Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              To God, Who Still Gives Joy to Our Youth


                       Introibo ad altare Dei

                      Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutam meum


Missals calendaring the liturgical year
Mantillas in reverent rows marked out by children
Children as rosary beads sorting out the Aves
And men in this-is-choking-me suits and ties

Candles in colored glass in reverent rows
Decades of prayers, centuries incensed with prayers
Corinthian columns in reverent rows of awe
Or perhaps the humble Doric, upholding Heaven

Fiddleback chasubles in liturgical colors
Sequenced by seasons in prismatic reverent rows
Sewn long ago by loving reverent hands
Each stitch enriched with a Latin prayer

Fidgety altar boys in their Sunday shoes
The processional cross their grandfathers knew
Nonnas, Nanas, MeeMaws in reverent rows
The occasional bead-bang of a rosary against a pew

The occasional knee-pinch to a squirming child
Latin responses in sequenced reverent rows
Latin, which later we were told we didn’t understand
Quia putabant nos stulti essemus

And on the Altar the eternal Sacrifice
Which no tyranny can ever take away

*Sed fuit, est, erit

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The Grave Robber of Fifth Avenue

Unferth postures upon the ashes of warriors
The warriors he has despised all his wretched life
Because he is unworthy to be one of them
Warring with only his mouth and never a spear

He mocks their wounds, their missing limbs, their graves
He steals their widows and orphans for himself
As ornaments to his manic caperings
While arrogating honors he could never win

But when the Dragon comes…

But when the Dragon comes, lashing its tail
Unferth will be ghosted away as a howling wail

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         A Prayer While Driving Past a School

Dear Lord, we pray -

For all the children at their studies today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the teachers at their work today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the cooks and cleaners today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the bus drivers and mechanics today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the administrators today
And their nicely decorated offices
And their luxury executive desks
And their golly-super-gee-**** computers that work
And their shiny new MePhones
And their expense accounts
And their district credit cards
And their mileage allowance
And their impressive leather appointment books
And their out-of-town trips to conferences
And their leisurely lunches out
And their air-conditioning that works
And their beauty-shop visits during the day
And their layers of protective secretaries
And their relatives on the payroll

Bless their hearts

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         J. Alfred Prufrock and the Giant Peach

“Do I dare to eat a peach?” He asked

“Yes, yes. just eat the stupid peach and stop
Banging on about it,” I replied

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, 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)

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