Avant-garde post-modernism ego
Futurism symbolism acme
Ism constructivism cosmopol
Itanism formalism neo

Formalism futurism imag
Inism proletarian real
Ism absurdism maximalism

Socialist realism, nothingism -
Poetic beauty, in spite of the Isms

News on the Internet

***, it’s the age of hyperbole!
Legendary icons dropping their jaws!!
Aliens in spaceships watching humans flee
A purple polar bear flapping twelve paws!!!

Blockbuster! Stunning!! Your life will be changed!!!
Putin really is that albino monk!!!!
And did you hear that the Pope is deranged!?!?!?!?!?
He keeps in the Vatican a sacred skunk!!!!!!!

Tectonic plates are shifting; France is gone!
Heart-stopping, eye-popping, cow-flopping news!!
****** called it in on his new smart ‘phone!!!
It’s all the fault of the Catholics and Jews!!!!

Mass graves in Texas, Ireland, and The Hague!
Looky here, see, here’s some pictures an’ stuff!!
Okay, the sources are a little vague
But we want to believe, and that’s enough!!!

The First Mowing in Spring – Inspection Tour

Interior Dialogue

or

Why is That Old Man Talking to Himself?

V: Have I left that shovel outside since fall?
R: Your ol’ daddy would say something about that!
V: I could have sworn I put that hose away.
R: Obviously, you didn’t.  And what a mess.

V: Pretty little ground flowers – shame to mow them
R: Shame if you don’t – later, they’ll choke the grass
V: Where is the copper cap for that corner post?
R: I told you to use lots more glue, but nooooo

V: You got anything good to say this morning?
R: Well, ain’t it grand to see another spring!

On the Vigil of the Nativity

In a Capuchin friary, on a wall
In faded letters from the long ago
A simple sign asks the casual visitor

                      “Why Are You Here?”

And that’s a fair question; it always is
If I am in one place, I am not in another;
Unless someone has forced me otherwise
I have made a choice to be where I am

So why do I kneel here (and half asleep)
In a Stable, among cattle and sheep?

The dachshund loves her kiddie pool
The honeybees love theirs
The dachshund splashes to get cool
The bees mind their affairs

Marlowe!  Dark and dangerous Kit Marlowe
Whose hooded eyes, like a subtle serpent’s, held
In mysterious charms Hero, and too
Leander, perhaps, in the ways of night

And in the councils of foul Walsingham
Where innocence and guilt knew not each other
Through sly reptilian tangles of false oaths
Among the pale queen’s writhing coils of shame

Beneath which altar, then, or perhaps none
Was the famous reckoning paid, and done?

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

                            Mysteriou­s Jellyfish Gathering

                        “Honey, did you pack the seascreen?”

That jellyfish gathering is no mystery
Like everyone they want to go to the beach
To play in the water, soak up some rays
Picnic, show off, buy some souvenir mugs

They caution each other about the humans
How bipeds are toxic to the slightest touch
They gaze deeply at the sand beyond the surf
And talk about the mysteries of the air

They brush the sand out of the children’s tentacles
At sunset, before packing up and going home

Mysterious jellyfish gathering grows in Rhode Island ponds | Centre Daily Times

“I consecrate you to a great novitiate in the world.”

-Father Zosima to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov

The monastery gate opens easily
If it really needs opening at all
The road outside also leads somewhere else
But then it just as often leads back again

The distance measured by a crucifix
Where a weary traveler can pray awhile
Or maybe Harry Bailey’s 1 hamburger joint
A cup of coffee and a cigarette

Offered by a pilgrim in the neon night -
The monastery gate opens easily



1 *The Canterbury Tales

We are against the death penalty, and so
Of thoughtful caritas one recommends
Life sentences with no chance for parole
(And endless-loop re-runs of Lost in Space)

For

1. The manufacturers of this new computer
2. The famous software company who couldn’t
         Program their ///es out of a pay toilet
3. And the electronics chain who replies
        To emails with “Dear Valued Customer”

And vaporous words which say nothing at all

And now may Olivetti Underwood
Have mercy upon their polluted souls

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

                        Does Cambridge Have a Comma Too?

Oh, Oxford Comma, let all hail to thee
You sorter-out of tidy sequencings
Who suffer not confusion in categories
And marshal your strong words in battle lines

Oh, Cambridge, poor Cambridge, you have not
A comma of your own; your sequencings
Were lost among the fens in Hereward’s days -
You might want to go a-fishing for them

Oh, sure, Cambridge,

You have your arts and poetry and drama
But only Oxford boasts her very own comma

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

                        “Now This Ain’t No S---”

The old chief took a slug of coffee and said,
“What’s the difference between a fairy story
And a war story?
One of ‘em begins with ‘Once upon a time’
And the other with ‘Now this ain’t no s----'"

And it is so.

Two snakes in battle on a summer day
Writhing and twisting on a sandy road
Grappling desperately like taxing authorities
Fighting over a poor worker’s paycheck

Or like fierce coffee-break theologians
In anger ripping a scripture apart
Each clutching a ****** fragment to himself
But careful not to upset the 501C

And in the end, one snake swallows the other
Keeping him closer than a beloved brother

Two wideawake birds bumped into each other
On the distant island of Ascension
Said one to the other, “Excuse me, dear brother!”
And the other replied, “Don’t mention
                                                         ­                 it.”

A Child’s First Safety-Deposit Box

For Kirk Briggs

A dime-store pocket watch that doesn’t run
A tiny magnifier for aiming the sun
A bit of chalk, glass marbles, crayon stubs
A pencil or two worn down to the nubs
A pair of dice gained in a school-yard trade
A cheap pocket knife with a broken blade
A pocket calendar from just last year
A bottle-opener that says “JAX BEER”
A shotgun hull, and little toy cars -
A box is for treasures, not Dad’s cigars!

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

                     Citizen Potato Head is a Class Enemy

         “A mister no more: Mr. Potato Head goes gender neutral”

              -Mr. Potato Head receives gender neutral name,
                                drops title (usatoday.com)

“Mr.” indeed! No, no, Citizen Potato Head!
Bourgeois titles are forbidden by law
As are toys lacking in social realism
Clearly you are no good Comrade of ours

Lower your eyes in shame, Citizen Potato Head!
Your periderm, your lenticels, your pith
Your reactionary apical buds and lenticles
Your counter-revolutionary vascular ring

Your heteronormative attitude -
All condemn you – and there can be no a-peel!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

             Never Mind the Guns and the Fentanyl; Seize the Books

          By 1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,
          4,175 titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…

                 -Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War

Ideologues search libraries for ***** books
Because reading might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

Censors search Mary Poppins for ***** words
Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas




How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)

The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Film censors aren’t protecting children from Mary Poppins – they’re protecting themselves (yahoo.com)

States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives : The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR

List of banned films - Wikipedia

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/22/police-officer-searches-middle-school-library-after-complaint-abo­ut-concerning-illustrations-in-lgbtq-book/

Someone is cutting down free little libraries in a Chicago suburb and police are searching for the suspect (msn.com)

Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries following new education reform - CBS News

The police officer who searched for a book in a Great Barrington classroom also used a body camera. The ACLU has ‘deep concerns’ | South Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com

Upon Re-Reading Doctor Zhivago

for two comrades

Love lost along abandoned railway lines,
Grave-cold, grave-still, grave-dark beneath dead snow,
A thousand miles of ashes, corpses, ghosts -
Sacrarium of a martyred civilization.

A silent wolf pads west across the ice,
The rotting remnant of a young man’s arm,
Slung casually between its pale pink jaws -
A cufflink clings to a bit of ragged cloth.

Above the wolf, the ice, the arm, the link
A dead star hangs, dead in a moonless sky,
It gives no light, there is no life; a mist
Arises from the clotted, haunted earth.

For generations the seasons in darkness slept,
Since neither love nor life were free to sing
The eternal hymns of long-forbidden spring -
And yet beneath the lies the old world sighs

The old world sighed in sudden ecstasy
A whispered resurrection of the truth
As tender stems ascended, pushed the stones
Aside, away into irrelevance.

And now golden sunflowers laugh with the sun
Like merry young lads in their happy youth
Coaxing an ox-team into the fields,
Showing off their muscles to merry young girls.

The men of steel are only stains of rust,
Discoloring fragments of broken drains,
As useless as the rotted bits of brass
Turned up sometimes by Uncle Sasha’s plow.

For this is Holy Russia, eternally young;
Over her wide lands high church domes bless the sky,
While Ruslan and Ludmilla bless the earth
With the songs of lovers in God’s eternal now.

Down at the Auto Repair - A Waiting Room Discourse

Blah blah blah Trump blah blah blah Bannon blah
Blah blah blah da(ng)ed schools blah blah it’s all
Fake news blah blah blah double-blah media
Clintons blah blah blah kids these days blah blah

Blah buzz buzz buzz that wouldn’t have happened
In my day blah blah blah I can’t believe
What they’re charging blah blah blah FEMA blah
Blah Trump blah blah they don’t want us to know

Blah blah blah da(ng)ed schools blah blah it’s all
Fake news blah blah blah double-blah Jesus

(You can turn it over if you want, but the other side’s just the same)

[again violating my rule never to write in the first-person]

Withdrawal Symptoms

So I’m not going to change the world after all
That’s okay; it was doing fine without me
The moon arose last night without my supervision
This morning the sun was up before I was

And, true, there are bad men and women about
But I didn’t do so very well myself
It’s better that I didn’t change many things
And better had I worked on changing myself

Age is aware of its own absurdity
And wisely it withdraws from messing things up

     A cup of coffee now would be so nice

What Can We Do...?

                         They may break our bodies…
                   but they need not dominate our minds.

                                          -C. S. Lewis

Every book we read to a little child
Every kindness we work for another soul
Every bowl we fill while serving the poor
Every prayer whispered, spoken, or dreamed

Every cup of coffee shared with a pal
Every wheezy old joke about Pat and Mike
(Or, to be fair, about Trevor and Neville)
Every small joy sung to the universe

Is a beginning

So my Lawnmower Repair Guy...

                                   The wind that blows
                                Is all that anyone knows

                                  -Henry David Thoreau

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

And my lawnmower is hidden behind a fence
A chain-link fence, among mowers in rows
The owner lost a gunfight; he was taken hence
And what about the mowers? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

UPS has left notes; the door is locked
There is no sound of man or machine
No one has answered when customers knocked
Only the guard-dogs (yep, they’re really mean)

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

Sergeant Schultz at the cop-shop - she knows nothink
She’s busy with her personal smartphone
Her eyes are fixed; they do not move or blink
And I am all alone in The Twilight Zone

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So what really happened? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows

So who can I contact? Nobody knows

And is the man all right? Nobody knows


Only the wind...

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 2

Would You Like a Downgrade?

I.  
“Everything I own I’m carrying on my back,”
A shipmate said wonderingly that last day
In the recruit barracks.  And it was so:
Two sets of dungarees, one pair of shoes,
Two sets of Undress Blue and then one set
Of Dress Blue B, one pair of sneaks, one pair
Of this, more sets of that, a ditty bag
Of Personal Hygiene Articles,
Officially and carefully approved,
All in a new seabag.
                                       It was enough.
How much does a man need in order to die?

II.
And now we carry mortgages, jobs, books,
Televisions, cars, hunting rifles, clocks,
Lawnmowers, bills, Sunday suits, Monday shoes,
Plastic boxes that light up and make noise,
Fences that need repair, cats to the vet,
Air conditioners, chainsaws, queen-sized beds,
Closets that need sorting out, chests of drawers
Of things we never needed anyway,
Cameras, clawhammers, pens, reading lamps,
Scissors, and writing paper.
                                                   It is too much.
How much does a man need in order to live?

“Gov’t Shutdown Risks an Undetected Asteroid Strike”

-news item

(I write this as a haiku since, apparently, we have little time left…)

Still, we conclude that
If an asteroid strikes us
We will detect it

Our merry springtime is a glorious feast
Of joyful sights and scents and happy sounds,
Of breezes turning warmly from the east
Of bustling bees winging their flowery rounds

Above, around, and through a world of green
In dreams of life that move the seasons along
Where each day’s sunrise halos a Creation scene
And every blossom is its own soft song

But the sweetest sound echoing through the glades
Is a snake being shredded by the lawnmower’s blades

A Small Boy to His Pencil

O, Ticonderoga, my magic wand –
I wave you, and I am an engineer
Speeding a silver passenger train
From Texas to California, and back

I wave you once again; I am Robin Hood
Drawing my bow against a bishop fat:
“I invite you, Your Grace, to a great feast
in Sherwood Forest, at your own expense!”

I wave you yet again - and Old Miz Grouch
Fusses at me: “Do your sums! And don’t slouch!”

Tollite vobiscum verba, et convertimini ad Dominum

-Osee 14:3 1

Provide yourself with words, with magic words,
And like Old Väinämöinen 2 sing them
Into the air, the wild, clean air, those words
Sing all that’s Good and Beautiful and True

The Sampo 2 of your mind spins not out flour
Nor salt nor gold, but needful thoughts and songs
In words that sing and sail beyond the sun
And back into that Founding whence they came

Write, then, the Good, the Beautiful, the True
And let God write them back again to you



1 Osee / Hosea
2 The Kalevala

Borodin’s  "On the Steppes of Central Asia"

Lost in a remote province of the mind
A youth attends to the cheap gramophone
Again: On the Steppes of Central Asia,
A recording by a mill town orchestra
Of no repute.  But it is magic still:
While washing his face and dressing for work
In a clean, pressed uniform of defeat,
For ten glorious minutes he is not
A function, a shop-soiled proletarian
Of no repute.  Beyond the landlord’s window,
Beyond the power lines and the ***-holed street,
He searches dawn’s horizons with wary eyes
For wild and wily Tartars, horsemen out
To blood the caravans for glory and gold.
A youth greets the day as he truly is:
A cavalryman, a soldier of the Czar,
Whose uniform is stained with victory.

From 2015 - for Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died

Annoyme.com

                     An Advertising Monologue in Upspeak

So I just went on annoyme.com
And like I found my ring you know like on
Annoyme.com where you will find
Those unique designs that you just can’t find

And those really famous great big name brands  
AND YOU KNOW WHICH ONES I’M TALKING ABOUT
Annoyme.com has the selections and styles
You want to see at annoyme.com

I’m going back on annoyme.com
Today, right now, while I should be at work



(Repeat many times each day for weeks and weeks until the listener changes radio stations.)

Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly
With sketchbook, pen, guitar, and crescent wrench
With telescope and hiking boots and love
With verse that scans and prose that strongly speaks

For a dabbler, all the world is his adventure:
A coffee cup is as Old Santa Fe
A stroll in the garden a pilgrimage
To Canterbury or Santiago

And you should draw and write and sing these things
Oh, yes, you should dabble amateurishly

The Archaeology of the Weekly Trash Pickup

Q-tips that know too much about your ears
A banana peel that’s lost its appeal
A church bulletin out of date for years
The festive lid from a microwave meal

The vacuum cleaner’s latest bag of dust
A toilet paper roll facing its end
A razor blade that now must go to rust
A coffee can (that rare Colombian blend)

A family’s weekly story goes out with the trash
But I hear the truck – I had better dash!

A     n acrostic
C     an be challenging
R     efining words into patterns
0      f different meanings
S     o we can see the world
T     o be open to new ways of seeing
I       f we've a mind to
C      onsider it so

Perhaps we are always alone, you know
Even when we breathe each other
And touch each other
We’re not each other

And life is probably better this way
For if you find fault with yourself
The blame is one
And not two

It’s much better waking up in the morning
Alone, and not being wrong about anything

Beating the Gums of War

                   “Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant”

           -this phrase, attributed to many, dates back at least to the    
                                        American civil war

Channeling John Wayne, their semi-autos on show
Leather-boy bandoliers draped with lots of ammo

          Hell hath no fury like a deer-stand commando

Old men beating their gums for war; oh, yes, it’s so
Each wearing his made-in-China camouflage chapeau

          Hell hath no fury like a café commando

Idle hookah heroes in Houston, don’cha know
Want their country liberated but our children must go

          Hell hath no fury like a narghile commando

Studs at their ‘puter games, screens all aglow
There’s nothing about George Patton that they don’t know

          Hell hath no fury like a keyboard commando

And corpses for the lamps of China to make the oil flow
They want your child to die for profits – just tell ‘em to blow

          Hell hath no fury like a private-jet commando

None of them made the first day of boot camp, oh, no
Though their thousand-yard stares are perfected guano

           Hell hath no fury like a ‘way-back commando

The homeowner:

“O should we warn your kids that my yard fence
Is now electrified against possums
And foul raccoons most pestiferous?”

The stepfather:

                                                                     “No.”

I Miss my Northern Exposure Tee Shirt

We could drive into town for a beer at The Brick
Listening to the radio as Chris-in-the-Morning
Reads a chapter from Doctor Zhivago
Connecting Yuri with Uncle Roy Bauer

We could drive into town for gas at Ruth-Anne’s
Marilyn and Ed will talk about movies; Maggie and Joel
Will argue some more on the sidewalk outside
While Maurice preens before his reflection in the glass

And then to The Brick: Shelley behind the bar
Holling and Dave-the-Cook wrestling the grease trap -
I think I left my Northern Exposure tee shirt
In the laundromat in Cicely, Alaska

We could drive into town and look for it

The Finest Health Care System in the World

In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken:
“I wish I could go fishing. I was a welder.
How long’s that doctor going to be? I’m tired.
I just don’t know how I can pay for this.

“I was doing okay ‘til I fell and broke my back.
Thirty-seven surgeries, would you believe it?
And my arm too. This catheter’s infected.
The last doctor just wouldn’t take it out.

“My Workman’s Comp’s all gone. I just don’t know.”
In a wheelchair – his body mostly broken

For Danielle and Sarah, school librarians

Criss-cross, applesauce
This is how we read
Hey, hey, library day –
Books are all I need!

Criss-cross, applesauce
Sit with me a while
Right here, on the floor
How I like your smile!

Criss-cross, applesauce
Suddenly afraid
Doors locked, windows blocked
By a flimsy shade

Criss-cross, applesauce
Hiding in the gloom
Lights out, fear and doubt
In this silent room

Criss-cross, applesauce
How does childhood die?
Hush, hush! In the dark
Everything’s a lie

-from Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, 2014. Available from amazon.com.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Night Court

For the Prosecution: Spring Allergens
For the Defense: Anti-Histamines and Acetaminophen

If only headaches went away at night
They don’t, and a fresh catalogue of pills
Does nothing except fog reality
The world spins on and on, and sometimes off

The pillow is a bitter accuser
Detailing again all of life’s mistakes
The sheets and blankets wrinkle in disdain
The world’s last spring-wound clock grinds through the hours

Maybe the world will stabilize at dawn
If only the headaches will go away

Crew Quarters...

        (When I was a-serving of their majesties Brown and Root)

Rows of racks under aquarium lights
And scattered paperbacks: Louis L’Amour
Bravo Company battlefield yarns, (love)-books
About blonde hot rod babes with really big (pretties)

The crew, all older than I, were better books:
Mechanics, enginemen, crane operators
Welders, riggers, radiomen, divers
Draftsmen for the “as built” modifications

The cook was a nervous man from New Jersey
He looked over his shoulder and dropped things

Navigation Lights

Like spirits of the ancients, veiled fireflies
Patrol as appointed the haunted dusk
Their cold lights winking secret messages
From lawn to tree, and then across Creation

And silent in her elegance the Moon
Escorted by strong Jupiter the bold
Is pleased to grace the skies with her presence
Herself obedient to that once-seen Star:

We are never adrift in our own dark nights
For they are marked with navigation lights

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              I Hear America Whining

The world’s fattest people, packin’ on the pounds
Driving to McDonald’s whenever the mood
And then to the beer joint, drinking those rounds
While complaining about the price of food

Anna Apples

Apples, which last week made the orchard trees
A festival of red among the green,
Are disappearing now, and hard to find
And hard to reach, high up and hidden away

Their joyful season is fading in early June
Their mothering trees are in mourning now
For the late-winter blooms that grew so soon
And ripened into transient perfection

Like happy children playing hide-and-seek
They slip away into the leaves and years

Well, gosh, thank you for being here today
I am honored to be the conductor
Of this very special and awesome group
So let me introduce them one by one
To this special and awesome audience
It’s been an awesome season, and we’re glad
You could share this moment with us today
We’d like to give a special shout-out to
(Name and name) for making this wonderful space
Available to all of us today
As you know this is the last performance
Of the season, and the last here for (name)
Who is being transferred to Albuquerque
And we want to wish her well; she has been
A cornerstone-rock-heart of our little group
And also for (name) who is retiring
After thirty years with (name-name, inc)
And is looking forward to spending time
With his family and traveling about
With his awesome and patient wife (name-name)
And also with his awesome and patient dogs
Although of course he would never say that they
Are more awesome than his sweet wife ha-ha
You will notice that our program today
Features a diversity of pieces to appeal
To all sorts of tastes because the pieces
We have selected in their diversity
Are meant to appeal to all sorts of tastes
Oh, wait, did I say that already ha-ha
Because we all believe that music speaks
To the hearts of all in their special ways
Because music is the language of all
From Tchaikovsky and Wagner to Elvis
From the stuffiness of grand old Vienna
To ‘way-cool happenin’ New Orleans
Or as they like to say down there Naw-lins
Ha-ha music is the language of all
Because it is inclusive and diverse
And speaks to all our hearts with love
And, like, you know, stuff, so now we begin
With some traditional classic pieces
And then some popular tunes you can tap
Your toes along to, and then at the end
We will enjoy a good ol’ sing-along
And maybe some audience participation
Ha-ha but we’ll let that be a surprise
Our first piece now is by Paganini
Who was neither a pagan nor a *****
Ha-ha so let me give you’re a little background
On this piece…

Old Pompeo Had Some Spies, C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!
Among these spies he had some sneaks
C.I., C.I., A!
With a wiretap here
And a wiretap there
Here a tap, there a tap
Everywhere a wiretap
Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!
Among these spies some Russians lurked
C.I., C.I., A!
With a lurk-lurk here
And a lurk-lurk there
Here a lurk, there a lurk
Everywhere a lurk-lurk
Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!
And with these spies came WikiLeaks
C.I., C.I., A!
With a leak-leak here
And a leak-leak there
Here a leak, there a leak
Everywhere a leak-leak
Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!
And then there was the President
C.I., C.I., A!
With a tweet-tweet here
And a tweet-tweet there
Here a tweet, there a tweet
Every day a tweet-tweet
Mike Pompeo had some spies
C.I., C.I., A!

Mike Pompeo had some headaches
C.I., C.I., A!
Among these headaches was Congress
C.I., C.I., A!
With questions here
And doubtings there
Here a quiz, there a doubt
Everybody run about
Mike Pompeo had some headaches
C.I.,
                  C.I.,
                           Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

The Saunter of the Penguins

Across our lives the Penguins saunter along:
The Odyssey, The Ministry of Fear
Parade’s End, Penrod, To a God Unknown
Ragged with study, stained with tea and beer

Saint Augustine’s Confessions, Whitman’s Leaves
Tennyson, Wordsworth, The Alexiad
Monsignor Quixote, Wooster and Jeeves
And Yevtushenko – he was quite the lad!

Dog-eared and all crinkly, Scotch-taped with age -
Each Penguin is a wise, eternal sage

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

                                     In Praise of a Candle

                           These are thy gifts; they are good

             -Saint Augustine, City of God, Book 15, Chapter 22

A votive candle is good, and prayers are good
And those for whom the candle is lit are good
Especially when they feel they are not good
Because they are His gifts, and they are good

When we light a candle for someone else
We light it for ourselves, all without knowing
In the workings of the Ekonomia
Because we are His gifts, and we are good

In spite of ourselves – we must accept it
As the little candle shines on through the night

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


                William Wordsworth Receives an Email of Rejection

Dear Pronoun-of-Preference Wordsworth:

We have interrogated your poem about daffodils
And can only regret your lack of filtering
For post-colonial non-binary tropes
And gender-vulnerable intersectionality

The daffodils appear not to have been consulted
With regard for their self-affirmation
Which suggests patriarchal guilt through your
Hetero-normative stratification

We find your daffodils ruthlessly aggressive
And your masculinist constructs, yes, regressive

We wish you success elsewhere. Anywhere
Go away

I tried to capture my authentic voice
My inner voice, my true-something-me-ness
But the little ****** is elusive
And free it remains, wild and free, to this night

So I deploy an inauthentic voice
An outer voice, only maybe it’s not;
Perhaps it’s an Hegelian dialectic
A voice cobbled together from castoffs

On a sale-table down at Goodwill, I found
A gently-used voice – so how do I sound?

My apologies for leaving this empty earlier. Last night I wrote a bit of doggerel criticizing unhappy men who obsess on weaponry. Then the news about the horrors in Lewiston, Maine was broadcast and I withdrew the lines lest the words appear to be frivolous and thus hurtful. I stand by my no-nonsense thesis, though: no one needs one of those ////ed semi-automatic testosterone compensations that fire military rounds.

And no thoughtful man or woman need tolerate for a moment any whatabouts and all the pointless arcana about assault rifles vs. civilian rifles, automatic vs. semi-automatic, magazine vs. clip, and blah, blah, blah.

I was in Viet-Nam.

I know exactly what .556 and 7.62 rounds will do to an adult or a child, and the name of the gun (yeah, I know, "shoulder-fired, gas-operated, blah, blah, and blah") doesn't change anything.

Your grandfather's old J. C. Higgins shotgun is a wonderful thing for bagging supper and eliminating predators. A shiny (they come in Barbie colors now) .556 is good only for inflicting death and suffering on our fellow pilgrims on this earth.