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

                                    O­ur Satellites will Fall

Our satellites will all fall to the earth
Orbits and ideologies decay
What are all these toys and noisy launchings worth
When all to gravity can only give way

Even sparrows must fall, to God’s dismay
And we and all our vanities must die
How will we answer on our final day
For our machines and machinations that lie

And when the last has fallen from the sky
Will anyone be alive to wonder why?

Because the Rattlesnake Ate a Kitten

We heard the agonized shrieks of a kitten
As it was being eaten by a rattlesnake
And rushed to find that well-fed dragon at rest
As it digested a little girl’s friend

“Snakes are part of the balance of nature”
“It was only doing what it was supposed to do”
“Snakes keep down mice and rats and other pests”
“We are obligated to honor God’s plan”

Yeah?

That devourer of baby bunnies, squirrels, and household pets -
I shot the ///-of-a-///// without regrets

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

                   Social Distancing is a Gilligan’s Island Re-run

Because the CV has cancelled new shows
And yet another Monday night football game
Life is a Gilligan’s Island re-run
Until for non-payment the service is stopped

For we are all on an island of isolation
Even if the Professor builds us a TV
Of palm leaves, cowrie shells, and Ginger’s pins
While Mary Anne crochets a mask for her navel

Maybe a ship will rescue us today
But will it take us back to where we were?

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

                           You Can’t Unpack a Poem

You can’t unpack a poem; it’s not your luggage
Or the metaphorical carry-on of your spirit
Homeland Security doesn’t search your poetry
It isn’t stamped “Passed by Inspector #3”

You can’t unpack a poem; it’s not even yours
If you read it, it was given to you
If you write it, you send it to the world
And beyond the world, out into the universe

You can never unpack a poem because
Poetry is not luggage - it is life

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

                            Not Even the Paralytic’s Bed

We cannot crawl under our beds and hide
As much as we might want to disappear into
That dark, safe world of dust ***** and lost toys
And the chewed-up paper the dog hides there

We cannot hide under the covers with Bunny
As in our childhood days; we must instead
Stand up and guard our children against a world
That has lost its capability for love

We must neither crawl nor hide nor fail to love:
“Arise, let us be going…”


(St. Matthew 9:6 and 26:46)

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

                       Teenagers Have Always Worn Masks

I was already wearing a mask anyway
Perfecting that James Bond pose in the mirror
Then wearing his cool edginess into home room
Where no one noticed

MEOW!

          I don’t know what the American poet Louise Glück said
          when the Swedish Academy informed her that  she won
          this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, but I know what
          she should have said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

                                           -Peter Maas

And I know what you mean, Mr. Maas -
I wasn’t nominated either

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

      Robinson Crusoe Orders a Generator from Amazon.com

Another hurricane, warning or watch
One forgets which while clearing off the lawns
Of chairs and toys and all the summer dreams
And giving the generator its monthly run

In practiced unison we again recite
The liturgies of flashlight batteries
Bottled water, paper plates, and plastic sporks
And Meals-Ready-To-Eat, though they really aren’t

Another hurricane, warning or watch -
And maybe just an inch or two of Scotch

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

                                     ­              A Soup

A soup is just a little can of soup
Available in the prison commissary
A little warmth to get you through the night
If there is anything in your account

A little jar of powdered instant coffee
Available in the prison commissary
A ceremony of innocence, as Yeats would say
If there is anything in your account

And wakefulness at 0200, a hope -
If there is anything in that account

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

             An Old Man on a Balcony, Gasping for Breath

              Those he commands move only in command,
               Nothing in love

                                      -Macbeth V.ii.19-20

The city and the nation seem to ignore him
He stands irresolutely, heaving his shoulders
Twitching his lips, fidgeting with his coat
Behind his embalmers’ makeup seeking breath

There are no happy cheering crowds tonight
He waves only to a departing helicopter
And salutes the ghosts of what might have been
Before turning away, inside, to the silence

The people talk about him, but not to him
If they did, he would not listen - he is alone

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

                   The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

Garage-sale-blocked again, the one-lane road
Hosts cars on both sides, and oxygened-men
Defiantly aluminum-caning the middle
In their Quixotic quest for eternal youth

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus
On collectible plates and VHS tapes
Marilyn and Elvis bourbon decanters
Chinese-made MAGA caps in camouflage

“They just don’t make things like they used to do” -
Which is true, indeed, for them, and me, and you

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

                Supervising Elections in an Underdeveloped Nation

It well may be that civilized nations
Will send us soldiers to patrol our rubbled streets
And at each poll post tanks and squads of men
To ensure that our elections are fair

Their soldiers will pat our children on their heads
And give them chocolate bars and chewing gum
While practicing their Americanese from little books:
“Where is please coffee shop thank you we are friends”

And propping up each mayor and governor here
A sturdy German, Pole, or Czech will stand
                                                           (and sneer)

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

                          Notre Dame de Discount Store

                "It gets you out of your solitary conceit"

                              -C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

The tin-barn brick-veneer design is weak
Much like a Wal-Mart or a Dollar Store
The dropped ceiling is high-school ticky-tack
And the poor pews are discount-warehouse veneer

No one is silent before Mass anymore
Grown men wear shorts and sneaks and cartoon tees
The woman in the pew in front of me
Is tattooed up and down her pimply back

(My opinion was not required)

But surely God is speaking to each of us,
Asking us why we have come to this place

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

                            If You Sing a Song and No One Hears It

If you sing a song and no one hears it
          The song is heard
If you write a poem and no one reads it
          The poem is read
If you draw a picture and no one sees it
          The picture is seen
If you read a book and no one knows it
          The book is known
If you speak of love, and there is no love –
          Oh, yes, there is

When you give something to the universe
It was given to you first
And you have kindly sent it on

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

                          The Cruise of HMS Disreputable

                                                                        For myself,
                    I knew as soon as I could read and write
                   That I must be a poet.

                                        -Sir John Betjeman

I left Mesquite and broken promises
In the after-market rear-view mirror
Bolted to the wing of my third-hand MG
And rattled along that magic road to the west

Sleeping bag, Olivetti portable
Dostoyevsky, Yevtushenko, some clothes
An honorable discharge from a dishonorable war
A few undistinguished undergraduate credits

And now…

I have left behind my Nobel acceptance speech
Because the journey will have to be enough

Bitter Old Men Yelping at Each Other

       (rather like some of the in-laws over Christmas dinner)


     “Language, the home and receptacle of beauty and meaning….”

                                 -Doctor Zhivago, p. 437


My country, ‘tis of thee

     “Get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap!”

Sweet land of liberty

     “What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name!”

Of thee I sing

     “It’s hard to get a word in with this clown.”

Land where my fathers died

     “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by!”

Land of the pilgrims’ pride

     “He’s Putin’s puppet!”

From every mountain side

     “You can’t even say the word ‘law enforcement!’”

Let freedom ring

     “Will you shut up, man?!”


(No apologies to Samuel Francis Smith; he pinched the tune from “God Save the Queen.” As for the sad old men, they are entirely our own.)

The last of the autumn apples, perhaps
Or the long-ago love that passed us by
Never falling to the Telescopic Fruit Picker
From Garrett Wade, $37.50

(I’ve got one of those, and it works just fine)

Or maybe pears, ‘way up among the leaves
Where dreams of better days to come were lost
To the old and tattered bushel-basket
That rotted away in the tractor shed

Then was it wrong to look high up for truth
That flew beyond our reach, our sight, our hopes?

I. We Love Hearing from You!

Dear Book Lover,

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We appreciate having a group of book lovers
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About health, well-being, and spirituality,
And we would appreciate If you would
Take part as we greatly value your opinion.
The survey should take no longer than

5-10 minutes of your time. We hope
You'll participate - we love hearing from you!

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The Penguin Random House Reader Insight Team

                    II. We’re Looking for a Different Type [sniff] of Reader

Thank you for your interest in participating.
We're looking for a different type of reader
For this survey, but we hope to hear from you
Another time!

Instead of the cross, the albatross
                        About my neck was hung

                    -Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

An albatross seems hung from around your neck
Or maybe you are hugging it to your heart
That steel and plastic engine of death-tech
That seductive vanity of satanic art

Where are you strutting with your deadly toy?
Why are you posing like a comic-book commando?
Oh, be a man, and not a dullard boy
You’re ‘way too old to play at G.I. Joe

There’s anger enough, and no more hate to give -
That albatross: get rid of it
                                                              ­         and live

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

                                       The Petrograd Paradigm

He has more than a touch of Komarovsky
Loyal to nothing but his appetites
Cigars, sensualties, sins, and souls
All of them casually disposable

He gives more than a touch of Komarovsky
He whips the dogs, and tests the snow to know
If it blows from the east or from the west
And throws his latest values to the wolves

He takes more than a touch of Komarovsky
Asking the oldest question: “What’s in it for me?”

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

                      Decolonize Unpacking Actualization

Let’s unpack the cliches and hyperbole
The nuclear option and we’ve got this
What we know now we have our options frontline
Off the table Armageddon option

Privileged out of an abundance of caution
Like an actual warzone actually
Or forging a road, a path, a plan
(Says he who never saw a blacksmith’s forge)

Decolonize decolonization
And actuate actualization

(By blazing a trail that unlocks the future)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Among Sandbags at 2200 Hours –
                     The Enemy Might be Listening

We were smoking and talking: girls, of course
And cars, and whether we would live, and then
Tolkien, Lewis, the nature of the Good
Poetry, free verse, blank verse, Cohen, McKuen

An officer barged along and sat himself down
And asked us what we were talking about
We mumbled noncommittal inanities
And then were mostly silent, blowing smoke

He may have concluded that we were stupid
Or that we were those radicals he’d heard about

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

                        More Than a Container for Words

               The book was so much more than  
             a container for words inscribed on pages

                                 -David Rundle

A container for words; there’s something in that
For if it contains words, it contains dreams
Your portable dreams, your vade mecum
In code, waiting to be interpreted

A container for words, humming with life
With verbs wanting to pour out all the nouns
And fling the adjectives in front of them
With conjunctions and adverbs (only a few)

A container for words, a book, your book
Which you began writing when you were born

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/book-revelation/?cakeycode=FA9LQA3

Abandon your book, says that Fresh Young Voice
Abandon your work, says that Fresh Young Voice
Abandon your life, says that Fresh Young Voice
And line up with me, says that Fresh Young Voice

I am now your book, says that Fresh Young Voice
I am now your work, says that Fresh Young Voice
I am now your life, says that Fresh Young Voice
And do as I say, snarls that Fresh Young Voice

We heard that Fresh Young Voice so long ago
Whispering to us about a certain Tree

Music Around the House

There is music around the house today:
The old refrigerator hums a tune from Frozen
Handel might envy the washer’s Water Music
And the off-center dryer waltzes Blue Danube

The air-conditioner calls the wind Mariah
Boiling pasta plays a stovetop marimba
The vacuum cleaner is a Wagnerian storm
And the microwave joins in with a ring

There is music around the house today
In rhythms of work, imagination, and play

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

To Wish Upon a Star

To wish upon a star is right enough
For maybe it can make your dreams come true
But do remember this when things are rough:
Maybe that star is wishing upon you

He Has it All - 1

An entire floor of a building he owns
The Great Room illuminated by soft lights
A perfect fireplace row of red oak flames
Beneath a mantel of carven German work

One wall is paneled with leatherbound great books
The seatings are a find from Finland last year
Champagne is set out in Romanov crystal flutes
His guests in evening wear wait silently

And as he is rolled away in funeral home wraps
His family are scrambling for the scraps


He Has it All - 2

An entire bunk in a shabby rented room
Illuminated by a dangling bare bulb
His plastic coffee mug, a sink full of dishes
Beneath a dusty window on the alley

A plywood shelf bears a television for cheap
From Goodwill, illegally wired to the cable
After pocketing his pal’s pocketknife
His roommate waits silently, and weeps

A pack of cigarettes, a Bic, a comb
And angels vying for the honor of bearing him Home

New Hiking Shoes for the Trail Ahead

The road goes ever on and on…

-J.R.R. Tolkien

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes still in their box
From a year ago – in anticipation
Of a summer vacation that never was

And there was no holiday again this year
It was all coronavirus and hurricanes
I had forgotten those shoes, but here they are
All ready for some sunlit summer road

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes, and a bit of hope

This past year's scribblings can be found (maybe - Google improved their Blogger so much that it doesn't format) at:

https://poeticdrivel.blogspot.com/

20 September 2020 - Google "updated" (cough) their Blogger to the point where it no longer works, so I am back here until this fails again.

Curating...

                         To a Curator who Curates Everything

Today one reads that you curated tea
Before curating a bus into town
To curate your job at the coffee shop
And in the afternoon curating friends

Before curating to the artists’ loft
To continue curating the novel
You’ve been curating on for several months
While curating your classes and career

Your life is not a museum, you know
So DROP the CURATING; just let it GO

We pay for our restraints, strap them to ourselves
And then we wonder why there is no joy

“…where a kelpie lived”

     “A little below the bridge was a pool where a kelpie lived.”

               -Sigrid Unset, Kristin Lavransdatter, p. 8

If you are blessed with a little back yard
The smallest of gardens, a bit of grass
Then you have pixies and fairies and sprites
They like you, but they’re awfully shy, you know

If in your garden there is a little pool
Even a dish of water for the cat
Then you have a tiny kelpie or two
(And they are much nicer than you’ve been told)

In flower and leaf and water and soft night air -
Oh, yes, there is sweet magic everywhere

I hate bicycles.

I hate repairing bicycles.

I hate replacing bicycle tires.

I hate dismounting bicycle tires.

I hate mounting bicycle tires.

I hate inflating bicycle tires.

I hate barking my knuckles when the wrench slips.

I hate scraping my knuckles when the wrench doesn’t slip.

I hate the fire ants on whose mound I inadvertently sat while repairing the bicycle.

I hate fire ant bites.

I hate bicycles.

Listening to the radio while repairing, replacing dismounting, mounting, inflating, barking, and scraping is fun, though.

Sunflowers do not bend toward the Sun; they genuflect
Which is exactly right for morning prayers
They have waited in place throughout the night
For His morning, and true enough, He comes

And through the day His liturgies of Light
Illuminating the letters and margins of life
With all the ornaments of Creation
Delight each flower in its work and play

Ordering all endeavors to great effect -
Sunflowers do not bend toward the Sun; they genuflect

Are You Going...?

             Benedíc nos Dómine et haec Túa dóna quae de Túa
             largitáte súmus sumptúri. Per Chrístum Dóminum
             nóstrum. Ámen.

Miz Busy with her homemade apple pies
Uncle Alfie lapsing into a snore
Young lads and lassies making goo-goo eyes
Miss Billie’s cookies (shhh…they’re from the store)

Children frolicking only with their ‘phones
Jolly old Ed basting burnt barbecue
An altar boy gorging until he groans
The teenagers’ gross game of choke and chew

Young marrieds getting into a squabble
Politics roaring like a thunderstorm
Bubba came drunk; he’s beginning to wobble
Tox ‘tater salad that’s gotten warm

Unidentifiable glop upon a stick –
No, I’m not going to the parish picnic

Thousands of meters high, and hardly a breath
A sales call there among the frozen scree
And if you fall there, screaming to your death
Are you charged an early termination fee?

Reclining ****...

                        For a scribbler in that art magazine

             “…bodiless heads, green horses and violet grass,
             seaweed, shells and funguses...conventionally
             arranged in the manner of Dali.”

           -Evelyn Waugh, Put Out More Flags, pp. 31-32

Making messes is but poor huswifery
Tie-dyeing creativity into
A finger-painting school of assemblage
Asymbol’d: “Reclining **** with Pet Frog”

In praise of working people and, like, stuff -
Your comrade cleaners whom you claim to love
Could tell you what a simp you are. They won’t
Because they need their jobs, dear precious ****

So, disappear your selfies into your ‘phone -
The 1960’s are over and gone

The dribbling Head in That Hideous Strength
A man behind a curtain, pulling cords
How many fingers, Winston, six or five?
Mrs. Wilson holding the president’s pen

Doctor Wakefield will see your children now
Sender Gleiwitz is very clear tonight
Reporting North Vietnamese attack boats
Sailing in crop circles to Area 51

A child abused upon The People’s throne

Go to the rostrum

We will tell you what to say

Saint Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4
That’s in the Bible too – don’t be a bore

Time stops. The sweep hand seconds that no-motion
It fluttered in warning for several days
You were warned, and now you are out of time
That thing on your wrist is now but a weight

Oh, what is the nature of time? one asks
Oh, where is there a fresh 370?
The watch-opener reposes patiently
The tiny screwdrivers wait silently

Because without a 370 battery

(Which you can’t find in this town)

A watch is only useless tattery

Mr. Big Businessman...

                       There wiste no wight that he was in dette

                          -Chaucer, General Prologue, line 279

If this were fifty years ago he’d sport
A cheap brown suit and a loud, too-wide tie
But now he wears knee-pants and cartoon tees
And fashion shoes that look like cancerous growths

And speaks like Chaucer’s merchant of his gigs
Contacts and contracts and deals to be made
Important ‘phone calls that must be taken now
In a voice of in-crowd guffawery

But when he clicks off his shiny MePhone
He asks for gas money to get him home

But it’s not a prison; it’s a unit
(Euphemisms make everything all better)
The morning sun rising above the fog
Sparkles merrily on bright razor wire

A barefoot little girl dances and sings
She has already been wanded and searched
Her princess shoes examined for contraband
She’ll put them back on after Mommy’s turn

She gets to see her daddy again this week
And that is why she is dancing in prison




(Please understand that prison staff are not Disney baddies; adults sometimes hide drugs and other contraband in their children’s clothing.)

A waiting room is not a room that waits
A waiting room is not a room who waits
Although in life there are bleak waiting rooms
A life itself is not a waiting room

Except when it is

Now, children, march away 1 through Hamelin town
Obedient to the gauleiter’s wish
You must admire the emperor’s new gown
Shoal mindlessly ashore like grunion fish

And most obey, and upspeak programmed lines
Assembly-line rebels, they look alike
They wear their masters’ thrall-rings ‘round their minds
And call their servitude a climate strike

But who is strong? I really want to know
That one reflective child who just says

                         No.

Gilligan’s Island...

            The discipline of reading at least one poem each day

The meter started getting rough aboard
A scheduled poetic three-minute tour
Across a sonnet or a blue haiku
Broken up by a wave of indolence

The Professor repairs an iamb or two
With a clam shell, seaweed, and coconuts
While Mary Ann recites “The Road Not Taken”
And the Skipper chases poor Gilligan

Who trips and falls, and finds a misplaced rhyme -
Maybe we’ll all get off the island this time!

In Majestic Solemnity...


          Strophe, but not especially tidy:

They said that you said that he said that they
Said that you said that he said that they said
That you said that he said that they said that
You said that he said that they said that you

          Antistrophe, but not especially tidy:

Twitterkrieg toxic talkininity
#poopypants manhood thing witch hunt garbage
Removal battle look into risky
Unanimous point-of-privilege crime

          Epode, tidy in itself but there are human fragments in the
          street:

While unblinking security cameras
Watch the poor beating each other to death

Predatory ads from the N.R.A.
Site-blocking ads from them throughout each day -
O obtuse Google, make them go away

Tension comes from a lack of solitude
When even a thought is interrogated
Examined, suspected, found to be flawed
Through our loving Article 58

What is your religion? Your politics?
Why do you write your words with the wrong hand?
Why do you write at all? Is that about us?
Why don’t you I.M. like normal people?

In nature an artist finds only delight
In his fellow humans only suspicion

Beating the Gums of War

                   “Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant”

           -this phrase, attributed to many, dates back at least to the    
                                        American civil war

Channeling John Wayne, their semi-autos on show
Leather-boy bandoliers draped with lots of ammo

          Hell hath no fury like a deer-stand commando

Old men beating their gums for war; oh, yes, it’s so
Each wearing his made-in-China camouflage chapeau

          Hell hath no fury like a café commando

Idle hookah heroes in Houston, don’cha know
Want their country liberated but our children must go

          Hell hath no fury like a narghile commando

Studs at their ‘puter games, screens all aglow
There’s nothing about George Patton that they don’t know

          Hell hath no fury like a keyboard commando

And corpses for the lamps of China to make the oil flow
They want your child to die for profits – just tell ‘em to blow

          Hell hath no fury like a private-jet commando

None of them made the first day of boot camp, oh, no
Though their thousand-yard stares are perfected guano

           Hell hath no fury like a ‘way-back commando

“Dwarf **** Star Accused of Stabbing Boyfriend”
Maybe he got a little short with her.
                                                                        The End.