Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

                            As Jonathan Edwards did not say

How do they find so much hatred in their Book?

Why do they bind their scriptures and themselves
In anger, duct tape, and camouflage
Why do they raise high the AR and their fists
Instead of salvation and the Holy Cross?

Where do they find so much hatred in their Book?

Why have they abandoned the altars of Truth
For the flagpole idolatry of the pagan state
In coven-circles facing each other and a pole
Like Canaanites and their wooden Asherim?

Why do they find so much hatred in their Book?

If they would look beyond their perimeter wire
They would see
                                A Maiden dancing
                                                                     In Galilee
Sep 2024 · 103
Draft Beer, Not Students
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Draft Beer, Not Students

                                A slogan from the 1960s

In illo tempore:

A young man swaggers across the ‘versity quad
Smoking a Marlboro or affecting a pipe
‘Way cool in his sports coat and turtleneck
Shakespeare or physics held loosely in his hand

A young woman passes through the ‘versity quad
Smoking a Parliament or checking her mirror
‘Way cool in her pencil skirt and layered look
Shakespeare or physics held closely to her heart

Sed in tempore nostro:

Pronouns galumph across the ‘versity squad
One fist raised in hate, the other clutching a glowing box
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              Barefootin’ Among Watermelons on a Summer Afternoon

                    For J. W., His Dad, and His Uncle Brandon

J. W. is blessed with family and purpose and love
Guided study and chores and structured faith
Happy barefootin’ days among the watermelons
A fishing pole and buzzing-bee summer afternoons
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Columbia University’s Judenfrei Dream


         It was surprising to see how many of the university faculties
         knuckled under to the Nazification of higher learning…

             -Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 251


As a poor kid from rural Texas
I would never have been admitted to Columbia
And now I would not permit Columbia
To be admitted to me

(not that either of us ever asked the other)
Columbia antisemitism task force finds professors ‘minimized’ Jewish student concerns, recommends new anti-bias training (msn.com)

Antisemitism at Columbia University - Wikipedia
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                       The Rabbit Held Very, Very Still

                             Dedicated to Elmer Fudd

The rabbit held still
The rabbit held very still
Caught raiding my garden

(No rabbits were harmed in the making of these scribbles. I distracted Luna-Dog and Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund to another part of the yard.)
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

       That Which Does not Exist Will End in the Next Half Hour

The MePhone beeps and then reports
That the rain that isn’t falling
Will stop in the next half hour -
This may be a metaphor for life

And if not life, then ten to twenty
If the presiding judge is lenient
Weather reports can be a metaphor for life.
Sep 2024 · 146
You Are Not a Banana
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             You are not a Banana

                                  Sticker Not, Lest Ye be Stickered

A banana bears a sticker to say it is a banana
(The banana, that is, not the paper sticker)
Even though a banana is obviously a banana
(It has a yellow skin and some squashy stuff inside)

If we take the banana sticker from the banana
And stick the ticker to a tomato
The tomato is not then a banana
However much someone claims it so

Sticking sticky stickers to humans is also wrong
A man is himself; a woman is herself
If we stick a sticky sticker to a human
As a joke, well, that’s just a bit of fun

But if as a judgement then we are false witnesses

Stickers, nothing but stickers, excuses
Failures of intellect, truth, and caritas
Stickers are two-dimensional; they have no depth
Stickers are useless even on bananas

We are brothers and sisters, not bananas
Sep 2024 · 103
Cigarettes and Despair
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                           ­  Cigarettes and Despair


You’ve been to junior high; you know the drill
When childhood fragments into hormones and emotions
And nobody told you it was coming
The fear, the wild uncertainty, the loss

You’re expected at funerals and weddings
(Shhhhhhhhh! They do what!? I don’t believe it! Why!?)
You’re too old to play with toys anymore
Too young for Jack Daniels and midnight rides

You steal a couple of Daddy’s cigarettes
And smoke behind the smokehouse, in despair
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Seekers after Eternal Truth


             “Things are hopeless, hopeless! But they’re not serious.”

                          -Finian McLonergan in Finian’s Rainbow


We are all seekers of eternal truth
Searching the holy texts for messages
Asking the stars to say more to us
Questioning the smile of Our Lady Moon

We want to know existential reality
The universe and our places in it
We ask the elders, we ask the winds
We ask the winds from North, South, East, and West

We all look for Narnia behind wardrobe doors
(We also do laundry, windows, and floors)
As Finian says...
Lawrence Hall Sep 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Feeding the Squirrels and Birds at Dawn

A squirrel sits upon a little mound of corn
And faces the east with its nimble forepaws
Clasped gently together as if in prayer
Yes, we know that the squirrel is scanning and sniffing for hawks, coyotes, and dogs, or perhaps for another squirrel it wants to beat up; still, we must layer some romance over the scene.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              To God, Who Still Gives Joy to Our Youth


                       Introibo ad altare Dei

                      Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutam meum


Missals calendaring the liturgical year
Mantillas in reverent rows marked out by children
Children as rosary beads sorting out the Aves
And men in this-is-choking-me suits and ties

Candles in colored glass in reverent rows
Decades of prayers, centuries incensed with prayers
Corinthian columns in reverent rows of awe
Or perhaps the humble Doric, upholding Heaven

Fiddleback chasubles in liturgical colors
Sequenced by seasons in prismatic reverent rows
Sewn long ago by loving reverent hands
Each stitch enriched with a Latin prayer

Fidgety altar boys in their Sunday shoes
The processional cross their grandfathers knew
Nonnas, Nanas, MeeMaws in reverent rows
The occasional bead-bang of a rosary against a pew

The occasional knee-pinch to a squirming child
Latin responses in sequenced reverent rows
Latin, which later we were told we didn’t understand
Quia putabant nos stulti essemus

And on the Altar the eternal Sacrifice
Which no tyranny can ever take away

*Sed fuit, est, erit
"Sed fuit, est, erit" should be italicized because it is in Latin but I couldn't coax the ghost in the machine to work with me in that.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The Grave Robber of Fifth Avenue

Unferth postures upon the ashes of warriors
The warriors he has despised all his wretched life
Because he is unworthy to be one of them
Warring with only his mouth and never a spear

He mocks their wounds, their missing limbs, their graves
He steals their widows and orphans for himself
As ornaments to his manic caperings
While arrogating honors he could never win

But when the Dragon comes…

But when the Dragon comes, lashing its tail
Unferth will be ghosted away as a howling wail
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         A Prayer While Driving Past a School

Dear Lord, we pray -

For all the children at their studies today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the teachers at their work today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the cooks and cleaners today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the bus drivers and mechanics today
Give blessings upon them in every way

For all the administrators today
And their nicely decorated offices
And their luxury executive desks
And their golly-super-gee-**** computers that work
And their shiny new MePhones
And their expense accounts
And their district credit cards
And their mileage allowance
And their impressive leather appointment books
And their out-of-town trips to conferences
And their leisurely lunches out
And their air-conditioning that works
And their beauty-shop visits during the day
And their layers of protective secretaries
And their relatives on the payroll

Bless their hearts
https://kfdm.com/news/crisis-in-the-classroom/bisd-spends-73000-on-motivational-speaker-sparking-outrage-eric-thomas-beaumont-united-teachers-leak-documents-budget-taxpayer-concern
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         J. Alfred Prufrock and the Giant Peach

“Do I dare to eat a peach?” He asked

“Yes, yes. just eat the stupid peach and stop
Banging on about it,” I replied
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             If a Book Could Take Just One Human to a Desert Island

Who would it take?

You?

Me?

Dostoyevsky?

A librarian?
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  Kafka, You, and the Self-Service Checkout Kiosk

                            With thanks to Rowan Pelling


                  Those who have never suffered through Kafka
                  Should not employ the adjective “Kafkaesque” -
                  The landgraf would not approve


When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning
from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed
in his bed into a monstrous self-service checkout kiosk.

Someone must have traduced Joseph K.,
for without doing anything wrong
he was arrested in the checkout line
one fine morning

It was late in the evening when
the supermarket supervisor arrived.


Kafka, The Metamorphosis. Trans. Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton. 1972

Kafka, The Trial. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: The Modern Library. 1956

Kafka, The Castle. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York: Schocken. 1982

The hell of self-service checkouts is becoming Kafkaesque (yahoo.com)
Because, like, y'know, Kafka is, like, you know, intellectual and stuff.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Upon Re-Reading William L. Shirer's
                         The Rise and Fall of the Third *****

           Perhaps one day America will go fascist democratically,
           by popular vote.

      -William L. Shirer, New York Times, 29 December 1969

We do not live Samsara, for Samsara has meaning
So this is not Samsara; this is a cascade of deaths
We live in linear time – or maybe we don’t -
And the gods of hate sneak in ahead of us
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Before Me Sits Young Pablo Neruda

                    On the paperback cover of Residence on Earth

Before me sits pensive Pablo Neruda
His young face resting upon his slender hand
He looks a little to the left of the photographer’s eye
He appears to be thinking great thoughts

Or he might be thinking

Why am I posing like a high school senior?


Residence on Earth, introduction by Jim Harrison
New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Pablo Neruda, Residence on Earth, introduction by Jim Harrison
New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Assembling a Metal Lawn Chair with Great Care
                                   (and a Ball-Peen Hammer)

A friend gave me a lawn chair in tangerine
Bright tangerine, with instructions in English
Which I followed most assiduously
Which parts of the chair most surely did not

The instructions did not mention a ball-Peen hammer
With brutality and words which must not be spoken
(Think of Vulcan and his mighty strokes)
I finally assembled the chair to my satisfaction

And then I sat down
"Some Assembly Required" - GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Our Children Will Ask Us What We Did in 2024


                                            Thus was th’ applause they meant,
                           Turned to exploding hiss, triumph to shame
                           Cast on themselves from thir own mouths.

                                   Milton, Paradise Lost, X.545-547


Have we not learned?

The Zeppelinfield, the Kroll Opera House
The Great Hall of 10,000 People
The Hippodrome, the Piazza Venetia
Red Square, and the Quicken Loans Arena

Weak beings subsumed within one commanding Will
Adoring with glistening eyes and beating hearts
A strident oligarchy of destiny
Chanting obscurities and pumping fists

But when the chanting stops and foul diktats roll –
Will you - will I? - be a defiant soul?
I speak of both dominant political parties and their neo-Nuremberg rallies.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Dancing Among the Apple Trees

She danced through the orchard in the long ago
Barefoot among sweet summer’s apple trees
And she was the sweetest apple of all
A taste of Creation hymned with the lingering bees

The orchard is mostly gone

                                                                   Her dancing is forever
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Blue Moon and a Spooky Old Tree

To watch the moonrise is almost liturgical
Her bright silver light behind the far-off pines
Rising and glowing and larger and larger
Silent and silver, lifting above the woods

I set a camera to watch Moon through the night
Electronics see the night and light differently
The old apple tree appears white and skeletal
And ghosts pretending to be insects flit about

Moon and trees and ghosts when left alone
Make merry mischief knowing that I am gone
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 The Gravitas of Our Vice-Presidential Candidates

               In the end it was the worst speaker of the lot who received
               the most applause. People made no effort to follow him and
               merely roared approval at his every word…

                                       Doctor Zhivago, p. 36

Like high school boys behind the old school gym
In micturic dispute about distance and size
Two men exchange puerile scurrilities
A pair of puffed-up *****-mouthed posers

They know all about army guns ‘n’ stuff
Each hero manque’ stuffier than the other
About their ranks and tanks and thousand-yard-stares
And whose AR is the bigger one

Like high school boys behind the old school gym –
And why must we the people put up with them?
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
"There is an error," a message said. HP wouldn't accept this.

Try:

https://dispatchesforthecolonialoffice.blogspot.com/?zx=791c4035bc496f75
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The Moon is Upon Her Throne Tonight

The moon is dressed in her shining best tonight
With silvering joy and lunar happiness
Flying and flowing, flung from her starry wand
Flying and falling upon her glowing-night realm

We loyal subjects peek from our windows to see
An argent pageant royal of beauty and truth
Even in summer the lawn is a frosty field
For her monthly dance, by her command

The Lady of the Moon is our Summer Queen
As she will be, and is, and ever has been
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  We Know Where the Holy Grail Is


           “They all say they’ve got the Holy Grail. So who’s right?”

                      The Holy Grail: Many places say they have it.
                       So who’s right? | CNN


We know where the Holy Grail is
Each Sunday we see it on the Altar
As a cup, indifferent in its origins
In the catalogue of a church supply

A rabbi, a carpenter, and God
Walk into a rented room
And a Passover Kiddush cup is blessed
With the Viaticum, for all of us

A Passover seder is neither first nor last
It is forever – and here is the Cup
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Where do Sunflowers go in August?


                 May our love for the Sun, the will of God, be as strong
                 as the sunflower’s…

                                     -attributed to St. John of Tobolsk


With the mower I took the sunflowers down
The withered remnants, stalks and heads and seeds
Those few remaining seeds rejected by the birds
For reasons of their own

With the mower I circled ‘round and round
Building a thickish thatch as a sort of nest
For seeds in anticipation of autumn
The seasons know their own

With the mower I saw high summer gone
I mowed – or had I mown?
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

     Comparing Our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                            Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Fife
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                              Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Barney Fife
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
14 August 2024

    Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate

                          Because we love and respect Deputy Fife

In art, incompetence can have a certain charm
But in stupid men with guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are in shacking and slacking

Colombian girlies and slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they lose their guns
They lose laptops, but never their 90-proof
And break into private property for poopy runs

To them a President entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with Deputy Barney Fife
Aug 2024 · 102
The Boy in White (a repost)
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                               The Boy in White

He paused in the sun, unsure where to go
His uniform was new and neatly pressed
He carried a new blue mattress and two plastic bags
Containing his prison issue for the next three years

No guards were near so I talked with him
I didn’t ask him; he wanted to be heard
He told me his story; it might be true
And then
Authority told me to move on. I wished him well

He was paused in life, unsure what to do
A frightened teenager in new prison whites
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Why are the Candidates Yelling at Us?

The candidates bluster and scream on TV
But I will never vote for anyone, you see,
Whose concept of leadership is yelling at me
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                               12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                                   the Jews.”
Aug 2024 · 653
Four Fresh Limes
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
13 August 2024

                                             Four Fresh Limes

When my neighbor left four fresh limes at my door
The universe did not hold its breath
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
11 August 2024

                          Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                          12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                ­                                  the Jews.”
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
10 August 2024

                    Why Are the Presidential Candidates Yelling at Us?

The candidates bluster and scream on TV
But I will never vote for anyone, you see,
Whose concept of leadership is yelling at me
Aug 2024 · 351
The Boy in White
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                              The Boy in White

He paused in the sun, unsure where to go
His uniform was new and neatly pressed
He carried a new blue mattress and two plastic bags
Containing his prison issue for the next three years

No guards were near so I talked with him
I didn’t ask him; he wanted to be heard
He told me his story; it might be true
And then
Authority told me to move on. I wished him well

He was paused in life, unsure what to do
A frightened teenager in new prison whites
Prison
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            The British Army Pocket Knife

A great big chunk of folded Sheffield steel
For pocket, backpack, toolbox, or workbench
Rope work, leather work, awning work, rifle repair
Gutting a rabbit for dinner if it comes to that

No plastic-y Swiss gimcrackery for us
One tightens the blade by taking a hammer to the rivets
And sharpens it hastily on a handy rock
Wash off the mud and the blood and it’s good to go

It’s clanky, clunky, and out of date – it’s British
As British as can be - and so are we




I’m not British, but I needed a voice. My Hall ancestors were transported from Northern England to the New World for being bad, and the same for my deBeauville / Beauville / Beville / Bevil ancestors from Chesterton and my McQueen ancestors from Scotland.

I love my nifty British Army knife.

I will never eat rabbit again. Ich.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      A Garden is a Department of Metaphysics

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

-Rumi


A garden is a Department of Metaphysics
Promethean fire and shadows in a cave of light
Leaves of trees falling upon more leaves
The leaves of books left open to the sun

The lecture lawn is furnished with old chairs
Old garden chairs rusty with wisdom and age
From duty to weather and men, the several cathedrae
Of the learned Order of Gaffer Swanthold

Athena’s owl calls from the nearby wood
Calling all men to silence and reflection
Rumi, untitled poem, trans. Coleman Barks and John Moyne
*A Book of Luminous Things*, ed. Czeslaw Milosz

In this context “men” is gender-neutral. Wrecking an iambic foot in obedience to the moods of an external authority is not poetry; it is weaknessssssssssssss.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                           ­  Bar-and-Chain Oil


                                      “Here, sir, The People govern.”

                                    -attributed to Alexander Hamilton


Do our wise and more equal-than-equal equals
In all three branches (barren now) of government
Flying from luxury offices to luxury homes
In luxury aircraft they know to be their due

Pause between delicate porcelain cups
Of rare and precious Jamaica Blue Mountain
And single-malt in hand-cut Waterford crystal
And delicacies arranged on silver trays

Look down upon their lesser-than-equal equals
And suddenly remember
“I forgot to buy some bar-and-chain oil!”
Do senators, congressmen, presidents, and supreme court justices clear brush on Saturdays off?
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            About That Reed Shaken with the Wind


                       What went ye out into the wilderness to see?
                                      A reed shaken with the wind?

                                      -Saint Matthew 11:8


A swaying riverside reed is a marvelous thing
In its proper service to our gracious Lord
A stalk of grass honoring its Creator
In quiet, unassuming dignity

Symbolisms are laid upon the reed
In power-point sermons and learned texts
But first of all it is but a nice little reed
Joining its labors with those of the whispering wind

Until Our Lord Himself calls upon that reed
Even as He calls upon us for some small deed
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Teaching Whose Bible in Public School?

                  A Rebuke to Miz Grundy and Reverend Gantry

Surely a teacher could choose his own Bible
This shouldn’t be as difficult as it seems
It couldn’t possibly be forbidden or liable
To teach the children from the Douay-Rheims
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.

                         The Several Olympic Committees

Sewerage, filth, top-****, toxins, debris
Deadly bacteria, openly-floating poo
The pollution of the ages flowing free –

(They say the River Seine’s in bad shape too)
...because men beating up women is so ////ed cool.
Aug 2024 · 91
A Small-Minded Man
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             A Small-Minded Man

Oh, yes, I am a very small-minded man
Whose horizon stops at the apple trees
Whose vision is much upon the little things:
A tiny snail upon a pepper-plant leaf

A placid rabbit nibbling at the lawn
A squirrel feasting on his daily grains and seeds
A bluebird shyly hiding among the oaks
A mockingbird mocking all the rest of us

No grand visions for me; I will not leave
Small villages of dead bodies and wicked smoke
The rotting bodies of children and animals
Cratered cities of bomb-blackened ruins and stench

I promote no world-changing master plan -
Deo Gratias, I am a very small-minded man
Jul 2024 · 136
Playing the Hitler Card
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Playin­g the ****** Card

We say we should never play that card
But we see that it has been played
It lies upon the table before us -
Whose furtive, febrile hand placed it there?
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         A Mildly Amusing Repudiation of the Concept of Entropy


                         For poetry too is a little incarnation.

                     -C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms


All that ever was, that is, that ever will be -
All is from God, and will return to God
As elegant iambic pentameter

(Okay, maybe tetrameter)
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     The Olympics as Imagined by John Milton


                        On the anniversary of the martyrdom of

                                        Father Jacques Hamel


The Olympics this year seem demon-haunted -
Christians, Jews, and amateurs not wanted
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      On Being a Still Life Today

No outside duties have called me away today
And so I have become a still life entitled “Ennui”
Or perhaps “Weltschmerz with a Pet Dog”
Two dogs, actually, and they have napped the hours

The rain has fallen day after day after day
A parallel to the Ancient Mariner’s sun
Tree frogs cling to the algae-green window panes
As if they too have lost interest in life

Even so

With my little world all rainy and grey
I am happy to be a still life today
Color me grey.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Ill Manners in Paris

                          Opening Ceremony at the Paris Olympics

All are welcome at the Table of the Lord
But first
It’s always good manners to wash your face and hands
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Let’s go for Coffee -- Grab Your Flak Jacket

Some give their sons semi-automatics and hate
Instead of family and purpose and love
Instead of guided study and structured faith
Instead of fishing poles and summer afternoons
Next page