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Lawrence Hall Nov 2022
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
Lawrence Hall Dec 2022
Lawrence Hall 2d
Negotiating Toilet Paper
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

Written by
Lawrence Hall
Lawrence Hall May 2018
The squirrel makes a fuss - he must discuss
Drink-sharing with the thirsty honeybees
Who hover greedily above the bowl
And claim all water rights for bees alone

The squirrel pleas with “Please!” to all the bees;
In conclave met they buzz, and grant the fuzz-
Y neighbor limited let to get wet
If when drinking his fill he holds real still

And the bees’ pet human has come and gone –
He leaves them water, then leaves them alone
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com – it’s not really reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Oct 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                       Neither a King nor a Boss

A gas station close by the overpass
A display case of shiny knives and knucks
One of the knives features a naked lady
Some of the knucks are labeled “KING” and “BOSS”

But would the object of a metallic punch
Have time to read either the “KING” or “BOSS”
Before he fell among his blood and pain?
A legless man in a wheelchair rolls by

To his blue tarp and sleeping bag close by
The gas station close by the overpass
Maybe he was Jesus.
Lawrence Hall May 2017
Neither a Menshevik nor a Bolshevik Be

                                     What is’t you do?
                           A deed without a name.

                                 -Macbeth IV.1.48-49

This is not a matter of recusancy
To wish a blessing on your houses both
That in the Grace of God you amend yourselves -
But go away and do it somewhere else

And take with you your posings and your twootings
Your alligator shoes, expense accounts
Your plastic soldiers all saluting you
And your designer plots of great import

And leave good folk alone to their good work
With sweat-stained hands in clean domestic peace
Lawrence Hall Apr 2018
Some call it somethingphobic and bellicose
Crude masculinist supremacy (by far)
Insensitive, sexist, and just plain gross –
But it’s righteously vegan – my weekly cigar!
Lawrence Hall Jan 2019
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.”
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.


Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Apr 2019
The birds might say, “Oh, look at the pretty humans!
They have waited all winter for us to return!”
And so we have, like seasonal hoteliers
Inviting our guests back for their holiday

The seed-buffets on little metal trays
And little plastic houses in the trees
Bespeak our thoughtful hospitality
For little friends who live upon their wings

Now summering in nest and eave and steeple
The birds must laugh, “Oh look at the people!”
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Jan 2018
Neo-Post-Colonial Artificial Intelligence Deconstructed

All intelligence is artificial
We do not huddle in burrows, issuing forth
Only to chase down other living things
Beat them to death, drink their blood, and eat them

We moderns huddle in cubes above the ground
With indoor plumbing through pipes that sometimes freeze
While we are gazing, searching for lost truths
In glowing screens made in slave-labor camps

And we have stopped slaughtering other creatures -
We have machines to do that for us now
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
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
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

       “Never Surrender” Sneakers – Collectible Bone Spurs Edition

Now we have lived to see a president
Hawking tatty cartoon-character shoes
Having already pawned his soul for rent
And now the bailiffs are turning the screws
Lawrence Hall Dec 2017
Never Trust a Guy Who Irons His Jeans

Strong canvas is the stuff of adventure
Like a cowboy lassoing horses wild
It captures the ocean’s galloping winds
And to even wilder ships harnesses them

Strong canvas is the stuff of manly work
Defense against fierce cactus and desert dust
Loops for the hammer, pouches for the nails
Sacred vestments anointed with sweat and dirt

A good man works hard, and says what he means
But never trust a guy who irons his jeans
Lawrence Hall Aug 2019
It appears, not every century, no
But every four years in the season of snow
When presidential candidates are hard-pressed
For votes, and in new lumberjack shirts are dressed

The Brigadoon Diner appears in the mist
Whenever there are babies to be kissed
By politicians flown first-class from the city
In designer boots that have never been s**tty

Pancakes and coffee, and an incessant buzz
In a down-home America that never was
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is: Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA, PALEO-HIPPIES AT WORK AND PLAY, LADY WITH A DEAD TURTLE, DON’T FORGET YOUR SHOES AND GRAPES, COFFEE AND A DEAD ALLIGATOR TO GO, and DISPATCHES FROM THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
Lawrence Hall Sep 2020
New Hiking Shoes for the Trail Ahead

The road goes ever on and on…

-J.R.R. Tolkien

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes still in their box
From a year ago – in anticipation
Of a summer vacation that never was

And there was no holiday again this year
It was all coronavirus and hurricanes
I had forgotten those shoes, but here they are
All ready for some sunlit summer road

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes, and a bit of hope
Lawrence Hall Jul 2017
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 Feb 2018
The Brothers Karamazov, Book II

There was little news from Russia today
At Optina the midday liturgy
Was over around eleven or so
The faithful crossing themselves as they left

Mostly poor folk, walking to their homes for lunch
And then back to work.  They hardly noticed
A party of their betters strolling about
Reading tombstones, giggling about the quaint monks

Waiting to see a reed swaying in the wind
There was little news from Russia today
Lawrence Hall Jul 2018
Let the childhood dose of cod liver oil
Perish from its own sour smell and foul taste
Send yellow squash to the poor children in China
May Popeye keep his spinach to himself!

But not bananas!

The appeal of the peel, yes, what a deal!
A wrapper that children may throw away
A summer-yellow star sky-spiraling
Onto the garden grass (it’s good for the soil)

Alas, poor banana, joy to eye and tongue:
Why is it that the Cavendish dies young?
Note: the banana is not going away; the sustained monoculture of the Cavendish variant is said to make it increasingly susceptible to disease. If it fails, other varieties will be cultivated.   As Rick did not say in *Casablanca*, “We’ll always have bananas.”
Lawrence Hall Jan 2017
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!!!
Lawrence Hall Mar 2023
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                                                        Nguyen and Tex

The receptionist calls loudly for Nguyen
Mispronouncing the name Nuh-Goo-Yen
Which is what some Americans still do
Although the patient is an American too

Some usages we need to narrow down
Some usages we need to broaden a bit
This is a medical office waiting room
Where all may diversify on the guest wifi

An Irrelevant Consideration:

The thought occurs that calling for Nguyen in Saigon
Would be like calling for Tex in Abilene
Lawrence Hall Jun 2017
Night Class – Cellphonia in F Flat

A chamber piece for two sulks and a soda

He yawns, his head propped up against a wall
Of head-stained, head-banged green fluorescent blocks
In the back of the room, in Marlboro Country
Reposing in sad, sullen insolence

Furtively strumming a silent keypad
Flinging his unique existential angst
Into cool, pure, plasticized electrons
And out into the meta-fusional night

Where there’s real life, man, not these books and stuff,
Real life; you wouldn’t understand. I’m me
And you don’t know who I am, man.  I am:
An inspirational singer-songwriter

My own me journeying onward to me
An artist, a great soul misunderstood
Raging against a machine that isn’t there
An angry rebel on government grants.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2017
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
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Night of the Long Sporks

Republicans have their sporks out for each other
Slashing each member with unpassable bills
Impeaching each MAGA sister and brother -
The 118th Congress gives me the chills!
I remember with great fondness that this nation once had a stable government because it had a thoughtful and open-minded electorate.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
11 August 2024

                          Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                          12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                ­                                  the Jews.”
Lawrence Hall Aug 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                               12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                                   the Jews.”
No!
Lawrence Hall Jan 2022
No!
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­                  No

When you say no
To a baby or a dachshund
Someone’s feelings are hurt
So you pick up the baby or the dachshund
And apologize
Which doesn’t make sense
Because sometimes no
Is what needs to be said
But still it hurts
Even though you say

I’m sorry
No.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2018
No.
Dixit ergo Iesus ad duodecim, “Numquid et vos vultis abire?”

“Will you also go away?” He asks us.

                                                        ­              No.

Only sinners mourn at the foot of the Cross
Only sinners approach the baptismal font
Only sinners recline at Table with the Lord

To whom shall we go?
                                   An empty shopping mall?
A 501C cafeteria?
A feast of ashes with the cardinal?
                                                       ­               No.

There is only one Place, one Space, one Grace

Only sinners are invited, and so
Our yes to Him – we will not go
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Aug 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                      Noah Sends out Another Dove Today

                           Some other land, some other sea

                                         -Cavafy, “The City”

If Noah were to release that dove today
It would fall along with the olive branch
Along with all hope, blasted out of the sky
Its ****** feathers fluttering to earth

Among refugees who haven’t the right papers
Kabul
Lawrence Hall Sep 2019
Is there a man of such steely self-control
Of such virtue, character, fortitude
Strength and pride in his manly role
Confidence and heart and stern attitude

Valor, endurance, resolution, will
Courage, patience, defiance, intellect
Manliness, ruggedness, rock-like, chill
Decision, quality, all cool and collect

That he doesn’t have to go and upchuck
Whenever he hears that “Desiderata” muck?
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is: Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com

It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  THE ROAD TO MAGDALENA, PALEO-HIPPIES AT WORK AND PLAY, LADY WITH A DEAD TURTLE, DON’T FORGET YOUR SHOES AND GRAPES, COFFEE AND A DEAD ALLIGATOR TO GO, and DISPATCHES FROM THE COLONIAL OFFICE.
Lawrence Hall Apr 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     No Howling, Please

                                   A rebuke to Ginsberg
           While acknowledging that the typewriter is indeed holy

I saw the best of my generation
Refuse to howl, not in the situational poverty
Of their birth, not in others’ noise and drugs
Not in their elders’ go-fight-our-wars-for-us

I saw the best of my generation
Doubling up in unfurnished rooms
Doubling up on the day and night shifts
Making each sweated-out life into a poem

I saw the best of my generation
Work
                     and thus rebuked for their privilege
Lawrence Hall Feb 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        No, I Will Not Watch X

For all the same reasons I repudiate Q
I will not watch X, not even for you
And I regret that you asked me to -
They’re both a Macbethian witches’ brew
X, Formerly Twitter - Just Say No.
Lawrence Hall Jan 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­     No, Mr. Sandburg

The fog doesn’t come on little cat feet
It stinks and slinks across the fields
Maybe Grendel creeps within it -
He wants to eat us before dawn
As a farm boy I found that the bit about fog creeping on little cat feet did not match how I experienced the fog rising across the fields at dusk.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2018
Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux 1

That wicked liar offers us a poisoned cup
In whose sheeny surface we see ourselves
Reflected in his cold imaginings
And not our own, in what we ought to be

There is another Cup for us, not this one
Just as there is a stone that must be moved
A bird of night to be repudiated
A thorny bush that burns, but not itself

A blessing breaks that false and bitter cup -
We share the one that God has lifted up


1 In English, let not the dragon be my guide; it appears on the medal of Saint Benedict as NDSMD.
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Jan 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Nones as a Religious Category


                               …afterwards our pupils
                               will not forgive in us what we forgave

                                             -Yevtushenko, “Lies”


If children ask for bread will we give them

Musical stylings of abysmal mediocrity
Packaged in the poster-art palettes of the sixties
When the altars and the hymnals were stripped
Of everything beautiful, true, and good

When

Latin missals were reduced to baby-talk
Felt banners appeared like refrigerator art
The Body of the Lord was shoveled aside
In a malformed tabernacle of hammered scrap

And maybe that’s why the young people leave -
We’ve given them little in which to believe
Lawrence Hall Jul 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          Non-Profit, NGO, and a Yo-**-**

The status of my bank account tells me
That I too am a non-profit organization
Lawrence Hall Apr 2019
All Souls’ and All Saints’ were made to disappear
Easter is bad enough with rabbit eggs
And Christmas was appropriated by The People
As a tribute to (belch) Glorious Excess

But no one has taken Good Friday away
With gifts and treats and two-for-one specials
Down at Chez Bubba’s Discount Liquor and Smokes,
And Colonial Auto Parts stays open - why not?

But while the world spins along on its way
A few eccentrics remember Him this day
I'm late with this. I hope the Holy Saturday Hamster (who hides omelettes for good little girls and boys) isn't miffed.
Lawrence Hall Jun 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        No One is Your Vibrant Stereotype

One’s words and one’s friends are not tuning forks
They do not vibrate, and are thus not vibrant
Nor are they folksy, colorful, or quaint
Curiosities for you to collect

Poetic verse is free of DNA
An iamb suffers no identity
It boldly speaks its rhythm clear and strong
And metric feet march to their own chosen beat

But

If you feel that any culture should vibrate
Then go sit on yourself and just…rotate
A poem is itself.
Lawrence Hall Mar 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 No One Keeps a Diary Anymore


                  Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three
                  thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one
                  mile away?

                                                  – Mather Byles


No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
Men have been hanged for what they have written
It may be that they revealed some forgotten crime
Or worse, that they possessed the gift of thought

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
The Moms for Liberty are scared of books
Even the diary of a little girl
Because children must not read or write or think

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way -
And have you self-purged your own books today?


South Carolina school district reviews, returns books after ban attempt (msn.com)

The first Mom For Liberty to successfully ban Anne Frank went on an antisemitic livestream - Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)
Book Banning, Moms for Liberty
Lawrence Hall May 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     No One Writes Verse about the Precinct Dump

Look for the sign that reads PERCH TRAPS 4 SALE
After a hundred yards take the gravel road to the right
It’ll go down to this stagnant little creek
And that old bridge is stronger than it looks

Then up and to your left; you can’t miss it
Refrigerators and washers to your left a bit
As for the right, you just don’t want to know
But them buzzards today; they’re puttin’ on a show

There was this fat boy who used to work there
Made rhymes about garbage; must have been the air
Poetry is where you find it.
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         It Wasn’t the Fourth of July

                 That we may wander o’er this ****** field
                 To book our dead, and then to bury them

                                 -Henry V IV.vii.75-76

It wasn’t the fourth of July, but it was about then
Near the Cambodian border, on the Vam Co Tay
Searching for two American airman whose machine had gone down
Down, down into the steaming green Vam Co Tay

Bloated and floating, quite still when we saw them
The sloshy prop wash bumped them about a bit
Empty eye sockets, mouths open in silent screams
We poncho-linered their bodies aboard the boat

Cigarettes of despair against the stench and rot
This was not what we sang about in school
Lawrence Hall Nov 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Nora, Theo, and Pushkin-the-Rescue-Cat

After rough adventures Pushkin has found his way home
The children celebrate with him his happy new life
By crowning their purring prince with vines and flowers
And he is pleased to accept their adoration and love

Too soon children must leave their merriments
And rebuild civilization among the wreckages
In a time of hatreds and ideologies
When all seem to have forgotten the way to Jerusalem

And so for now

May children enjoy the springtime of their lives
For they (and the cat) remind us of our appointed path
Lawrence Hall Jan 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        No Revolution Today, Thank You

Sure, I miss standing in formation at dawn
The quick inspection and loud verbal abuse
Rushing through a steel-tray breakfast in rows
And marching to the rifle range in rows

Sure, I miss formation in the dawn of life
Slinging a rifle over my skinny shoulder
Thrilling to “BATTALION! PASS IN REVIEW!
RIGHT SHOULDER ARMS, AND PASS IN REVIEW!”
As did my fathers back to the Civil War

But that was what I did, not who I was -
I took an oath to the Constitution

And not to some fat slob who needs a shave
Lawrence Hall Feb 2019
This letter, is to inform you, about a
bomb threat
that we received this, morning. Name of a Name
Unified Consolidated ISD,
a State-Recognized School of Somethingness,
Where Kids Come First under the theme of
All The Kids All The Curriculum All The Time
is committed, to the safety and education
of all our students and We Are Number One,
Go #Thundercatbears!, ‘Cause We are #All-Hashtagged
in Unity and Oneness. We also, want
to clearly communicate with split infinitives
And crazy commas all over the place
to parents about safety issues when they
get found out arise.

This morning, a phone call, was received,
by the receptionist at

The-Latest-Name-Held-in-Place-with-Velcro-Until-the-Next-Name-C­hange
Elementary School and Essential Spirit
Dreams New Dawn Progress Learning and
Technology Center of the Future

stating a

bomb

was present, on the campus.
After conferring with the Threat Assessment Team,
The Standard Response Protocol team,
the Chinkypin-Lizard Lick Police Department parked in the handicapped spaces at Tia Jolene’s Goremay Eats ‘n’ Bokays out next to the Interstate,
the cheerleader sponsors,
Facebook,
Twitter,
our attorneys,
and Superintendent Dr. Hamestus Goodoleboy “Spike” Ponsonby III,
the students were rapidly, and efficiently evacuated
to a safe area up in the football bleachers
where they would be more obvious targets
and the school was professionally and thoroughly
swept for anything suspicious and untoward.
During this time,

when no students were in danger,

another call was received stating that  gunshots
were fired in the school. There were no gunshots,
fired in the school and

no children were in danger at any time.

Currently, we’re are is allowing students,

who were never in any danger,

to return to school as usual

where there was never any danger at any time.

We will have extra counselors and therapists available
if students or parents needs supports are
counsolining in spelling ‘n’ sentence structure.

The students were never in any danger at any time.

All threats to our school where

their was never any danger

and students who were never in any danger

will be taken seriously immediately
and thoroughly and investigated
thoroughly and fully except for that call
last week that we managed to keep covered up.
We wanted to inform you of the correct facts
because our correct facts are the only facts
so you can discuss them with your child/ren
Of any race, ***, color, creed, religion,
or gender identification or not
and emphasize the seriousness of our facts,
which are the only facts. If you discover
Any facts untoward or out of place please contact us
At the district office at
*** *** xxxx ext ***
or the Chinkypin - Lizard Lick Police Department
immediately and thoroughly.

No children were in, danger at any time.
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Lawrence Hall Sep 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                No Surrender to Viruses or Fools

                               My head is ******, but unbowed

                                            -Henley, “Invictus”

We planned to build in peace a better world
With hands and tools and minds and arts and sweat
A home and bed for every little child
With love and peace around each family’s hearth

But now we daily read the deaths of friends

Futility is wormed into our hopes
By fatal vapors coursing through the air
Adrift on breathy particles, scornful
Of everything we’ve worked for all out lives

For still we daily read the deaths of friends

Some of us blame each other, or just give up
And wallow in despair, but not you and I

Let’s help each other - we’ve got a world to build
"Invictus" is something of a cliche' now, and flawed in some ways, but its attitude of defiance and stoicism is still admirable.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2016
Not a Good Comrade

No man is free if he gives up himself
And disappears into sad howlingness
Subsumed in sinking, shrieking subservience
Thrall-teed in the overseer’s livery

A label on a shabby baseball cap
A programmed pixel smeared across a screen
A rusty caltrop cast into the road
A shifted pea under a shuffled thimble

As crowd, as mass, as demographic noise -
No man is free if he gives up himself
Lawrence Hall Jul 23
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
(note - some inappropriate and immature language)

                   The U. S. Army ***** Patrol is On the March!


      https://www.404media.co/pentagon-says-it-will-continuously-
      monitor-bathrooms-to-comply-with-anti-trans-order/

        “What did you do when you were in the Army, Daddy?”

      “Son, I was proud to spy on my fellow soldiers in the latrine.”


Kamerade Hegseth has issued a decree
All soldiers must be issued a G.I. wiener
Without which they have no permission to ***
In our Army all leaner and meaner

C’mon, boys, let’s wave our little flags!
Above and beyond the call of duty
In a morally pure ***** free of ****
Hegseth will inspect each manly *****

Each morning at reveille and wakeup
(After he admires his muscles and makeup)
https://www.404media.co/pentagon-says-it-will-continuously-monitor-bathrooms-to-comply-with-anti-trans-order/
Lawrence Hall Oct 2020
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                            Not Even the Paralytic’s Bed

We cannot crawl under our beds and hide
As much as we might want to disappear into
That dark, safe world of dust ***** and lost toys
And the chewed-up paper the dog hides there

We cannot hide under the covers with Bunny
As in our childhood days; we must instead
Stand up and guard our children against a world
That has lost its capability for love

We must neither crawl nor hide nor fail to love:
“Arise, let us be going…”


(St. Matthew 9:6 and 26:46)
A poem is itself
Lawrence Hall Feb 2023
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                                                 Not Exactly Saint Mark

“Who do you say that I am?”

‘“Whom,’” replied the local schoolmaster.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    Not Exactly Veterans’ Day at the High School

Locally the day was celebrated on the 8th
And no one seems to know exactly why
Made-in-China decorations and flags
The high school band playing all the old songs

Compulsory attendance; the students looked bored
We veterans even more so, yawning to attention
The speeches were the usual patriotic soup
Cribbed from the InterGossip the night before

And yet, somehow, that’s the way it should be
Because this is a swell old country, and I love it


(I do NOT love the inept, corrupt, bumbling, cold, distant, busybody, supercilious, grasping, oppressive, hostile, privileged, uneducated, and treacherous Our Set ******* of both unAmerican parties who constitute the government.)
And I will feel slighted if I am not on the Trump-istas' enemies list.
Lawrence Hall Jan 14
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                            Your Poetry's Background Check

          And above all, who is in power in that part of the country,
          or, rather, who will be by the time we get there?

                                  -Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

We don’t suffer a Soviet Writers’ Union
Except that we do – and what are you up to?
Have you written an ordinary adjective
That will be forbidden in a future place?
                    You sound suspiciously colonialist

Last year DEI was mandatory
This year it will be a forbidden scheme
What guidelines for little magazines
Will be cleansed in the New Order to come?
                    Harriet Monroe is a non-person now

Who will be in charge of your poetry and your life
Whenever you don’t get to wherever it was
                    that you were going?
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