Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 On my 74th Birthday

                  The eternal magic of eternal things
                  sends the dreamer out into the world

                          -Rod McKuen, “January 2”

I didn’t mean to be 74
That wasn’t part of my master plan
To be young forever, cooler each year
But suddenly I’ve become invisible

Once upon a time and long ago
I drove my old MG to California
A sleeping bag, a few books, a few poems
A portable typewriter, some portable dreams

I remember breaking down in Tucson
But best of all, I remember the dreams

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     A Time Capsule for our Noblest Soldier

                          “In war I do not like to take sides”

                                         -Sergeant Schultz

If there must be time capsules buried beneath
Statues of bold men wearing uniforms
As a remembrance of man’s noblest ideals
Let us have one for dear ol’ Sergeant Schultz

A recipe for Hans' apple strudel
A bottle of his favorite Pilsner beer
A Cuban cigar from Colonel Klink’s stash
And a menu from the Hofbrau House

But especially the strudel

If we must honor soldiers, as some assert
Then let us include their favorite dessert

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            We’ll Write a New Idyll This Year

                The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
                And God fulfils himself in many ways

             -Idylls of the King, “The Passing of Arthur,” 8-9

Janus faces both ways, and so do we
A last, lingering look at the year that was
And then a turn to the year we must meet
Marching to it through Janus Pater’s doors

We will most remember about the past
Our friends whose pilgrimages came to their ends
We joy in the remembrance of their happiness
Their stories and songs, their unfailing kindness

Janus faces both ways, and so do we;    
But now our friends, our happy friends, they see
Light


                 And the new sun rose bringing the new year

                       -Idylls, “The Passing of Arthur,” 469

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

      6 January 2021: To Ask to be Exempt Would be Unreasonable


        “Death . . . comes for us all, my lords. Yes, even for Kings he
          comes…”

             -St. Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons


A slip of paper which I have since misplaced:

“SARS coronavirus 2 RNS
Detected”
Detected
DETECTED
Me? But I’m special (my mother always said so)

“If you have a question regarding your…”
Well, no, I guess not. Time to pause and think
To ask to be exempt would be unreasonable
But will my corpse be stored in a ****** truck?

To ask to be exempt would be unreasonable
And so
What must I do in service to God and man?



I wrote these clumsy lines in January after my daughter recovered from the CV; she almost died of it. My pharmacist was diagnosed at about the same time as I was, 6 January, and died within two weeks. My wife was quite ill for a week but recovered. Some fifteen of my friends and acquaintances died from it this year. One friend died in a three-hospital shuffle, and because of the paperwork his body was not released to his family for months.

Vaccines, as you will remember, were available to Congress in December of 2020 but not to most citizens until March of 2021 (AOC gets coronavirus vaccine on social media, as Congress begins to receive Pfizer injections | Fox News), and  (The Distribution Timeline for the COVID-19 Vaccine | coronavirus (utah.gov)).

My symptoms were only something like a prolonged bad cold, an undeserved mercy.

The CV is real.

May our new year be free from it.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               A Child’s Garden of Worse(s)

                   Some poets wrote verses which were not meant
                   to charm the reader but to get them a Stalin prize.

                  -Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, 1963

The children who are permitted to live
Are not permitted to read what they want
When they ask for adventures our censors give
Ideology, instead of a jaunt

The children who are not submissive to the code
Not following this week’s fashions in science
Or who presume to kick against the goad
Will be inclusively loved into compliance

And from the Hippocrene a taste, a drink?
Oh, no! Children are now forbidden to dream or think

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     The Stupidest Metaphor

                         Do these camouflage knee-pantsies
                       make my 250-pound *** look too big?

He never formed up with a skirmish line
To **** and snoop to some distant trees
Across a death-hot field of weeds and mud
With some idiot yelling, “Dress it up!”

He never feared that a 40-mike-mike
Would blow his guts and spine into ****** rags
Which would get his air-conditioned C/O
In Saigon another medal and promotion

His PTSD is from watching TV
But he is pleased to claim that he is a
                                                                ­      *warrior

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

          A High-Tuned White Boy and his Come-to-Jesus Moment

Only yesterday he was in control
Of his high-tuned, high-speed, white-boy screaming ride
Race-tracking our ***-holed, beer-canned country road
Without regard for sanity, safety, or sense

Today he sits and sulks in the passenger seat
Of the little wifey’s Toyota sedan
Shadowed by his grim-faced mother-in-law
Like maybe they’re off to see the judge

In this procession he seems all alone -
His hot sports car is apparently gone

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

               If Good King Wenceslaus Looked Down Today

If good King Wenceslaus looked down today
On this Feast of Stephen, he’d see a poor man
Gathering winter air-conditioning

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Mass on Christmas Morning

A Byzantine-rite priest once said that the liturgy
Is neither long nor short; it is itself
And takes the faithful beyond all time to Truth
Manifested in Word and Eucharist

And so we slip out of time and into the Mass
Kneeling before the Altar in some confusion
We are tired of the Covid and each other
And these are more reasons why we are here

And the confusion is okay, you know -
The important thing is that we are here

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          Late at Night on Christmas Eve

After breakfast with a friend
After setting up for a family luncheon
After a family luncheon that never seemed to end
After cleaning up after a family luncheon
(and that, too, never seemed to end)
After a moment of sitting and thinking with wife and child
After opening gifts (with dachshunds and cats)
After sharing gifts (with dachshunds and cats)
After keeping dachshunds and cats from eating the tree ornaments
After watching Judy Garland sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
After sitting exhausted with a therapeutic episode of The Office
You realize
The day wasn’t so bad

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                                His Name is John

We plan our lives, we think our thoughts
We name the days, we name the child
We count the oughts, dismiss the naughts
We seek for peace, we fear the wild

We dare presume to sort our days
As if we were Creators too
To look upon our works and praise
That which we think is right and true

But Zechariah, his old face wan
Corrects us with:
                    “His name is John”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                              Practicing Mindful Breathing

We breathe mindfully but with our lungs
This necessity of life has become a trend
Which we study in meditative books
As if our alveoli were rosary beads

Even our watches want to instruct us
In the deep mysteries of inhalations
And like masters of postulants and novices
Ring us awake for our morning breaths

“Focus on your breathing” – how very odd
That we should respirate to the glory of God

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­     Word Sung as Light

         Upon hearing a recording of the Orthodox Christian Monks
                               of the Svetogorskaya Monastery

A deep, slow stream of tones, of modes, of chants
Where time and all eternity flow as one
Through voices and dreamlike echoings
Among the Altars of the earth and sky

The song begins upon the Bosporus
Ascends up to and beyond the spheres of Heaven
Then gently rains upon the souls of men
Forever and ever, in this world and the next

The Word first sung as Light, sung as Creation
And sung again as the Incarnation

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

             Everyone Writes a Poem about the Winter Solstice

The moon is falling away from the full
The axis of the earth will briefly pause
Planets and stars align as the Maker wills
And we wonder if we can sense our world

Our world as she shivers across the night
We must light a hilltop fire for her
So that she will spin the light back to us
While we search the heavens for that star

That star that led us to a stable long ago
And now bathes our souls with its silver glow

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  Decorating for Christmas – “What Can I Do?”

A little girl tugged at my arm and asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senora Anil because I didn’t know

She came to me again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Miz Bev because I didn’t know

She came to me once again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senor Nicho because I didn’t know

Some sturdy young teens brought in the Creche
And there the little girl knelt and placed the straw
And then each figure in turn; she talked to them
And cautioned them all to keep Baby Jesus warm

And that’s what a little girl can do

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      Another Christmas Behind the Wire

                   “I was in prison, and ye came unto me”

                                  -St. Matthew 25:36

The hallways of our dormitory echo
God’s holy silence on this Christmas Eve
The only light’s the Star of long ago;
It shines this night for us, whose hearts believe

For we are all now at the Manger met
Before the Altar of eternal Light
Such different personalities, and yet
We share our common faith on this rarest night

We bring our gifts to Mary’s fair-born Child:
A pen, a broom, a book, a welding rod,
A wrench, a mop, some papers neatly filed –
Our daily labors offered up to God

But silence now: offices, hallways, gym -
As silent as the streets of Bethlehem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     A December Sunflower but No Cigar

While walking in the garden, thinking about things
And wishing I had a cigar, I saw a sunflower
A volunteer, a brave young volunteer
From late summer’s glorious display

Most everything around it was brown and down
Except for a few tiny timid weeds
Some withering blades of tenacious grass
And a few scruffy zinnias along the fence

In January’s frosts it will disappear
But for now, the little sunflower - and we - are here

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            Yeah, and the Bad Haircut Too

       House Panel Subpoenas Author of January 6 PowerPoint

                                          -news item

The times are so terribly out of joint
With cartoons and sounds replacing words
I’d have anyone arrested for a PowerPoint
For the crime of shooting us lots of birds

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               The Curse of Windows 11

                          Vista®© Risen from the Grave?

Tonight I installed Windows 11
Which scattered my folders and apps to H///
I quickly recovered Windows 10 (not much rhymes with eleven)
Which, as we know, works perfectly well

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               Where Someone Waits for You

A plane’s navigation lights chart our dreams
To Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, and the moon
And farther into the mysterious night
To somewhere far away, where adventures begin

But we are left here in December’s dark
Wondering when there will be a flight for us
When we can flee this joyless land at last
For that elusive happiness long deferred

And maybe someone there is dreaming too
And we down here can happily wonder who

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

      Would Robin Hood Steal a Post Office Pen to Give to the Poor?

              “Oh, he’s so handsome, just like his reward posters!”

                         -Sis in Disney’s Robin Hood, 1973

I haven’t seen a reward poster in ever so long
Post-office portraits of men grizzled and mean
Each of ‘em wanted for some felonious wrong
(And living a life uncouth and unclean)

Maybe one of ‘em stole a post office pen
$500 or a year in prison
For committing that heinous federal sin
(He told the judge he thought it was his’n)

I haven’t seen a reward poster in years
(But still I’d leave that pen alone, my dears)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Prince William Sans Culotte

            Prince William, Duchess Katherine, and the Children
                                   Pose for a Christmas Snap

Is the reason for pants minus
That a pair of trousers itches?
Oh, please, Your Royal Highness -
Put on your britches!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                         Beaten and Shot

          To Blessed Stanley Rother, Padre Francisco, Padre Apla’s
                                            – a petition

Missionaries and martyrs, pray for us
That we may still our anger and intemperance
And listen not to the voices of hate
But rather to the small still voice 1 of love

Missionaries and martyrs, pray for us
That we may think before we write in blood
And resolve our differences through God’s peace
With prayer, understanding, and fellowship

Missionaries and martyrs, pray for us
That we never state a thesis as death

Blessed Stanley Rother – thank you


1 1 Kings 19:12

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                 Assorted Broken Saints, Some with Parts Missing

               to Saint John Marie-Baptiste Vianney - a petition

After doing some time in this fallen world
We all are broken, and missing a few of our parts
Having lost some hopes and strengths along the way
But we keep chooglin’ along, making it work

And shoveling (life) with us, our parish priest
Just as Chaucer wrote, beginning at dawn
Five of six cylinders from church to church
Ignored by the bishop and unknown to Rome

Our daily saint in his well-worn chasuble
His old shoes squeaking to the Altar of God

*Saint John Vianney, pray for our laborers

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                                       Offenders

                                   to St. Jude – a petition for prisoners

In the system they’re called offenders
No one knows why; the offenses are over
Concrete dorms, three-high bunks, white uniforms
And overhead the sting of fluorescents

I’m not going all Pollyanna here
All of them know the poisonous passions of ****
The stench of blood, the sting of fluorescents
In fearing eyes in a gas station at night

The stench of cells, the sting of fluorescents
In glaring eyes in the booking area at night
Humiliations, transports, stripped and searched
Form a straight line with hands behind your backs

But still, a man’s a man

The difference between a man inside the wire
And a man outside the wire
Is often only that one man is inside the wire
And the other man is outside the wire

“For all have sinned…”

Christmas is coming

Will there be a letter from home?

St. Jude, help all of us to be better men

In spite of ourselves

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                You Were in Bethlehem – Don’t You Remember?

                             Setting up the family Creche

When you were a little child you knelt before
The Infant Jesus there in Bethlehem
Among the animals you placed your toys:
Barbie and Buzz, and Woody the Cowboy too

Even the Wise Men smiled to hear you sing
To the Holy Family your baby songs
In cold Judaea in the long ago
The Christmas story is true, and you were there

And so forever

You are a Christmas child and kneel before
The Infant Jesus – here in Bethlehem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                      A Polar Bear’s Diet

Do polar bears caution each other about
The dangers of eating human livers?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        When Your Friends Let You Down –
                               Maybe That’s a Good Thing

                                       St. Luke 5:17-26

Letting a pal down through a hole in the roof
To free him from paralysis and sins
Sounds much like a Larry, Darryl, and Darryl goof
And maybe it is – we are blessed in our friends

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           He Never Met a Phor He Didn’t Like

He never met a phor he didn’t like
Where the dead are always spinning in their graves
A discarded cup looks like a war zone
And poems are unpacked instead of read

Or hyperbole ‘WAY OVER THE TOP!!!!!!!!!!!!
***! ***! ***! OH!!!!!!!!
MY LIFE HAS BEEN CHANGED FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!
NO ONE HAS EVER SUFFERED AS MUCH AS I!!!!!!!!

And freighted his lines with adverbs in rank
Until they really actually literally sank

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     And Whose Fault is That?

          Then said Jesus unto the twelve, “Will you also go away?”

          Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we
          go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Catholics are much disapproved of these days
And whose fault is that?
Catholics even disapprove of each other
And whose fault is that?

Lawsuits and lockouts and altars abandoned
And whose fault is that?
The ‘net all clogged with angry Catholic sites
And whose fault is that?

Well, yeah, mine too

We are perfectly free to go away
But we won’t – because He asks us to stay

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­   All the Little Midnight Lights

To awaken in the middle of the night
Is to realize that this midnight dream
Is a fairyland of points of light
Arcing and soaring like a magic stream

The curious visions before your flickering eyes
Begin to focus as strange, blue-lit scenes
In a half-awake haze you realize
The lights are from all your little machines

Manufactured by men, mechanical light
And somehow that just doesn’t seem quite right

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           The Old Sears Store Remains Unsold

The big Sears store was a happy place
But now it’s only an empty space

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                             Children and Machine Gun Dreams

          By word and example…parents lead their children to
          authentic freedom, actualized in the sincere gift of self, and
          they cultivate in them respect for others, a sense of justice,
          cordial openness, dialogue, generous service, solidarity, and
          all the other values which help people to live life as a gift.

                     -St. John Paul the Great, Evangelium Vitae

Do we sing to our children machine gun dreams
Instead of sugar plums? Little sleepyheads
Now tucked away into their little beds
In matching camouflage blankies and sheets

Do children code messages to Santa asking him
For Barbie’s Bunker all accessorized
With guns and knives properly pint-sized
And Super ****** Skipper and Recon Ken?

Do children hide bayonets beneath their coats
And measure the distance to their classmates’ throats?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                All Power to the People’s Soviet of Gadgetry

1.

The servile arts teach us to plan
Wars for sending our children to die
Barbed wire for penning our fellow man
Computers to sneak and snoop and spy

2.

The liberal arts teach us to ask

                                                  Why?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        Las Vegas, Geographically Speaking

                    Upon watching the 1960 Ocean’s Eleven

That oasis of Cool no longer exists
Except as road markers and artifacts
All else is gone: cigarette girls, ashtrays
Rotary telephones, Ford Galaxies

The glamour of cocktail dresses and tailored suits
Xanadu with electric lights and Scotch
Heliopolis with showgirls and cards
So Cool that no one ever called it Cool

And like those fragments of Ozymandias
All of that Cool is lost among the sands

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                    A Man and His Dog at Sunday Mass

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

                                   -Thomas Merton,
             “For my Brother - Missing in Action 1943”

His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan
With an air-conditioner duct-taped in back
And his old dog next to him in the seat

At Mass he sits in back with his good old dog
His clothes are warm, he gets enough to eat
And, sure, a man and dog who approach their God
Together are good and faithful servants indeed

His pilgrimage on earth is in his van
His clapped-out van, his one-man caravan

And there is a dog

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­        The Taste of Covid

                                              “Never give in…”

                                    -Mr. Churchill, 29 October 1941

Coffee is metallic, as is my morning toast
Most everything else is vague, fuzzy, and flat
As if the world needed a pinch of salt
And that’s okay; it’s good to be alive

They say that there’s another variant or wave
Named Mu or Omicron or maybe Bob
Slithering ashore through Grendelian mists
We take our jabs in defiance because

We all have casualty lists of friends we miss
That’s not okay, and so we will never give in

(I still don’t know why coffee should taste metallic)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Advent – a Gift of Becoming

                   “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”

              -“The Coming of Arthur” and “The Passing of Arthur”
                                              in Idylls of the King

There is much to be said for Ordinary Time
Its very ordinariness is kind to us
The daily hours that end with the Vespers chime
Free of formation and pageantry

But Advent comes as part of the dance
Of seasons wheeling through the universe
And we must shift our thoughts back into time
In anticipation of the Nativity

In solitary splendor a wonderful Star
Gives us light for our pilgrimage renewed

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                Tryptophan Dreams after Thanksgiving Dinner

                      (channeling our inner Dorothy Parker)

Sleepy now, from excess of meat and cup
But unlike the poor turkey, we will wake up!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        Autumn is Life Writing its Autobiography

Autumn is not the end of summer, nor yet
Is autumn the beginning of winter; it is
Itself. Autumn is not between anything
Autumn is the culmination of seasons

The seed that slept beneath winter’s cold death
Arose in spring, a resurrection of itself
And grew its summer strength through work and sweat
And in September finished, and mopped its brow

Surveying all its cosmography
Autumn is life writing its biography

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com

                                Face Masks and Hippie Hymns

At Mass I breathe behind and through a mask
My custom still, one of the paper-faced few
Although one might with some good reason ask
If it serves much purpose in a crowded pew

Each humid exhalation clouds the lens
Of my eyeglasses so I can’t even read
But I’m sure I know how each lesson ends
Needless to say I’ve memorized the Creed

And to mask those sandwich hymns:

I make hidden faces when the soloist croons
Another of those awful hippie tunes

(Has anyone told the music director that the 1960’s are over?)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

             Book Reviewers Promote Freedom by Giving Orders

                                   “Obey me and be free!”

           -Number Six in the Free for All episode of The Prisoner

The irony of the imperative in most reviews
Is to make a command that the reader must heed
Keeping in chains the literary muse:
You must read this must-read which you need to read

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          The Number of the Beast is .556

“This is my rifle. There are many like it”
Because they fall off assembly lines everywhere
Probably even in the Khyber Pass
And frankly, son, you don’t need the ****** thing

A rifle is not your friend; it is a mechanical thing
A rifle is an engine of destruction
It is made for killing your fellow humans
The last one alive wins madness and guilt

You never made the first day of boot camp
          (neither did John Wayne)
You need to know what John Wayne never knew:
A .556 disintegrates a child
A .556 vaporizes your soul

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­     An Empty Cross

An empty cross?
                          There is no empty cross
Fragments of bone and flesh forever stain
The spikes, the wood, the cross, the ****** cross
Is not a cute designer collectable

An empty cross?
                          There is no empty cross
His crucifixion takes away our sins
But the bloodstains remind us
It was our sins that drove the spikes into Him

An empty cross?
                          There is no empty cross
There won’t be, not until the last day of all

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­             Renegades

They sell themselves as precious Renegades
Two ossified establishment millionaires
As desperately cool as Nehru jackets
But don’t you fail to mind their copyrights

Renegades

Trademarks, podcasts, deluxe signed editions
They’re, like, authentic ‘n’ stuff, for a price
In carefully edited openness
They feel your pain and your credit card

Renegades

They wear suit coats with their collars open
How awesomely workin’ class hip is that!

Renegades

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           Thanksgiving Dinner at the Children’s Table

Thanksgiving is Christmas without any toys
And you get stuck at the children’s table
For more years than is strictly necessary
Because some extra old people show up

The uncle who has a diagnosis story
For every course, including the pies and cakes
Another helping of irritable bowel syndrome?
And the auntie who tries to hush him up

The cute second cousin you never met before
She’s your age but gets to sit at the Big Table

(And after her first glance she never looks
at you again)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                    Thanksgiving Essentials are out of Stock

                                     -Thus saith the news

A house, a book, a dog, a good warm coat
A job, a ride, a friend, someone to love
A dream, a hope, a plan, coffee with you
A family around the table, something to eat

And gratitude - all the essentials are in stock

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

               Upon Reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita

Margarita flying naked over Moscow
She might have caught a cold doing that, you know

A big ol’ cat shooting a Browning Hi-Power
He was certainly amusing for an hour

The Secret Police were like the Keystone Kops
Not to be trusted even with traffic stops

And Pontius Pilate ordering a death
Almost with every other tortured breath

There were two burnings of the Master’s book
But yet at the end someone gave it look

The Master’s book…hmmmm…

I have finished this book; I thoughtfully read it
And I must confess that I just don’t get it

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   Ten Knots along a Cord

                       A trewe swinkere and a good was he,
                       Lyvynge in pees and parfit charitee

                                 -Chaucer’s Prologue

See the plowman walking home from the fields
He plods along with the pace of centuries
There is no haste, for time hardly exists
Only the seasons, rolling like cosmic tides

And in his hand, ten knots along a cord
To count each Ave as it passes his lips
And through his heart and hopes and gratitude
His soul secure along the links of being

See the plowman dreaming home from the fields
His feet upon the earth, his head among the stars

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

    It’s Not Really an Assault Rifle ‘Cause It’s only Semi-Automatic

Once upon a time there was a silly boy
He was seventeen. Someone gave him a gun
His mumsy drove him to another state
So he could hunt other people with his gun

See the boy hunt. Hunt, hunt, hunt

And he did. Be very quiet. He’s hunting Commies
But bullies wanted to take away his gun
And he was sad. So he shot the meanies
Bang, bang, bang. Take that, you rascally Liberals

Empowered, empowered, empowered

He had to go to court. He began to cry
Because they took away his big bang-bang

And his mumsy cried.
                                       But the dead can’t cry