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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                           Like Children Dancing

Like children dancing, leaves form up in rows
Then skitter across each corner and street
As shoals in rolling ranks overflowing other ranks
Or little tornadoes laughing through circles and swirls

Like children celebrating their youth and strength
Leaves tumble and run before the shifting wind
‘Way up into the air and back to earth
In happy games of catch-me-if-you-can

Like children in the afternoon, just out of school
Autumn leaves joyfully mock every rule

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       The First Folio of...You?

                  On the 400th anniversary of the First Folio
                  Of some playwright or other in England

I fear that there will never, ever be
A First Folio of the works of – Me!
Bound in leather most luxuriously
For sale at a wildly exorbitant fee

Scanned for pleasure over cups of tea
And studied by academics thoughtfully
Beloved by the climbing bourgeoise
As much as by the high nobility

I can’t adorn my poems with a PhD
So will kind readers accept a high school degree?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Thanksgiving as a Singleton

Memories of a drive-through just won’t do
Set something on your table, if only for you
A turkey plate from the grocery store
Two side dishes from cans, or maybe more
And gravy even if it’s a store-bought broth
Silverware, real plates, and a tablecloth
Wash your hands, light a candle, say a prayer
And open your napkin with your special flair!

You are where you are meant to be, it’s true
And know that God is with you to see you through

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Decaying Orbits

Wild vultures swirl in distant elegance
Circling gracefully in the high, cold blue
Wings beating the downdrafts into place and space
Then orbiting down, a narrowing decay

And landing lumpishly upon the dead
Their distant grace was but foul deceit
Up close they know only ***** and filth
Their orbits have decayed into decay

Perhaps at a distance we seem beautiful
But would we want to know ourselves up close?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 A Good Enough Leaf-Time

No more the withered summer-browns of death
Crumbling and sere upon the dry and crackling ground
Beneath a Rime of the Ancient Mariner sky -
Leaves in autumn colours are falling now

Pale greens, poor yellows, weak reds, but good enough
To decorate this time of early frosts
With appropriate merriment, good enough
To rake into playtime heaps for children and dogs

These modest scenes will attract no peepers this year
But I will send you a snap – it’s good enough!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             A Gift of Omelettes

                                               For Max and Tod

We leave the comfort of a little fire
And repair to the kitchen for a morning repast
Of bacon crisp, of toast from homebaked bread
And omelettes more golden than the morning sun

The dogs come with us, for something good might fall
To be nipped before it ever hits the floor
And the fireside conversation begun
Continues around the festive Dickension board

Old friends, old dogs, and Christmas coming soon
And omelettes - altogether a happy boon!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            When Your Security Code is not Your Security Code
                      And Your Password is not Your Password

CONTACT US Our manufacturing facility
Near Austin, TX is not open to the public
And we no longer accept phone calls, but we'd
Be happy to answer your questions here.

Legitimate inquiries can expect
An email response usually within
24 business hours or less. We're closed
Friday - Sunday but we may occasionally

Answer a few emails over the weekend
If we get a chance. Thanks for your inquiry.
EMAIL US: Thank you! We've received your submission
And will get back to you soon.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  At Yevna Something Happened

The Talmud is to this day the circulating heart's blood of the Jewish religion. Whatever laws, customs or ceremonies we observe-whether we are orthodox, conservative, reform or merely spasmodic sentimentalists - we follow the Talmud. It is our common law.

                                       -Herman Wouk

At Yevna something happened, something quite real
Though no one seems to know exactly how
Those who entered as priests arose as rabbis
Carrying Talmud out into the world

At Yevna something happened

Ben Zakkai and Gamaliel sit at your table
Your study table, a house of wisdom in Yevna
Where all may come to study Mishnah and Gemara
Where the lamp of peace is lit on Sabbath eve

At Yevna something happened

G-d sees to it that even a few holy books
The wisdom of the sages
The library of the ages
Are Yevna written into your modest home

At Yevna something happened



Note: The quote from Herman Wouk might not be exactly as he wrote in 1959; I was following an elusive and shape-shifting cut-and-paste text through a trackless forest of quotations.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

In every generation there rises a toxic SSap
This one wears a SSoviet-red plastic cap
If you obey mindleSSly, SStand, and clap
You too can be hiSS little SStormy trooper

Obey!

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

Make hiSS perSSonal SSluSSh fundSS great again
He’ll grab you by your wuSSy; ya like it, then?
Now go to jail for him if you’re real men
And SSurrender your SSoul; exiSSt in a SStupor

Obey!

Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

SSo throw away your life for that coSSmic blooper
Our SSuper Dooper Ubergruppenpooper

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         An Old Man in the Hardware Store Considers Autumn

                   “And He has poured down for you the rain”

                                                       -Joel 2:23

“When I’m through here,” he laughed, “I’m going home
I’m going to sit and listen to the rain
My hayfield’s all burnt up, my yard is dead
So I’m gonna to let the rain sing me to sleep”

We said our good-byes to the driest summer ever
And a thank you, Jesus for sweet rain at last
Next to the paper sacks of deer-bait corn
And a display of made-in-China tools

The wind blew open the heavy double doors
And the rain blew with it, and we were glad

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Homeless Man Found Murdered

He had nothing
And even that nothing
Was stolen from him

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               Wolf-Dog-Coyote Things, Dachshunds, and a ‘Possum

“Luna! Stop it! Let go of that ‘possum! Astrid! Get out of it! You’ll get bitten! Luna! Do you hear me!? Stop it! Let go! Astrid! Get out of the way! Luna!”

                Snarls, hisses, and the crashing of garden tools for effect

The wolf-dog-coyote things sang in the fields
The dogs fought with a ‘possum in the shed
Which wasn’t organized very well before
But after the fight one can’t even step inside

The ‘possum has at last safely escaped
The little dogs are quite proud of themselves
They and I are all panting for breath
And the wolf-dog-coyote things have gone quiet

The rural life does not often admit
Time for meditation, reflection, and peace

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­                Havoc

                       What is havoc, and how does one wreak it?

Havoc is a condition or state of being
That apparently exists only to be wrought
(There is no such word in English as “wreaked”)
A wreak does not now obtain without a havoc
And there is no havoc without a wreak

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   “I Called to the Lord from my Narrow Prison”

                  “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison
                    and he answered me in the freedom of space.”

                       -Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl

Dark prisons of the mind are narrow too
A lack of light to fall upon a page
A page where hopes are written in words of hope
And spoken in hope through layers of shame and guilt

Dark prisons of the heart are narrow too
So reach into your mind, your heart, your soul
And even in the darkness of a narrow cell
Call softly to the Lord through the fetid air

Dark prisons of the soul are narrow too –
Perhaps you are the one who locked the door?

Open it.

Try.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                                 Out Where the West Begins

                                 In the Drugstore Parking Lot

An old man creaks his body out of the pickup
With boots on the ground he's got his swagger back
He taps a Marlboro out of a cardboard box
And lights it with a manly Zippo (clink)

He’s practiced his technique since ‘66
A ‘way-cool curl of silver-white cowboy smoke
Rising up above the pickup cab and into the West
Along with a phlegm-rich boots-and-saddles cough

His wife’s inside the store, a-getting’ his pills
He can’t quite manage that distance himself

‘Way back when he was so ////’ cool, you know?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                              Science Experiments and Pirate Ships

                                For Gordon, of Happy Memory
                                 Whose Death Began in Viet-Nam

My boyhood pal’s home is now mostly gone
A concrete slab among some sunburnt weeds
The crumbling front-porch steps still stepped in place
But leading only to memories in the empty air

There where his bedroom laboratory used to be
We traded Heinlein stories and comic books
Experimented with chemicals and radio kits
And planned camping adventures that never were

His father was a widower who didn’t like either of us
But maybe that part of it doesn’t matter now

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                   Being a ‘Possum Must be Rough

                                      A Dachshund’s Night Patrol

Being a ‘possum can only be rough
Dragged all over the yard by a dachshund
A furious dachshund half its size
Until it collapses into a faint

And unconscious cannot see the absurdity
Of this old man chasing the dachshund all over the yard
Explaining that the ‘possum is a beneficent species
Demanding obedience, and receiving none

It’s not at all biblical, but even so
I command the dog to let my ‘possum go

(No ‘possums were harmed in the making of this minor marsupial motion picture)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                                Shrifts, All Sizes

One hears of someone getting a short shrift, of course
But where does he get a shrift? At Amazon?
And are there any long shrifts available,
Fashioned in Sri Lanka or Honduras?

I have never felt the need for a shrift
Pajamas are just fine for me, thank you
But if I had one it would need to be
A long shrift, please, since I am rather tall

On the subject of shrifts

I don’t mean to be a bother or a bore
But can I buy one cheap at the local shrift store?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                    The October Squirrel Festival

                              For Jerry Nobles, of Happy Memory
                              Our Town Pharmacist and a Joyful Friend

Squirrels!

They’re up the trees; they’re down the trees
They swarm each other just like bees
They’re up the oak; they’re down the pine
They really need a traffic fine

Dachshunds!

Our outraged pups – they yap and bark
While chasing squirrels all over the park
Dachshunds are usual merry and curious
But with squirrels they are fast and furious

But not fast enough

Cats!

Tuxedo-Cat, all proper and prim
Disapproves of the others with a face all grim

My apologies for leaving this empty earlier. Last night I wrote a bit of doggerel criticizing unhappy men who obsess on weaponry. Then the news about the horrors in Lewiston, Maine was broadcast and I withdrew the lines lest the words appear to be frivolous and thus hurtful. I stand by my no-nonsense thesis, though: no one needs one of those ////ed semi-automatic testosterone compensations that fire military rounds.

And no thoughtful man or woman need tolerate for a moment any whatabouts and all the pointless arcana about assault rifles vs. civilian rifles, automatic vs. semi-automatic, magazine vs. clip, and blah, blah, blah.

I was in Viet-Nam.

I know exactly what .556 and 7.62 rounds will do to an adult or a child, and the name of the gun (yeah, I know, "shoulder-fired, gas-operated, blah, blah, and blah") doesn't change anything.

Your grandfather's old J. C. Higgins shotgun is a wonderful thing for bagging supper and eliminating predators. A shiny (they come in Barbie colors now) .556 is good only for inflicting death and suffering on our fellow pilgrims on this earth.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                                Alexander the Coppersmith

                                             2 Timothy 4:14

We don’t know much about the coppersmith
(Indeed, we don’t know much about each other)
The works of an artist’s hands may serve the Lord
Or else they serve Ephesian vanities            

If a man is going to mold metals into idols
Diana of Ephesus might be pleasing aesthetically
But better to dismiss Diana and other trumperies
And joy in the gold of the Servant’s words

For power and jewels and golden toilet bowls
Are baubles that blind our eyes and darken our souls

(But still, I hope Alexander made things right)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                             The Stone, the Shell, and the Lance

       -Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book V, lines 70 and following

Mathematics were always quarried stones to me
A chaos of integers, carries, and sums
Cascading down a dusty, crumbling *****
And piled up as a useless heap of rubble

But words, layered words, curving and dancing words
Are shimmering shells in stilly tidal pools
There waiting for my eyes, my thoughts, my speech
To play them, work them, hold them as chalices of truth

And the lance? The knight, he wields his wicked lance
Only to herd poor prisoners into algebra

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Creation Sings Hatikvah

The Torah unrolls in a soft, whispered wind
The wanderer finds shade under its protection
The scholar refreshes himself with its words
The nations sit and attend to its truths

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

The voice of God is in the whispered wind
His Words from before the first ever dawn
Flowing through the Beginning and even now
A blessing upon Jerusalem, upon the world

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

Our voices too are in the whispered wind
The Torah unrolls for us in a whispered wind

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                   But Mom, All the Cool Kids are into Genocide!

                       “Students! Be the Fuhrer’s Propagandists!”

          **** poster ca. 1933, per Library of Congress: [Studenten seid
          Propagandisten des Führers Hoch-u. Fachschulen bekennen
          sich am 29. März zur Deutschen Freiheitsbewegung /
          (loc.gov)]

All the cool kids are into genocide
Slogans and posters and bullhorns and cries
Abandoning their studies to march outside
And scream the same 2,000-year-old lies

The InterGossip commands, and they obey
Blocking the streets and clenching each fist
Waving misspelt signs and yelling all day
Never pausing to ask if there’s something they’ve missed

Am I a hollow echo for some sycophant’s squall?
Will I fail to think for myself at all?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                              Dostoyevsky and Applesauce 2 / $5

                                        Literature in the Supermarket

The nice young man who bags my purchases -
He spoke to me of Notes from Underground
And who the unreliable narrator is
And how he anticipates the revolution

The pharmacist who jabbed me against the ‘flu –
He spoke to me of Robert E. Howard
And how Conan’s psychological issues
Anticipate the author’s death by suicide

A surprising conversation in a small-town grocery
But even more in a modern university

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                     The Aeolian Harp and the Aeolian Tree-Stump

Every tree is an Aeolian harp
Singing the Daily Office of the wind
Not often the night’s Matins and Lauds so much
But with the breezy dawn the service of Prime

And I know an Aeolian tree-stump too
Of deeper voices through its mysterious hollows
Wind whispering into the damp, dark earth
Then booming out into the air again

Every tree is an Aeolian harp
But a tree-stump can be musical too

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities

When missiles fall upon our vanities
And children die among our smoking ruins
Will we dare plead our weak excuses to God:
“This isn’t what we meant…”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

          If Children Ask for Bread Will We Give Them a Statement?

“The Roman Catholic–Orthodox Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue produced a statement this past June on the vexed issue of papal primacy and the timely topic of synodality.”

Well of course they did.


[What Is ‘Eucharistic Ecclesiology’? | Commonweal Magazine]

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                A Deer and I Surprised Each Other

Silence
We paused
We looked
She leaped

I said
Goodbye
But she
Was gone

And I
Was left
There all
Alone!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                        Will There be Coffee after the Crucifixion?

                    Everything’s going to be discovered
                    And understood in the course of time,
                    Only we have to go on thinking

                                    -Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

Not all are crucified, but all are wounded
We bring our gifts to the Altar; they fall apart
In secretly clinging to them for ourselves
Our claims to be defined by an era
But rotting corpses in a tangled wood
The celebrant elevates the Host
We lift unfocused eyes in grave pretense
Inattentive at the Wedding of worlds

The Mass is the central Act in Creation -
Not all are crucified, but all are wounded

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


People are Dying by the Thousands – Let’s All Go Buy Slogan Tees

                                       XL, L, M, S, and Petite
                      Guaranteed Ethically-Sourced Materials

                    Domestic carnage now filled all the year
                    With Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,
                    The Maiden from the ***** of her Love,
                    The Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,
                    The Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all

       -Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X, 356-360

We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:
Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed
The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup
A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea

But then

The evening news is a call to our conscience
With offerings in two senses only
Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals
Across a couch with a motorized recline mode

Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news
And peace-loving intellectuals chanting
                                                       “Gas the Jews!”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         My Concealed-Carry Jewish Space Laser

In my state you can carry a switch-blade knife
And shoot an AR with 30-round magazines
Or a .50-calibre Barrett for vaporizing a life
Tote brass-knuckles in your camouflaged jeans

In my state

Few methods of ****** are regulated
But if you read Anne Frank you could be investigated

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                       Three Cigarette Lighters


                        And in what landscape of disaster
                        Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?

                        -Thomas Merton, “For my Brother”


I was strolling along for my digestion and health
Inspecting the refreshing October winds
Counting the summer-tired leaves floating to earth
And noting the brightness of autumn’s yellow flowers

Off in the weeds a cigarette lighter presented itself
It didn’t work. A second cigarette lighter did
A useful souvenir of my evening walk
And then a third – three cheap lighters, all in a row

A ******* trail of disposable dreams
Disposable lighters, disposable lives

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                “Choose You This Day Whom You Will Serve”


                    “…for whom war was a fresh terror and the corpses
                        of real people…”

            -Matti Friedman, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai


A little child ripped from her dead mother’s arms
          Is not a petition for border adjustments
A grandfather murdered while waiting for the bus
          Is not a parliamentary point of order
Teenagers stripped, *****, beaten, tortured, and shot
          Are not cool chants in a university quad
A rotting fragment of a beheaded baby
          Is not someone’s tee-shirt slogan
An elderly woman still marked from Buchenwald
          Is a child of God, not a bargaining chip

No deflections
No whatabouts
No evasions
No excuses

No

Choose you this day whom you will serve

Must Anne Frank be murdered again and again? I cannot write anything meaningful today; I can only sputter in anger and futility.

                    “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping,
                     and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children,
                     refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

                                       -St. Matthew 2:18

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                  The Synod on Synodality

  “There are to be forty interlocking committees sitting every day…”

                    - C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 36

                    One reads the words of the committees:

The grammar of synodality our times the time journeying together breaking molds inclusion experts facilitators process delegation the people totality sense of the faithful organize discussion opening remarks challenges continental stage novelties dynamic legitimize interrelation common discernment modules instrumentum laboris synthesis report road map response paradigm preparation planning natural vision human planning expectations narrative of radical change shifting models of synodality conciliarity emblematic expression methodology dubia divine discourse adjudicate delineating areas of consensus specific situational analyses media framing reinterpreting confidentiality requirements module serenity of the discernment in common implementation phase inclusive ecclesial process participatory ways of exercising responsibility social dialogue regenerating relationships initiate the processes practicing synodality a double dynamic of conversion articulations of synodality ten thematic nuclei to be explored synodal dialogue the potential of synodal engagement national synthesis document consultative sessions what it means to be church social media template an operative notion national synthesis of the people of God contextualize diocesan phase of the synodal process enduring wounds needs-friendly steps for discerning ongoing formation for mission…

                    Brushing aside this choking fog of words
                    The reader ceases to read, for he sees
                    A silent, sandal-shod saint in a raggedy cloak
                    Having fed the chickens now telling his beads

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                             Southern Belle Antiques ‘N’ Stuff

(Slow sibilant bathroom-slipper-shuffle)

“Oh, don’t close the door, honey, oh no
If the door is closed no one will know I’m open
English Romantics? Here’s an Edgar Allan Poe
I read lots of books myself; do you like westerns?”

(Dark narrow paths tunnel through dark moldy heaps)

“I paid fifty dollars for that bolt cutter
It’s almost new; I bought it for my daddy
My brother locked him out of his own house
You can have it for twenty; I live upstairs”

(The shambling slippers follow me to the door)

“It’s a shame that girls don’t play with dolls anymore
Come back anytime; I’m mostly open”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                              A Carrier of Bodies

                                   My stretcher is one scarlet stain

                         -Robert W. Service, “The Stretcher Bearer”

In illo tempore:

I don’t know that anyone shouted, “Corpsman up!”
Like in the movies; I was already up
There, where smoking metal scraps stopped in some kid’s flesh
Red fragments of flesh screaming in the sun

Later:

Carrying bodies of literature was impossible
But I tried; Wordsworth and Keats during the day
Holes in the patients and in sterile drapes
Red fragments of flesh in the E. R. at night

Now:

In the evenings I carry Wordsworth outside
And my older self, to a chair at dusk