Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            I Beg Your Pardon, Mr. President, Sir

One faction despises the Constitution
The other is all about corruption and sin
They laugh and give each other absolution
But your poor daughter caught with a little smoke –

She’s in for ten

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                  You are Offline

Neither God nor the InterGossip seems to listen:
A question posed is answered with a sneer
Or a silence as cold as this late-autumn dusk
Or a relationship well into decay

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      This is When You Light That First Candle Against the Darkness

Ordinary Time is now as summer’s lost leaves
Autumn has fallen into fogs and frosts
Pale sunshine flickers from shallow angles all day
Marking out the road to Bethlehem

Before the Altar in the parish church
A wreath is set with four candles to light
The first one today and a second next week
A third, a fourth, and then at last the Stable

The Stable at last, where the universe sings
The happy Desire of all our wanderings

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  The Last Day in Ordinary Time

Time is not at all ordinary, of course
It is an ordinal of flowing days
Whose current in its journey swims among
The well-marked seasons of sacred observances

Advent into and through Christmas and its promise
Lent into and through Easter and its fulfillment
Cycles of seasons, penance, and merry feasts
Each as a step in the great dance of Creation

All seasons echo God’s eternal rhyme
Blessing our senses with His created time

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Give Your Guns a Merry Little Christmas

Our number one priority is safety this is not who we are there is no active shooter situation at this time out of an abundance of caution violence is never acceptable active aggressor shockwave our thoughts and prayers will be held fully accountable we are better than this if only these teachers would monitor everyone’s social media non-life-threatening unacceptable knew each other isolated incident senseless act of violence I raised my son better than that that’s not the (name) I knew our hearts go out ongoing investigation possible links acting alone he was turning his life around mayor condemns gun violence I thought giving my son an AR would help with his emotional therapy when you go home tonight just hug your children this is a developing story

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   A Parliamentary Validation of Guy Fawkes

The death-penalty ban has been reversed
But will members of Parliament want to go first?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

    The Most Obscene Words Ever with regard to Christmas Music


"As arranged by"

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          The Mostest Magicalist Familiestest Christmas Ever

She will make this the most magical family Christmas ever
With the perfect tree
The perfect gifts
The perfect table
The perfect meal
The perfect ambience
The perfect decorations

A memory worthy of inclusion in a Hallmark movie
She will make this the most magical family Christmas ever

No matter how many children she reduces to tears for it

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         The Guard in Her Petite Boots

All visitors and volunteers must be escorted
My assigned minder greeted me with a smile
And didn’t wand me or search me for contraband
Perhaps it was because of my innocent face

She called me “sir” without any sarcasm
And led me through the lobby to the clanking doors
And in her little boots almost danced along
The reception area’s freshly-polished floors

Searching out the warmth-seeking crickets of autumn
And stomping every one of them

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Algebra is not in the Bible

Jesus never said unto us, “Solve for X”
If algebra were real, the apostolic succession
Of bishops would have told us about it
(After 2,000 years of committee meetings)

I miss Bob Newhart

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               You are One of Civilization’s Quiet Contemplatives


                   I send Love’s name into the world with wings

                                 -Thomas Merton, “A Psalm”


Into your pocket you slip a volume of verse
To feel and smell and breathe the words of others
And paper and pen are ready to your hand
To limn an errant dream as it whispers by

You take a roadside turning known only to you
Recusing yourself from busy-ness for awhile
To sigh upon a grassy bank and simply be
And rescue civilization from itself

With words you embrace the entirety of life
(But don’t forget your British Army Knife)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Still Listening to the Warm

Rod McKuen was the coolest of the cool
And now he’s not
Which makes him warmer than ever
On the pencil-marked pages of our youth

"Listen to the Warm" is still good advice

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Lemons and the Divine Ekonomia

My neighbor has a lemon tree
He gives me lemons
And I too have a lemon tree
I give him lemons

This is not economy
This is Ekonomia

It is divine

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Politics and the Public Square

Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where the Enlightenment works the guillotine
That’s where sensitive progressives ****** Jews
And constitutionalists ******* the Constitution

Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where those who kiss dictators deny the King
That’s where individualists join in mobs
And the last few children are hunted down and killed

Oh, yes, we know about the public square –
Where the screams of the dying poison the air

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  A Treatise on the Burrowing Habits of Dachshunds


                                                   in memory of

                                     Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund

                six pounds of barking, yapping, demanding, and love


A dachshund will burrow under the garden fence
For every dachshund thinks she is a wolf
A fearsome apex predator with a squeaky toy -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your tightly-closed hand
Nosing out the doggie treat you have hidden there
A fearsome apex predator and omnivore -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your end-of-day lap
Watching both the television and the cats
A fearsome apex predator drooling on your book -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow, borrow, beg, and bark
And in her foreshadowing of that better World to come
A dachshund will burrow deeply into your heart -
And love you forever

This is in the nature of dachshunds

And of you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         I’m Gonna Tell Santa Claus on You!

                                            Nora and Theo

The children scamper across my grassy lawn
And bring me wiggly worms to identify
Big acorns to admire, lemons fallen weeks before
Sticks and leaves, pinecones, flowers, and bits of bark

They lose their shoes and socks beneath the oak
They drink from the water hose and don’t turn it off
They chase the dog and the dog chases them
They shriek out joyfully because they can

I growl that if I mow another bit of brick
I’m gonna tell ol’ Santa Claus on them

They laugh at me, and bring me another worm

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        The Gates of Kiev are Now Smoke-Poisoned Skies

The Gates of Kiev are now only the skies
Drone-battered-bombed by the Siloviki
Against the peace of churches and sunflower fields
Workers and scholars and pastoral scenes

The Gates of Kiev once opened to all the world
Musicians, artists, builders, priests, and poets
Departed as missionaries to every land
Civilization from the Kievan Rus’

But now

The Gates of Kiev are smoke-poisoned skies
Through which foul Satan falls upon Slavic lands

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            Dump ‘Em into the Mixmaster and Stir-Whir-into-a Blur

Americans
iconic
cannot
icon
write
bombshell
without
axe to grind
employing
the knives are out
tiresome
gunning for
old
fwiw
metaphors
business-as-usual


Battleground states
Eye-watering
scores to settle
Cringe
Bloodthirsty
Guru
Meltdown
Woke
Wardrobe malfunction
Green light
Eviscerate
Breaks cover
Breaks silence
Jaw-dropping
Took __ by storm

Dump ‘em into the magical metaphorical Mixmaster® and stir, stir, whirrrrr…

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            ­  Schrodinger’s Turtle

                    Don’t let a quantum mechanic work on your car

A cat on a fence post probably got there himself
And may be observed to be alive or dead
A turtle in a box is not on a shelf
“And I don’t know why,” the scientist said

“Meow,” the poor little cat cried out in dread



Please know that I am on the ViaSat / Verizon / Directv / Netgear axis of frequent lack of service. I never ignore correspondence, but in the mornings my InterGossip works very slowly at best and in the evenings even more slowly and increasingly not at all. Responding to you may take some time.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                 Writing with Love Under the Coming Regime


         We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny
          but what we put into it is ours.

                         -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings


They hate you; they cannot do other than hate
They have gulped from Macbeth’s poisoned cup
With raucous laughter argued over lists of enemies
Carving out the names with ****** knives

But you from Love have chosen freely to love
You have taken communion from the Pierian Spring
And studied beauty and truth upon Helicon
You praise every name with sacred words

They hate you; they cannot do other than hate
But you from Love have chosen freely to love


NOT feeling the love in this matter: Please know that I am on the ViaSat / Verizon / Directv / Netgear axis of frequent lack of service. I never ignore correspondence, but in the mornings my InterGossip works very slowly at best and in the evenings even more slowly and increasingly not at all. Responding to you may take some time.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       When She Sold Her Old Ford Mustang

Y’all need some more coffee? I got some fresh

That car was my dream; had it since I was twenty
When I got married it was our honeymoon ride
When I got divorced it was all I had
After me and my baby got away from the beatings

Your breakfast okay? We got a new cook

We sometimes had to live in it, y’know?
So like I had to tell my son I’m selling it
I promised it to him for his graduation
That car was our life. But it ain’t safe

Did I tell you we got a new cook? He’s pretty good

I’m been waitin’ tables in this old café for years
Watchin’ the world go by on th’ highway

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     Poet, Just Look at You

Just look at you, wrestling with your ideas
Perceiving beauty among the burning ruins
Gently shaping the sorrows of the day
Into comfort

Just look at you, wrestling with your words
Heart and mind in position of function
Boldly shaping the confusions of the day
Into meaning

Just look at you, putting your readers first –
You are good

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Who Shares Your Desk?

Hundreds of friends share my desk with me
Leaving coffee and wine and tobacco stains
All over the place, their thoughts cluttering my mind
Dreams and possibilities for my heart

Yevtushenko and his Silver Age poets
More Russian poets
Shakespeare in a worn college omnibus
Larry McMurtry
(One must understood that in Texas Lonesome Dove is a holy text)
The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse
The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse
The Oxford Book of Christian Verse
The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse
Leonard Cohen and his famous blue raincoat
Cavafy at an oblique angle to the universe
Wordsworth and Dorothy out for a walk
Plath
Keats
Sondheim
Montale
Hopkins
The Oxford Book of English Verse, the 1939 Q Edition
(Not that Q!)
The Oxford Book of English Verse, the 1999 Ricks Edition
Pasternak
Lewis
Frankl
The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
Kafka
Herrick
Milosz
Virgil
Tennyson
Wavell and his manly flowers
Claude McKay
300 Tang poets (they do seem to drink a lot)
Mary Oliver and all her doggies

So there they are, in untidy rows and piles
(The Tang poets simply will not behave)
They are patient with my slovenliness
Pens, screwdrivers, a Rosary, two light bulbs
(I don’t know why)
A thermometer from my grandparents’ house

A 1962 Missale Romano and a toy fire truck
An Orthodox ikon from Tod of happy memory
A Tupperware coffee cup they don’t make anymore
Spare spectacles for seeing what comes next

Hundred of friends who ask the best of me
And who don’t mind my rows and piles of words
They talk to me, and I ask their advice
I pray I am not a disappointment to them

Or to you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     The Blues and the Blahs

“Ennui” sounds like a urinary tract infection
“Torpidity” something to do with one’s bowels
“Anomie” might be a boring friend
“Lassitude” a cowboy who has lost his rope

“Insipidity” the noise of slurping one’s soup
“Angst” a degenerative heart disease
“Weltschmerz” Sergeant Schultz’ least favorite beer
“Misanthropy” a cute but cranky girl

I don’t how many of these I have got
But I have got ‘em - and wish that I did not!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Which Karamazov are You?

Wise Dostoyevksy
Writes with holy words the mysteries  
Of the Russian soul

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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 A Buddhist and a Methodist Walk into a Bore


                     “…whose faith is known to You alone”


After Mass

I met a man who was desperately afraid
That God might err and welcome into His peace
A Buddhist (unless he repented and said the magic words)
Or even worse than that, a Methodist!

I met a man who was angry and bitter
That the priest spoke kindly of other faiths
In quoting Saint Paul and the canon of the Mass
But this unhappy man knew better than they

I met a man who felt he was God’s boss
And thus rebuked Our Lord upon the Cross

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         By Reading This Content You Agree to Our Privacy Policy


          It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander
          when you were…within range of a telescreen.

                                             -Orwell, 1984


But your privacy? Nah; deal with it, you see
Baked beans, magazines and mountain scenes
Vacation trips and handy houseware tips -
They see you, they know you, they hunt you

Podcasts, partisan views, gossipy news
Engine parts, how-to vids, and funny kids
Treating head lice, tax advice, dancing mice
They see you, they know you, they hunt you

Through your made-in-Shanghai Palantir
Adverts will forever make you fear,
                         My Precious



(“Palantir” is here an allusion to Tolkien’s genius, not to the software people.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Nora, Theo, and Pushkin-the-Rescue-Cat

After rough adventures Pushkin has found his way home
The children celebrate with him his happy new life
By crowning their purring prince with vines and flowers
And he is pleased to accept their adoration and love

Too soon children must leave their merriments
And rebuild civilization among the wreckages
In a time of hatreds and ideologies
When all seem to have forgotten the way to Jerusalem

And so for now

May children enjoy the springtime of their lives
For they (and the cat) remind us of our appointed path

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            ­     Porta Coeli

                        “I pray you, sir, remember the porter”

                                          -Macbeth II.iii.20ff

We are all porters; we open doors for others
Sometimes we open them for ourselves
If we close a door, it is against the rain and cold
And not against each other


(Yes, in Macbeth the Porter is drunk and inept, and when he says “remember the porter” he is asking for a tip in spite of his incompetence. I put the line in anyway because porters, actual or metaphorical, are servants, as are we all.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      People Who Give Children Jack Chick Tracts for Halloween


    Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

                                          -Saint Matthew 7: 9


If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
That is not a well-intentioned mistake
He is giving your child bigotry and fear
Hellish hatred, existential despair

If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
He is giving your child demons to haunt her dreams
Crude visions of sin to blight her happiness
His own satanic fears to destroy her hopes

If someone gives your child a Jack Chick
He is telling her that Jesus judges her ******

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      The Man Who Never

A bottle in the weeds along the road
A plastic remnant of the American game:
If you drink this fizzy and smoke a toad
You’ll get the car, the house, the girl, the fame

Nahhh

Another forty-something without a job
Just self-pitying songs on the radio
Stealing someone’s gas, another sucker to rob
Bumming money from Mom for no place to go                  

They didn’t believe in you, but you got ‘em showed -
Yeah, dude, you built a career along this road

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            She Made Life Fun

She made life fun. And then she died. She died
This is her coffee cup. She drank from it
She drank from it sitting in the break room
Making jokes and reading ****** novels

She made life fun. I’ll drink from her old cup
Maybe I’ll make life fun for others as she did
If there is magic in this cracked ceramic
A cup of blessings to be shared all around

She made life fun
And then she died

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         The Most Embarrassed Young Father in All of Christendom

                                   I will go in to the Altar of God.
                                   To God who giveth joy to my youth.

                                      -The Roman Missal, 1962

The processional had hardly ended
With each minister and server in place
Each knee for a moment respectfully bended
In acknowledgement of God’s gentle Grace

When came to our ears a frightening assault
Of sirens and horns, and then flashing lights
Beneath the sanctuary’s sacred vault
A catalogue of wild electronic frights

To the narthex door a father rushed
Awkwardly in the sight of God and man
His handsome manly face was deeply flushed
His son’s toy helicopter was clutched in his hands

He carried the noisy gadget far away -
(A true helicopter parent we may say!)
We delight in our children; for them we pray
And thank God for all families this Sabbath day

                                 I will go in to the Altar of God.
                                 To God who giveth youthful joy to old age.

                                                   -Parenting 1301

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              I Hear America Whining

The world’s fattest people, packin’ on the pounds
Driving to McDonald’s whenever the mood
And then to the beer joint, drinking those rounds
While complaining about the price of food

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   The Sunday Evening News in a Time of Elections

                    “Good things of day begin to droop and drowse”

                                           -Macbeth III.ii.58

Suddenly the yellowing afternoon is still
For Indian Summer breezes have slipped away
While clouds of silent midges swirl against the sun
For reasons of nature known only to themselves

The treeline is blue as evening comes on
But the hayfields glow golden for a little while
Until Old Sol falls asleep at last
And the firstling stars come out to play

A rabbit shyly nibbles at the dewing grass –
The day is over; we have to let it pass

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            A Plumber’s Assistant, a ****, and an Artificial Tree

       **** Rally in Madison Square Garden, 10 February 1939

Isadore Greenbaum wanted to punch a ****
And so he charged – he didn’t get very far
And was beaten up by Real Americans (cough)
      (It took only four or five of ‘em)
And arrested by the New York City Police

One **** stopped kicking Greenbaum to set aright
An artificial tree that was about to fall
Which is a curiosity – what remnant of good
Was in that man that he kept a decoration in place?

Greenbaum is a hero in our nation’s history -
The tidy **** remains a mystery

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Torah is Written with Flame

English letters are as orderly as a battle line
But Hebrew letters are flames in their shining shapes
Even on a printed page they dance in light
And with Light comes Truth; you can see God in them

For Hebrew letters are the Burning Bush
The fires of Mount Horeb, the Temple sacrifice
The light of a Talmud scholar’s study lamp
The light of Torah upon civilization

We don’t know our letters as we should
But God has written them upon our hearts

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       A Man Card? Really?

                       “Consider your Man Card reissued.”

                            -Bushmaster advertising slogan

Upon your soul

Your bullet leaves the barrel; it’s not coming back
That’s not a cliché; that’s a truth, the coldest truth
It’s not engraved upon a tablet but upon your mind
Upon the arrest reports, the jail book-in, the trial schedule

Upon your soul

Your bullet leaves the barrel and carries away
Everything that is brave and good in you
Every hope and dream, every noble thought
Everyone whom you love, whom you wish to love

Upon your soul

Forever and ever, the screams and blood of innocents
Are faceless terrors stalking you through your nights

Upon your Man Card

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Driving Home After Work:
                  “Thus Spake Zarathustra” on the Radio

The first few bars must always remind us of
That space movie from the future long ago
With sophomores beating each other up
Or anyone trying to spell “Zarathustra “

Without looking it up; no spelling now
Driving into a drought-red setting sun
The vapours of chemicals, road tar, dust
Allergens drifting among the toxins

Poetry sorts meaning from chaos seeming -
Maybe not tonight (Sneeze!)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            “Catholics, You’ve Got to Vote for Me.”

                               -Mr. Trump at the Al Smith Dinner

Mr. Trump does not speak for me.
Cardinal Dolan does not speak for me.
The local bishop speaks only at me
And they all want money from me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Because Men Who Betray Women are so Amusing

                  Bang-Bang Baldwin and the Too-Cool Audience

A man shoots a woman
For which another woman takes the fall
And Saturday Night Live
Is okay with it all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    We are All Children When We Attempt Haiku

We all write Haiku
We’re not any good at it
But we honor the Shijin

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The High Priest Kisses King Herod’s (Hands)

                         His Eminence the Cardinal of New York

The High Priest kisses King Herod’s (hands)
And joins him for a feast of mockeries and lies
Giving the tyrant for his crimes a pass
Laughing at Truth as civilization dies

Over lobster and beef they pity the poor
While robed in white ties and evening gowns
And silken ecclesiastical couture
(One of them has visions of papal crowns)

Gluttony and scorn at a rented manse -
All that is missing is Salome’s dance