Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Awaiting Cataract Surgery

                       You can't get a cup of tea big enough
                       or a book long enough to suit me.

                      - attributed to C. S. Lewis and others

I will give up my books
When someone pries my cold, dead hands from them
Companions of my youth, tellers of truth
Next to my heart when the mortar rounds fell

But now I see the world
As through a dark lens darkly, well enough
For most common household purposes
But those dear words on any page – not so

I never thought I’d say
That I’m looking forward to surgery day!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Our Former President Loves Us All

The People grant him power; he grasps for more
He asks them for their votes and for their deaths
His eunuchs tell us that it was just a joke
Like Two Corinthians walking into a bar

But when the folding chairs are folded away
And that one night of transient glory is over
The caucus captains and their caps depart
Cheap souvenirs tatted in white and gold

They stumble home through limousine fumes and ice:
“For a moment I was Somebody – it was nice”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        A Government Church?

          We establish no religion in this country. We command no
           worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and
           state are and must remain separate.

              - President Ronald Reagan, Speech in Temple Hillel,
                Valley Stream, New York, 26 October 1984

Each American may his own conscience search
For by the Grace of God we have no national church

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  When a Book Banner’s Books are Banned

Bill O’Reilly approves of banning the printed word
Except when it comes to his books – “That’s absurd!”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       To Accept Israel

                    “Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will
                    endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home
                    of the brave. It carries the shield of democracy and it
                    honors the sword of freedom.”

                               – President John F. Kennedy)

To deny Israel is to curse ourselves
For we are inheritors of the Covenant
That He should be our God, and we His people
He creates us, He calls us – this is so

He has given us prophecy and law
Cattle in the fields, fish in all the seas
And lovers, flowers, sunsets, songs, salvation
The Great Dance of Creation - and Himself

Let not the sinister whisperer divide us!
To accept Israel is to accept - everyone

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    An English Major Screaming at a Wall Clock

             (A French officer would be too well-mannered to do that)

Passing from one office to another in quest
Of some elusive official signature
I saw a woman screaming at a clock
And heard her, too, because screams are like that

“She’s an English major,” someone said in explanation
“She and her boy Wordsworth are at it again
And meddlesome Coleridge keeps putting his oar in”
I nodded in understanding; Milton had mentioned it

A scholar should never scream at institutional clocks;
He should discreetly disapprove of them

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Garage-Sale Rolodex® for Seventy-Five Cents

        I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed,
        debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.

                -Patrick McGoohan as Number Six in The Prisoner

The Rolodex was once a symbol of power
Of knowledge marshalled into sequences
Orderly sequences alphabetized by names
By names and cross indices of subjects and dates

Of enemies or allies or contacts, rarely friends
Condensed in ink on smoothly finished cards
Restrained in place by colored plastic tabs
Awaiting the stroke of an office tyrant’s hand

The Rolodex was subsumed within The ‘Phone
Thus still your life cannot be called your own

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                A Third Couplet for the Coup

The president’s son humiliated our representatives -
They're as useless as gas-station pregnancy preventatives

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Another Couplet for the Coup

Presidents and their bangers bully judges, you see
So the laws apply only to you and to me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              He Won’t Even Notice - a Bitter Couplet for the Coup

They cry that he is anointed of Jesus, that he saves
(His limousine will rumble over their poor graves)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Upon the Return of Artifacts to Wounded Knee

                    “We hope the spirits are on their way now.”

                                       -Richard Broken Nose

A knife, a needle, an arrow, a pair of shoes
Some beads, a shirt, a drum, a tobacco pouch
A little girl’s doll, fragments of a ***
And tools for completing one’s daily chores

They are not artifacts; they are not displays
They are the ordinary necessities of life
Stolen from the dead hands of innocents
To be numbered, indexed, filed, boxed, and mocked

These things are sacred now, part of the Great Dance of Creation
We pray the spirits will come and take them home


As plundered items return to Wounded Knee, decisions await (artdaily.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­         Endsville

All in all, at the end of the day, and in conclusion, when the curvy lady sings, when the truth be told, when all is said and done, when the chickens come home to roost, when all the evidence is in, in sum, in short, in brief, the bottom line is, we can only conclude, to conclude, in the end, so as I said before, to sum up, and as Churchill / Gandhi / Harry Potter once said, therefore, all things considered, most importantly, taking the facts into account, to wrap things up, on the whole, and most importantly, and finally…

(I was going somewhere with this…)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Polysyllabic Aspirational Bourgeois Vanity
                                           (and, like, stuff)

Surrealism

A melting clock is not aesthetically pleasing
Nor is it of any utility
It celebrates chaos instead of life
And bullies us with a manifesto

Surrealism

Gives pale aesthetes topics for their idle hours
Surrendering imagination to cliches’
The endlessly self-referential I, I, me, me
(Another double-latte, if you please)

Surrealism

The republican’s derivative art is but
The emperor’s new clothes turned inside out


(And have you seen my serial takes on Greek ikons re-imagined and re-envisioned as diatomic forms through vegan egg-tempera on recycled barn wood as a repudiation of hidebound colonialist oppressivist occupationist Orthodoxy by sequencing monks on Mount Athos as agnostic Jewish fast-food workers influenced by the works of Dali and the Rapallo poets through a motif of running wedges in asymmetric lines from a cosmopolitan image of Heaven to a day-glow Wal-Mart beside a sea of transcendental bubbles which symbolize my feelings when my latest grant was canceled? Hmmmmmmm? Of course the straights don’t get it; their lack of imagination is why they stopped The People’s funding I deserve so that I can make great art chiding them for being dullard capitalist mechanicals. I take all major credit cards for my works.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

   A Band of Brothers in Which Some are More Brothers than Others

                          Dedicated to the Secretary of Defense


  There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
  There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.

                     -Kipling, “The Last of the Light Brigade”


American soldiers are a band of brothers
Of course the regs apply to some but not to others

Those who fight in the field are sometimes led
By generalissimos comfy back home in bed

If a private in battle really shows his mettle
His commander awards himself another medal

And when that combat action is called to a halt
The private nurses his wounds; the Pentagon single-malt

A poor homeless veteran might suffer hunger and need
His old general is cozy at Walter Reed

They say that Army recruiting is totally flat
Oh, yes, dear brother, there are reasons for that!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     End. Stops. Employed. As. Arguments.

Learn. To. Code. You. Had. One. Job. End. Of. Fact.
Decolonize. This. Place. Best. Job. Ever.
Burn. It. Down. Get. A. Job. Not. In. Our. Name.
Not. My. King. Not. My President. Spot. On.

Worst. Day. Ever. Votes. Have. Consequences.
What. Could. Go. Wrong. It. Begins. Heads. Will. Roll.
O. M. G. Let. It. Go. This. Isn’t. Over.
Come. And. Take. It. Not. Just. Shut. Up. Just. No.


Shut. It. Down. Let. It. Go. I. Have. No. Words.
This. Ends. Now. End. Of. Story. Grow. Up. Full. Stop.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       The Elections of 2024

                     How sharply our children will be ashamed…
                     remembering how in so strange a time
                     common integrity could look like courage

                                     -Yevtushenko, “Talk”

                    1. Thesis (of a sort)

The nation shamble-shuffles erratically
Erratically to a lectern and microphone
A microphone on a Potemkin stage
While a bewildered audience feebly applauds

                    2. Antithesis (of a sort)

The nation lemming-marches along the streets
Lemming-marches along with bullhorns and flags
Bullhorns bellowing in 5.56
The Gospel according to Saint QAnon

                    3. Recusancy instead of synthesis

But I am an American, not a D, an R, a Q
My faith is in the Constitution, and maybe
                                                       In you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                          I Demanded to be Heard

When I was young I demanded to be heard
And I was not heard, which turned out for the best
Because I had almost nothing to say
And that almost-nothing was sodden with cliché

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     A Russian Christmas Card

                                            For Tod and Max

I allowed the time, the year, the day to slip
And so I can only imagine a card for you
A Russian Christmas card in paper and paints
Of Christmas scenes from a happy golden time:

And let there be small children in furry boots
Dragging a little fir tree over the snow
Among artistically disposed squirrels and deer
To the delight of Father Christmas and the sweet Snow Queen

And let there be Saint Michael’s at the end of the lane
Its ancient bell ringing the ancient joys
While ancient stars and humble cottage windows
Give light to the faithful on their way to Mass

And let us be among them, as God will allow
Before the Theotokos and Child, kneeling now

Happy Orthodox Christmas, dear friends!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                           All the President’s Mob

Sedition batters past the capitol police -
As Congress, sweet harmless Merovingians,
Arming from a thesaurus of pomposity
Meet the attempted coup with lofty words

While hidden far away, lurking unseen
Our Leader screams into his telescreen
Moving his dementia along the Potomac:
Glorifying himself in the highest

Our government, cowering on the floor
Maintains that it will not be intimidated

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Thuringen,
                               and Today’s Staff Announcements

While walking through her hospital corridors
One pauses to bow before her bas-relief
All lovingly worked out in silver and gilt:
The Wartburg, and her mantle with roses and bread

These and the shy young Landgravine herself
Half-hidden behind announcements for this and that
Which in her humility she would not mind -
Her mission is to the invisible poor

The administration keeps her pretty much ignored -
Such is the mission of a modern hospital board

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 “No Threat to the Community”


                                       “…an isolated Incident “

                              -Orange (Texas) Police Department

The neighbors are in shock; news cameras peek and see -
But let the children play outside; oh, don’t be shy
Because there is “no threat to the community”
(Four dead in a house, and no one knows why)


[Police in Orange investigating deaths of four people in home | KFDM]

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Each Birthday is a Step in the Right Direction

                               The Road goes ever on and on,
                               Down from the door where it began

                                                   -Tolkien

A birthday is not the beginning of something new
But rather part of a continuing story
From its Prologue and its Chapter One
Through the dark leaves of Mirkwood and beyond

Yes, there be dragons, more than ever, it seems
But sometimes still we glimpse magic by moonlight
Or take an ale or two at a wayside inn
Then sticks and packs again, our faces set West

If this were my last hour, I still could say
With Tollers and Jack: the Road goes ever on

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                             Colin Cloute on the First of January

                     And now is come thy wynters stormy state,
                     Thy mantle mard, wherein thou maskedst late

          -Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, “Januarye,” 23-25

The calendar year is advertised as new
But the slanting, yellowing sun is old
Almost weepy-eyed, exhausted, and weak
Beyond the icy cirrhus clouds of dusk

In a few weeks I will turn over the garden soil
A mediaeval ploughman with his electric tiller
Following the ancient seasons of the English year
Anticipating Lent and Eastertide

For now, the fireside and a comforting page
And a cuppa for warming the bones of age

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                On the Day Papa Benedict Died

This day a year ago Papa Benedict died
I heard it in a post-anaesthetic mist
Was there a TV in ICU? A radio?
Did someone say it? I don’t remember now

I knew only that Papa Benedict had died
That I was alive, and didn’t know why
Little toy cowboys rode across my mind
But in my lungs the air was sweet and cold

Papa Benedict had something to do with it
And Saint Elizabeth of Thuringen

And I am thankful

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         Dropping Stuff at Midnight for the Gregorian New Year

            (The Julian calendar is so old that it’s a Boomer thing)

I don’t know why people drop things at midnight:
A ball of electric lights in New York
A single light bulb as a gag somewhere else
As The People chant in unison, “WOO! WOO!”

Maybe this year they’ll drop a flaming car
Its finely-crafted batteries on fire
Torching the holy QAnon tee-shirt stand
As foretold in the House of Representatives

(Yawn)

Couldn’t all of this wait until daylight?
I don’t know why people drop things at midnight

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Gandhi, Churchill, and Shakespeare Wrote a New Year’s Resolution

                        (I mean, like, I read it somewhere, okay?)

Be the cliché-sodden, inaccurate,
And unsourced quote you always wanted to be

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                              Obituary Pending

Obituary pending, says the funeral home site
Which is pretty much true for all of us
But a cousin and an aunt will collaborate
And cobble together some filler words:

He never met a stranger his smile lit up the room he’d give you the shirt off his back he was an icon in the community he will be missed when they made him they broke the mold he saw only the best in others he’s now on the deer stand with Jesus if you needed him he was there he followed his own path and blazed his own trail there’ll never be another like him he’s in a better place now he was sharing Jesus with me just last week his word was his bond when he said something you could take it to the bank he was one of a kind he left the world a better place

And the congregation will discreetly check their watches
Praying that Sister Busy doesn’t ask for friends
To stand in turn and share a memory of Paw
(But, please, no quotes from all the police reports)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Another Antihistamine Dream

A failing body staked out upon a bed
Hospital bed
Drips drip and sour drains drain in darkness and silence
The room is all darkness and silence, silence
Is it I?

No one comes

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    A Brief Christmas Truce

An evening of coffee and little gifts exchanged
The tension in the air suggests a ceasefire
A ceasefire called moments before we arrived
Everyone commanded to hold their positions

A wounded husband bleeds out near the eggnog
His wife sharpens her bayonet by the creche
Eager for the bugle to sound once again
For an advance all along the battle line

A child stares sullenly into his video game
It is the only Christmas peace he’s going to get

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               On This Feast of St. Stephen

If Good King Wenceslaus looked down today
He might well ask in irony if we
Have adequate food for these Twelve Days
With our leftover hams and yams and rolls

Coffee and tea, chocolates from Italy
Bread loaves so ****** they incense the air
Potatoes and puddings and plates of cheese –
Our cry is, “I couldn’t eat another bite!”

So are the gifts we left on the Jesse Tree
For some poor man are all that they might be?

Lawrence Hall, HSG

mhall46184@aol.comm

(from several years ago)

                                        Within the Octave of Christmas


                               For Eldon, Patron of Christmas Bonfires

The wan, weak winter sun has long since set
And on the edge of stars a merry fire
Sends sparks to play among the tinseled frost
That decorates the fields for Christmas-time.

Within this holy octave, happy men
Concelebrate with hops, cigars, and jokes,
This liturgy of needful merriment

Because

The Holy Child is safe in Mary’s arms,
Saint Joseph leans upon his staff and smiles,
The shepherds now have gone to watch their sheep,
And all are safe from Herod for a time.

Our Christmas duty now is to delight
In Him who gives us joy this happy night.

(ca 2015)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
mhall46184@aol.com


                                For our Mothers on Christmas Eve

Beyond all other nights, on this strange Night,
A strangers’ Star, a silent, seeking Star,
Helps set the wreckage of our souls aright:
It leads us to a stable door ajar                                                        

And we are not alone in peeking in:
An ox, an ***, a lamb, some shepherds, too -
Bright Star without; a brighter Light within
We children see the Truth three Wise Men knew

For we are children there in Bethlehem
Soft-shivering in that winter long ago
We watch and listen there, in star-light dim,
In cold Judea, in a soft, soft snow

The Stable and the Star, yes, we believe:
Our mothers sing us there each Christmas Eve

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   In the Stable on Christmas Eve

                                            For Tod and Max

My friend prays at the Stable each Christmas Eve
In statio at St. Michael’s, waiting for the Light
(But indolent half-pagan that I am
I want an early bed on any night)

This year the Stable must be a room at home
A candle, a creche, a plastic ox and lamb
A very real dog who might speak at midnight
And coffee and quiet remembrances with Max

Wherever we must wait for Jesus to be born
There is the Stable, and then the happiest morn

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Christmas Without a Tree?

Not minding my own business I urged a tree
Yes, their children are gone
Yes, their children are grown
But the Christ-Child
                                  is here

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Applying for a Job at the Grocery Store

A scruffy young man at a table slouched
His scruffy baseball cap encircled his head
A crown of defeat to match his scruffy tee
As he drew his letters with a borrowed pen

(He picked his nose and wiped it on his sleeve)

Maybe his momma told him to get a job
Instead of lying around the house all day
Bumming her cigarettes and watching TV
When what he wanted to do was follow his dreams

(His fashionable sneaks were both untied – so cool!)

Which is what they told him at graduation:
Go forth and follow your dreams; the world is yours

(But it wasn't)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 If You See Something, Say Something, Get Ignored

If you see something, say something
Don’t go it alone
(But our sheriff’s department
Won’t answer the telephone!)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               People Who are Late for Mass Apologize to Me

                       “I pray you, remember the porter”

                                      -Macbeth II.iii.23-24

Like Macbeth’s poor porter I am a doorman too
An ‘umble man with a minimal set of skills
“’Tis my limited service” happily to meet
And greet the faithful while opening the door

When the server rings the bell, latecomers rush
Some glance at me guiltily and apologize
For being late to the divine liturgy –
Am I an attendance officer for God?

After the Order of the Porter I am a doorman
And will judge the timeliness of no man!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           Read Within Your Academic Discipline


                               The Child is father of the Man

                                             -Wordsworth


When I was a child I read without discipline:
Robert A. Heinlein, Robin Hood, cowboy yarns
Pirates raiding across the Spanish Main
Penrod and Sam, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn

In college they said, “Read within your discipline”
The Russians are good, Romantics if you must
Though the English are overstudied and overdone
(Some say electronics are the coming thing)

I minded the words of my college tutor
‘Til Robin Hood stole the Sheriff’s computer

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Twent­y Three But Not Me

I am told I have 26 new kin
How sad that I will never get to meet them
23andMe has tossed me into the bin
Access has been blocked through someone’s whim:

My information is open for hackers to see
But it’s certainly not open for me!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        A Fragment of Machinery in the Road

Part of a specialty clamp in asphalt trapped
Like a primeval animal, jaws apart
A mechanical protest locked in place
When steaming pitch was rolled upon the road

The seasons pass and footsteps pass, leaves fall
But nothing changes for those frozen in place
By the decrees of stasis and stagnancy
Progress blocked by torpidity and time

The seasons pass, my daily footsteps pass
A fragment of machinery in the road

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Two Verses in the Eternal Hymn

                                          For Cate and Jack
                                            Christmas 2023

From the foot of the Throne

A river flows out into all that is
And with it your music across the universe
To sing the happy beginnings of all things
To celebrate the holiness of being

Past

Dragons and dreams, the Mysteries of Joy
Galaxies of stars, the Mysteries of Light
An abyss of pain, the Mysteries of Sorrow
Eternal dawn, the Mysteries of Glory

Your music spirals and spins among the spheres
Among the orbits and spheres and great mysteries
Great mysteries of beings and things never seen
Your voices join with the songs of Creation

Your music slips into our atmosphere
To sing and ring among the rocks and rills
Voices of love singing joy and truth
Your gifts of beauty to humanity

You and your sweet voices, rare gifts of love
From the Throne of God to us on earth
And back again, music as light as dreams
And deeper than thunder from Olympus

Old Vainamoinen sings at dawn with you
Euterpe, Terpsichore, and Erato are your kin
Apollo tunes his lyre to you, and Pan his pipes
And Cecelia blesses all your works:

Hymns, descants, and carols, merry marches for the road
Bubble-gum tunes for the car radio
Sea shanties for work, and nonsense rhymes for fun
You pray them, play them, craft them all into place

Your music is a sacred offering to God
You sing it out into the universe
Where every note is an ornament forever
And you are two verses in the eternal Hymn

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               How to Review a War Movie Without Saying Anything

First, copy out the same old filler words
You’ve read in almost every film review:


Glued to your seat edge of your seat action-packed
All-star cast powerful and moving iconic
Must-see intense cult classic gripping scenes
Gritty realism classic cinema

Haunting intense unforgettable thrilling
Sweeping raw emotion (as opposed to
Cooked emotion) unflinching essential
Stark visuals overwhelming odds intense

Stunning cinematography powerful
Unflinching acclaimed devastating action-adventure
Action-thriller infiltrate timeless story
Treacherous powerful performances


Then stir the words into a metaphorical soup
And let them crawl weakly across the screen
And die

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Something That Will Stick to Your Ribs

When I was a boy I was told to eat balanced meals
“Something that’ll stick to your ribs,” they said
But I didn’t want anything sticking to my ribs
I still don’t

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    An Envelope is its Own Story

An envelope in the post office parking lot
A woman parks next to it, looks down, and sneers
And puffs and heaves her ponderousness inside
To dock at the counter and make demands

I rescue the envelope and note the name and address
Oh, yes. I remember. That was all so sad
At least the daughter’s in the Army and safe enough
It’s a Christmas card. The man must have dropped it

I leave it at the counter, explaining the circs
The postal clerk accepts it back, and sneers

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 A Burning Bush That Wasn’t

                    “Vadam, et videbo visionem hanc magnum, quare
                     non comburatur rubus”

                                                   -Exodus III

I was not herding Jethro’s flocks on Horeb
But merely walking for pleasure along the road
And like Moses I saw a burning light
And turned aside to see what it might be

There with my stick I pushed aside a bush
And beheld, sparkling in the morning sun
Flung into place by some man’s mighty arm
And not decayed or dimmed by weather or time

A beer can

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          In Violation of Community Standards

                                For Writing a Positive Review


                                          “Unmutual!”

 ­            -Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner, “A Change of Mind”


Amazon.god judged me, and found me wanting
For violating Community Standards
I don’t know what amazon.sin I committed
In praising my new Sperry Topsiders

Let us make such violations worthy of praise
We will not be communed against our will
Or judged by amazon.inquisition
Or any other corporate dotheads

I will never take an amazon.loyaltyoath
But new shoes are nice

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Puppies Share Christmas in Their Own Special Way

Nothing says Christmas like sparkly glitter
Frosting the ornaments and, oh! So much more
Tiny stars shared from an incontinent critter -
In diarrheal doggy **** on the bedroom floor!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      A Connoisseur of Clinic Waiting Rooms

I could regale you with tales of puppy dogs
Painted with matching little argyll vests
And Kodachrome sunsets snapped long ago
Darkness and dust settling on a fading lake

I could detail for you leatherette chairs
In rows beneath the television on the wall
Facing old women shrieking in HD
And years-old magazines that no one reads

A door opens to a whiff of germicide
My name is called – and there’s no place to hide!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

        Henry Kissinger Has Left His Multi-Million-Dollar Apartment

The bodyguards, the security details
The long black cars, the cooing movie stars
The expensive dinner jackets tailored just so
The best cigars, the rarest of champagnes
The jeweled watches and those golden cufflinks
The many underlings awaiting his call
The fawning bishops at the Al Smith dinners
The publishers eager to print his latest screeds
The voice that commanded armies and fleets
And left presidents quivering in fear

The millions of corpses rotting in the sun




I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

              -C. S. Lewis, Preface to *The Screwtape Letters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Romance of the Boeing 707

                                     Out on Runway Number 9
                                     Big 707 set to go

                                           -Gordon Lightfoot

Old Ginsberg wrote that the typewriter was holy
An airport of words for coming and going
On a runway of ribbon, platen, and keys
McKuen might have said it’s a safe place to land

But then came the Boeing 707
Dear Gordon Lightfoot’s silver wings on high
It flew our words and us all over the world
And became for us holy in its own way

The 707 – there was nothing finer
But the last one I saw was a roadside diner