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

Your grandmother and I are the only ones
Who listen still to Rod McKuen, and dream
Of Mission Beach ‘way back in ‘68
Or maybe not so far back after all

The sands still sing of sea and salt and seals
There are no watchful clocks to time our hopes
No calendars to tell us we are old
As we slow dance to a tiny transistor

But not with each other, not any more
For I had my orders, and she had hers

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Mockingbirds at Dusk in a Time of War

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
Their leaf-rich oak could be their arena
Or it might serve them as their bower of bliss
For love in this magnolia-scented dusk

They’re still at it, whatever their “it” might be
But breaking off to blitz the subtle cat
Sneaking about in quest of a bunny or squirrel
But who from feathered fury must now retreat

They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
But then
They might be mocking the rest of us


Bower of bliss – cf. Spenser’s *The Faerie Queene

You fling your hurting soul against old walls
Those peeling walls presume to fling it back
A wood-roach scuttles across your hopeless hopes
Through cigarette-ashes of eternity

The wreckage of the past a pile of books
The bleakness of the now a cheap tv
Unheard in the humming of electric strips
Unholy unpostolic poverty

There is no insulation against tomorrow
But the Poly-Perk blesses your cup of sorrow

For thirteen years one’s life is organized
By Mom and Dad and the glorious state 1
Passive behavior rewarded and prized
Just work your sums on an electric slate

Bubble in circles with a number two
Glitter-glue posters for every right cause
School’s all about state scores, not about you
And state exams, according to state laws

For thirteen years you were controlled and toyed -
Today you’re just one of the unemployed



1 You are the state. A school will be exactly what you and the other citizens want it to be. Always vote in your local school board elections; self-government is not a spectator sport.

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

                     Money in a Tin Can Buried in the Back Yard

Early this morning to the bank’s drive-through
Which, after the lobby model, was closed
There was no sign about when it would open
Only news that the bank had been sold and bought

So what is my bank going to be named nest week?

Velcro Sign State Bank
The Bank of What’s Happening Now
The Whatever We’re Named This Week Bank
Fill-in-the-Blank Bank
Guess Who We Are Bank
Mystery Bank
Random String of Consonants Bank
A Big Bank that Devours Other Banks Bank
Closed

More and more often banks are locked and barred -
Less useful than a tin can buried in the yard

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Monsoon Coffee

The old men argue whether we have monsoons
Or if our afternoon thunderstorms are unworthy
Of scientific labels, notations, or marks
To be discussed on the six o’clock news

Each day at four I take my coffee outside
To sit beneath the oak and take the air
With a book, the Wordle, or an empty mind
As thunderheads rise like monsters in the east

Fearsome clouds menace the sky-paling moon
And breezes wind themselves up for the daily monsoon

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


                                   Moo. Herd Immunity. Moo.

            "I don't know what herd immunity is, but when you
             add that to the people who have acquired immunity,
              it looks like it could be very close to herd immunity.”

                             -Texas Governor Greg Abbott,
        as quoted by the Washington Post via The Houston Chronicle


Moo. Herd immunity. Moo. Simple math.
Moo. Very close. Moo. Vigilant. Moo. Proactive.
Moo. Efficacy. Moo. Calculation.
Moo. Dashboards. Moo. Trackers. Moo. Asymptomatic.

Moo. 70% Moo. 80%.
Moo. Fourth surge. Moo. Waves. Moo. Gaps. Moo. Pockets.
Moo. Complications. Moo. Misunderstandings.
Moo. Factors. Moo. Threshold. Moo. Duration

Moo. Emerging. Probable. Moo. Data.
Moo. Equation. Moo. Very close. Moo. Died.

“I don’t know what herd immunity is…”

Moo.

Moonlight Saving Time

Oh, let the moonlight
Fall upon the leaves, and through
The leaves, upon…you

Theodora

There once was an empress, Theodora
Whose subjects began to bore her
          They were too much at home
          In the old Hippodrome
So she killed ‘em - they’re pushing up flora.

You see them, sometimes, lurking in the shadows
Slipping away furtively, trying not to be seen
They’d rather clutch a volume of Dostoyevsky
Than try to act like good, plain, honest folks

They always thought they were something special
Always thinking about stuff, reading books
Not chanting the day’s slogans when they’re told
Not joining in, still thinking the old thoughts

We don’t need them. Our Leader will provide
You see us, sometimes, dying for ration books

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

                                    P­aper Sacks I have Known – 2

Like a block of marble waiting to be carved
A paper sack is art waiting to be made
Because after Mom puts the groceries away
The empty sack is full of possibilities:

A royal crown with construction-paper jewels
A Robin Hood hat if you fold it just right
A Halloween mask for a scary trick-or-treat
(Smell my feet; give me something good to eat!)
A boat
A puppet
A pinata
A brave knight’s armor
A cat toy
A three-year-old-daughter toy
A pony express rider’s mail pouch
A kite (I could never make mine fly)
A book cover without adverts
A canvas for crayon art
A luminaria
A matte to be cut out, crayoned on, and framed

And after your art is sent into the world
That tuckered-out sack, that sleepy little sack
Is tucked into bed in the warm garden soil
To awaken in the spring as flowers for you!

Childhood - no batteries or programming required

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

                               More Real and More Beautiful

          “This is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than
            the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more
            beautiful than the Narnia outside the stable door!”

                          -Lucy in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle

More of the old family land is to be sold off
Forests of my childhood and happy fields
Where breezes still ripple the summer grass
Soon to be beaten and carved as lots and plots

The bales of hay, each barefoot day – all lost
And down the hill where runs a magic rill
My Sherwood Forest will be cleared of good trees
Its dreaming paths overlaid with sewers and streets

And along the fence little tufts of grass
Where all those noble dogs of long ago lie buried
My companions in all adventures
Awaiting my whistle to roam with me again

Well, I will pack them and all my childhood up -
And someday pour them from a golden Cup

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

                        More Than a Container for Words

               The book was so much more than  
             a container for words inscribed on pages

                                 -David Rundle

A container for words; there’s something in that
For if it contains words, it contains dreams
Your portable dreams, your vade mecum
In code, waiting to be interpreted

A container for words, humming with life
With verbs wanting to pour out all the nouns
And fling the adjectives in front of them
With conjunctions and adverbs (only a few)

A container for words, a book, your book
Which you began writing when you were born

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/book-revelation/?cakeycode=FA9LQA3

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!

Most Things End in Sorrow

The happiest marriages we’ll ever know
End in death; the unhappy marriages
Decay in cycles of disappointment
And fall apart in court on a working day

A glorious autumn ends in blue-ice winds
A favorite childhood toy is forever lost
An anticipated promotion is denied
And golden youth in hospice slips away

But morning’s cup of courage freshens hope,
And the world is optimistically green

Mother of Exiles

Saint Mary’s Church of Frydek, San Felipe, and Sealy

The grasses of the coastal plain are still;
Across the road a summer field ploughed under
Waits through October’s lingering heat for frosts
While the distant Interstate chants to itself

Our Lady of Frydek, Mother of Exiles!

First Nations, Spaniards, Mexicans, Czechs, Poles
Italians, Germans, English, Vietnamese

Have ended their pilgrimages here, with You
Where God has led them for His purposes

And here, dear brother, God has led you too
To wait with them, with Her, for history’s end

Which will be
The Beginning

On the Packing of Intersectionality: A Cross-Cultural Study

By M. Poncy Hector-Tworbst, B.A., M.Ed., Ph.D. Candidate

Unpack that intersectionality
And privilege transphile autonomy
Unite the paradigm’s hegemony
In the diaspora of agency

Cross-gender all peripherality
In post-colonial diversity
Dialogue augmented reality
And deconstruct avatar identity

All for the cause of authenticity
(But mostly I’m all about me, me, me)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate

                   “No, sir, I do not bite my dentures at you, sir;
                     but I bite my dentures, sir.”

               -as a brawler in Romeo and Juliet I.i.57 does not say

Neither man is a coherent talker -
This might end as combat by walker

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

                                    M­r. Bossy-Pants Tells Us How to Live

                        “I’m an idea man, Chuck; I get ideas....”

                          -Michael Keaton as Bill in Night Shift

He never planted a garden or mowed a lawn
There are no trees near his apartment house
His household garbage goes straight to the curb
In unrecycled thick black plastic bags

He sees his SUV as only his due
But wants bicycles for the rest of us
And keeps his air-conditioning comfy-cool
He flies first class to teach us clean-air truths

He makes a bludgeon of the term “organic”
And profits thus from others’ moral panic

To Our Commander-in-Chief
                       and Manque Leader of the Free World
                       And All His Old Men Golfing Buddies
                Scheduling Their Tee-Times Around Missile Launches

A dying nineteen-year-old can’t even scream
When half his face has been blown away
He can only gurgle, his remaining eye
Staring wildly in agony and fear

Your man-child plays soldier on guided hunts
Kitted out like Rambo, and KA-BLAMMING
A bighorn sheep the guide spotted for him
Taking he-man selfies while yelping “OOOOH-RAH!”

A dying nineteen-year-old can’t even scream
When half his face has been blown away

As in an Agatha Christie mystery
A man - he ghosts into a consulate
As a flickering image upon a screen
The image, yes, but not the man is seen

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

As in an Eric Ambler mystery
Perhaps he is another Dimitrios
Another identity, and in the rain
Someone else slips aboard the Belgrade train

          (A soft midnight splash in the Golden Horn)

The inspectors inspect; the leaders lie:
We would not have it that Our subject should die

          (And softly flows the current through the Golden Horn)

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

                            ****** Most Cosy

A ****** cannot possibly be cosy
With blood all over the vicarage floor
And while Miss Marple is politely nosy
There is still the problem of all that gore

A ****** committed in an English village
Is hardly cosy to m’lord who died
Surrounded by hop fields under tillage
He still is dead (tho’ in the countryside)

A ****** cannot possibly be cosy –
But is the widow finding life now rosy?

Music Around the House

There is music around the house today:
The old refrigerator hums a tune from Frozen
Handel might envy the washer’s Water Music
And the off-center dryer waltzes Blue Danube

The air-conditioner calls the wind Mariah
Boiling pasta plays a stovetop marimba
The vacuum cleaner is a Wagnerian storm
And the microwave joins in with a ring

There is music around the house today
In rhythms of work, imagination, and play

Music Download on the Roof* –
A New Musical

“Rabbi, is there a blessing for the Czar?”

“A blessing for the Czar? – yes, on my ‘blog…”

YOU HAVE NOT YET SUBSCRIBED TO THIS SITE ERROR 401 RETRY BLURK SERVER UNAVAILABLE ERROR 401 NOT FOUND YOU HAVE READ YOUR THREE FREE ESSAYS FOR THE MONTH SYSTEM ERROR

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

                        My Bestest Friend in the Whole First Grade


                                            For Rodney Joe Webb
                                               of happy memory


Our fathers’ farms were across the road from each other
We rode the big yaller feller to school
After the morning milking: Run! Run! We’ll be late!
And back again for the evening milking

We knew all sorts of stuff about battleships
And that Roy Rogers was better than Gene Autry
Chevy or Ford, and America could never be licked
Robin Hood and the biggest fish in the pond

The farms are long gone, and the fields of hay –
I went to his visitation today

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

                                     ­      My Bourgeois Leanings

          One day, at a meeting of the Komsomol…he was accused
          of bourgeois leanings just because he happened to wear a tie.

                          -Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography,
                                    recounting an anecdote by his father

I am the only man who wears a tie
With proper coat and trousers (inspection pass)
Properly kitted like a proper guy
To weddings, funerals, dinners, and Sunday Mass

I am the only man who does not wear
Sneakers or baseball caps, gas-station shades
Knee pants, tee shirts, jeans with a built-in tear
Or plastic jackets shaped like hand grenades

If we are facing civilization’s end -
One’s trousers touch one’s oxfords with a quarter-inch bend

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                   My Child is Not a Resource, Mr. Bush


   Is your education system meeting your state's workforce needs?

                 -SLDS – George W. Bush Institute (bushcenter.org)


My child is a Texas girl

She is not subject to your workforce (sic) needs
Nor is she in anyone’s pipeline
She is not subject to your collective purpose
She is not subject to your collective management

My child is a Texas girl

She has a habit of thinking for herself
And she’s pretty darned obstinate about it
She is not subject to pedantic filler language:

                    “State longitudinal data systems (SLDS) that
                    meaningfully connect workforce, higher education, K-
                    12, and early childhood outcome data from multiple
                    state agencies over time are foundational to strong
                    decision-making by state leaders. See our SLDS policy
                    brief for more.”

And beyond that she knows that “work force” is two words

My child is a Texas woman
Who built her own successful career

She is not “workforce”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         My Concealed-Carry Jewish Space Laser

In my state you can carry a switch-blade knife
And shoot an AR with 30-round magazines
Or a .50-calibre Barrett for vaporizing a life
Tote brass-knuckles in your camouflaged jeans

In my state

Few methods of ****** are regulated
But if you read Anne Frank you could be investigated

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

My Friend Joined the NRA and Received a Communist Pocketknife

To prove your patriotism there’s nothing finer
Than to sport an NRA knife made in China

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

                  My Garage Sale One-Dollar Mister Spock Clock

All stern he is, in science department blue
Behind the clear face of an old-fashioned clock
An hour hand, a minute hand, a sweep hand too
Orbiting around our wise Mister Spock

Behind his back a motor, made in Taiwan
Powered by a double-A Duracell
Counts the minutes and hours as they drag on
(There is no dilithium fuel cell)

Spock scans for me the starndate, no fuss at all
Always at his post on my office wall

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        My Grandfather’s Hayfield

From my own fields I can hear the band
The high school marching band, oom-pah, oom-pah
From several miles away, with merry songs
and merry cheers around the homecoming bonfire

That was my grandfather’s hayfield in my youth
Before the town and school replaced the past
The shaking baling machine compressing grass
Where the team captain now gives his whup ‘em speech

I found a terrapin where the cheerleaders dance
From my own fields I can see my youth

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              “My Grandpa was in Viet-Nam –
                                Maybe You Knew Him There?”

I wear an amazon.com Viet-Nam boonie hat
USA mil specs made in Indonesia
Mostly in hopes of getting out of a traffic ticket
And because I meet the most interesting people

Sometimes pretty girls approach and speak to me
At first it was, “My brother was in Viet-Nam”
And then they said, “My father was in Viet-Nam”
And now, “My grandpa was in Viet-Nam

Maybe you knew him?

Oh, and let me get the door for you, sir”

Makes me wanna rattle my aluminum walker

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                  My Great Replacement Theory

                       (or maybe just a lesser replacement theory)

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass
Which used to be my job, but they stepped up
And in stepping up they are replacing me
Which is good - I miss my youth but delight in theirs

A boy and a girl giggled and whispered
In a language I don’t know except that
Having once been young, I know it well -
A perfect translation was in their eyes

All languages come from Old Solar, Lewis says
And to Old Solar will someday return
We must all be replaced someday
For in Creation’s Great Dance that is a step

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass
And God will open another door afterward



Cf. C. S. Lewis, *The Space Trilogy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       My Illegal Oxygen-ish Apple Watch

Apple WILL be banned from selling smartwatches in the US from TOMORROW over claims it stole medical tech - after court rejected tech giant's appeal | Daily Mail Online

My Apple Watch ™ © ® has the oxygen feature –
Do I confess to the Law? Or to the preacher?

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

                                          My Shakespearean Girl

I woke in sadness that the dream had passed
But joyed that the vision had come at all              
To comfort me with happy memories cast
Into my sleep through moonlight on the wall

Through moonlight on the wall, through starlit sky
That long-ago world in our golden youth
When she danced as lightly as a butterfly
Through sunlit fields where all was truth

Through sunlit fields on her little bare feet
As gracefully as a leaping summer fawn
Or rhyme and meter when in verse they meet
In that magic hour whence breathes the dawn

In that magic hour we were once more
So very close to that opening door…

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   My New Career as a Doorman

                “The Doors! The Doors! In wisdom let us attend!”

               -in the Orthodox liturgy just before the Nicene Creed

I used to light a candle for you before Mass
With a prayer that ascended to Heaven
For as long as the candle remained lit
Even after everyone departed, deep into the night

Now I open the door for you before Mass
Even though you’re not here, so does that count?
With age I am clumsy in so many things
But I can open the door and say hello

And every candle I ever lit for you
Still shines

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

       “My Oath of Enlistment Does Not Have an Expiration Date”

Well, yeah, it does

If it doesn’t then I’m out of uniform
If it doesn’t then I’m absent without leave
                    (54 years – you’d think someone would have noticed)
If it doesn’t then I need to report to base
If it doesn’t then I must obey President Biden

If it doesn’t then I must obey all officers
                    (Is that a shavetail ensign at my door?)
If it doesn’t then the manual of arms…
                    (With a walking-stick? Really?)
If it doesn’t then I gotta get up at 0400
If it doesn’t then my Sperry Topsiders need a shine

I left my oath of enlistment in Viet-Nam
There, with the memories of many dear friends
It will rest in peace without any regard
For someone else’s made-in-China slogan tee

We’ve heard of schools of thought for ideas sought -
Philosophy, history, music, and art -
Where everyone agrees that they are all smart
So I would like to build my own school of thought:

In the mornings the children will raise my flag
And all will pledge true allegiance to me
And in class children will look up to see
My thoughtful image, and they will brag

How everyone now thinks as I say they ought:
And that, dear friends, is my own school of thought!

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

                                     ­   All the Little Midnight Lights

To awaken in the middle of the night
Is to realize that this midnight dream
Is a fairyland of points of light
Arcing and soaring like a magic stream

The curious visions before your flickering eyes
Begin to focus as strange, blue-lit scenes
In a half-awake haze you realize
The lights are from all your little machines

Manufactured by men, mechanical light
And somehow that just doesn’t seem quite right

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

                                           Blueberry Portal


               “In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices”

                                         -C. S. Lewis, “Dymer”


In the drowsy, bee-sy afternoon
Picking blueberries in the white-sun heat
Voices. Conversation. But it’s only the bees
While the blueberries dance and spin and whirl

What do bees talk about? They don’t tell me
And I don’t need to know – but we’re all friends
And the dancing blueberries – they’re having fun
They welcome me into another world

The leaves write me little love-letters that say
How happy to have you home for an hour today!

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

                             “My Temple Stands in Ephesus”

                                            -Pericles V.i.241

“My temple stands in Ephesus,” the goddess says
I don’t believe in goddesses, of course,
And stern Saint Paul would cut up rough about them
But we could wish them so, temples and gods

We could board a ship with a seeing eye
A ship of wonderful cargoes safely stowed
And let there be “Lords, Knights, Gentlemen,
Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers”

To speed our stories and our very selves
To where a temple stands in Ephesus

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

                                           My Wordle Stats

If I turn the distribution bars on their side
They seem to make…a gesture
                                                               (I’m mortified!)

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

                 -Father Zossima in *The Brothers Karamazov

I am Napoleon now.  I want to be
Napoleon, and it is so.  I can be
Anything I want to be – isn’t that
The cleverness you’ve always taught to me?

My truth is the truth, and it must be yours
My self-determination - it obscures
Your bogus science and reality
Fiat and fashion my truth thus secures

I am a poached egg 1 now. That’s what I want –
It’s illegal to argue that - so don’t!

1 The allusion to an argument in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is well known.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  National Public Radio on Saturday Morning
                  While Driving to the Dump in an Old Pickup
                  Whose Radio Receives Only Two Stations

Wait, wait; don’t bore me

(knowing chortles and polite applause)

In the work cart I find a luna moth
And is it dead?  With gentle hands I lift…
And off it flies! into the sunlit leaves
Breeze-wavy in the pale September sun

          Among the apple and cherry and oak

I labor away at summer’s excess
And clear the paths and glades of weatherfall
Sorting out litter to a merry fire
And billets to store for the winter hearth

          Sweet gifts of apple and cherry and oak

The bees seem to wonder what I’m about
Sitting awhile, and thinking the summer out

          Beneath the apple and cherry and oak

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
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

                                     ­   Navigating the Rules

                        Everything not forbidden is compulsory

                           -T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn

The rules are immutable and absolute
Except when they’re not. The rules this week
Are whatever the powerful might say -
Questions are a burden; simply obey

Accept that whatever you think is wrong
To the truculent who disapprove of you
For you are outdated, a relic, a prat
And you are wicked to disagree with that

Anything in your defense that you might urge
Is now a forbidden ism subject to purge

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
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

                                    Negotiating Toilet Paper

The escort carried three rolls of toilet paper
As she walked me to the classroom area
One each for Dorm A, Dorm B, and the guards
Some fellows walked casually along the path

“And you guys know how to walk single-file”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Sure thing, ma’am”

And thus in silence they formed that single-file

“One roll of toilet paper per prisoner per week
Sometimes it’s just not enough,” she said
“We had a meeting on it; I told the guys
Sometimes administration just doesn’t get it”

Dignity, like treaties, can be broken
In many ways