someone must have traduced Joseph K.,
for without doing anything wrong
he was arrested in the checkout line
one fine morning

It was late in the evening when
the supermarket supervisor arrived.


Kafka, The Metamorphosis. Trans. Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton. 1972

Kafka, The Trial. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: The Modern Library. 1956

Kafka, The Castle. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: Schocken. 1982

The hell of self-service checkouts is becoming Kafkaesque (yahoo.com)
Because, like, y'know, Kafka is, like, you know, intellectual and stuff.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Upon Re-Reading William L. Shirer's
                         The Rise and Fall of the Third *****

           Perhaps one day America will go fascist democratically,
           by popular vote.

      -William L. Shirer, New York Times, 29 December 1969

We do not live Samsara, for Samsara has meaning
So this is not Samsara; this is a cascade of deaths
We live in linear time – or maybe we don’t -
And the gods of hate sneak in ahead of us
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Before Me Sits Young Pablo Neruda

                    On the paperback cover of Residence on Earth

Before me sits pensive Pablo Neruda
His young face resting upon his slender hand
He looks a little to the left of the photographer’s eye
He appears to be thinking great thoughts

Or he might be thinking

Why am I posing like a high school senior?


Residence on Earth, introduction by Jim Harrison
New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Pablo Neruda, Residence on Earth, introduction by Jim Harrison
New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Assembling a Metal Lawn Chair with Great Care
                                   (and a Ball-Peen Hammer)

A friend gave me a lawn chair in tangerine
Bright tangerine, with instructions in English
Which I followed most assiduously
Which parts of the chair most surely did not

The instructions did not mention a ball-Peen hammer
With brutality and words which must not be spoken
(Think of Vulcan and his mighty strokes)
I finally assembled the chair to my satisfaction

And then I sat down
"Some Assembly Required" - GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Our Children Will Ask Us What We Did in 2024


                                            Thus was th’ applause they meant,
                           Turned to exploding hiss, triumph to shame
                           Cast on themselves from thir own mouths.

                                   Milton, Paradise Lost, X.545-547


Have we not learned?

The Zeppelinfield, the Kroll Opera House
The Great Hall of 10,000 People
The Hippodrome, the Piazza Venetia
Red Square, and the Quicken Loans Arena

Weak beings subsumed within one commanding Will
Adoring with glistening eyes and beating hearts
A strident oligarchy of destiny
Chanting obscurities and pumping fists

But when the chanting stops and foul diktats roll –
Will you - will I? - be a defiant soul?
I speak of both dominant political parties and their neo-Nuremberg rallies.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Dancing Among the Apple Trees

She danced through the orchard in the long ago
Barefoot among sweet summer’s apple trees
And she was the sweetest apple of all
A taste of Creation hymned with the lingering bees

The orchard is mostly gone

                                                                   Her dancing is forever
Next page