Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Submitting a Ballot Blank


                                   “Obey me and be free!”

                          -Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner


Feel free to submit a ballot blank
To ignore all those rotten cabbages in rows
We have only ourselves to thank
That our party leaders are Rolex-rich pharaohs

Feel free to submit a ballot blank
The parties’ incompetent choices need not be ours
Forced upon us through caucuses dark and dank
Let us assert our constitutional powers

When they issue us ballots bearing no real choice
We will return them just as empty  -
          That will be our silent, powerful voice

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Our Fair Lady Moon is Jealous of You

                                         Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 43

I see you best when I see you in my dreams
By day my vision is distracted and dull
But at night you are brighter than moonbeams
And among all the darkness brighter still

At noon you are a shadow in the glaring sun
But in the night you are the brightest light
Our Fair Lady Moon is jealous of you
And stars vie with each other to complete your crown

Maybe a vision in the day is not what it seems -
I see you best when I see you in my dreams

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               We Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die


               Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe
               quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera.

                                       -Apocalypsis XXI:V


We can’t take our books with us when we die
That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:
The copy of The Brothers Karamazov
I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?

But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow
And since He is the Word, all our books are His
How foolish of us if we fear that God
Has made no proper arrangements for them

Books are eternal:

Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf
For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists

A question may be brought about ownership
And the turgid content of the daily trawl
But even before the question of censorship
                    One must ask
Why are adults on TikTok at all?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 William Needs an Intervention

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 42

Will, we need to talk:
                                                       this is all your grief
Your friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all
I’ve seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark
Catching Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs

They saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe
But were mostly canoodling high up in the back row
I cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse
Grieving over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you

Give over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -
The Avon’s down the road; we should go fishing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             “A Non-Credible Bomb Threat”

How can a bomb threat not be credible?
Either there is a bomb threat
Or there is not a bomb threat
If the immediate determination
(And on what basis is this determination made?)
(And by whom?)
Is that a bomb threat is not credible
Then why is there an investigation?
A non-credible bomb threat by definition is an incredible bomb threat
That’s incredible
And since there is a bomb threat at a school
Then why are the children kept inside the school
(Shelter-in-place with a reported bomb or not-credible bomb?)
And thus blocked from escaping?

A bomb speaks more clearly than the school administration

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           The Wandering Elizabethan

                             Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 41

I know you are young and handsome; you know it too
I know you are a high-born gentleman; you know that too
And most annoying of all, so do the girls
Including mine

Or, rather, not mine, because she’s fallen for you
I don’t like it, but I understand
When a beautiful woman chases a beautiful man
Including mine

You are tempted, for she is a beautiful she
But
You leave a rather lonely world for me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors?

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
In glorious CBS monochrome
Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow-town street
And saunter through those familiar swinging doors

I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam
And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other
While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly
And for a while we are all at peace

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered outside

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Little Papal Flags at the Eucharist

Little cardboard boxes at the ends of the pews
Held little Papal flags in white and gold
For the faithful disabled, an usher explained
To request a eucharistic minister going their way

How useful in several ways is this little toy:
I’d wave it in defiance of the House of Savoy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 I’m Not Going to Press Charges

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 40

I gave her my love freely; she did not steal
It only feels that way, for she is gone
She could not steal that which she was given
And she could not possibly leave it with me

The lock is broken, my poor room is rubbished
The neighbors saw nothing, my dog didn’t bark
The unseeing eyes of any cameras are dark
Love has no receipts, no inventory, no insurance

And so, officers of love, there is no report
Except that I lost my case in a higher court

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny’s

                                                    for

                          William Tod Augustine Mixson

                Saint Michael's Orthodox Church, Beaumont

                                      “Memory Eternal”

A cup of coffee is a chalice in its way
It brings us all to a table of sharing
And consecrates old friendships with every sip
Blessing us at the end with an Ite of joy

But today there was an empty place
An empty cup, an empty plate, empty
Even the air was empty, empty and void
With a joke that wasn’t told today

Max found a Denny’s card among his things -
Tod treated us to breakfast once again

But not for the last time

He’ll tell us that joke at a more glorious feast

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Shakespeare: Maybe We Need to See Other People

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 39

Perhaps if we separated for a few days
We would find more passion in our love



                       (Please note all this artsy empty space)



After fourteen empty lines I find
My deep, abiding love for you stronger than ever
But who’s this…you’re seeing some other man?
THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     “I’ll Be Away from My Desk for a Few Days”

                 “Look upon my absence, Ye mighty, and despair”

                                    -as Shelley did not say

Every once in an ego you’ll read on a site
“I’ll be away from my desk for a few days”
As if everyone must re-schedule his life
And wait forlornly for Mr. O’s return

Nothing else remains 404 Error 404 Error
404 Error 404 Error 404 Error 404 Error

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Shakespeare: Honoring a Muse is Sexist, They Say

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 38

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now
That the nine goddesses plus one are victims
Objectified passives honored in name
But neglected when the royalties are paid

But a muse is a goddess of power and truth
The artist or writer does indeed gaze at her
But the goddess gazes back, informing your art
With her beauty and her sternest truths

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now -
Ignore their jealousies: obey the goddess

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­     The Spirit of Art

Is

The good, the true, the beautiful

Not

The sullen, the resentful, the envious

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      A Decrepit Father Indeed!

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 37

Sitting for an hour at an outside café
Sipping coffee and writing verse and, yes
Discreetly noting elegant mademoiselles -
I never got to Paris, but my daughter did

Waiting for a steamer along the Rhine
Midsummer Night in Finland the Brave
A blessing from Saint John Paul in Saint Peter’s Square -
Not those either, but my daughter did

But now

Flying to that second star to the right –
We’ll all get there in our dreams tonight!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                  Our Eyes Don’t Really Meet

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 36


Our eyes don’t really meet, nor do our hearts
But from across the room we still are one
(with complimentary champagne to enhance the mood)
A secret one unknown and never to be known

Our hands don’t really meet, nor do our lips
But from across our dreams we still are one
(you whisper to me from my hollow pillow)
A secret and sweet secrets still to come

Our lives don’t really meet, but they will, you see
Some moonlit night when at last our world is free

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Smoke Drifting Across America


                                “Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live”

                        Columbia campus protester apologises for
                            '**** Zionists' comments (bbc.com)


Ash-grey smoke drifts across America

                    “That’s a false narrative”
                    “That’s a false narrative”
                    “That’s a false narrative”

The narrative is metaphorical; the smoke is real -
Ashes and smoke from Auschwitz, from burning Jews

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Rhy­mes and Crimes

                                 Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 35

I plead guilty as an accessory to crime
In aiding and abetting a violation
Against the peace at a certain time
Arrest me now; write out the citation

For you are both the criminal and the cop
Handcuffs for both the abettor and crook
Don’t let our crimes continue, and yet don’t stop
And please don’t give back the thing that you took

For you are a criminal, the most skilled at your art
You darling little thief: you stole

                                                    my heart

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Cloudy with a Chance of Happy Tears

                                       Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 34

You have teased me out of the house today
Without Leonard’s Famous Blue Raincoat
Because you said this impossibly sunny day
Would be the sunniest, funniest day of all

I was prepared to rebuke you with the clouds
That roiled and boiled almost immediately
But the dancing tears from your loving eyes
Are magic raindrops fallen from the sun

Not every day is a sunny day -
Except for every day with you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Governor of South Dakota Takes a Shot at the Vice-Presidency

Who is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem? Dog controversy, more to know (usatoday.com)

Blazing a trail of death and ****** fur
She shot her dog, her goat, three horses too
Somehow they failed her, and so, we must concur  
She executed them in a ****** coup

When her family's animals disappoint her
She shoots them; she feels that’s her duty to do
Silencing each substandard bark, bleat, and purr -
Now what if she becomes disappointed in
                                                        
       ­                                         you?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Every Morning Begins with Sunlit Hope

                                        Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 33

Every morning begins with sunlit hope
Perhaps an echo of the Passover seder
“Why is this morning unlike all other mornings?”
Because this day our hope will be fulfilled

But it isn’t

The arrows of the pharaoh darken the sun
His beatings and executions extinguish light
We work and sweat and bleed, and are still found wanting
We take to our beds in exhaustion, and we dream

Next year in Jerusalem

Every morning begins with sunlit hope -
Maybe tomorrow will be the dawn of freedom

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Hey! Hey! **! **! Mindless Chants Have Got to Go!

One seeks in vain for a “Hey! Hey! **! **!”
In the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita
In Tolkien, Lewis, Frankl, or Yevtushenko
In any declaration of the rights of man

The Greek philosophers never barked “Hey! Hey! **! **!”
Phillis Wheatley would have rebuked that vulgarity
Lincoln yapped no such drivel at Gettysburg
Elizabeth Bishop argued with wit and grace

“Hey! Hey! **! **!” is boorish and ineffectual
And would never be spoken by a true intellectual

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Let’s Meet Again Next Week or Next Life

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 32

To ask to be remember’ed is good
Both for the humble asker and for the asked -
For both will pause to consider mortality
And both will pause to enjoy the happy now

We understand this world will pass away
That all created things must collapse and die
And yet we are promised them back again
And each other too, in saecula saeculorum

Then, yes, please, do remember me, if you would -
To ask to be remember’ed is good

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Let Us Proceed to Sonnet 32

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 31

There is a reason why Boris Pasternak
Did not recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 31
To the Soviet Writers’ Conference in ’37 -

It’s a mess

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      While Clenching Their Fisties

Old men do not now argue politics
At the coffee table in the grocery store
Old men, like some university students
Simply say what they are ordered to say

By voices bellowing from Orwellian telescreens

While clenching their Trumpy-grumpy fisties

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         We’re Not Going Anywhere Until Our Demands Are Met

We’re not going anywhere until our demands are met
Well, okay, maybe Starbuck’s or Chipotle’s
With my Mumsy and Dadsy’s credit cards
Then we can paint our JEWS ARE NAZIS posters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy Thought

                               Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

I don’t need to summon up remembrances
They simply wander in uninvited
In death just as they did in life, good friends
To sit together with our jokes, our drinks, our pipes

We still argue with each other, our minds
So familiar after all those happy years
Thesis, antithesis, and Dunhill tobacco
Ice cubes rattling in the soft summer dusk

Lewis and Tolkien show up late, stern Milton too
Remembrances? Not really – we are forever here



Nota bene:

In Moscow, 1937, during the annual Soviet writers’ congress—a time of severe purges—Pasternak took a courageous stand. Amidst the dull, regime-prescribed speeches praising Leninist-Stalinism, he did something extraordinary. He recited Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare:

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste.”

The impact was profound. All two thousand writers in the hall rose to their feet, joining Pasternak in this act of defiance. The number “30” became a symbol of resistance, a testament to the enduring power of poetry and memory.

Introducing a Sunday Series from Douglas Murray: Things Worth Remembering | The Free Press (thefp.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                         Those Who Straddle the Temple Walls


                    “Choose you this day whom you will serve”

                                               -Joshua 24:15


For those who are desperate to be accepted as cool –

You cannot straddle the walls of the holy Temple
You cannot straddle the barbed wire of Auschwitz
You cannot straddle the banks of the Red Sea
You cannot choose two sides and call them one

Since the ****** time there have not been two sides

You cannot wear both the tallit and the snakeskin
You cannot break bread with your grinning executioners
You cannot dance to circled drums and bullhorn chants
You cannot forswear your family murdered in the gas chambers

Since the burning time there have not been two sides

He who chooses the fashionable, the clever, the cool
Chooses to be a kapo, a funktionshaftling
His people will despise him, so too his masters
                    (Who in the end will **** him in his shame)
And his memory will be a curse, not a blessing

But you –

Choose bravely so that your name will be written in The Book
And written in the hearts of your proud descendants

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  When Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

A good thing with being disgraced in men’s eyes
Is that that mostly they don’t notice you at all
As a nobody you are but a shadow at best
Or an accessory in their empty scenes

If they don’t notice you, then you are not disgraced
And you have better things to do anyway:
Children to raise, songs to sing, books to write
Each day’s honest labor at your honest craft

The resolution is

That some men might be disgraced in your eyes
That is, if you choose to notice them at all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway?

                             Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 28

The days are a mess and so are the nights
Each day is burdened with labors unrelenting
Toils industrial and toils emotional
Everyone seems to want a bite of you

At night the stresses follow you to bed:
The boss’s write-ups seem to poison the pillows
The unpaid bills, the clapped-out car, the fears
The children’s report cards, the broken washer

You give life your all – you work, you struggle, you strive -
And why is there a cop car in the drive?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  These Here So-Called Schools These Days


             “Lead, Follow, or Get the H/// Out of the Way”

                  -a sign on the bulkhead in recruit training


Those coffee-shop cynics drowning in dejection:
Some of them wallow in existential abjection
And some meet every hope with an objection
Or with a sneering, irrelevant deflection

                    But I did something other than b//// and moan

I voted in my local school board election

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     Weary with Dachshunds

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 27

With an improving book I go to bed
                    (as P. G. Wodehouse said)
And two improving dachshunds on my pillow
                    (as Wodehouse almost said)
They then begin their journey at my head
Wriggling down to my feet and back again

They slurple messily from my bedside glass
And crumple up my copy of Hercule Poirot
Neither slows: they lick my nose, they tickle my toes
And will they finally doze? Nobody knows!

But

When comes the midnight moon, then all in a cuddly heap
Their little doggie noses snuffle at last in sleep

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      The Lord of One’s Love

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 26

The lord of one’s love can only be God
For whom all things are loved in gratitude
Kissings as well as blessings, and all are blessed
Presented before the Altar and the Throne

The lord of one’s love can only be God
All other lords are merely utilitarian
Well-honored as long as they know their place
Kings and queens, bishops, happy lovers, and dreams

The lord of one’s love can only be God
That no other love or lord can be

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               The President of Columbia University is Saddened

                   “Why must we fight for the right to live,
                     over and over, each time the sun rises?”

                                        ― Leon Uris, Exodus

Jews are not welcome in the cool universities
The laboratories are shut against them
Libraries, classrooms, meetings, coffee shops
Here, sir, the bullhorn rules (Hey! Hey! **! **!)

Administrators smile weakly and shrug:
We cannot guarantee your safety here
The Merovingian president says she is saddened
That Jewish students are harassed and beaten

The halls of academia are lined with swastikas
And 7 October is remembered with glee

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               The Golden Gate of Jerusalem

The Gate of Repentance

The Golden Gate captures the evening moon
Which shines upon the road a convict walked
At the rubbled base a snake pursues a rat
                                       a very troubled rat
While Roman squaddies stand the middle watch

The Gate of Mercy

The Golden Gate captures the morning sun
Whence the Messiah comes, or comes again
He is the Gate Himself, the Golden Gate
He comes from the Mount of Olives in golden light

The Golden Gate has been blocked for centuries -
This will not always be so

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   The Pulitzer People Did Not Telephone Today

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 25

The Pulitzer people did not telephone today
Nor did the Library of Congress or the folks at Nobel
I could paper a room with rejection slips
Except that rejections are electronic now

I have no honorary doctorate
Universities do not ask me to speak
Publishers knock at other scribblers’ doors
And my poor verses share leaves with Orlando’s

Which is not as I like it –
                    but there is you
And it is in you that true honors accrue

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        T­he Great Gate of Kiev

                Mussorgsky’s The Great Gate of Kiev is no hymn to the
                people of Ukraine (telegraph.co.uk)

If there was never a Great Gate of Kiev
Except in Mussorgy’s triumphal hymn
There ought to have been, and there will be some day
Trophied with captured Putinista flags

For now

Wherever a Ukrainian enters Kiev
By rail or bus, or in worn-out army boots
He is the Gate, the Knight’s Gate, the Golden gate
With a chapel and the most wonderful bells

And the pictures at an exhibition
Will be ikons of Ukrainian martyrs

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         You are the Poem

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 24

A camera time-stops images as electrical codes
Formed by Kyanon Kabushiki Gaisha
And if that is not high art, then what is?
But codes are not you in your many dimensions

Your dimensions of perceptions and being
Your thoughts and happiness, your eternal soul
Your way of comforting a rescue kitten
Your way of writing verse and tasting  soup

A camera time-stops images as electrical codes
But you are a living spring of happy odes

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        A­ Bee Upon my Knee

                                  A Rhyme for Brave Children
                                     From a Whiny Grownup

A bee upon my knee
It hurt’ed me
It stung me with a sting
And died, poor thing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              If I am Blind, Take me to the Library

If I am blind, take me to the library
I will be comforted by the presence of books
And of those adventurous souls who read
They will tell me their lives, and read to me

If I am blind in some other way, take me to that library
I will perhaps be healed by someone wiser than I
(Most people are)
Someone who will listen to the ticking of my soul
And recommend an elixer of ancient magic

Maybe I’m blind - and sometimes I suspect I am
But you see the wonder in everything

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Stammering Before an Audience of One

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 23

As imperfect poets upon the page
We scribble limping iambs and push them to go
To an impatient audience waiting downstage
For well-spoken truth in a metric flow

A poem, a play - each is a rite of love
Humbly offered like an awkward child’s bouquet
Go on, then, give the rhymes a little shove
Even though your feet, your tongue, your hopes – all are clay

And if gratitude and admiration are in her eyes
She has granted you the worthiest prize!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      “Anglo-Saxon Students Would Not Like to Be Taught by a Jew”

                                                      cited in
                   -Stanley Kunitz Lyrics, Songs, and Albums | Genius

To the Privileged Youth of Columbia University:

As a child of situational poverty
I am so grateful for all my Jewish teachers

Including

Moses
Joshua
Jeremiah
Samuel
David
Solomon
J­esus, Mary, and Joseph
Saint Peter and the others in The Twelve
Saint Paul
Elie Weisel

Chaim Potok
Herman Wouk
Leon Uris
Franz Kafka
Leonard Cohen
Anne Frank
Bernard Malamud
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Philip Roth
Osip Mandelstam

Saul Bellow
Isaac Asimov
Woody Allen
Mel Brooks
Edna Ferber
Yip Harburg
George Cukor
Mel Brooks
Oscar Hammerstein
Alan Lerner

Carl Reiner
Rod Serling
Franz Werfel
Alan Arkin
Claire Bloom
Leonard Nimoy
Chaim Topol
Ed Asner
Mel Brooks
Peter Falk
Werner Klemperer

Jack Klugman
Walter Matthau
Tony Randall
Mel Torme
John Banner
Kirk Douglas
Lorne Greene
Eli Wallach
Sam Wanamaker
Morey Amsterdam

Leo Genn
Otto Preminger
Jack Benny
Leslie Howard
Ernst Lubitsch
Cecil B. DeMille
Mortimer Adler
Allen Bloom
Harold Bloom
Irving Berlin

Boris Pasternak
Emil Ludwig
Eric Wolfgang Korngold
Elmer Bernstein
Max Steiner
George Gershwin
Dimitri Tiomkin
Samuel Fuller
Alexander Korda
Zoltan Korda

Emeric Pressburger
Erich von Stroheim
Billy Wilder
William Wyler
Fred Zinnemann
J. J. Abrams
Peter Bogdanovich
Michael Curtiz
Stanley Donen
Stanley Kramer

Howard Caine
Leon Askin
Robert Clary
Dinah Shore
Stephen Sondheim
Volodymyr Zelinsky
Simon Schama
Louise Gluck
Siegfried Sassoon
Isaac Rosenberg

Joseph Brodsky
Rob Morrow
Vasily Grossman
Stanley Kubrick
Viktor Frankl

And more, so many more, a cloud of witnesses
Whose names are written in gold on a scroll in Heaven

But somehow, in this world of beauty and truth
And humanity’s aspirations to the good
All you have found are bullhorns, trash fires, chants
Clinched fists, obscenities, lies, and shrieking hate

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Anticipating Eye Surgery

I hope when this is done, when this is through
I’ll see the moon as one, and not as two!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           Humility Through the Looking Glass

                                 Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 22

My glass surprises me; it tells the truth
“Who is that old man?” I ask myself
And it rebukes me for that foolish question
I must admit to the glass that I am old

But when I turn and look outside myself
And greet the happy sun and breathe the dawn
Of a day rich with possibilities
And think of you – then I am young again

I tell my glass it is a silly glass
And it tells me I am a silly ***

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Marcus Aurelius at the Auto Repair Shop

Marcus Aurelius down at the auto repair –
Now there’s an image, him being an emperor and all
One of those philosophers who think about stuff
Who ask questions and read and write and stuff

If a man complains about the cost of new tires:
                    Meditations V.9 – “Be not unhappy, or discouraged…”
And
                      II.4 – “Remember how long you have been putting off these things…”

If a warranty has expired:
                       VI.53 – “Accustom yourself to listen carefully…”
And
                       VII.24 – “A scowling look is quite unnatural.”

If the engine is blown:
                        X.33 – “Now it is not given to a cylinder to move everywhere…”
And
                        VII.54 – “…it is in your power to accept…your present condition…”


And with that, Marcus steps outside for a cigarette.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­      But Truly Write

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 21

                    …poems are gatherings of words, in good order, in
                    simple order, plain and appealing.

                          -Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 77

A line of contemporary prosetry
Is a catalogue of florid structures and worn-out cliches
Pancaked with adverbs and tiresome metaphors
Flung down in a confusion of unconnected gasps

If you have something to say, then say it
Then tidy up the lines – like washing your face
With soap and water and a cotton towel
And then admire the sunlit, fresh-air truth

Craft your lines of transcendent poetry
As clean sharp-edg’ed truth in well-scrubbed words

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Maybe Edmondson and Wells are Right

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 20


                  I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.

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


How awkward that a beautiful woman
Might not be a woman except in her heart
And in her bearing, demeanor, and dress
Making a choosing, and not a demand

But if I am asked about matters of DNA
I hope I may freely reply, “Coffee? Or tea?”
Neither censured nor restrained nor vilified
Beneath the Cross free to accept or not

We are all children of God, woman, and man -
Let us all care for each other the best we can

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Fire Ants are Elizabethans

No fire ant sees another as a brother
They fight all other ants with venom and spleen
They eagerly share ant poison with each other -
They even pass it ‘round to **** their queen!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              Shakespeare, Venus, and the Travelling Salesman

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 19

Dear Will,

About your obsession with mortality:
Transitions and death are essentials in life
And we must face the obsequies of ashes or earth
But there are other topics upon which to write

Let us not consider funerals today
Let us sit upon the lawn and smoke our pipes
And write about new leaves on ancient oaks
(You’ll pen far better lines; you always do)

Today we’ll ignore our own mortality
And tell inappropriate jokes about Venus
                                and a travelling salesman