Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck

When general quarters sounded that morning in May
Did a seventeen-year-old apprentice cook
Rushing to his topside battle station
But remembering the chief’s daily admonitions

And the way his mother kept her kitchen clean
Notice on a galley table a speck of dust
And pause to brush it away
When general quarters sounded that morning in May

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            A Tattered ****

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady oak

Okay, sure, sometimes I feel like a tattered ****
After my morning’s work, creaking into my chair
And reaching for my iced tea and a book
Sipping on both for a vision of youth

My Hercule Poirot body is made almost young again
By strolling through Arden with Rosalind and Orlando
(Only for a while; they would much rather be alone…)
And then the iced tea tells me of Ceylon

Okay, sure, sometimes I feel like a tattered ****
But sometimes - forever young

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          The Word’s Fresh Ornaments

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 1

The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play
In a springtime glow of iridescent greens
A sweet Creation scene of little bare feet
And puppies’ paws scampering across soft lawns

Bold pirate ships patrol the honeybees’ pool
And mockingbirds offer flights to the tops of the oaks
A line of waving crocus borders this Narnia
Oh, could there ever be a happier world?

The sun, the green, the bees, the endless day
The world’s fresh ornaments – children at play

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

            A Book of Numbers with a Picture of a Naked Man

Once everyone owned a book of numbers
No, not the one in the Bible; that’s still in use
But a book of telephone numbers, four digits each
Although you knew your friends’ numbers anyway

On the cover stood a winged Mercury
A handsome man wearing a funny hat
And nothing else, but no one mentioned it
Too much else going on through the party line

A picture of a handsome naked man -
Really, you’d think someone would have noticed

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 With the Words of Donald Trump Printed in Red?

The Word of God, or maybe the word of odd
Only sixty dollars – is that real leather?
Including these more recent canonical texts:

           Handwritten chorus to “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood
           The US Constitution
           The Bill of Rights
           The Declaration of Independence
           The Pledge of Allegiance

No copy of the Oath of Enlistment, though






God Bless The USA Bible

Trump endorses a $60 bible one day after comparing himself to Jesus (msn.com)

It's Holy Week, and Trump is comparing himself to Jesus once again – Baptist News Global

Trump Sells $59.99 Bible That Isn’t Even Gold (nymag.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Children Abandoned in the Rain

I abandon my children to the cold spring rain:
Tomato seedlings in peeling peat pots
Greenhouse-grown marigolds in muck-splashed rows
Poor pitiful peppers paling along the perimeter

I abandon my children to the cold spring rain:
Sunflower seeds in a desolation of mud
Five different varieties, the packet said
Floating among the zinnias and peonies

The sun will come again to warm each chilly grain
But for now
I abandon my children to the cold spring rain

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   My New Career as a Doorman

                “The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”

               -in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed

I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night

Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello

And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Old Hippies can be Dangerous

                            (I groove to Rod McKuen myself)

Old hippies can be dangerous, he sez
They’re ready to strike a light, a fire, a pose
If you swing to the right of Joan Baez
Or anywhere left of the Country Joes

They weep nostalgic tears about mary jane
And rattle on about tokes and scores and hits
Waving their walkers to Jefferson Airplane
While shuffling slowly in their tie-dyed outfits

Old hippies can be dangerous – with every breath
They’ll bore you first to tears, and then to death

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Make America Pray Again OTTO

We see the bills of their uniform caps
“OTTO” is the legend beneath the peak
Which reads “Make America Pray Again”
The operative word is “Make” – we must be forced

Then who is OTTO, and whence his authoritative voice?
Is he a god come among us with a rod
To beat us down until we bleed and bleat
A great American Ave or Shema?

A cultic cap is neither theology nor art
And I will never invite OTTO into my heart

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Whistling Past the Graveyard

No one whistles past a graveyard now
Not with the radio on and the windows up
Though in our barefoot childhood long ago
Walking home alone at dusk – we whistled

But there is no need to whistle now
The cemetery is not a place of spooks and haints
But of those childhood friends with whom we walked
Past our ancestors to the swimming hole

No one whistles past a graveyard now
Because those whom we love are silent there

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                  We Serve Our Princess Catherine


                                           “We be the King’s men”

                                       – Thomas Hardy and others


We are the King’s people

After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc
Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna
Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn
And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles

We are the Queen’s people

And because we are the Queen’s people
We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess
And every woman of our isles a Queen
To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith

We are the Prince’s people

We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –
But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Spilling the Tea

A friend and I were sitting at the table
The kitchen table, with the stove as reredos
To that Altar of rural celebrations
Of breakfast, crosswords, cigarettes, secrets, and life

“Okay, now spill the tea,” she whispered to me
And I did
But with a kitchen towel we mopped it all up

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­            Cattywampas

Cattywampas? You don’t know what cattywampus means?

Cattywampas is:

When you discover in your apple only half a worm
When your planet is out of its orbit
When you lose your lover, your job, and your cat
When your DNA is flagged by the FBI

Cattywampas is:

When a traffic light is forever red
When the car wash strips out the rubber seals
When the doctor says you’re okay…for a man your age
When your neighbor on disability jogs every day

Cattywampus is:

When you have life sorted, indexed, and filed
And then find yourself staring into those eyes…

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Years­ on the Night Shift

Today’s student loans need not be met
How privileged of me – I paid my debt

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Chekhov’s Rifle

In Act I there was a rifle on the wall
A Mosin-Nagant of vintage make
The weapon was ready and on call
If someone in Act II made a mistake

In Act II some surly men appeared at the door
They entered, each with a menacing sneer
Scuffing their grubby boots across the floor
And Chekhov asked of them, “What do you want here?”

In Act III there was no rifle on the wall
Chekhov had sold it to pay the rent – that’s all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Rai­n Puddles and Children

                                             For Nora and Theo

Our boat-captain neighbor is home from the sea 1
(Okay, the Gulf of Mexico)
And this morning took his children for a walk
Along our road, and stopped to visit with me -
Nora watches and listens, but Theo loves to talk

Talktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalktalk

He wildly rushes his sentences and words
Words piled in heaps - he has so much to say!
But Nora in silence celebrates flowers and birds
She sees whole worlds in puddles along the way

And into them Theo LEAPS!

We know this world is in a bit of a muddle
But when children splash through a rain-filled puddle

They make everything better




1 Cf. “Requiem,” Robert Louis Stevenson. The context is entirely different.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Gardening with Happy Bees

                                      …for so work the honey-bees,
                      Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
                       The act of order to a peopled kingdom

                                     -Henry V, I.ii.87-89

A bumblebee hovers in front of my face
No hostility; it’s simply greeting me
As I putter from *** to place to *** again
Messing contentedly with seedlings and soil

But honeybees race around me in formation
No hostility; they’re ignoring me
They speed from water to flower to hive and back –
After all, every flower needs a little love (wink)

Blessed spring hovers softly everywhere
As bee-sy bees sing their sweetest airs

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Sometimes There are no Smaller Words


                                “It was all sea and islands now”

                       -C. S. Lewis on the death of his mother


In the end there was peace
The oxygen bubbled beyond him now
Past his greying skin and out into room

His earliest memory was set in his father’s store
Playing in front while young men dressed much alike
Carried supplies out to a waiting truck
They tousled his hair and said words he didn’t understand
Someone told him they were German prisoners of war
And what they said was, “what a nice little boy”

And his last memory – I hope it was of Father Michael
With an Orthodox blessing for the journey to come
Or Max and Dawn and Lori, for the journey that was

Once upon a time, and many times
We smoked our pipes on summer lawns
Or with our feet to a winter fire
And spoke of Lewis, Tolkien, and Milton

Whenever I lent him a book he returned it to me
With minuscule notes
Sometimes of great wisdom
Sometimes of wonderful wit

And I have the books and the notes

Whenever he spoke of a topic in Orthodoxy
In exasperation I asked him to use smaller words
Because I barely graduated from high school
And once he said, “Sometimes there are no smaller words”

The words keep getting smaller and smaller
But in the end there is peace


“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and make perpetual Light to shine upon him.”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              The InterGossip is a Content Cop

                    Number Six: I have a choice?
                    Number Two: Of course. You can do as you want.
                    Number Six: As long as it's what you want.
                    Number Two: As long as it is what the majority wants.

                                        -The Prisoner

The InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand
Half in my face, half-way to a Fascist salute
Forbidding me to read or study any further
Without pledging loyalty to a community

The InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand

If I want to keep reading, I must subscribe
The cost is access to my information…information…information
“You have read five of five free stories this month”
Which is their way of saying, “Your papers, comrade”

The InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand

And if sometimes my words violate the standards
Of communities I never joined – white space

The InterGossip is a content cop holding up her hand

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   There’s Nothing Old to Write About the Moon

The newest moon – it blessed us tonight
A sharp bright crescent within a rim-glowing orb
Following the sun’s afterglow deep into the west
Ornamented with a frosting of stars

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Deep Woods ON

The label on the bug repellent ought to say
“Welcome to our Human Buffet Today!”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                           For a Texas Ranger on His Retirement

                      
   Strong of Heart, Lover of Truth, Teller of Tales, Stoutest of Friends


                             “Rangers! The best in Texas!”

                 -Monsieur Paul Regret in The Comancheros


A Ranger

Tracking a man among the obscurities
Of a weedy field lit by refinery flares
Beer cans, shadows and mud, cigarette butts -
A suspect is out there somewhere, out in the dark

A Ranger

Tracking a man among the obscurities
Of Texas plains known to Nocona and Coronado
Bleak ridges where the Comanche danced for the sun -
A suspect is up there somewhere, hiding from himself

A Ranger

Tracking a man among the obscurities
Of decaying DNA in a coat worn years ago
A few rotting fibers under a microscope -
A suspect is in there somewhere, under a light

A Ranger

Finding a man in the darkness of lost souls
And bringing him out of it, into the Light

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  The Theology of Girl Scout Cookies

Girl Scout cookies at the church door today
Offered by a precious little wide-eyed fey -
And she’s another way
We hear God say
The world’s okay

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              The Silence Between God and Me

I’m not sure God is listening to me
But I keep talking
I don’t hear God talking to me
But I keep listening

Hello…is this on? (tap, tap)…testing…

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Search Them Out. **** Them All

Do you truly and honestly want your writing
Finally to be actually and really stronger?

Then go search out your adverbs. Destroy them all.

Do you want your writing to be stronger?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Wild Insects I Have Known

                        (as Ernest Thompson Seton did not say)

Please don’t tell me that red wasps are benign
A recent one I met had my behind in mind
Its sting by design was most malign
So as I sit please be patient and kind
If I indulge in an unmanly whine!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                The USS Texas

Whatever happens
We have got
A rusting dreadnaught
And they have not

(as Hillaire Belloc did not say)


Fun fact: The elegant, British-designed Texas is the last dreadnaught in existence.

Battleship Texas Foundation

USS Texas (BB-35) Battleship in World War II (thoughtco.com)

Last-of-its-kind battleship USS Texas returns to the water after months of work to restore the warship to its former glory (msn.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                  Gaslighting

Am I being gaslighted?
Or am I being gas lit?
Whichever way the verb might be
The gaslighter is full of (it)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             A Wedding Dress at Goodwill

Long lost longings along a dusty rack
White for purity in her tender years
Backless for a slender, suntanned back
Now stained with disappointments and angry tears

Did she wear it happily that first night
Share champagne kisses passionate though shy
Then slip it off slowly for his delight?
A pause, a touch, an answering touch, a sigh…

Why did she bin it, happy memories and all
That day she received a telephone call?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                             After the Elections


                                     What century is it outside?

                           -Boris Pasternak, “About These Poems”


Perhaps next we will have book burnings, torchlight parades
And children singing "The Horst Wessel Song"
To be scared is okay, even logical
But it’s not okay to recuse one’s self on election day

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           We Sat Outside and Smoked Our Pipes


                        He was my friend, faithful and just to me

                             -Marc Anthony in Julius Caesar


Even on the InterGossip whispers are whispers
Arrangements for end-of-life care, the funeral to plan
Who needs to be notified, who is not speaking
What about the cousins in Ohio?

In the whispering care home whispers are whispers
Polite ghostly whispers in the waiting area
(And unwhispered thoughts about who might get what)
Someone whispers into his room; someone whispers out

But he seldom whispered; his speech was clear and free -
And
He was my friend, faithful and just to me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                I’m Tired of Everything as Lent, He Said

I’m tired of everything as Lent, he said
I just want to drop dead
Dead before I hit the ground
With God’s voice telling me that I messed it all up
But inviting me into the Light anyway

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 No One Keeps a Diary Anymore


                  Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three
                  thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one
                  mile away?

                                                  – Mather Byles


No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
Men have been hanged for what they have written
It may be that they revealed some forgotten crime
Or worse, that they possessed the gift of thought

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
The Moms for Liberty are scared of books
Even the diary of a little girl
Because children must not read or write or think

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way -
And have you self-purged your own books today?


South Carolina school district reviews, returns books after ban attempt (msn.com)

The first Mom For Liberty to successfully ban Anne Frank went on an antisemitic livestream - Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Bees and Breeze and Lime-Green Butterflies

                                  How beautiful the world is
                                  In the morning cool and clear!

                -Anna Ahkmatova, “The Lime-Trees by the Open Door”

Bees and breeze and lime-green butterflies
Follow the little green electric tiller
Bouncing through the turf from clod to clod
Upending roots and sticks and last year’s grass

Fresh soil awakened from its winter sleep
Eager to push summer sunflowers up and up
Sneezes and wheezes follow the tiller too
Pollens in green and yellow, clouds of allergens

But, oh, the earthen scents, perfect skies -
Bees and breeze and lime-green butterflies!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                   My Child is Not a Resource, Mr. Bush


   Is your education system meeting your state's workforce needs?

                 -SLDS – George W. Bush Institute (bushcenter.org)


My child is a Texas girl

She is not subject to your workforce (sic) needs
Nor is she in anyone’s pipeline
She is not subject to your collective purpose
She is not subject to your collective management

My child is a Texas girl

She has a habit of thinking for herself
And she’s pretty darned obstinate about it
She is not subject to pedantic filler language:

                    “State longitudinal data systems (SLDS) that
                    meaningfully connect workforce, higher education, K-
                    12, and early childhood outcome data from multiple
                    state agencies over time are foundational to strong
                    decision-making by state leaders. See our SLDS policy
                    brief for more.”

And beyond that she knows that “work force” is two words

My child is a Texas woman
Who built her own successful career

She is not “workforce”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Ghosts are Following You

Even the road seems tired and out of time
A metaphor in need of end-of-life care
A cratered surface, an encroaching weedy verge
And darkling caves of Texas gothic trees

A JESUS LOVES YOU sign along the way
A peeling painted cross in worn-out white
DALLAS COWBOYS in fading blue, THIS IS TRUMP COUNTRY
Fading, fading, all fading, and fading more

All of this in need of end-of-life care
Even the road seems tired and out of time

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             One of Texas’ Foundational Documents

Taking an oath by placing one hand
Upon a copy of Lonesome Dove
Is not yet law in our sacred land
But by the Grace of God above…

Someday it might be

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   As Gloria Swanson Did Not Say in Sunset Boulevard

We are great -
It’s the MAGAs that got small

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Kissing Trump's Ring

A certain clarity of thought is missing -
It’s not his ring that the servile are kissing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             Never Mind the Guns and the Fentanyl; Seize the Books

          By 1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,
          4,175 titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…

                 -Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War

Ideologues search libraries for ***** books
Because reading might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

Censors search Mary Poppins for ***** words
Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas




How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)

The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Film censors aren’t protecting children from Mary Poppins – they’re protecting themselves (yahoo.com)

States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives : The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR

List of banned films - Wikipedia

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/22/police-officer-searches-middle-school-library-after-complaint-abo­ut-concerning-illustrations-in-lgbtq-book/

Someone is cutting down free little libraries in a Chicago suburb and police are searching for the suspect (msn.com)

Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries following new education reform - CBS News

The police officer who searched for a book in a Great Barrington classroom also used a body camera. The ACLU has ‘deep concerns’ | South Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Hazmat Unit Rushes to Donald Jr’s Florida Home

                                    -Daily Mail Online

At the first whiff of a white powder leak
The New Order lifts its skirts and cries “Eek!”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Broccoli on the Primary Ballot

                         (as President Bush maior did not say)

Broccoli, limp broccoli, that’s all I see
Just rotting broccoli all stink, stunk, stank
No real choices today, only broccoli –
The same old broccoli, putrid and rank

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  The Dime-Store Philosophy of Kahlil Gibran

            How The Prophet Made Kahlil Gibran a Household Name in
            America ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

The dime-store philosophy of Kahlil Gibran
                    (“Daddy, what’s a dime-store? And what’s a dime?”)
Reposing mostly undisturbed on brick-and-board shelves
The free-verse love-salad of Rod McKuen
And Lord of the Rings in 50-cent paperbacks

The Seekers played over and over on the phonograph
                     (“Daddy, what’s a phonograph? Is it something bad?”)
Have you heard The Mamas and the Papas’ latest single?
Peter, Paul & Mary in “stacks of wax”
Three-chord commandos in every coffee shop

Looking back - it wasn’t the greatest stuff
But for the time and place, it was good enough

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   “A Dragon Has Just Flown Over the Treetops…”

                            “We must all show great constancy.”

                        -C. S. Lewis, Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Dragons! They seem to land among us daily
Blotting out all happiness, all innocent joys
In appearance and demeanor ugly and scaly,
Suppressing silence through foul foolish noise

Dragons! They don’t like anything about who we are
Our words, our works, our walks, our dreams, our tunes,
Our happy memories of a long-ago star
Our lazy moments in barefoot afternoons

Dragons! They want to crush us in the end
But we’ve read the story – we always win

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Four Shirtless Boys on a Mountain in California

                            Sergeant Schneider’s Prophecy

There we are in a fading color photograph
Posing atop a mountain peak in Big Bear
Immensely proud in our Edmund Hillary moment
Though most every casual hiker has been there

On Monday morning we were back in Camp Del Mar
Navy Corpsmen standing formation in Marine green
“Split off into groups of four,” Sergeant Schneider barked
“Look at the other three. Within a year
                    One of you will be dead.”

Half of Mike’s brain was blown in Viet-Nam
The other Mike died in Minnesota last year
                     I don’t know what happened to Bill

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

           The Great Matter of Processing Hogs at the County Jail

       The poets have been mysteriously silent on the topic of hogs

                           -as G. K. Chesterton did not say

Our candidates for county sheriff have promised
There will be no more hanky-panky hog-ness
At the county jail
                    (Where Elvis says the cats do wail)
Maybe the prisoners are going vegan now

The chief deputy says the hogs are a charity
That the prisoners are happy to butcher them
And share the meat out for the hungry poor
And nobody gets any personal advantage out of it

But whether the prisoners were volunteers or tasked
Certainly none of the hogs was ever asked

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        No, I Will Not Watch X

For all the same reasons I repudiate Q
I will not watch X, not even for you
And I regret that you asked me to -
They’re both a Macbethian witches’ brew

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Night of the Long Sporks

Republicans have their sporks out for each other
Slashing each member with unpassable bills
Impeaching each MAGA sister and brother -
The 118th Congress gives me the chills!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
                ALL OVER EUROPE AND OHIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  Th­e Great AT&T Blink of 2024

America has failed; Babylon has fallen
Amid sturm und drang and riot and rout
Civilization has collapsed and we can’t call it in
Because our telephones are out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Oh, it’s back on – is this Joe’s Pizza?)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Standing the Test of Time

So tell me about life’s test – is it multiple-guess?
Or fill-in-the-blanks for my empty mind
If the most common answer is C…oh, what a mess!
Gimme a hint, Teach; I’m falling behind!