Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

       Veterans’ Day / Remembrance Day - An Old G.I. Belt Buckle


        For Storekeeper Third Class Thomas of Knoxville, Tennessee

                                 “What he believed, he did.”

                                          -Laurence Binyon,
                              “In Memory of George Calderon”


An old belt buckle in the back of a shelf
Greening brass on a belt now much too short
Maybe the same one I wore on the Vam Co Tay
Scattered thoughts shift to Thomas; I don’t know why

A good man with a clipboard and a fifty-cal
Sitting on the edge of a bunk feeding a child
Spooning c-rats and making the kid laugh
“One for meeee…and one for youuuu!”

I wonder whatever happened to good ‘ol Thomas
I wonder whatever happened to the child

I wonder whatever happened to all of us

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Not Exactly Veterans’ Day at the High School

Locally the day was celebrated on the 8th
And no one seems to know exactly why
Made-in-China decorations and flags
The high school band playing all the old songs

Compulsory attendance; the students looked bored
We veterans even more so, yawning to attention
The speeches were the usual patriotic soup
Cribbed from the InterGossip the night before

And yet, somehow, that’s the way it should be
Because this is a swell old country, and I love it


(I do NOT love the inept, corrupt, bumbling, cold, distant, busybody, supercilious, grasping, oppressive, hostile, privileged, uneducated, and treacherous Our Set ******* of both unAmerican parties who constitute the government.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Atheist Chaplains Forging Mixed Metaphors

         “Atheist chaplains are forging a new path in a changing world”

                                    -CNN 7 November 2024

One seldom thinks of chaplains at a forge
Work-weary, work-stained from hours of smoke and sweat
With mighty hammer strokes bending hot iron
To the will of the artisan in useful things

Some writers forge nothing but metaphors tired
From overuse, and mixed as verbal soup
In music, art, literature, and life paths can be

Cleared
Paved
Traveled
Surveyed
explored
Followed
Noted
Marke­d
Mapped
Found

But it is not in the nature of paths to be forged

Atheist chaplains and metaphor soup
Are nothing more than an ouroborosian loop

(Look upon this fresh metaphor and neologism
And despair)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           Shakespearean, with a Touch of Crass


                                                                            …a poor player
                          That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
                          And then is heard no more

                                             -Macbeth V.v.24-26


An old man’s friends – they knifed him in the back
With inky blots, denying him his custom and rule
He was Caesar, perhaps, or Duncan or Lear
His dear ones Brutus, Macbeth, or Goneril

Hopes of the future, campaigners of joy
Conspiring over poisoned chalices
And gnawing like bones the remnants of their souls
Surprised in their plots by a brazen apparition

Who is this who intrudes upon their narrow stage?
Andronicus – to ****** us with yet another new age

The rest is noise

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Vice-President Kamala Harris’ Speech of Gratitude and Farewell
to Her Faithful Followers in the Early Hours of 6 November 2024
                                                     .
                                                  .
           ­                                 .
                              ­        .
                                 .
                                 .
                                      .
                       ­                  .
                                           .
                                                .
             ­                                     .
                          ­                          .
                                     ­                 .
                                              ­          .
                                                     ­       .
                                                        ­          .
                                                     ­                    .
                                                               ­          .
                                                               ­          .
                                                               ­          .
                                                               ­          .
                                                               ­    (****)











          

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               “Remember, Remember, THIS Fifth of November”

Guy Fawkes is lurking beneath the assembly again
Barrels of resentments all set to scorch
Same plan, same plot, same ploy, same wicked grin
But this time there is no one
                                                       to take away his torch

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Election Night 2024: Dry Bones


                “All we are, basically, are monkeys with car keys”

    -Grandma Woody in Northern Exposure, “Animals R Us,” 1991


An early dusk falls under clouds from the Gulf
Yellow houselights wink on as daylight winks off
Supper in greasy bags from fast-fooderies
That everyone argues they can’t afford

Then like the lozenge in A Space Odyssey
A screen appears and dominates all
And family groupings center themselves around it
In excited cavortings before the images

Of brightly-colored cultic election scores
As fists swinging dry bones crush enemy skulls