Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Dock Workers’ Strike – BUY TOILET PAPER!

WE ARE AMERICANS!

Whenever threatened by enemies furry or domestic
By hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, storms
By shortages of food, water, and electric power
By aliens stalking us and eating our cats
By famine, fire, dispossession, revolution

WE BUY TOILET PAPER! WE ARE AMERICANS!

We are armed with our AK-16s and AR – 47s
Uniformed in our Wal-Mart camo from China
Size 89XXXXL-Lard-***
And we will by God stand together as ONE -
And fight each other to the death for toilet paper!

Oh, and do you know Jesus?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              His CHECK ENGINE Light is On

                                      For Chris Singletary

He came by today, a friend from long ago
“I haven’t seen you in a hamster’s age.”
“Yep, too long.”
“How ya doin’?”
“Good enough for government service.”
“Wanna beer?
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Kids all doin’ good?”
“Yeah; real proud of ‘em. All grown and gone. Yours?”
“Oh, yeah, doin’ doin’ just fine.”
“Heard you was in th’ hospital last year.”
“Yep, made almost about three months of of it.”
“Too much fun.”
“Yep.”
“At our age…”
“Yep.”
“Kids these days.”
“Yep.”
“You okay now?”
“Better’n I deserve. You?”
“Well, you know, my CHECK ENGINE light is on.”


Fresh metaphors are scarcer than crocodile feathers. Thanks, Chris.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Everyone Tells the Story of Li Po and the Moon

Everyone tells the story of Li Po and the moon
Of how when he was drunk in a boat one night
He tried to embrace the reflection of the moon
Fell in and drowned, and wrote and drank no more

Everyone says the story is probably not true
But some tell it anyway – why is that?
Why must poor Li Po drown over and over
His life of art ended in a drunken lapse?

Because even if his moon river death were true
It would be a more dignified death than theirs

And that is why

Everyone tells the story of Li Po and the moon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     93 Million Dreams Away

                                          For Thomas Futrell
                              Will and Kelly’s Little Sunbeam

The sun plays peek-a-boo among the leaves
One last game before children must go to bed
And then our lady moon comes in and weaves
Such happy dreams for each little sleepyhead!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Meditation - and a Lawnmower - in Early Autumn


               We cannot stay young and strong for long -
               Both of us have grey hair at the temples

                        -Du Fu, “To the Recluse Wei the Eighth”1


After summer rains the earth is still green
Oak leaves dance happily in the cooling breeze
Old lawn chairs are the humble chairs of poets
Old lawn chairs are the glorious thrones of kings

The seasons remind us of our mortality
We sit and ponder the mysteries of change
We will die, to be replaced by others
Who will sit and ponder the mysteries of change

And still, whatever these deep thoughts betoken -
I need to mow, and the lawn mower is broken



1Three Hundred Tang Poems
Translated by Peter Harris
London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund

Why is the resistance factor
In shifting a six-pound dachshund
Who does not want to be shifted
Greater than that of tons of iron?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware™ Coffee Cup


           “The days are gone…
           When wonderful things were worked among them”

                            -The Seafarer, trans. Burton Raffel


My Tupperware coffee cup is as a chalice
With which I salute the beginning of each day
Cool, colorful, comforting craftsmanship
An honest, utilitarian work of art

We are told such things will be no more
“Made in USA” is “Factorum Romae”
Younger nations will find us camping among the ruins
Of works and arts we no longer comprehend

A colonial soldier might note that once we were a great people
His colonel will reply, “Tosh! They’re simple savages.”