Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            Follow the Science Down Rabbit Holes

Infections are up and deaths are ‘way down
Or is it that infections are down and deaths are up?
Schools must be closed and the restaurants open
Or schools must be open and restaurants closed

Vaccinations are available, except when they’re not
And are necessary for all, except when they’re not
And masks are necessary, except when they’re not
And Saint Blaise blessed us at some thirty feet 1

The captains and kings 2 and whitecoats falter

And the rest of us

Can only leave all at the foot of the Altar




1 Per the bishop’s order, throats were blessed at a distance in petition to Saint Blaise, with the priest adding, “And we can hope there is a blessing.”

2 Kipling, “Recessional”

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

Someone once burned down the White House!
Someone who was wearing a red blouse
The British claim it loudly
But others more proudly:
“We Canadians burned down the White House!”

In 1812 Congress declared war on Britain, thinking that the several provincial Canadas of that time (Canada did not become a Dominion until 1 July 1867) would be easily conquered and absorbed.   During the campaigns United States forces burned York (now Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, and in 1814 regular British forces in their turn burned much of Washington. Apparently there were no Canadian militia units involved in torching our capital. Canadians claim the honor anyway, and since they were part of the British Empire, one can with a grain of salt and a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee admit their claim.

God bless Canada.  Let’s drop the tariffs and the passport requirements, apologize nicely for ill manners shown to this nation’s best friend, shake hands all ‘round, and go catch a Toronto Blue Jays game.

We are the F.B.I.; we beat and yell and roar

But it’s okay –

We are not SMERSH pounding upon your door

Did Mitya escape to America?
He might have changed his name to Bob or Al
Married Myrtle in the Methodist Church -
Myrtle, nee’ Agrafena Alexandrovna –

And worked the candy counter at Woolworth’s
Riding the trolley downtown every day
While saving up for a new Model T
In obedience to his New World staretz

Horatio Alger hissing behind a tree:
Was Mitya sentenced to America?

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Hey, I Really am a Neanderthal!

The spit-into-a-cup DNA folks
Advise me that 742 strands
Of vintage Neanderthal DNA
Are roaming loose in the tunnels of my being

It’s good to be descended from a fine old family
Maybe that’s why my ideas drag the ground
As I lope along following the science
Live chicken tastes a lot like rattlesnake

Why don’t you join me for dinner with the neighbors?
Their brains will go well with hyena blood

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          Morning Coffee with Signor Bialetti

Wreckage is everywhere, two apple trees down
Limbs and leaves and litter, shingles and wood
The lawns are white with shoals of springtime hail
The lines are down and the power is out

But Signor Bialetti from Italy
A super-hero in aluminum
Is pleased to take his place on the camping stove
Twirl his moustache and stride through Sterno fire

Singing songs from his favorite libretti
While making us coffee – O brave Signor Bialetti!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Two Verses in the Eternal Hymn

                                          For Cate and Jack
                                            Christmas 2023

From the foot of the Throne

A river flows out into all that is
And with it your music across the universe
To sing the happy beginnings of all things
To celebrate the holiness of being

Past

Dragons and dreams, the Mysteries of Joy
Galaxies of stars, the Mysteries of Light
An abyss of pain, the Mysteries of Sorrow
Eternal dawn, the Mysteries of Glory

Your music spirals and spins among the spheres
Among the orbits and spheres and great mysteries
Great mysteries of beings and things never seen
Your voices join with the songs of Creation

Your music slips into our atmosphere
To sing and ring among the rocks and rills
Voices of love singing joy and truth
Your gifts of beauty to humanity

You and your sweet voices, rare gifts of love
From the Throne of God to us on earth
And back again, music as light as dreams
And deeper than thunder from Olympus

Old Vainamoinen sings at dawn with you
Euterpe, Terpsichore, and Erato are your kin
Apollo tunes his lyre to you, and Pan his pipes
And Cecelia blesses all your works:

Hymns, descants, and carols, merry marches for the road
Bubble-gum tunes for the car radio
Sea shanties for work, and nonsense rhymes for fun
You pray them, play them, craft them all into place

Your music is a sacred offering to God
You sing it out into the universe
Where every note is an ornament forever
And you are two verses in the eternal Hymn

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                  Slo­gging Through the Cantos

A feral howl of sustained malevolence
The souring stench of anti-Semitism
Random ideograms scattered about
Appropriating a touch of Chinese cool

Defining tainted chic at Rapallo
Free verse scattered like post-war hopes shattered -
And did he take a splash of Mussolini
With his death-in-the-afternoon denials?

How awkward for those whose poetic sage
Was but a mad relic of a tattered age

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                                           Died While Trying

                                  (prompted by an idea by Nagi)


                     “Every day you play with the light of the universe”

                                                 -Neruda

          
The glory of killing an old man already dying
Is heralded by the clinking of colorful medals
As a president is helped into his Mercedes
By white-gloved lieutenants wearing golden aiguilettes

The old man dying in his bed was a challenge to evil
Through the love-letters of freedom he wrote to the world
Ambassadors of hope that could not be recalled
Just as a subtle injection cannot be withdrawn

A flowering of ideas in verses freely exchanged
Crushed beneath boots polished by frightened houseboys

You Russian Poets

You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1

Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands

And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of Russian spring



1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     Talmud Portion for Today

In the Talmud portion for today we read
Of the priestly appointments for stacking wood
And of other liturgical usages
As preparation for the sacrifice

But some must read their portion for the day
By a battle lantern’s flickering light
Deep down in a bunker among the tombs
While rockets fall upon Jerusalem

Thus blood still splashes against the Temple walls
Thus blood still forms the letters of the text

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                          Activate Your Card Now! It’s Easy!

‘Enry ‘Iggins, Tiffany in Calcutta, and my Cousins Down the Road

     There even are places where English completely disappears -
     Why, in America they haven't used it for years!

                        -Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady

California and council flats, aye, there’s the nexus
Great Britain taught the world English right and proper
But in hearing my cousins from Caney Head, Texas
I conclude that the Empire has come a cropper!

Porching on a Saturday in October

But where are the little children? Well, here,
But they are tall, lanky teenagers now
With car keys and cutoffs and muscle shirts
Whispering, giggling, heavy-lifting

(Stop tormenting your sister!)

Dad wants the outdoor grill moved? Sure – watch this!
Pans and food from the kitchen to the grill
And back again? We’re well on top of it
Something from town? We’re on our way right now

(Stop hitting your brother!)

Children, like spring, must grow into summer
And their springs and summers are forever our joys

(And never stop loving each other.)

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      A Disembodied Hand Doomscrolling
                       on the Wall of Tia Maria’s Barbecue

                                       - not Daniel 5

Tiffany was treatin’ the girls to barbecue
The merry ol’ girls from her bowling league
(Dazzling team colors in pink and blue)
She had made herself captain through cruel intrigue

When suddenly a disembodied hand
Appeared with a smartphone by the restroom door
And keyed strange lines that in flickerings scanned:
“You’ll be sacked this evening - your team’s 0 to 4”

That very night Tiffany’s custom ball was taken
And she cried in her trailer, her heart a-breakin’

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      Another Christmas Behind the Wire

                   “I was in prison, and ye came unto me”

                                  -St. Matthew 25:36

The hallways of our dormitory echo
God’s holy silence on this Christmas Eve
The only light’s the Star of long ago;
It shines this night for us, whose hearts believe

For we are all now at the Manger met
Before the Altar of eternal Light
Such different personalities, and yet
We share our common faith on this rarest night

We bring our gifts to Mary’s fair-born Child:
A pen, a broom, a book, a welding rod,
A wrench, a mop, some papers neatly filed –
Our daily labors offered up to God

But silence now: offices, hallways, gym -
As silent as the streets of Bethlehem

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                  Who Betrayed Anne Frank?

A spokesman for the F.B.I.
Notes that Jewish hostages were taken
At a synagogue on Shabbos
And concludes that the attack

“Was not specifically related
To the Jewish community”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Hellopoetry.com­

                                                 A Dream About Birdcage Walk

In the perfection of an impossibility
I was tagging along behind Margaret Thatcher
And Saint Thomas More; they were speaking
Of great and transcendent ideas

I asked them if we could go to Victoria Station
And look at the trains

New Moon Over an Old Planet

A thin lunette, silver reflecting gold
Assumed into its dance among the stars -
It was, it is; it will forever repose
Within the shining monstrance of creation

Some will adore, some will deny, but still
The sun, the moon, and the stars obey, and move -
Truth is not dependent upon perception
Or upon lies loudspeakered into our cells

The bearer, even if unseen, is forever -
A thin lunette, silver reflecting gold

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                 Springtime’s Laughing Rhymes

A Merry Little Breeze, an allergen sneeze
Happy little children among the bees

The always fresh challenge to rhyme with moon
Perhaps noon? Spoon? Croon? Loon? Swoon? Bare feet?

Bare feet?

Bare feet! How neat! A grassy-tickly treat!

And Mama calls out, “Now where are your shoes?”

“Oh, we left them in church on the back-row pews!”

“Just wait ‘til I tell your father that news!”

(Giggling)

“And where are your socks?”
“Inside with the clocks!”

“That makes no sense!”
“Gimme three pence!”

A Merry Little Breeze, an allergen sneeze
And beneath the trees a little world at ease




[Merry Little Breezes – cf. Thornton W. Burgess’ Mother West Wind stories]

politics, hostilities, anger, or sexuality, and yet HP says "There Was an Error," over and over.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     And Whose Fault is That?

          Then said Jesus unto the twelve, “Will you also go away?”

          Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we
          go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Catholics are much disapproved of these days
And whose fault is that?
Catholics even disapprove of each other
And whose fault is that?

Lawsuits and lockouts and altars abandoned
And whose fault is that?
The ‘net all clogged with angry Catholic sites
And whose fault is that?

Well, yeah, mine too

We are perfectly free to go away
But we won’t – because He asks us to stay

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      Snow Clouds for Children on a January Dawn

There could be snow later, and that would be nice
Children can grow up here and never see snow
Today they might go out and play in it
While we old folks tut-tut, “You’ll catch your death…”

But they are asleep, the snow is asleep
Only the rain is awake, drip, drip, drip
Making last summer’s leaves speak one last time
As they crumble into their winter sleep

There could be snow later, and that would be nice
For the children: a happy new year twice

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

The Lone Ranger Masks Again

When I was a boy I wore my Lone Ranger mask
I even wore my Lone Ranger mask to school
Where mean ol’ Miz Griggs made me take it off
But now I may (as opposed to “can”) wear my mask

Indeed, I must wear a mask, and so, ha!
Ya can’t make me take it off now, Miz Griggs!
I can wear my Lone Ranger mask, so boo-hoo!
Me and the Lone Ranger, we ride again!

Only…the problem is…I’m not in school

Rats

As published in Fellowship and Fairydust:


https://fellowshipandfairydust.com/2022/09/11/word-sung-as-light/

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          A Komboskini for Christmas

For Christmas I gave my friend a komboskini
The seller said it was made on Mount Athos
Though I in my modern cynicism suggested Shanghai
But I might have been wrong

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                    Penguin-Random House Sends me a Survey
                    and Then Rules Me Unqualified to Respond

Survey Completed - Thank You / We're sorry.
You do not meet the qualifications
for this survey. We sincerely thank you
and appreciate your time and participation

You will be redirected in 3 seconds;
please click here to continue now.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                        Happy to be Bourgeoisie

All cozy in my clichéd’ atmosphere
With a hammock beneath a backyard tree
And my riding lawnmower and a can of beer:
I am happy to be bourgeoisie, you see

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       He Just Walked in Front of the Train

He just walked in front of the train, they say
Off in the woods, the lonely woods, the night
The rails as screaming horror in his wild death
Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

He just walked in front of the train, they say
The black-box cameras will show something of it
But not the emptiness that chased him there
Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

He just walked in front of the train, they say
Blue jeans, yellow shirt, no identification

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                On the Day Papa Benedict Died

This day a year ago Papa Benedict died
I heard it in a post-anaesthetic mist
Was there a TV in ICU? A radio?
Did someone say it? I don’t remember now

I knew only that Papa Benedict had died
That I was alive, and didn’t know why
Little toy cowboys rode across my mind
But in my lungs the air was sweet and cold

Papa Benedict had something to do with it
And Saint Elizabeth of Thuringen

And I am thankful

Does this machine **** Fascists?  Probably not
Unless it bores them to a yawning death
Through soporific clichés crudely imposed
Upon a few poor, battered chords that twang
Like the barbed wire of an Arctic gulag
Where happy comrades
          Shiver in the snow
          Wither in the wind
          Starve on slops
          Burn with typhus
          Rot in the tundra
As they build the future upon mass graves
While the anti-Fascist cashes his checks

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

               Upon Reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita

Margarita flying naked over Moscow
She might have caught a cold doing that, you know

A big ol’ cat shooting a Browning Hi-Power
He was certainly amusing for an hour

The Secret Police were like the Keystone Kops
Not to be trusted even with traffic stops

And Pontius Pilate ordering a death
Almost with every other tortured breath

There were two burnings of the Master’s book
But yet at the end someone gave it look

The Master’s book…hmmmm…

I have finished this book; I thoughtfully read it
And I must confess that I just don’t get it

Exit the Hurricane - not the catchiest title, eh?



What is that silence? It is the not-rain
The first not-rain since Friday this past week
Every loud frog gloats in unseemly song
The old, sour water recedes from the door

The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of clothes unwashed because the drains are dammed
Of smelly shoes and even smellier socks
Of refugee gear flung casually about

The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of too many people – and isn’t it wonderful!

No father
Could have been a better father
Than you
When duty called
You were there
And will be forever

You're the best

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                        When Caesurae Go Bad

The dramatic pause-dash that - holds its breath
Is meant to create a – sense of tension
For dramatic effect; that’s what they - say
John Wayne uses the - caesura a lot

But since neither writers – nor editors – know
How to employ the worthy – caesura
They just - shoehorn it in any old place
Dramatic effect even in a - recipe

Stop using those dashes for pointless pauses
And save them for really important - causes

A Soldier Smoking a Cigarette

A soldier lay beside a railway line
Smoking a cigarette, not thinking of much
Among some hundreds of other conscript lads
Upon a grassy glacis above the fields

The boxcars waited in the stilly heat
The soldiers waited like young summer wheat
Occasionally stirred about by winds unseen
And finally stirred about by orders unheard

They rippled aboard, and were taken away:
Beside a railway line a shadow lay

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                 Who Now Will Read Paradise Lost With Us?

                        In Memory of Robert Fluornoy Conn
                          Attorney, scholar, eccentric, friend


                     With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
                     Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
                     Sing heavenly muse…

                                         Paradise Lost I.4-6


A Methodist, a Catholic, and an Anglican
Did not walk into a bar – they brought their own Scotch

“I don’t do funerals anymore”
He said to me a few weeks ago
Creaky and old in the late winter cold -
He can’t get out of this one today

We read Milton together when we were young
A year of Thursday nights with whisky and pipes
In Tod’s old office away from some women
Who disapproved of tobacco, books, and thought

Now far along Bilbo’s road they both have gone
And we are left in company with good stout friends

But still somehow

Alone

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


People are Dying by the Thousands – Let’s All Go Buy Slogan Tees

                                       XL, L, M, S, and Petite
                      Guaranteed Ethically-Sourced Materials

                    Domestic carnage now filled all the year
                    With Feast-days; the old Man from the chimney nook,
                    The Maiden from the ***** of her Love,
                    The Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,
                    The Warrior from the Field – all perish’d, all

       -Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1805-1806, Book X, 356-360

We busy ourselves in our accustomed ways:
Dishes to wash, the still-green lawn to be mowed
The vacuum cleaner to annoy the household pup
A book, a chair, a reverie, a glass of tea

But then

The evening news is a call to our conscience
With offerings in two senses only
Tastefully muted sounds and filtered visuals
Across a couch with a motorized recline mode

Dead bodies fuzzed out on the evening news
And peace-loving intellectuals chanting
                                                       “Gas the Jews!”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     Saint Joseph and Ice Cream

             “I thought I heard you saying it was a pity…I never had any
              children…But I have, you know…Thousands of ’em …
              thousands of ’em…”

                                      -Goodbye, Mr. Chips

                           In memory of a happy summer morning
                           with Abbie and Alexander in Ottawa

Every man is a father after the Order of Saint Joseph
Every child is his to nurture and protect
A man must practice wisdom and honor
In order to pass them on to a new generation

And there is something to be said for ice cream -
I was entrusted with two little children
For a walkabout around Parliament Hill
“And give them nutritious snacks,” their mother enjoined

Most strictly enjoined

I asked myself what good Saint Joseph would do -
Surely he would buy them an ice cream each

And it was so
And now you know

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          The Baptism of Valaria Elizabeth

At the Altar
The young couple presented their first-born
Valaria Elizabeth, wrapped in a silvery gown
A happy child at play in the holy Jordan

At the Altar
Valaria Elizabeth, delightful in herself
Was glorious in white with many colors trimmed
And skillful stitchings as befit a queen

At the Altar
Someone asked Valaria’s dear mother
Did you craft this gown with love and thread?

“No, I bought it just yesterday,” she sweetly said

                        Welcome with love, Valaria Elizabeth!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        The O Antiphons, the Star, and Us

Solstice is not a time when the sun stands still
But rather a season when the sun stands aside
That we may better know the mysteries of deep night
In darkness just before deep Light returns

Out in the cold, and warmly wrapped in hope
We pray the O antiphons as we scan the sky
For the prophetic Star we long to see
The Star that guides us in our wanderings

Solstice is that season when the sun stands aside
So that eternal Dawn may then abide

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             The Fairies Themselves Now Dance Sweet Summer In

                         My work is loving the world.
                         Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird

                                      -Mary Oliver, “Messenger”

Everything is sacramental this week:

The Strawberry Moon in the fullness of being
Midsummer magic by day and by night
The English quarter day, the Feast of St. John
And holy bonfires in honor of light

Good honeybees take Communion at every flower
Soft breezes sing hymns among the ripening corn
The woods and fields are baptized in happiness
The sun and moon bless maidens and swains

We need no clocks or calendars to tell us when –
The fairies themselves now dance sweet summer in

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

A repost from March, 2018


                     Yes, Yes, But They Need Jobs in the Real World


                   “Forward Electronics, your victory’s achieved!
                    In all communication, progress is our creed!
                    Ignorance is darkness, technology is light!
                    Radio, our watchword; radio, our might!”

          -Komsomol youth singing in “For the Good of the Cause,”
           Solzhenitsyn, 1963


The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible

The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed

But do you wonder, at night, beneath your lamp -
Why are you building a concentration camp?

The President Tweeted his Outrage

The tweeter of the free world tweets:
Speak loudly and carry a big tweet
54-40 or tweet
We have nothing to tweet but tweet itself

The twitteral of democracy
Ask not what your tweetry can do for you
We must dare to be tweet
The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the
        tweet

Government of the tweet, by the tweet, for the tweet
I know in my heart that man is tweet

                                  But now the tweet stops here

Did the Russians Hide Nukes in Your Sock Drawer?

The western sky is blue; the east is red
But try to put it right out of your head
If you find a Russian under your bed
Concealing a nuke that will **** you dead

The Intergossip surely must be right
So hit the keyboard now, and share the fright
On Social-Medium-Range all through the night
And type it really fast before…that LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ding-****, the east is red, the west is blue
And rumours drift about, flake news, untrue

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
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  For Training Purposes this Life May be Monitored

An examination of conscience is good
Thinking about things at the end of each day
Hail Marys mixed in with exasperation
Rough words that should never have been spoken

Reading casual cruelties on the InterGossip
Whatever God’s plan might be, that wasn’t it
Gratitude for work, gratitude for meals
Gratitude for peace at the end of the day

And as for the occasional bitter cup
Your Mother taught you right: offer it up

Since Mickey’s hands are now at two ‘til twelve
Let’s pour our poor doomed selves another glass
We’ll have only our ashes then to shelve
When that great big explosion comes to pass

And as that big bang bangs I’ll kiss my kvass
Goodbye. My watch needs charging anyway
The Gotterdammerung should give it some gas
To tell the time on that Wagnerian new day

Oh! Mickey’s hands are now at that midnight -
Farewell, dear friends; it’s been a wild delight!



(What? Are you still here…?)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    Torah is Written with Flame

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

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

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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                             Decaying Orbits

Wild vultures swirl in distant elegance
Circling gracefully in the high, cold blue
Wings beating the downdrafts into place and space
Then orbiting down, a narrowing decay

And landing lumpishly upon the dead
Their distant grace was but foul deceit
Up close they know only ***** and filth
Their orbits have decayed into decay

Perhaps at a distance we seem beautiful
But would we want to know ourselves up close?