Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

                            As Jonathan Edwards did not say

How do they find so much hatred in their Book?

Why do they bind their scriptures and themselves
In anger, duct tape, and camouflage
Why do they raise high the AR and their fists
Instead of salvation and the Holy Cross?

Where do they find so much hatred in their Book?

Why have they abandoned the altars of Truth
For the flagpole idolatry of the pagan state
In coven-circles facing each other and a pole
Like Canaanites and their wooden Asherim?

Why do they find so much hatred in their Book?

If they would look beyond their perimeter wire
They would see
                                A Maiden dancing
                                                                     In Galilee

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Draft Beer, Not Students

                                A slogan from the 1960s

In illo tempore:

A young man swaggers across the ‘versity quad
Smoking a Marlboro or affecting a pipe
‘Way cool in his sports coat and turtleneck
Shakespeare or physics held loosely in his hand

A young woman passes through the ‘versity quad
Smoking a Parliament or checking her mirror
‘Way cool in her pencil skirt and layered look
Shakespeare or physics held closely to her heart

Sed in tempore nostro:

Pronouns galumph across the ‘versity squad
One fist raised in hate, the other clutching a glowing box

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              Barefootin’ Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon

                    For J. W., His Dad, and His Uncle Brandon

J. W. is blessed with family and purpose and love
Guided study and chores and structured faith
Happy barefootin’ days among the watermelons
A fishing pole and buzzing-bee summer afternoons

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Columbia University’s Judenfrei Dream


         It was surprising to see how many of the university faculties
         knuckled under to the Nazification of higher learning…

             -Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 251


As a poor kid from rural Texas
I would never have been admitted to Columbia
And now I would not permit Columbia
To be admitted to me

(not that either of us ever asked the other)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                       The Rabbit Held Very, Very Still

                             Dedicated to Elmer Fudd

The rabbit held still
The rabbit held very still
Caught raiding my garden

(No rabbits were harmed in the making of these scribbles. I distracted Luna-Dog and Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund to another part of the yard.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

       That Which Does not Exist Will End in the Next Half Hour

The MePhone beeps and then reports
That the rain that isn’t falling
Will stop in the next half hour -
This may be a metaphor for life

And if not life, then ten to twenty
If the presiding judge is lenient

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             You are not a Banana

                                  Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered

A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)

If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so

Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun

But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses

Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas

We are brothers and sisters, not bananas