Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Torah is Written with Flame

English letters are as orderly as a battle line
But Hebrew letters are flames in their shining shapes
Even on a printed page they dance in light
And with Light comes Truth; you can see God in them

For Hebrew letters are the Burning Bush
The fires of Mount Horeb, the Temple sacrifice
The light of a Talmud scholar’s study lamp
The light of Torah upon civilization

We don’t know our letters as we should
But God has written them upon our hearts

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       A Man Card? Really?

                       “Consider your Man Card reissued.”

                            -Bushmaster advertising slogan

Upon your soul

Your bullet leaves the barrel; it’s not coming back
That’s not a cliché; that’s a truth, the coldest truth
It’s not engraved upon a tablet but upon your mind
Upon the arrest reports, the jail book-in, the trial schedule

Upon your soul

Your bullet leaves the barrel and carries away
Everything that is brave and good in you
Every hope and dream, every noble thought
Everyone whom you love, whom you wish to love

Upon your soul

Forever and ever, the screams and blood of innocents
Are faceless terrors stalking you through your nights

Upon your Man Card

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Driving Home After Work:
                  “Thus Spake Zarathustra” on the Radio

The first few bars must always remind us of
That space movie from the future long ago
With sophomores beating each other up
Or anyone trying to spell “Zarathustra “

Without looking it up; no spelling now
Driving into a drought-red setting sun
The vapours of chemicals, road tar, dust
Allergens drifting among the toxins

Poetry sorts meaning from chaos seeming -
Maybe not tonight (Sneeze!)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            “Catholics, You’ve Got to Vote for Me.”

                               -Mr. Trump at the Al Smith Dinner

Mr. Trump does not speak for me.
Cardinal Dolan does not speak for me.
The local bishop speaks only at me
And they all want money from me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Because Men Who Betray Women are so Amusing

                  Bang-Bang Baldwin and the Too-Cool Audience

A man shoots a woman
For which another woman takes the fall
And Saturday Night Live
Is okay with it all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    We are All Children When We Attempt Haiku

We all write Haiku
We’re not any good at it
But we honor the Shijin

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The High Priest Kisses King Herod’s (Hands)

                         His Eminence the Cardinal of New York

The High Priest kisses King Herod’s (hands)
And joins him for a feast of mockeries and lies
Giving the tyrant for his crimes a pass
Laughing at Truth as civilization dies

Over lobster and beef they pity the poor
While robed in white ties and evening gowns
And silken ecclesiastical couture
(One of them has visions of papal crowns)

Gluttony and scorn at a rented manse -
All that is missing is Salome’s dance

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The First Barn-Jacket Morning in Autumn

Dawn – windy and cold
The first barn-jacket morning
Wild geese singing south

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  A Synod on Synodality -
                                   What does that mean?


                    This Synod is intended as a Synodal Process. The aim of
                    this synodal process is not to provide a temporary or
                    one-time experience of synodality, but rather to provide
                    an opportunity for the entire People of God to discern
                    together how to move forward on the path towards
                    being a more synodal Church in the long-term.

                -https://www.synod.va/en/the-synod-on-synodality/what-
                 is-the-synod-about.htm


And let the people say: Huh?

Prelates and prince-prelates and princesses
Whose names are prefaced with gilded adjectives
Attend their meetings and cloud the ecclesiastical air
With catalogues of obscure polysyllables

But somewhere – somewhere in a little parish
Fading into a forest far from the highways
Or in an underfunded religious house
Along some decaying steel town’s crumbling streets
Poor brothers and sisters catch the morning bus
To nursing homes and migrant shelters and jails
To serve the drunks, the druggies, the ne’er-do-wells
The abandoned and lonely children of God

Because everywhere – the faithless and the faithful
Tangle with Satan in physical and emotional pain
In the ******, soul-shrieking hells of war
In petitioning faceless functionaries
For even a little help, a doctor’s appointment
A job, a meal, a bit of dignity
In the shadow of bishops flying first-class
And taking selfies in their playbox dressups

Prelates and prince-prelates and princesses
Exchange lecture notes and witty bon mots -
An outcast bypassed on the pavement dies
A knotted rosary tangled in her aged hands

Perhaps her last words were of synodality

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The Kittens Come on Little Fog Feet

                                 As Carl Sandburg did not say

At dawn: coffee and the Wordle and thoughts
The moon’s still full, but one last star winks out
The dew-bathed oaks drip onto a tricky word
Fog drifts in silence among the tricky light

A little paw stirs soft autumn’s molding leaves
And then two eyes appear, and a greeting tail
The forming image of the cat completes itself
And then another – two abandoned cats

These tiny orphans approach – and love begins
To them I pledge
They will never be hungry or lonely again

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              “My Grandpa was in Viet-Nam –
                                Maybe You Knew Him There?”

I wear an amazon.com Viet-Nam boonie hat
USA mil specs made in Indonesia
Mostly in hopes of getting out of a traffic ticket
And because I meet the most interesting people

Sometimes pretty girls approach and speak to me
At first it was, “My brother was in Viet-Nam”
And then they said, “My father was in Viet-Nam”
And now, “My grandpa was in Viet-Nam

Maybe you knew him?

Oh, and let me get the door for you, sir”

Makes me wanna rattle my aluminum walker

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Who are You to Argue with a Prophet?

                    Christians flock to Washington to pray for America  
                    to turn to God — by electing Trump

                             -NBC News Headline, 13 October 2024

When a man proclaims that he is a prophet
Hang on to your wallet and guard your soul
Lest all your works and hopes be burned in Tophet:
A stolen fragment of truth betrays the whole

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        A Dixon Ticonderoga #2 Pencil from 1955

Motorized bathroom vents don’t last forever
The workmen pulled down the old one from ‘55
Amid a tumble of old nails and bits of wood:
A Dixon Ticonderoga #2

The yellow paint a little aged now
The green metal ring a little bit dull
The eraser now hardened beyond all use
The point well-sharpened with a pocketknife

What sturdy craftsman from the long ago
Measured out his work - I’d like to know

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                An Autumn Flight

A leaf fell, a leaf
A life of summer in flight
In bright golden flight

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Autumn Jewish Space Leaves

This morning the sun rose at seven-fifteen
                    Jewish space lasers had something to do with it
The air outside was October-cool and still
                    I’m pretty sure that this was an IDF scheme

A leaf in silence fell to the still-green grass
            No doubt the Mossad planned it that way
Leaves didn’t fall when Trump was president
                    These Jews control all vegetation!

Another leaf floated into my coffee cup
             The mainstream media said nothing about this
Fox News was silenced for thirty seconds or so
                      There’s a They out there who don’t want us to know

I used to enjoy autumn mornings a lot
              But now I know that weather is a Jewish plot!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

  One Does Not Pre-Imagine Pre-Edward R. Murrow Pre-Babbling

                         A Lesson in Clear Writing for Journalists

Hunker down, swath of destruction, hunker down, write your Social Security number on your arm, hunker down, eerie, hunker down, monster, hunker down, time ticking down / away, hunker down, pre-positioned, hunker down, pre-planned, hunker down, pre-need (and maybe even pre-hunker down), hunker down, pre-deployed, hunker down, spooky (and possibly pre-spooky), hunker down, snapped like matchsticks (“Daddy, what’s a matchstick?”), hunker down, doomed paradise, hunker down, paradise lost, hunker down, lost paradise, hunker down, apocalypse, hunker down, biblical, hunker down, storm of the century (again?), hunker down, doomed, hunker down, doomed, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, power lines brightly bursting, hunker down, eerie calm, hunker down, eerie quiet, hunker down, birds chirping, hunker down, unexpected sparks, hunker down, hazards are unfolding, hunker down, street lamps waver, hunker down, one-two punch, hunker down, what we know, hunker down, hunker down, hunker down

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  A Treatise on the Burrowing Habits of Dachshunds


                                                   in memory of

                                     Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund

                six pounds of barking, yapping, demanding, and love


A dachshund will burrow under the garden fence
For every dachshund thinks she is a wolf
A fearsome apex predator with a squeaky toy -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your tightly-closed hand
Nosing out the doggie treat you have hidden there
A fearsome apex predator and omnivore -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow into your end-of-day lap
Watching both the television and the cats
A fearsome apex predator drooling on your book -
This is in the nature of dachshunds

A dachshund will burrow, borrow, beg, and bark
And in her foreshadowing of that better World to come
A dachshund will burrow deeply into your heart -
And love you forever

This is in the nature of dachshunds

And of you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                 “Tell Them to Let Me Go!”


    For those who live in a land of great darkness, a light will shine

                                                   -Isaiah 9:2


While waiting in the dark for an escort to the gate
To the prison gate, to the parking lot
Beyond the moonlit coils of razor wire
A Voice from a darker place cries to me:

“I’M TIRED OF THIS *!

I’M TIRED OF THIS *!

I’M TIRED OF THIS **!

Hey, mister!”

Self: “Yes?”

Voice: “Tell those people to let me out of here!”

Self: “I will, but they don’t often listen to me.”

With wry and ancient humor the Voice laughs.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Don't Forget the Jewish Space and Weather Lasers

After watching a Trump rally on the telescreen
I read a bit in The Rise and Fall of the Third *****
And ghostly echoes heard, of slogans and chants
From screen and book and my father’s narratives

The generations who raised us – they left us hope

And you and I – what will we leave to our children?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                 We Are Offered Two Candidates for the Presidency


I am afraid that one of them will win

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet of Summer Bugs

                      A middle-of-the-night half-awake moment

(He was small in the spring)

When a tree frog moves up in the world
He becomes a fashionable window frog
No longer the pain of a rough tree bark life
But rather the pane of easy living

(He grew larger during the summer)

My bedroom window is his buffet
An all-he-can-eat buffet of bugs
Delicious summer bugs shared around
With an uncommon house gecko of style

(He’s really big now)

I look out at a hungry tree frog, you see
But now – is he looking hungrily in at me?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Falling Into Truth

The fall of October’s leaves is nothing new
Except that it is – this leaf never fell before
And we were never here to watch this leaf
Because we and the leaf were somewhere else

Except that we were, we are, we will be
A little leaf, each of us, springtime-new
Then dancing merrily the summer through
Now floating gently into a winter’s sleep

A coverlet soft, a hymn, a night-light moon
Sleep - sleep – another spring is coming soon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Dock Workers’ Strike – BUY TOILET PAPER!

WE ARE AMERICANS!

Whenever threatened by enemies furry or domestic
By hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, storms
By shortages of food, water, and electric power
By aliens stalking us and eating our cats
By famine, fire, dispossession, revolution

WE BUY TOILET PAPER! WE ARE AMERICANS!

We are armed with our AK-16s and AR – 47s
Uniformed in our Wal-Mart camo from China
Size 89XXXXL-Lard-***
And we will by God stand together as ONE -
And fight each other to the death for toilet paper!

Oh, and do you know Jesus?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              His CHECK ENGINE Light is On

                                      For Chris Singletary

He came by today, a friend from long ago
“I haven’t seen you in a hamster’s age.”
“Yep, too long.”
“How ya doin’?”
“Good enough for government service.”
“Wanna beer?
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Kids all doin’ good?”
“Yeah; real proud of ‘em. All grown and gone. Yours?”
“Oh, yeah, doin’ doin’ just fine.”
“Heard you was in th’ hospital last year.”
“Yep, made almost about three months of of it.”
“Too much fun.”
“Yep.”
“At our age…”
“Yep.”
“Kids these days.”
“Yep.”
“You okay now?”
“Better’n I deserve. You?”
“Well, you know, my CHECK ENGINE light is on.”


Fresh metaphors are scarcer than crocodile feathers. Thanks, Chris.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Everyone Tells the Story of Li Po and the Moon

Everyone tells the story of Li Po and the moon
Of how when he was drunk in a boat one night
He tried to embrace the reflection of the moon
Fell in and drowned, and wrote and drank no more

Everyone says the story is probably not true
But some tell it anyway – why is that?
Why must poor Li Po drown over and over
His life of art ended in a drunken lapse?

Because even if his moon river death were true
It would be a more dignified death than theirs

And that is why

Everyone tells the story of Li Po and the moon

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     93 Million Dreams Away

                                          For Thomas Futrell
                              Will and Kelly’s Little Sunbeam

The sun plays peek-a-boo among the leaves
One last game before children must go to bed
And then our lady moon comes in and weaves
Such happy dreams for each little sleepyhead!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Meditation - and a Lawnmower - in Early Autumn


               We cannot stay young and strong for long -
               Both of us have grey hair at the temples

                        -Du Fu, “To the Recluse Wei the Eighth”1


After summer rains the earth is still green
Oak leaves dance happily in the cooling breeze
Old lawn chairs are the humble chairs of poets
Old lawn chairs are the glorious thrones of kings

The seasons remind us of our mortality
We sit and ponder the mysteries of change
We will die, to be replaced by others
Who will sit and ponder the mysteries of change

And still, whatever these deep thoughts betoken -
I need to mow, and the lawn mower is broken



1Three Hundred Tang Poems
Translated by Peter Harris
London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The Cosmic Inertia of a Six-Pound Dachshund

Why is the resistance factor
In shifting a six-pound dachshund
Who does not want to be shifted
Greater than that of tons of iron?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware™ Coffee Cup


           “The days are gone…
           When wonderful things were worked among them”

                            -The Seafarer, trans. Burton Raffel


My Tupperware coffee cup is as a chalice
With which I salute the beginning of each day
Cool, colorful, comforting craftsmanship
An honest, utilitarian work of art

We are told such things will be no more
“Made in USA” is “Factorum Romae”
Younger nations will find us camping among the ruins
Of works and arts we no longer comprehend

A colonial soldier might note that once we were a great people
His colonel will reply, “Tosh! They’re simple savages.”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                Smart*ss Watch

It clings to my wrist like a faithless friend
Good fun to pal around when we met
But getting just a little tiresome with time
Unreliable in his many promises

He fails to make the appointments that we set
Or note the weather or mark activities
I dunno; maybe he’s making time with that Timex
My long-time steady who could sure tick my tock

Sweet face, delicate hands - she’d been around, but
Maybe I was wrong – I think I’ll dial her

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 On Reading a Poem by Du Mu

Everything is far away
China is ever so far away
The dynasties are far away
A golden dragon might fly us there

The moon is across the river
The blue-black river in the mist
A fishing boat is tied to the gate
The water-gate of our inn

What do they mean, the moon and boat?
Maybe the moon and the boat mean nothing
They simply are; they are themselves
Or perhaps we mean the moon and boat

Because of Du Mu and his words
The moon and the boat are forever
The blue-black river is forever
In reading of them so are we



“A Night at the Inn While Travelling”
Three Hundred Tang Poems
Translated by Peter Harris
London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Such Men Will Someday Live in Palaces

                                         Cf. Saint Matthew 11

                                                       For

                                            El Senor Bueno

                                                The Artist

                                 The Dangerous Intellectual

                                           The Philosopher


I am only a visitor here, unqualified to speak
Of the incessant sufferings of men of God
Who may not go beyond the compassing wire
To see a reed shaken with the wind

For they sometimes are wind-struck reeds themselves
Planted for a time in this desert of penance
But they are men, and do not easily shake -
When the bitter wind blows they stand up straight

They do not raise their fists against the wind
But rather their hearts in manly strength and faith

Such men will someday live in palaces

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                                    Hobbit Day

                                                   22 September

I read that today is Hobbit Day
On the autumn equinox every year
I was both delighted and surprised
Even though in our shared adventures, dear friends,

Every day is Hobbit Day

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        My Grandfather’s Hayfield

From my own fields I can hear the band
The high school marching band, oom-pah, oom-pah
From several miles away, with merry songs
and merry cheers around the homecoming bonfire

That was my grandfather’s hayfield in my youth
Before the town and school replaced the past
The shaking baling machine compressing grass
Where the team captain now gives his whup ‘em speech

I found a terrapin where the cheerleaders dance
From my own fields I can see my youth

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            ­      At Rao’s Bakery -
                 Coffee, Croissants, Children, and the Constitution

At dawn - hot coffee and a fresh croissant
A family grouping at the table next
And a little child whispering to her mother
The Preamble to the Constitution

I turned and said, “Oh, I want to hear that again”
Proudly the little girl stood beside her mom
And in a strong, clear voice began: “We the People…”


We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


I can’t do that anymore. Can you?

The child certainly earned an ‘A’ today
This coffee / croissant / American day

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       A Road Crew Singing “Red, Red Wine”

On a road cratered with holes and emptied dreams

A road crew of only two riding with the fill
In the bed of a county pickup truck
Patching potholes in the late summer heat
Singing “Red, Red Wine” over and over

“Red, Red, Wine”

One takes off his sweat-soaked striped shirt
A voice from the cab tells him to put it back on
They stop and take shovels and out they leap
To shovel with the shovels fill into holes

“Red, Red Wine”

They sing those three words over and over
The only words of that song they know

“Red, Red Wine.”

On a road cratered with holes and emptied dreams

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     If Mr. Vance Says You Ate Someone’s Pet Cat
                     Then Obviously You Ate Someone’s Pet Cat


                 “Show me the man and I will show you the crime.”

  -many attributions, usually to Lavrentia Beria, sometimes to Stalin


      "In Springfield, they're eating the dogs…They're eating the cats.
       They're eating the pets of the people that live there.”

        -Presidential candidate Donald Trump, 10 September 2024


             "If I have to create stories so that the American media
              actually pays attention to the suffering of the American
              people, then that's what I'm going to do."

               -Vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance on CNN,
                                Sunday, 15 September 2024


Little children in school are threatened with bombs

Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat

Patients in hospitals are threatened with bombs

Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat

City office workers are threatened with bombs

Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat

A Lutheran university is threatened with bombs

Because someone said that someone said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat

A few Proud Boys [sic] stumble around in the street

Because two Heroic Men of Destiny said
That someone ate someone else’s pet cat

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      I Want to Know What You Want to Know

What the Big Corporations Don’t Want You to Know

Big pharma
Big tech
Big medicine
Big tobacco

The adverts say that Big Whatever don’t want us to know
Whatever it is they don’t want us to know
All major and minor credit cards looted

But I don’t know what I want to know
You too?
We could take a walk this autumn day
And compare our notes with falling leaves
And with each other about what we don’t know
And maybe learn from a shy touch of hands
And from the gentle breeze whispering to us

I don’t know what Big Anything doesn’t want us to know
But I want to know what you want to know

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Runes Recently Discovered

We have mysterious runic messages still
Appearing this morning – there, on the road – see them?
Some say these irregular scrawls mark utilities
But you know, there are Wee Folk in these woods

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   I’m Proud of My Childless Cat Lady Daughter

Some call her a childless cat lady
At work the staff call her “Doctor”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         The Secret Service Whisking Away

The Secret Service are often said
To whisk their suspects away

The Secret Service are sometimes said
To whisk a president away

Do they use those little brooms?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              The Terrifying Creepy Chilling Iconic ******’s Lair

Some call it the ******’s lair, some the ******’s nest
Some call it a creepy lair
Some surely call it chilling and iconic
Because to InterGossip posters everything
Is chilling, iconic, jaw-dropping, and a bombshell

It’s just a sad, sagging old chain-link fence
With some sad old man’s wannabe G.I. ****
Army wannabe soldier-toys hanging from it
The Kalashjackov was real enough
The poor fool’s mind, not so much

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         We Don’t Understand, But We Hope

We don’t understand it, but we hope in it
The change from that which is to that which isn’t
Or is the change back again and no change at all
Which maybe means the blood and pain remain

We recline in a rented banquet room
We follow in fear along a narrow street
We watch in horror upon a death-haunted hill
We are called to an empty tomb which isn’t empty

We are called to a dented Cup which also isn’t empty
(Maybe $200 at the church supply store)
Cradling a Mystery from before time
A plate of bread that looks like bread but isn’t

The Altar is where the arc of history bends

Mystery

Who among the servers did the dishes
And did she accidentally drop a Cup?

(That part is probably not important)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          I Had a Flat Tire Along the Silk Road

A bandit-princess stole my trail-lost heart
To play with carelessly one idle day
She teased me a road sketched on her magic chart
But I had a flat tire along the way

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       The White Lady of the Well

She visits at dusk
She’s watching you;
                                      turn around -
She’s just over there

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 We Have all Written Poems about September


         (Not applicable on that half the planet where September
                                          is a springtime month)

                              (Certain taxes and fees might apply)

                                   (Offer void where prohibited)

                                      (Some assembly required)


Everyone writes poetry about September
The cooling of the summer-sun-beaten earth
A few more hummingbirds with maps of Mexico
A first leaf skittering across the grassy lane

The sky looks a little different somehow
A fresh breeze rises with the gentle dawn
Sitting outside at dusk is comfortable now
Notebook and pen are easier to the hand

Everyone writes poetry about September
As every worker and dreamer ought to do

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


            Tropes, Dopes, Middle-Earth, and Culture Worriers

          I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of
          Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware
          none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or
          any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are
          enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I
          regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.

      -Tolkien, from a letter rebuking a German publisher, 1938


One does not imagine Tolkien schlubbing about
In a garish cartoon tee and baggy shorts
A Glock strapped to his 50-inch waist
Shopping the dollar store in a Trumpy cap

One does not imagine Lewis following QAnon
Encouraging Peter to take an AR to Latin class
Or quartering the Cross of good Saint George
With a *******’s spidering wheel of shame

Not all evil comes from outside the Shire –
Sometimes evil is our own internal desire



On the time J.R.R. Tolkien refused to work with ****-leaning publishers. ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

Why does Lord of the Rings appeal to the radical right? – The Irish Times

Behind the Catholic Right’s Celebrity-Conversion Industrial Complex | Vanity Fair

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   For English Pick Up the Anglophone

For English pick up the Anglophone
For French the Francophone
For others in Canada the Allophone
(“‘Allo! ‘Allo!”)
For Mandarin or Cantonese the Sinophone
For Portugal the Lusophone
In Deutschland perhaps the Deutschesphone
(or perhaps not)
And in Russia the Russophone

Please phone in, everyone

Because isn’t it wonderful -
So many phones, and each with a direct line to God

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain

                                      Li Po, “Ancient Air,” p. 84
                    A Book of Luminous Things, ed. Czeslaw Milosz

We read of the poets of China
In the days of the Golden Tang
In the time of The Gathering of Kings
When The Silk Road carried dreams

Government officials were the poets
And poets were the government officials
Who knew The Five Classics by heart
And wrote of China in Tang quatrains

They were writing to the Emperor
And now they are writing to us

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                For ******-Dog of Happy Memory

                                    and for his pet human Max

          The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
          selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that
          never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.

                                     -George Graham Vest

His fuzzy little bed is empty today
His dinner is untasted, his water bowl full
Awaiting his ungentlemanly slurps
And his favorite toy seems lonely and lost

He will not claim space on my pillow tonight
Nor chase dream rabbits while cuddling with me
Nor lick my nose to wake me up at…
(Geez, ******, do you know what time it is!)
Leaping and barking to be allowed outside

He will not bound into the kitchen at dawn
Happily barking his joy unto God
Circling and snuffling for his breakfast treat
A bit of bacon or egg from a loving hand

Because his brave little soul has flown
To wait for me at the foot of that glorious Throne