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

               Whatever Happened to all our Little Notebooks?

We all saw the same old bumper sticker:
This is not a rehearsal; this is your life
And so we carried little notebooks around
Discreetly jotting down the overheards

In coffee shops and class, the mid-night shift
The bus to work, the elevator up
The escalator down, the line at the bank
For the poems or plays or novels we’d write

The cafeteria was a notebook itself
Between the salad and dessert we fell in love

You send the pups outside to play
This so-soft, sunny summer day

The yard is big and safely fenced
A paradise nicely condensed

And there the dogs have cats to chase
Bugs to eat, each other to race

Soft rubber toys to squeak and chew
Bowls of water and dog-food stew

And naps to take beneath oak trees
Tummies up in the soft, soft breeze

And yet –

As soon as you have let them out
Then all they seem to do is pout

Unhappy with their vast estate
They glare at you and seem to hate

They hate the cats, they hate their toys
You have denied them all their joys

They bark and scratch at all the doors
They’re kinda cute – like sophomores

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

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

               A Polite Response to an Invitation to a Crawfish Boil

Aquatic roaches
Foul, malodorous decay
Exoskeletons

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          Twenty-Four Casualties, But, Hey, There Wasn’t a Nexus

                           We’re gonna need a bigger dictionary

The police chief says there was no nexus with terrorism
“Nexus” – a buzzy word, a useless euphemism
If you say “nexus” then everything’s okay
Children killing children – it’s the American way

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

     An LGBTRDCST Deconstruction of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy

Blue Boy must be examined through the lens
Of neo-post-colonial queer theory
And LGBT hegemonism
Inverted as bourgeois sentimentalism

It subverts the trope of trans-feminism
As a patriarchal gesture of scorn
Plasticized in pale iridescent blue
And transgressive in its imposture

Or maybe it’s some kid bribed with a shilling
To pose for this picture, however unwilling

Maps help us navigate the land
Charts help us navigate the sea
All of them, when drawn out by hand
Are works of art, as you well see

The fresh death notices a reader eyed
“Who was this woman, who recently died?”
“My ex,” he replied, not breaking his stride
With bacon and eggs, and toast on the side

Memorial Day observed on a Saturday
Y’all bring y’all’s folding chairs to the memorial
A wall of names next to the pumping station
Donations accepted (but not audited)

An’ Lord we just wanna thank you for these men
Who were willing to sacrifice their all
On the beaches of Normandy and stuff
And bless our brave, God-fearing president

I’ll wear my made-in-China U.S. tie
There’ll be fire-trucks. That’ll be something, I guess


And hey man thank you for your service I guess you seen some action huh my grandpa was in World War II so I like know all about it and you weren’t in a real war that’s what my uncle said and he oughta know ‘cause he don’t like to talk about it you know like them real veterans got this thousand yard state like I’ve got this *** Nambu I found at a garage sale like you’d really like it you need to come out some time and we’ll like bust a few caps and like stuff Trump’s sure gonna show them A-rabs, like, you know MAGA like in this movie I seen one time…

Chris’s Little Shop of Sonnets

O sing of gasoline, **** oil, and grease,
And chemicals too, incorrectly stored,
And may these toxic wonders ever increase
In service to Harley, Chevy, and Ford

O sing of tools, milled from wood, steel, and brass,
Aluminum, copper, even bits of string,
For forming function, volume, shape, and mass
In cylinder, piston, rocker, and ring.

O sing, old radio, those Beale Street Blues
In tune with that engine, and make it smoke,
Shake that rusty icebox all full of brews,
In Chris’s cave of motorized Baroque.

Sonnets and workshops are messy (it seems)
because
Iambs and wrenches build truth out of dreams

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

                                I Don’t Know How Life Can Go On

Life can be an impossible hurdle
Just now I want to hide and turn turtle
My breakfast within me has begun to curdle
Because for the first time I lost the Wordle!

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

                  He was Hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street

               The madman shouted in the market place. No one
               stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his
                thesis was incontrovertible.

                  -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, 12.22.57

He was hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street
At the Corner of Life and Death, ‘way gone
Where there was a grocery store when we was kids
Next to a soda fountain with pinball machines

He was hollerin’ – sinners can’t hear, I guess
And beatin’ on his Bible and dancin’ about
Like a man with a devil in his soul
And that ol’ devil was wearin’ him down

He was hollerin’ among the ruins, a shame
When he looked at me
                    and hollered my name

How Lovely Not to be in Jail Tonight

How lovely not to be in jail tonight
And have to share a small and smelly space
Under an eternal fluorescent light
With a dude who don’t like yer race or yer face

How grand to have a bed that’s enough
With sheets and pillows and blankets all clean
And not a bare mattress sour-stained and rough
Against a wall of cinder blocks in green

And howlings from a soul who has lost life’s fight -
How thankful not to be in jail tonight

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

                     “Lawrence’s Apple Watch is Fully Charged”

Oh, sure, the MePhone is pleased to say that now
But long before the day spins down the watch
Percentages add up to little and so
I must find the magnetic sticky thing

The charger and the watch embrace with passion
You can almost see the electricity
That sparks their one-ness and their holy bond
Leaving my wrist empty and timeless for a time

“Lawrence’s Apple Watch is fully charged”
But reluctant to leave its charger for long

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

                               The Curse of Windows 11

                          Vista®© Risen from the Grave?

Tonight I installed Windows 11
Which scattered my folders and apps to H///
I quickly recovered Windows 10 (not much rhymes with eleven)
Which, as we know, works perfectly well

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

                              Stay Close to the Telephone

“Stay close to the telephone,” they used to say
Stay close to that Western Electric on the desk or wall
Since news of great importance might come your way
A message from the shop or some emergency call

“Stay close to the telephone” – you couldn’t go out
Without breaking contact in an hour of need
You could only wait in place in fear and doubt
For an order at last to move with speed

“Stay close to the telephone?” It had no reach
But a modern ‘phone drains you like a ****** leech

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

                         Are We Looking Through Sauron’s Eye?

Through our glowing palantiri we watch
Dark images, shadowy and flickering
Ghostly men gathered around machines –
Are we looking through Sauron’s eye?

A silent flash, and structure disappears
Enveloped in blackness and liquid flame
Arcing bits of metal and bits of men -
Are we looking through Sauron’s eye?

Are we looking through Sauron’s eye?
And is that eye now turned on us?

The revolution is a stinking corpse
And spreading Walter Duranty all over a corpse
While chanting “It’s alive!” won’t make it so
Because a revolution is only death

Artists are never revolutionaries
Because artists work up the good and true
From the foundation of Creation
While revolutionaries obey diktats

Rearranging a corpse is never art
And revolution is always a corpse

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

                                     ­        Shouting Out Disease

                                     “I want no more thinking!”

                                     -Henry II to his barons in Becket

Soap for washing hands is not Republican
Eyeglasses never claim to be Democrat
Toothbrushes cannot be Communist plots
Antibiotics are not **** schemes

A pressure bandage has no Socialist leanings
Shampoo is not an expression of Fascism
Antihistamines never speak of the Falange
And nose drops never sing “The East is Red”

But when the topic of the Covid comes up
The flags are unfurled and the chanting begins

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

                   If This Were Kabul We’d Call It Nation Building

           At Least 6 Killed, 56 Wounded In Chicago Labor Day
                                    Weekend Gun Violence

                                            -CBS 2 Chicago

Maybe one of the civilized nations
Will send us aid: food packages, nylons
Chocolate for the children, used clothing
Cigarettes for the old men, can openers

Maybe one of the civilized nations
Will send their young soldiers to guard our streets
And missionaries to teach us the Bible
And volunteer nurses to teach us hygiene

Maybe one of the civilized nations
Will pity us, and make us a protectorate


(From a reminder by Anthony Germain)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              The Heirs of the Heirs of Stalin


                   But how remove Stalin’s heirs from Stalin!

                          -Yevtushenko, “The Heirs of Stalin”


The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Fat boys fly Come and Take It flags on their cheeseburgers
Their double cheeseburgers with fat fistfuls of freedom fries
John Wayne-ing lines from Fort Apache and The Green Berets
Taking their orders from QAnon and Fox

The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Beefcake their *** toys in 5.56
They love the man who threatens their lives and wives
They kneel and grovel to him; they would ****** for him
Moulder in prison for him – and he would never notice them

The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Whoop that their Leader is anointed of Jesus, that he saves
(His limousine will rumble over their poor graves)

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

                                         Short Flippy Skirts


                       Yes, autumn is really the best of seasons…

                                -Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis


Given my age I should not be given to notice
Short flippy skirts and Bambi-deer long legs
That flutter by like summer butterflies
Joyful in the innocence of youth

Then sighs, custody of the eyes, look up
Look back to our summers long ago
When we were the coolest of the cool
Bell-bottoms against the Establishment

Ever-young and maxing out Peter Max
We owned beauty and truth (and those are the facts!)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Schrodinger’s Lover

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 48

I have always kept things carefully hidden
Especially the secrets of my heart
But a lover cannot be secreted away
Nor would anyone want this to be so

And because you are no one’s possession
You cannot be kept from the gaze of the world
Locked away in a metaphorical box
Because of anyone’s inappropriate fears

I have always kept things carefully hidden
But you, brave happy spirit, will not be bidden

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

          18 October 2023 - When Missiles Fall Upon Our Vanities

When missiles fall upon our vanities
And children die among our smoking ruins
Will we dare plead our weak excuses to God:
“This isn’t what we meant…”

Before the Mass I went to light for you
A Penny Candle (it’s a ****** now)
And with it send a prayer up through the air
Throughout the liturgy, throughout the night

But, oh, how sad that it could not be so
For all the little paper matches were damp
And all I have to offer you today
Are heaps of cardboard strips in a little tray

But even so: within my heart, you know
There is for you forever a votive glow



(****** - a Canadian dollar, but of course one needn’t put in a coin at all)

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

                            A Catechism of Brokenness

The celebrant breaks the Body in two
The Body is broken
The celebrant is broken
The communicant is broken

Only the Word is whole: “This is My Body…”

The celebrant breaks the Body in two
That it may be shared
Broken again
And shared further along

Only the Word is whole: “This is My Body…”

The Celebrant breaks the Body in two
That in the sequenced brokenness
In all the little broken Pieces
One-ness may come

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

                  The Culture Wars We’ve Been Hearing About

Corporal Keats flung himself into the trench
“It’s no good,” he gasped, lighting a cigarette
“The Free Versifiers have ta’en our outposts
We spiked our sonnets but our blank verse is lost”

“And there’s an end on’t,” cried Corporal Johnson
“You will hear thunder,” sighed Corporal Ahkmatova
“Maybe we took the wrong road,” said Corporal Frost
“Where is Yevtushenko?” asked Corporal Tsvetaeva

“Back in Moscow, awarding himself the George Cross
And promoting himself to field marshal”

25 May 2021
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                     That ****** Covert Covid Microchip

My vaccination card is all complete
Two jabs for the immunity herd, so I’ve heard
And don’t believe that stuff about the chip
The microchip ratting us to the F.B.I.

No, not the F.B.I., nor the C.I.A.
Nor the jolly folk at the N.S.A. -
My microchip speaks to me in Russian
And I don’t understand Russian, so it’s okay

Thus not a careless word will ever pass my lip
About my ****** covert covid microchip

To make the worship of a state the source
Of all the aspirations of a man
Of all his duties and of all his arts
Is not to be a man or artist at all

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

                        Death Takes a Holiday in Cancun

In warm and sunny Cancun today
The senator’s children play on the beach
In frozen and powerless Texas today
The children of the poor die in the cold

In frozen and powerless Texas today
The senator’s staff all coven together
To tack together excuses and visuals
The children of the poor die in the cold

Today the senator’s words are loud and bold
And still
The children of the poor die in the cold

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
And if you wake exiled from Eden again
From a moment of exquisite happiness  
Your dream was wonderfully, happily true

There are only two dreams: freedom and love
Any other topic is not a dream
But only the clamorings of others
Demanding always a piece of your soul

There are only two dreams: freedom and love -
Tears mean only that you must wait awhile

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Keyboard Combatants

                     “H* hath no fury like a non-combatant”

                -anonymous; dates as early as the American Civil War

Pitching war metaphors toward a people
Who don’t understand metaphors or war
Does not promote prudent self-government
Or peace
                 Only bullhorns and misspelt signs

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

       (Written several days before the events of 24-25 March 2025)

                                The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer


                                        A weak imitation of

                                         Osip Mandelstam

                      Of whom let us pray, “Memory eternal”


Our lives no longer sense truth around them
In our ewails we are afraid of each other’s words

But whenever there’s an eye-rolled whisper
It’s about the brass-elevator mountaineer

The ten tiny worms of his fingers
His words like mountains of loot

The waving tendrils atop his head
The glitter of his shiny Tesla

Wheels stained with a **** of groveling bosses
He toys with the tributes of his house pets:

One clenches his fisties
Another salutes
A third pledges eternal loyalty

He pokes out his fingers and grabs ‘em by their _

He magic-markers mass deportations:
Three hundred or more for El Salvador
A hundred or so for Guantanamo
Uncounted hundreds to disappear
From routine check-ins here

“Your search has returned zero (0) matching records”

He rolls the possibilities of _ ___ on his tongue like diet sodas
He wishes he could deport his former best friends forever

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

                      So was I Born to Wear a Slogan Tee?

So was I born to wear a slogan tee
Or an influencer’s autographed g-strings?
Is this why the Lord God created me -
To be a follower, a buyer of things?

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

                                       Three Cigarette Lighters


                        And in what landscape of disaster
                        Has your unhappy spirit lost its road?

                        -Thomas Merton, “For my Brother”


I was strolling along for my digestion and health
Inspecting the refreshing October winds
Counting the summer-tired leaves floating to earth
And noting the brightness of autumn’s yellow flowers

Off in the weeds a cigarette lighter presented itself
It didn’t work. A second cigarette lighter did
A useful souvenir of my evening walk
And then a third – three cheap lighters, all in a row

A ******* trail of disposable dreams
Disposable lighters, disposable lives

Your Hair is Like a Flock of Goats
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                              Your Hair is Like a Flock of Goats

                              (Y)our hair is like a flock of goats
                              Frisking down the slopes of Gilead

                                           -Song of Songs, 4:5-6

Even in a farming community
That awkward compliment you’d better keep
So ask her this joke (if she grants you immunity):
Do goats have mohair than sheep?




(“Do goats have mohair than sheep?” is an old, old, old joke.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Beowulf Visits the Dentist

Arise from the nitrous oxide

From the somnolence, dreams, and pain

With forge-hammered teeth

And then go out

Go out and bite something

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

                  Send Not to Ask for What the Vulture Seeks

                                                  or

                         Try not to Look Like a Dead Cow

Coragyps atratus, with wings spread wide
In narrowing circles menacingly
Soars in malignance above the countryside
I think it seeks…I think it seeks…for me!

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

                                Waiting for the Surgery ‘Phone Call

Waiting for that call
Like waiting for my draft notice
All those years ago

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

                            Th  Positiv  Capability of th  L tt r “ ”

Littl  can b  writt n without an “ ”
That sur  foundation of s nt nc s and lin s
Th  most us ful vow l you  v r did s  
Th most b autiful j w l our languag  min s

L t us imagin  what a v rbal gap
A loss of this  xc ll nt l tt r would m an
Most consonants would fall into a trap
If th  b autiful “ ” w r  l ft uns  n

This little  xp rim nt will h lp us s  :
Littl  can b  writt n without an “ ”

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

                               You’ve Read Your Last Free Article

Yes, I have.

(Click. Delete.)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Quatrain on the Topic of Public Executions

On a wide-screen TV made in China
Americans scream for the deaths of Jews
And public executions for people they don’t like
Alabama kills humans with poison gas

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      A Connoisseur of Clinic Waiting Rooms

I could regale you with tales of puppy dogs
Painted with matching little argyll vests
And Kodachrome sunsets snapped long ago
Darkness and dust settling on a fading lake

I could detail for you leatherette chairs
In rows beneath the television on the wall
Facing old women shrieking in HD
And years-old magazines that no one reads

A door opens to a whiff of germicide
My name is called – and there’s no place to hide!

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

Not worth a d**n
In Viet-Nam -
Fire once and jam

But now

They’ve fixed that mother
It’s like no other -
Go shoot your brother

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                           ­  Bar-and-Chain Oil


                                      “Here, sir, The People govern.”

                                    -attributed to Alexander Hamilton


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

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

Look down upon their lesser-than-equal equals
And suddenly remember
“I forgot to buy some bar-and-chain oil!”

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       To Accept Israel

                    “Israel was not created in order to disappear - Israel will
                    endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home
                    of the brave. It carries the shield of democracy and it
                    honors the sword of freedom.”

                               – President John F. Kennedy)

To deny Israel is to curse ourselves
For we are inheritors of the Covenant
That He should be our God, and we His people
He creates us, He calls us – this is so

He has given us prophecy and law
Cattle in the fields, fish in all the seas
And lovers, flowers, sunsets, songs, salvation
The Great Dance of Creation - and Himself

Let not the sinister whisperer divide us!
To accept Israel is to accept - everyone

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

                                     The Morning of the Funeral

Mostly waiting. Coat and tie, Sunday shoes
Quiet conversation. How was your breakfast
Who’s driving the cousins to the airport later
Do the animals have water and food

He’s in a better place now. Have you got the readings
Sunlight slanting to the floor where the puppies sleep
Who’s going to unlock the church for the flowers
Who wants a breath mint. Are we ready to go

I’m glad we’re having a Mass. Fr. Ron is so good
Mostly waiting. Coat and tie, Sunday shoes

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

                         Preparing a Wordle for the Third World War

I would have said that the Cold War was the Third
Viet-Nam was hot enough for me
But the old men rattling their dentures in anger
Assure us that this new war is the one

Today I withdrew some cash from the bank
Topped off the gas tanks and the lawnmower cans
Bought water, toilet paper, and batteries
And propped my walking stick beside my bed

My daughter says that tomorrow we start WORDLE
With “PEACE” - her warfare is the best of all