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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 What Would Matt Dillon Do?

Wyoming Wolf Abuser Could Get Hunting Privileges Taken Away | Your Wyoming News Source (cowboystatedaily.com)

A two-legger who tortures a creature from the wild
Might tomorrow torture his neighbor’s child

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    I Will Not Compare You to a Summer’s Day

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

I will not compare you to a summer’s day
Summer is heat, humidity, and drought
A disapproving sun burning the earth
A dusty, weedy landscape fit only for snakes

Instead, you are a perfect autumn day
A day of good old sweaters and leafy walks
Invigorating winds all fresh from the north
And inside, cups of cocoa and a merry fire

I will not compare you to a summer’s day
Your autumn is far more lovely and temperate

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        American Children Begging in the Streets

                     (Let’s all feel good about child endangerment)

Children with plastic buckets run up to the cars
Hopelessly trapped by the traffic lights
They bang on the windows, they dash across lanes
Life-lessons in begging instead of work:


IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US GO TO DISTRICT PLAYOFFS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
PLEASE SEND OUR TEAM TO STATE
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SEND OUR BAND TO DISNEY WORLD
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SEND OUR CHEERLEADERS TO CAMP
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SOFTBALL TEAM GO ANGELS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR MISSIONS FOR JESUS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SPONSOR OUR DANCE TEAM
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US BUY NEW SOCCER UNIFORMS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SUPPORT OUR MISSION TRIP TO COLORADO
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SAFE GRADUATION


Adults in charge of these dear little souls:
Don’t send them into danger with begging bowls

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Men of Less Truth than Tongue

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 17

Poets can lie, or be perceived to lie
In the matter of limning beauty and truth
Through the mists of negative capability
Through the chaos of personalities and life

Iambs stretched neatly out in flowing lines
Are aesthetically pleasing in themselves
But even the cleverest metrical feet
Should in their ordered elegance speak for good

Poets can lie, or be perceived to lie
But in your beauty is truth, truth passing by

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Time is not a ****** Tyrant

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 16

Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing
Like bluebonnets, butterflies, and bumblebees
Painted with pencil or pen by a Hand divine
And set in place as a measure of being

Time cannot be our enemy; we live along it
And like the ground it stabilizes us in place
And like our eyes it gives us vision to see
Each other in our Spirited nobility

Life is not what we take nor what is taken
But what we bring -
Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 A Dollar Box of Crayolas®™

I wanted the biggest box of Crayolas
I had to have the biggest box of Crayolas
I could build worlds with the biggest box of Crayolas
I needed that biggest box of Crayolas!

But the wise voice of situational poverty spoke:
“I am not spending a dollar on a box of Crayolas.”

The biggest box of Crayolas is now about four dollars
Allowing for inflation, much cheaper than in ‘55
I should go buy the biggest box of Crayolas
Maybe I can find a Big Chief Tablet®™ to go with it

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             In Perfection But a Little Moment

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 15

Apparently the stars are talking about us
Pondering the transitoriness of our lives
And how we, though in the beauty of our youth
Must eventually decline, decay, and die

But we are promised an immortality
Possibly not granted even to the stars
The promise is in the springtime of our lives
The promise itself is an open tomb far away

Apparently the stars are talking about us
(You would think they have other things to do)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

        On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines

                            (Scribbled with a little help from Shelley)

Look upon my Verbs, ye Mighty, and despair!
No more lines remain. Round the decay
Of my online Competition, of vocabulary bare
The lone and level squares stretch far away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Methinks I Have Astronomy

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 14

                                       Monday, 8 April 2024

Methinks I have astronomy; it must be so:
Today the moon eclipsed the jovial sun
And through the clouds and rain a darkness ruled
But with my little car’s headlights I backed it down

Forswearing lenses I watched the world instead
The springtime greens darkening almost to grey
And boiling clouds darkening almost to black
And from the thunder rain wreaking rivulets

Methinks I have astronomy; it must be so:
I see beyond this darkness your eternal glow

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         A Lucky Dachshund’s Foot

Luna-Dog sat with a stick in her jaws
The sort of thing a little dachshund gnaws
(chewing everything is one of a puppy’s laws)
But a look in her eyes gave me some pause –

It wasn’t a stick; it was one of a bunny’s paws!

Yuck.

Time for church.

                                                      -The End-

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             But Who Else Could You Be?

                              Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 13

O that I were myself? Of course I am
Who else could I possibly want to be?
No one rocks a morning mirror like me
(and probably no one wants to do so)

My beloved mother said I was special
(I think that was a compliment – maybe?)
And you’re pretty nifty yourself, you know -
I like the cut of your metaphorical jib

And we are ourselves, of course we are -
Eccentrics together, following a star!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       I Do Not Count the Clock

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 12

I do not count the clock when I’m outside
I do not count the leaves, fallen and sere
I do not count the silver in your hair
Though I celebrate them all the same

(But not the clock; there is no love in clocks)

These golden days have beauties of their own
Their richness born from the promises of spring
The culminations of summer’s growing days
Crowned with silver by the first falling frost

I do not count the clock when I’m outside
I do not count the clock when I’m with you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                An Afternoon LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Walk
             Along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension

Dewberries LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sassafras seedlings LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Virginia creeper LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER pine cones LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crumbling oak leaves from last summer  LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER winds sighing in the pine tops LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a little plum tree LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Canada goldenrod LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER poplar LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER swamp oak LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER mourning doves LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER slanting evening sunlight LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Chickasaw plum LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER nightshade LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER red spider lilies LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a skink bluebonnets LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER clouds in the west LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER spiderwort LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a long eared rabbit loping across the road LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sorrel LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a feather from a bluebird LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER waving field grasses LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER the neighbor’s cows browsing in peace LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a crane flying up from a pond LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crows fussing at me from the woods LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER…

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                        ­  So Fast Thou Grow’st

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 11

                      I put something out there in the universe…

                      -Chris-in-the-Morning, Northern Exposure


You will make something beautiful in any event
Even if only a silly ceramic frog
Holding a perfectly pointless umbrella
Upon the tree-stump where you feed the birds

That silly ceramic frog will someday break
The stump will rot away into the earth
The birds will live through their generations
And you will be but whisperings in the wind

But you make life beautiful in any event:
It is a forever that you put into the universe

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        Fifteen Minutes at a Dead Man’s Desk

No one wants to clear his desk away
The computer still open but the screen dead black
A sheaf of files still needing his attention
Rainbows of Post-It notes around and up

His trusty old Radio Shack calculator
The client-filled, smoked-plastic Rolodex
The reading lamp still angled exactly right
Telephone calls that will never be returned

To-do lists that will never be fulfilled -
No one wants to clear his life away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Make Thee Another Self

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 10

             I thought I heard you saying it was a pity...I never had any
             children. But you're wrong. I have. Thousands of them.
             Thousands of them...and all boys.

                                -Mr. Chips in Goodbye, Mr. Chips

After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are fathers
Commanded by God to protect all children
Permitted by God to protect all children
Empowered by God to protect all children

After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are teachers
With fishin’ rod and book and whittlin’ knife
With garden and plow and fixing what needs to be fixed
With clean and manly speech, example, and work

All men have children, thousands of them, because
After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are fathers

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  Are We All Prisoners of War?

My great-grandfather was a tailor, they say
Stern of mien, impeccable in his dress
I have one picture of him, from 1912
White-bearded, thin, resting on the family porch

My great-grandfather was made a prisoner of war
At Sailor’s Creek, for he had found the wrong side
And the government found his children for other wars
The Aisne in 1918, Zwickau in 1945, the Vam Co Tay in 1970

There are few tailors now, but lots of soldiers -
Maybe we are all prisoners of war

Cf. Sailor’s Creek / Sayler’s Creek / Saylor’s Creek, 6 April 1865.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Second Star to the Right Past Solitude

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 9

Tears sometimes obtain in a widow’s eye
And sometimes contempt, or secret relief
But none of this is the fault of a single man
Whose basic purpose is to serve as a fourth

His love does not lead to family rows
And though his bed is couched in solitude
This solitude is a dreamy, pillowed peace:
Nocturnes from Chopin, a book beside a lamp

Tears may obtain in a widower’s eye
But a single man sleeps beneath that second star

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             The Eclipse – We Have Been Warned!

The world is coming to an end yet again
The InterGossip and Q have determined it’s so:
“It’s in th’ Bible!” she shouts, “It’s full of sin!
I’ve got my freeze-dried food; I’m ready to go!”

Twelve easy payments until the Apocalypse
(Just don’t invest in any green bananas)
“They’ll take us away in U.N. spaceships
Giants from the deep, up from Atlantis!”

The world is coming to an end yet again -
“Jesus warned us!” she yells as the nurse checks her in

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    One Pleasing Note Do Sing

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 8

V: Where is my shirt; I can’t find it anywhere!
R: Did you look in the closet? In the dryer?
V: Yes! And I put it in the washing machine yesterday!
R: You didn’t tell me! I didn’t wash clothes yesterday!

V: You always wash clothes on Saturday!
R: That’s a pattern, not an immutable rule!
V: You should have told me that you didn’t wash!
R: Am I my husband’s keeper? Have you not eyes?

V: Can we not with one pleasing note sing?
R: Can you not sing to the washing machine?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                For a Political Friend Who Politically Accused Me
            of Having My Apolitical Head in the Sand Politically


                     Our lives no longer feel ground under them

                           -Mandelstam, “The Stalin Epigram”


I have no illusions

I have no solutions

I have Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump

                    (And occasional basal cell carcinomas)

I can be silenced in fear

By their suicide sides

But I have a brain

                    (“…an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.”)

And so to them

I am dangerous

If I am noticed at all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            His Sacred Majesty

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 7

We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
Nor even truth, but rather each shiny new toy
Powered by batteries and our unhappy wants
Endlessly discharging our minds and souls

We are told that we mustn’t worship the sun
But rather the mechanical fabrications of our hands
Upon the orders of our Lilith-draped masters
To STEM the possibility of thought

We probably shouldn’t worship the sun
But we are still free to think highly of him

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Tha­nk God That’s Over

St. Therese of Lisieux is said to have said
After an especially long liturgy
“Thank God that’s over!”
And who am I to argue with a saint?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Make Worms Thy Heir

                                 Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 6

Let us speak of the utility of worms
There is much in them, including our ancestors
But without them we might not live at all
They enrich the earth, even with our earth

All children are our heirs; in them we live
They are God’s treasures, and we must treasure them
After the Order of Saint Joseph, and when we pass
Our children will say that God is passing by

Let us praise the nobility of worms
Reminding us that we are glorious dust

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Is There no Sulky Gas?

To the dentist this morning but woe and alas
Only a cleaning - no laughing gas!

Ha, ha, ha!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Time Will Play the Tyrant

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 5

Time need not play the tyrant; we have tyrants enough
But it is true that we must go away
When time and God say we have played our game
And must withdraw into another world

We sneak past time with our words and songs
Arcing over mortality with truth
Distilling each day into poetry
That lives long after our hearts and hands are stilled

Time need not play the tyrant, for tyrants only bluff
And their poor poisons with their masters die

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       The Ekonomia of Easter Sunday as Observed

Our blue-haired fire hazards block the aisle
And verily, yea, verily, the narthex too:

“These young women these days, they just don’t know
How to hide Easter eggs, in my day we had to hunt
And now they just make it all easy for these kids
We were up all night filling plastic eggs
And these young women, they just don’t help
And these kids, they just take the empty eggs away
Don’t they know how much things cost these days
You’d think they’d leave them for us to fill next year
But no, they just leave them all over the place
And we have to go around and pick them up
These young women these days, they somehow think
That things just happen and they don’t help at all
I can’t imagine why they don’t want to work with us
These young women these days…”

This was not true of the first Easter Sunday
But it was probably true of the second

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Unthrifty Loveliness

                               Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 4

I had told her how beautiful she was
(she knew that through the mirror, mirror on the wall)
For her bold eyes were upon herself
As she magicked with lipstick and mascara

I had hoped her blush was for me to gaze upon
Her hair, her perfect lips, her slender hips
Over candlelight at the Starlight Roof
Then the telephone, not nature, called her away

I had told her how beautiful she was
That sports-car guy, far handsomer than I
Had said so too

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 The Discount-Store Patriot and the Bible Salesman

Two greedy old men a-shakin’ their Jesus cup -
No, son, for that I ain’t a-standin’ up

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­    Look in Thy Glass

                                       Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3

I look into the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and an impish grin
But later they said I had to become a man

She had her April, and then so did I
And there are Aprils enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils, but they will do
Every April reflects our youth back to us

I look into the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Battle Stations Aboard the Bismarck

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

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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            A Tattered ****

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 2

Scene i: a lawn chair beneath a shady oak

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

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

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