Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             1957: The Year We All Became Soviets

                 “…we’re going to get science applied to social problems
                  and backed by the whole force of the state…”

              Mark Studdock in C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength

Soviet Science launched a beeping toy into space
In the name of Progress; a mass-murderer ordered it so
And a month later Science launched and killed sweet Laika
Abandoned in orbit to die alone

Brave America suffered the Aunt Pittypat vapours:
We too must launch our slide-rules into space
And set our children to study Sovietism
Send civilization into orbit to die alone

Dogs and apes and men have flamed out in crashes
And Alexandria again is but pale ashes

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Mockingbirds at Dusk in a Time of War

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
Their leaf-rich oak could be their arena
Or it might serve them as their bower of bliss
For love in this magnolia-scented dusk

They’re still at it, whatever their “it” might be
But breaking off to blitz the subtle cat
Sneaking about in quest of a bunny or squirrel
But who from feathered fury must now retreat

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
But then
They might be mocking the rest of us


Bower of bliss – cf. Spenser’s *The Faerie Queene

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­ I Once Attended a Funeral...

I attended a funeral
Where the officiant did not
Talk about himself

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         A White Buffalo Along the Yellowstone

The alligator-boot boys will gather ‘round
Mahogany tables with sky-high views
And there intrigue how best to use this news
For the enrichment of all their plans and plots

The new-born calf could be sold for experiments
Or maybe enclosed behind a barbed-wire fence:
“COME SEE THE SACRED WHITE BUFFALO FOR ONLY
                    TEN DOLLARS
OR A HUNDRED DOLLARS PER CAR SELFIE PERMITS EXTRA!

But you and I pray that whatever gods we know
Will protect this blessing, this baby buffalo



Rare white bison calf reportedly born in Yellowstone National Park: "A blessing and warning" - CBS News

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent

                        I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire
                        it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you
                        agree? Feelings, insights, affections...it's suddenly
                        trivial now.

                   -Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago (film)

In the evenings I sit on my summer lawn
Slouched in an old, much-painted metal chair
That symbol of petite-bourgeois respectability
With a little table for my drink, my pipe, my book

(The cat pads by on errands of his own)

At dusk a friend or two might amble along
And join me for a glass, a smoke, a talk
We casually swat at mosquitoes and rumors
And argue about Doctor Zhivago and Lonesome Dove

(A fast-diving mockingbird mocks the cat)

In a fallen world of chaos and suffering
With fear of revolution in the air
Is it right to indulge ourselves with such trifles
As sitting and talking with old friends in the twilight?

Oh, yes

(The cat and the mockingbird continue their game)

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            You are Going to Write a Poem Today

                             A poet's words can outlive empires
                             and shake the foundations of tyrants.

                                              -Yevtushenko

You are going to write a poem today
Although you will never finish it
For the hours, or a person from Porlock
Will lead you to pause your thought for a time

Your poem will repose as a meditation
A word upon the altar of your mind
And even as you are distracted at Mass
Your poem becomes a tiny sip of salvation

All the truthing words that have come to you -
There on your mindful altar they bless the world

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 From Shakespeare: You are Golden

      Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 75, Robert Frost, and S. E. Hinton

To say that you are my dear golden girl
Would be a tired cliché and would be wrong
You are yourself, neither golden nor mine
I cannot grasp you, but I honor you

To say that you are my dear golden girl
Would be an exercise in futility
A metrical line in ten syllables
Wholly inadequate for any purpose

To say that you were my dear golden girl -
          Perhaps it was so in some other world

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Little Children are Much Like Dachshund Puppies

With wildly scattered toys the lawn is messed -
Children came to visit – O how we are blessed!

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         From Shakespeare: My Spirit is Thine

                              Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 74

                      No kinsman could offer comfort there,
                      To a soul left drowning in desolation.

                      -“The Seafarer,” trans. Burton Raffel

When we die, our little things disappear:
Hairbrushes and pocketknives, fountain pens
Car keys, spare change, books, clothes, unopened mail
A souvenir coffee cup from Canada

An old uniform, a pistol from the war
A clock, a crucifix, Topsider shoes
Family pictures, a graduation ring
A magnifying glass, a radio

Bits and bobs, all sorts of trivial stuff
And a poem for you – it’s not enough

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Someday I Hope to Meet a Mango Tree

                             For Pradip Chattopadhyay

Someday I hope to meet a mango tree
And sit at its feet to learn wisdom from Buddha
And if Buddha is not there, then I’ll learn from him
That the absence of teaching is a teaching itself

Someday I hope to meet a mango tree
Where lovers stroll beneath its gentle shade
And if lovers are not there, then I’ll learn from them
That the absence of love presupposes love

Someday I hope to meet a mango tree
Maybe in Veluvana in holy India
But if I never make that pilgrimage I’ll learn
That the magic of the mango is real

Someday I hope to meet a mango tree
Where surely I will find both teaching and love


Pradip Chattopadhyay - Hello Poetry

Symbolism of Mango Grove at Veluvana in Buddhism - Silent Balance

Mangoes: The True Caribbean Currency (caribjournal.com)

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Book Removal Training

                   The orange flames waved at the crowd as paper and
                   print dissolved inside them. Burning words were torn
                   from their sentences.

                                       -The Book Thief, p. 112

And now burning words must be torn from free people
For if people read they might think about things:
Why does the Party’s Jesus hate everyone
And why are weapons superior to ideas?

Can a hangperson’s noose teach us to love
Burning crosses comfort a frightened child
Why do the cult’s censors fly our flag upside down
While stealing books from our children’s hands?

A state that trains people to purge library books
Is a slave state



Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry
Story by Douglas Soule, USA TODAY NETWORK

Florida revises school library book removal training after public outcry (msn.com)

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   From Shakespeare: Bare Ruined Arguments

                               Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73

In near-winter’s cold, lonely emptiness
As manifested by the utilitarianism
The industrial Mordor bleakness of
A cafeteria for adjunct instructors:

V. Obviously, the bare ruined choirs are an allusion to the dissolution of the monasteries.

R. It’s not obvious at all! It’s a may be, not a must be!

V. It is obvious; the Shakespeare family were secret Catholics!

R. We don’t know that! And even if so, you can’t just say that everything is secret Catholic stuff! The sweet birds really could be just sweet birds gone for the winter, not Benedictines martyred in the Dissolution! A cigar is just a cigar, right?

V. But Shakespeare is not as shallow as some critics I could name; his language is rich and layered. He enriches the language with his depths of meanings, and religious persecution has the side effect of taking ordinary nouns and comforting the reader who would still miss the ancient usages of the monastic Daily Office.

R. Edmondson and Wells say the reference is to choir boys, so there’s a possibility!

V. Yes, but Edmonson and Wells are published by the Cambridge University Press (Harrumph!).

R. And just what’s wrong with the Cambridge University Press?

Voice Off: If you two are done we need to clear this table; people are waiting, you know.

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       A Red-Headed Skink Enjoying its Supper

You cannot tell if a skink is happy or not
It has no grin, but it seems to be at peace
This one
Stretched out in the sun on a rotting stump
Snacking on the insects who pass its way

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

    From Shakespeare: In Which Will Feels Very Sorry for Himself

                               Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 72

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I am dead
My poetry stinks
And so do you

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The God of Children and Blueberries

    For Theo (who is three today) and Nora (who is more than three)

                           “It is eaten, and renewed, every day.”

      -Ramandu’s daughter in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

God is prodigal with his seasons and feasts -
This is the season of blueberries, each day a feast
Great clouds of fat blue globes hang upon the little trees
Water and sky shading into Prussian blue

This is a table-tree, all are invited
To stand with buckets and thirsty lips
To pick and take, to take and eat, each day
The feast magically renewed each dawn

Mockingbirds, robins, sparrows, rabbits, and squirrels

And children

Picking, pecking, plucking, nibbling, biting

All at Aslan’s Table, and all at peace

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            From Shakespeare: Mourn for Me

                                  Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 71

In the event I hope you’ll mourn for me
And remember those cups of coffee at the Greasy Spoon
Our walks across the fields where rabbits played
Our magic moonlit kisses on frosty nights

In the event I hope you’ll pray for me
Light votive candles and whisper gentle prayers
Slip beads through your fingers with Aves on your lips
Sing Masses of remembrance on our festal days

In the event I know you’ll come to me
Because we were, we are, and we will be

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                               A Congressssssional Hearing


               “But hiss for hiss return’d with forked tongue”

                                   -Paradise Lost, X.518


Men in nice suits meet in air-conditioned luxury
Ties perfectly knotted, Cain’s mark on their lapels
Enthroned behind paneled tables of polished oak
Where by the magic of a secular oath, all are honorables

There is a chair, who is a man, not a chair
Who wields an oaken gavel of authority
As he smiles benignly and modestly
An ‘umble adornment to the Republic

Then “bash!” goes the gavel, and yelling begins
And no one seems to know why

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     From Shakespeare: You Will Not be Blamed

                                Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 70

You are so beautiful; you are so good
Twin attributes given to you at birth
Sustained by you in dignity and grace
As you have grown into a woman’s estate

Be careful! You will be envied for those truths
Envied by some for your transient beauty
Envied by others for your transcendent good
Envied by the envious for their own failings

In the end your reputation cannot be harmed
For you are the queen of all hearts charmed

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                        A D-Day Reminder to Every Neo-**** Oaf

                         Including certain Members of Congress
                           and Justices of the Supreme Court


                                      There is poetry in this:

     Our American flag was not flown upside-down at Normandy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

One Supposes That a Red Wheel Adds a Festive Touch to a Barrow


Anyone who takes that

Red wheel

Barrow

Seriously

Need not be taken seriously

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   A Harvester of Praise

                              Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 69

You taught us
Put not your trust in oozy flatterers
Who tell you only what you want to hear
And nothing about what you need to know
Adorning yourself with your own press releases

And as you taught us
Your thoughts, your words, your speech were ever strong
You stood upon the lessons you had learned
With wisdom and kindness you taught hard truth
And with truth found beauty in everything

But then you stopped
You were an artist and scholar in your younger days
But now you are only a harvester of praise

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      The Doorkeeper of Notre Dame and a One-Fingered Greeting

                                “I pray you remember the porter”

                                                -Macbet­h II.iii.22

“‘Tis my limited service” on Sundays to mind the door
To open it to the faithful with cheerful greetings
This is pretty much my skill-level, this modest chore
Such is the ancient custom for Sunday meetings

A family of long acquaintance approached, almost late
They live some miles away and had a long drive
Their youngest son held his hand out at the holy gate
I thought his intent was a youthful high five

But with only one finger he greeted me!
And that was my lesson in humility

As for the boy’s lesson

While the servers rang the welcoming bell
His momma yanked him outside and gave him
                                             (peace)

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          The Baptism of Valaria Elizabeth

At the Altar
The young couple presented their first-born
Valaria Elizabeth, wrapped in a silvery gown
A happy child at play in the holy Jordan

At the Altar
Valaria Elizabeth, delightful in herself
Was glorious in white with many colors trimmed
And skillful stitchings as befit a queen

At the Altar
Someone asked Valaria’s dear mother
Did you craft this gown with love and thread?

“No, I bought it just yesterday,” she sweetly said

                        Welcome with love, Valaria Elizabeth!

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                   Behold a Man

                                 Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 67 & 68

He is a man who needs no oils or scents
The arts of makeup, filters on a lens
A touch of blush upon his honest chin
A photographer’s vanity lights placed just so

He is a man who is his own manly self
Washed, shaved, and combed by his own rugged hands
Hands that know shovel, hammer, ax, and saw
A businessman’s hands, a protective father’s hands

He is a man who needs no frippery
For he is clean and honest and just, you see

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Art Made Tongue-Tied by Authority

                                Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66

The good among us may indeed be tired
Of being subject to the rule of strident oafs
Jumped-up in station beyond ability
Smug in their electronic ignorance

Their shifting, shifty, and unwritten codes
Order awrong what we might speak and write
How we may draw and paint and film and think
In obedience to their fluid absolutes

But then there is you, a spirit free indeed
A reason for all to hope for a better world

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         Hate Has No Veto Over Love – Two Thoughts on the Matter

Some people say that
Hate has no veto over love
Some people say that

Some people say that
Hate has no veto over love
And we say that too

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­    You are Eternal

                                Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65

We are told that all things will be renewed
And so this moment with you this springtime day
This scene, these leaves, these trees, this happy breeze
You
Are as eternal as an Ave Maria

I will write about you, but is that real?
The living you of beauty and kind words
Should not be subject to paper and ink
No
But only to the verities of Creation

A memory in ink is but a transient thing
For eternity lives in the realm of the King

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         31 May 2024 – The Prophet-God Descends

A being descends a de-escalator of brass
As if he were beaming down from the Hale-Bopp
A prophet-god to a room thin with ghosts
Who in hollowness hang upon his vanities

He pauses

Then whines

Obscenities
Threats
Promises
Resentments
Anger

Flinging blame and incomplete sentences

Into a void

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Everyone Writes Haiku about the Moon

                               And that’s because we love her

The soft, swelling moon
It’s as if she’s giving birth
Giving us new life

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING

                                 “We shall never surrender”

                                          -Churchill, 1940

Bed and bath grip bars, universal crutches
Quadrupedal crutch tips, raised toilet seats
Cleaning wipes, reaching tools, bedside commodes
Walking sticks (but not one with an Elvis theme)

Sitz baths and universal urinals
Transport chairs, folding walkers, rolling walkers
Commode liner bags, inflatable cushions
Walker ski glides, walker tennis *****

None of this is depressing; it is inspiring:
“We shall never surrender”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Underneath that Mango Tree in 1962

                           Underneath the mango tree
                           Me honey and me make boolooloop soon

Maybe the honey is in her eighties now
Sitting underneath a mango tree
Playing with her grandchildren in the undertaker’s wind
Smoking a cigarette and remembering a handsome boy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                          Grooving in Area 52

Maybe…

The Beatles got it wrong back-then-ago
When groovy discs through grooves grooved out our songs -
For we now groove in an Area 52
Not in a groovy screen-door submarine  

Certainly…

We groove and grok in ******* behind chain-links
Where elderly men ****** their guitars
And middle-aged women dressed as majorettes
Jiggle duct tape and weight-loss medications

Maybe…

The Beatles grooved it right ago-back-then -
Old grooves, dull mediocrity still lock us in

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              When I Have Seen So Many Dependent Clauses…

                                 Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 64

When I have seen…
When I have seen…
When I have seen…

Oh, yes, I would miss her, very much so
But
Some of these dependent clauses have got to go!

(Maybe someone woke up on the wrong side
Of that second-best bed…)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    A Cranky Little Old Man Wearing a Bandage on His
                    Forehead  and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While
                    Standing in  Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which
                    Opened Five Minutes Late

“It’s crap, I tell you; it’s just crap! Hey, you bump me again and I’m going to whip your /ss! Why don’t these people walk in that other aisle!? Can’t they see that there’s a line in this aisle!? What’s that?  That’s just crap; I told you that! Hey! Why’re you people late!? I don’t want to sit down don’t tell me to sit down I don’t want to sit down this is all bullsh/t!  Hey! You people need to walk over there! No, I don’t want to settle down don’t tell me to settle down if these people had shown up for work on time they could have had our stuff ready by now but not they just come in a half hour late and they don’t care! HEY! Why aren’t these people on time I got things to do I need my stuff but they don’t care don’t walk so close to me go walk in that other aisle why are all these people here why isn’t this line moving I think that guy’s trying to sneak in no he’s at the wrong window! HEY! That’s the wrong window the line’s over here you won’t get no help there…!”

The bandage on his head needed no explanation.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             I Will Write of Your Youth

                           Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 63

I feel weary and weak and worn-out tonight
Because I am indeed all of those things
And none of this was part of my master plan
Which never was; I lived, and now I am old

I watch you in your youth and your kingly grace
Limber and lithe for hunting, warring, and wooing
A champion in all the arts of life, of love
Even as I was – maybe only yestermind

I limn in lines of ink the story of you –
Forever youthful, brave and brash and true

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Memorial Day: This ****** Field

                   That we may wander o’er this ****** field
                   To book our dead, and then to bury them

                                     -Henry V, IV.vii.75-76

Some say this day began
                    As a memorial to the Confederate dead
Some say this day began
                    As a memorial to the Union dead
We only know that now it is a memorial for those
Who died for causes far beyond themselves

The glory of our soldiers is in the orphans they fed
The huts they helped repair, the ponchos they gave
To the shivering cold, reassurance to the terrified
Poor comforts to the bombed-out and the dying

The glory of our soldiers
Is not in some strident Man of Destiny
Bellowing fancy words from a prompter screen
But in hungry men who gave their C-rats away

Before they died in some ****** ****** ditch

In their honor, then

Let us quietly work in causes beyond ourselves
And risk being made into sacraments

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Racism is Popular with All the Cool Kids

Germany ‘would arrest Netanyahu if ICC issues a warrant’ (thetimes.co.uk)

Anti-Semitism again is all the rage
It’s a popular topic in the daily news
Indictments, lists, aktionen, and the barbed-wire cage -
Germany’s long tradition of arresting Jews

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      But It’s Not About Me

                                   Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 62

I have always been convinced that the world revolves
Not around an axis but around me
That civilization began with my birth
And that in every way I’m pretty hot stuff

But in the mornings my mirror disagrees
And shakes an image of some old man at me
Slack in muscle, thin of hair, dull of eye
Something to set on the curb on garbage day

No, not even my small world revolves around me
But around you, you who keep me forever young

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Do You Deliberately Disrupt My Dreams?

                               Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 61

Do you deliberately disrupt my dreams
And send to me your flirtings and whisperings
So that sleep remains impossible?
Even your shadowy image keeps me awake

Do you deliberately send your spirit to me
To pry into my thoughts and hopes and sighs
To know what I am about in my desire for you
To ***** by night my happy thoughts of you?

Do you deliberately disrupt my dreams?
Oh, I hope so!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   The Campaign of 2024

Mid the sound of the drum, the fife, the flute
To Old Glory in her wave and waft
No one can execute a snappier salute
Than a puffed-up patriot who avoided the draft



Christian leaders react to Trump's 'God Bless the USA' bibles: 'More Trump than Bible?' (msn.com) / Getty Images

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          You are the Transcendence of Dreams

                                 Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60

Susurrant waves along the shore sigh our minutes
Sunrises and sunsets sign off our days
Seasons and feasts solemnize our years
But you – you are the transcendence of words

Words to graft your elegance onto the eternal
A wave that never falls upon the sands
The sands of an immeasurable dawn-lit strand
Where minutes, days, and years are memories

And you – you are the transcendence of dreams
Made eternal in the galaxies’ glowing streams

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 The Upside-Down Supreme Court Justice

                       Perhaps Justice Alito will appear on
                          Sheldon Cooper’s Fun with Flags

Outside his house our Flag hung upside down
Distressing patriots in this time of strife
Did he make it right with his country and town?
No
He appealed to Heaven but he blamed his wife

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               A  Former President and his Former Ambassador

                          “…a drab assortment of mediocrities.”

   -William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 1142

There is a very obvious thing
About that kissing that shouldn’t be missed:
It wasn’t the former president’s ring
That the former ambassador kissed

22 May 2024

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Shakespeare: Love is Our Queen of Freedom

                                   Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 59

I must dispute King Solomon the Wise
For in you there is something new under the sun
A singing voice that before was never heard
And a merry nymph who never teased

Grasses were never tickled by such light dancing feet
The moon never shone on one more beautiful
The stars never wove for others a crown
Of lights that never graced a mortal queen

I must dispute King Solomon the Wise
When I look within your fairy eyes

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              The Power was Out, the Road was barely Passable,
                                   a Man Wore a Glock

The dawn was hot and wet and sticky and still
In quest of a coffee and a croissant
I stowed a chainsaw into the four-wheel-drive
And dawdled into town, clearing windfall from the road

The breakfast buffet at the Valero, and then out
Some men blocked the door, swapping pills and cash
I begged their pardon and walk through their deal
One wore a Glock on his hip; they all glowered at me

The dawn was hot; the paper-cup coffee was warm
I drove home and got my old generator to work

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      In Which We Find That Even Shakespeare Could Write Drivel

                         Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnets 57 and 58

Slave, imprisoned, tame, hate, bitterness, sad, fool:
Topics enough to make pornographers drool

There is nothing here upon which to dine -
Let us wash our hands and go to Sonnet 59

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

           A Run-Off Primary Election Between Two Inadequate Men

Prologue, Exposition, and Chekhov’s Ballot Box:

A wobbly old man complained to the judge
Who had found that he was ineligible to vote
“But the guy on the TV said I could vote,” he whined
“I have to obey the law,” replied the judge, “not the guy on TV”

Rising Action and Conflict:

I took my ballot and perused the names
Two names, the only names, of two bad men

Further Conflict:

I do not have to vote for the lesser of two evils
Because the lesser of two evils is still an evil

******:

I left the little bubbles for those little men blank
And pencilled into an empty space my choice:

                                                        ­   NO!

And underlined it twice

Denouement:

I drove away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Somehow a Desert Came Between Us

                                     Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 56

There lies between us a long desert interstate
Distance and time, scrapyards and tumbleweeds
Abandoned railway towns and empty shacks
Rusty barbed wire defining futile dreams

The hull of a DeSoto, a cast-off shoe
Beer cans, a license plate from ‘52
Cemeteries of young men urged to go west
Where they eventually died, buried with their hopes

Lost lives, lost loves along that lonely way -
But surely you and I will be okay

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight


                           A powerful monster //  living down
                           in the darkness growled // in pain…

                         -Beowulf, Burton Raffel translation


In the sinister dusk // they seek our blood
A ghastly enemy // of disgusting thirst
Stealing up from the swamp // and primordial mud –
Well, we stole their habitat // – mosquitoes were here first!