Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   You Say You’re Bi-Polar


                                   for a certain wise poet


You say you’re bi-polar. So is the planet
So you’re all right, and I only ask of you -
Please help the rest of us be as good as you
As thoughtful and kind, and as attuned to Creation

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            ­     Our Lubyanka

Metropolitan Detention Center
All those fuzzy harmless syllables
Grey concrete walls but no clock at the top
Windowless facings along city sidewalks

Our federal marias are white, not black
Because we are not Communists, oh, no
People go in; they don’t always come out
They say that from the basement you can see Florence

You might be transferred there, but mind the steps
Smile at the cameras that have been switched off

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Dense Fog Advisory

One wonders why fog should always be dense
Forever faulted for having no sense

Maybe because it’s a low-hanging cloud
Low-hanging around with a low sort of crowd

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                            The Last American Westclox Baby Ben

                                                         (Maybe)


It ticked into my heart at the Goodwill store
Two dollars’ worth of Americana
A charmer in a battered metal shell
Hiding behind a tired plastic face

The tick, the tock, the talk of Peru, Illinois
The clock that woke America each dawn
For work and study, and to meet the Chicago train
For a century until time ran out

It clicks and clanks and ticks and tocks and talks

All-day dutiful hands, a jangling bell -
How long will this old clock last?

Only time will tell

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                       Hanukkah is a Light That Always Gets In


                            There is a crack in everything.
                            That’s how the light gets in.

                               -Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”


Eight candles of the mind, then, of the soul
In a time of hooded pursuivants
Seeking for truth so that it might be suppressed
Seeking for light that it might be extinguished

There mustn’t be any candles, then, in the windows now
In this Abomination of Desolation
Where wrapped in reptilian rags from Amazon
Sullen illiterates ***** their eyes against the light

If you are somewhat broken, read from the scroll
Beneath the lights of Hanukkah
Eight candles of the mind and of the soul



Note on the quotation: Babblings on the InterGossip led me to verify the above quote, which is from the poem “Anthem” published in Leonard Cohen, ed. Robert Faggen, Everyman’s Pocket Poetry series.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      “I’m a Registered Choctaw”


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As glad-handy as a Rotarian
Blue-eyed and sporting a blonde jack-***-tail
Aggressively hearty in his greetings to all
“I’m a registered Choctaw,” he boasted

(Tho’ I am but a poor Heinz 57
My muggle-blood trumps his vain trumpery)
He asked how many Hispanics have we got
I said I hadn’t counted and wouldn’t know

He is a grant-writer for the homeless
And seems to grant pretty good for himself

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       A Porch of Worms on the Feast of St. Stephen

These winter squalls are almost springtime rains
Warm days, cool nights, and windblown showers at dawn
And on the porch appear some curious stains
Dark squirming squiggles progressing up from the lawn

Up from the lawn, up from their earthen beds
In desperate trails of iridescent slime
As peristaltic tubes with wavery heads
Rhythmically marking out their march in time

But all too brief their escape, alas -
A feast for robins who will not let them pass