Pilgrimage Along the A1

From Peterborough drops a road
Across the Fens, into the past
(Where wary wraiths still wear the woad);
It comes to Chesterton at last.

And we will walk along that track,
Or hop a bus, perhaps; you know
How hard it is to sling a pack
When one is sixty-old, and slow.

That mapped blue line across our land
Follows along a Roman way
Where Hereward the Wake made stand
In mists where secret islands lay.

In Chesterton a Norman tower
Beside Saint Michael’s guards the fields;
Though clockless, still it counts slow hours
And centuries hidden long, and sealed.

And there before a looted tomb,
Long bare of candles, flowers, and prayers,
We will in our poor Latin resume
Aves for old de Beauville’s cares.

Pilgrimage Along The A1

For all DeBeauvilles, Beauvilles, Bevilles, and Bevils Everywhere

From Peterborough drops a road
Across the Fens, into the past
(Where wary wraiths still wear the woad);
It comes to Chesterton at last.

And we will walk along that track,
Or hop a bus, perhaps; you know
How hard it is to sling a pack
When one is sixty-old, and slow.

That mapped blue line across our land
Follows along a Roman way
Where Hereward the Wake made stand
In mists where secret islands lay.

In Chesterton a Norman tower
Beside Saint Michael’s guards the fields;
Though clockless, still it counts slow hours
And centuries long hidden and sealed.

And there before a looted tomb,
Long bare of candles, flowers, and prayers,
We will in our poor Latin resume
Aves for old de Beauville’s cares.

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

                                    Pipe Tobacco and Memories

Today I smelled tobacco from a pipe
Although there was no one around except
Perhaps the ghost of the hardware store savant
Whose wisdom filled the air along with smoke

That honest, manly incense from long ago
When the thinking man smoked a Peterson’s pipe
Dunhill could brag of a royal warrant
And Dr. Grabow was a sovereign cure

No, no, we must not smoke anymore
But we can remember those golden days

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

                                    P­ipe Tobacco and Memories

Today I smelled tobacco from a pipe
Although there was no one around except
Perhaps the ghost of the hardware store savant
Whose wisdom filled the air along with smoke

That honest, manly incense from long ago
When the thinking man smoked a Peterson’s pipe
Dunhill could brag of a royal warrant
And Dr. Grabow was a sovereign cure

No, no, we must not smoke anymore
But we can remember those golden days

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

                      Pirates to Starboard next to the Dairy Cows!

My neighbors’ field is low; it tends to flood
Their children sail their kayak as pirates bold
And laugh and splash upon the sloshy mud
Swallows and Amazons in search of gold

Most comfortable with our feet propped up
We old folks sit upon the porch all dry
Each an admiral with his coffee cup
And let the heavy monsoon pass us by

We too were pirates in our dreaming youth
We wish we still were – and that’s the truth!

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

                           Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat ******

Piso mojado en Tejas y Colorado
Does not exactly trip from my English tongue
Cuidado that floor in El Dorado
For piso sounds slippily close to dung!

In a deep summer dusk that seems forever
A twilight of fireflies and magic found
Small children barefoot ‘round the universe
Happily pursued by a mysterious It

Home base is the foot of the old porch steps
Beneath a pantheon of elders wise:
Mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts
And in their Old Gold cigarette incense we

Tumble like puppies on those old porch steps
In a deep summer dusk that is forever

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Playin­g the ****** Card

We say we should never play that card
But we see that it has been played
It lies upon the table before us -
Whose furtive, febrile hand placed it there?

In my boyhood the fields were real indeed:
The winter soil to be awakened and turned
The manure, mulch, and mould lifted and turned
Wise husbandry’s anticipation of spring

My fields are all metaphorical now:
The winter files to be updated and turned
The documentation lifted and turned
Clerkly, accessibly, from A to Z

The files, the plough, to the long seasons fit
Papers or ****, it’s still long rows of (stuff)

A poem is a pilgrim’s haversack
All neatly, tightly packed for walkabout:
Toothbrush and rhymes rolled together betimes
Spare socks and meter tucked in with great care

And pocket knife and similes as if
Skivvies and metaphors were something else
Alliteration lined in lovingly
Syntax and shaving kit accessible

Because

When organized in compact unity
Poems and haversacks engage a life that’s free

as published in LogoSophia

Gave up trying to remedy the formatting...

“The Result was Silence”

“Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence.” -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy

There is no silence in Kiev this dawn
Morning commutes, intermittent news feeds
Explosions. Power failures. How many will die
Without finishing their WORDLE today

Old men rattle their dentures in outrage
Sky News reports a couple of police officers
In the street below, smoking cigarettes
Which makes more sense than most things just now

Kharkov’s air-raid sirens are deeper than Kiev’s
There is no silence in Kiev this dawn

A Few Kind Thoughts for Roman Soldiers

If you have stood your watch throughout the night
To guard a clothesline of national importance
Dug foxholes only to fill them up again
And then patrolled through long days in the heat

If you have enjoyed Cinderella Liberty
And talking about poetry and girls
With a few mates down at the coffee shop
Because that’s all your poor pay can afford

You will then understand the conscript guards
Posted to keep order on Calvary

Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-Olds

Ghosts shriek in the wind from the Hindu Kush
Falling upon the lowlands in despair
Of any reality beyond death
In the blood-sodden sands where sinks all good

Walls, monuments, souls, hopes – all blow away
In the wreckage of long-fallen empires
Their detritus trod upon by tired men
Whose graves will be the howling dust of time

And yet the empire masters will return
And leave fresh offerings, remnants of the young:
A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,
A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull

(First published in The Road to Magdalena, 2012)

We Have No Enemies Among the Dead
For the Young Crew of the Moskva
14 April 2022

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave…
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea -The Navy Hymn

Proud admirals and presidents rattle their medals

The young – in screams among burst steam lines die
Explosions and darkness and seawater and hatches sealed
The bulkheads blown, there is no up, no down
Only pain and horror and throat-torn shrieks

Proud admirals and presidents jing-aling their medals

Training manuals, pocketknives, and comic books
Naughty pinups, letters from Mom, wrenches, and boots
Toolboxes, ball-point pens, and coffee cups
Fall with the young deep down into the sea

Proud admirals and presidents dazzle the room with their medals

Mothers and fathers grieve in emptiness
Our Leaders caution them to mind their attitude

Proud admirals and presidents – to Hell with their medals

Crazy Old Men with Rockets ‘n’ Bombs

When you read to your brother or sister
A go-to-sleep book about bunnies and stars
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing along with the washing machine
And help your MeeMaw up those tricky stairs
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sit on the steps late at night
And watch a pirate ship sail close by the moon
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you pray for the bombed-out refugees
And put a little extra in the collection plate
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing a song to the universe
It remains in the heavens forever

Because

You helped heal a wound in Creation

No Bombers Over Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic School in 1958:
A Brief Discussion of a Successful Cold War Tactic

from an idea suggested by Kirk Briggs

Some have scoffed about hiding under our tables
As protection from the Soviets’ nuclear strikes
But scorn not this truth of those factual fables:
It worked! No bombers! Post that as one of our “likes!”

HP doesn't seem to be working just now. If somehow this appears, my modest poetic endeavors can be found at:

poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Lawrence Hall
Scourge of the Portuguese Main, His Mark: X

Tension comes from a lack of solitude
When even a thought is interrogated
Examined, suspected, found to be flawed
Through our loving Article 58

What is your religion? Your politics?
Why do you write your words with the wrong hand?
Why do you write at all? Is that about us?
Why don’t you I.M. like normal people?

In nature an artist finds only delight
In his fellow humans only suspicion

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     Poet, Just Look at You

Just look at you, wrestling with your ideas
Perceiving beauty among the burning ruins
Gently shaping the sorrows of the day
Into comfort

Just look at you, wrestling with your words
Heart and mind in position of function
Boldly shaping the confusions of the day
Into meaning

Just look at you, putting your readers first –
You are good

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Poetry and Jazz Stroll into a Smoky Bar

Poetry, like jazz, is itself
If you feel a need to explain it
You’ve failed
                          Art sings itself

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

                               Poetry as a Form of Prayer

               (not an original observation, but let it stand)

Poetry is like prayer
A lifetime of study
and a study of life

You never get it right
The only miracle
is that you get it at all

Poetry of the Occupation

“…trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new system invented by a genius so great that they never bothered to verify its results.”

-John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Political poetry occupies the streets
Brakes squealing to a stop before an idyll
Squads of inclusive wordtroopers disembark
Into our souls to force submission and love

Armed with warrants and inquisitions
The bills of indictment already drawn
Needing only a tap upon a screen
To serve in the office of a signature

And sensitive to death the personal life -
Political poetry occupies the streets

Poetry of the Occupation

          “…trained in the politics of the day, believing the great new
           system invented by a genius so great that they never
           bothered to verify its results.”

                              -John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Political poetry occupies the streets
Brakes squealing to a stop before an idyll
Squads of inclusive wordtroopers disembark
Into our souls to force submission and love

Armed with warrants and inquisitions
The bills of indictment already drawn
Needing only a tap upon a screen
To serve in the office of a signature

And sensitive to death the personal life -
Political poetry occupies the streets

Poetry - Why Must There be Iambs?

Iambics are the sky through which words fly
Formations sweeping all five seasons across
In order royal and in right service to
The aspirations of all noble youths

For verses built without a careful plan
Fall but as clutter on a wasted page
Their meanings and intents broken apart
And lost (like sophomores between each class)

Free verse is only an unanswered why:
Iambics are the sky through which dreams fly

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

                       Poets Seldom Order Missile Attacks

         “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”

                     –Shelley, “A Defense of Poetry,” 1821

In truth

Poets are the acknowledged legislators
          of nothing
                    Let us thank God that it is so

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
Among other shortcomings scribbling free verse
Without any consideration for meter
And failing to understand the rhythm of iambs

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
Hogging for grants and television time
Some writing more for politics than for truth
Obsessing on the I instead of All

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
But they seldom order missile attacks

Poets are the acknowledged legislators
          of nothing
                    Let us thank God that it is so

Poets Without Boudoirs

Je suis occupy #hashtag support us
Resistance transcultural support us
Committee manifesto support us
Ministry of culture, yes, support us

Empowerment crucial space support us
Initiatives nonprofit support us
Weaves a layered tapestry support us
Conceptual identity support us

Fresh new voices unflinching support us
Iambs are oppressivist support us

Poldark

What it is about
A three-cornered hat all grim
That makes women swoon?


*(I don’t think it’s the hat, man)

POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS

Another world beyond the yellow tape:
Chaos and smoke, confusion, blood, and pain
A wreckage of souls, cigarettes, and beer
Grim death encompassed within appointed bounds.

Some order on this side the yellow tape:
Cheeseburgers and fries, sodas in paper cups
MePhones uplifted in Hitlerian salute
Recording the pagan chant: “***!”

Sung by life’s postulants surprised to see
Another world beyond the yellow tape

(This scribble is recyclable for Republican, Democrat, and all other conventions)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     A Cautionary Reading from John Milton
       For All Who Consider Attending Any Political Convention

So having said, a while he stood expecting
Thir universal shout and high applause
To fill his ear, when contrary he hears
On all sides, from innumerable tongues
A dismal universal hiss, the sound
Of public scorn…

                                  …he would have spoke,
But hiss for hiss return’d with forked tongue
To forked tongue, for now were all transform’d
Alike, to Serpents all as accessories
To his bold Riot: dreadful was the din
Of hissing through the Hall, thick swarming now
With complicated monsters…

                   -John Milton, Paradise Lost X.504ff

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                   Politics and the Public Square

Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where the Enlightenment works the guillotine
That’s where sensitive progressives ****** Jews
And constitutionalists ******* the Constitution

Oh, yes, we know about the public square -
That’s where those who kiss dictators deny the King
That’s where individualists join in mobs
And the last few children are hunted down and killed

Oh, yes, we know about the public square –
Where the screams of the dying poison the air

Those who have never bagged corpses
After a night of flarelit horror
Confused, concussed, their souls awash
With blood and smeary shards of flesh

Those who have never smelt the night
Incensed in the obscene stench of death
Where screaming conscripts’ lives were ripped
Are calling for armed revolution

Let us call instead for a cigar
And a quiet evening with Keats

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Polysyllabic Aspirational Bourgeois Vanity
                                           (and, like, stuff)

Surrealism

A melting clock is not aesthetically pleasing
Nor is it of any utility
It celebrates chaos instead of life
And bullies us with a manifesto

Surrealism

Gives pale aesthetes topics for their idle hours
Surrendering imagination to cliches’
The endlessly self-referential I, I, me, me
(Another double-latte, if you please)

Surrealism

The republican’s derivative art is but
The emperor’s new clothes turned inside out


(And have you seen my serial takes on Greek ikons re-imagined and re-envisioned as diatomic forms through vegan egg-tempera on recycled barn wood as a repudiation of hidebound colonialist oppressivist occupationist Orthodoxy by sequencing monks on Mount Athos as agnostic Jewish fast-food workers influenced by the works of Dali and the Rapallo poets through a motif of running wedges in asymmetric lines from a cosmopolitan image of Heaven to a day-glow Wal-Mart beside a sea of transcendental bubbles which symbolize my feelings when my latest grant was canceled? Hmmmmmmm? Of course the straights don’t get it; their lack of imagination is why they stopped The People’s funding I deserve so that I can make great art chiding them for being dullard capitalist mechanicals. I take all major credit cards for my works.)

Genderqueer contesting histories climate apocalypse social activist make a tax-deductible donation today starting at the advocate level inextricably to reexamine his legacy linked black gender-ambiguous social and political struggles behavioral economics Afro-futurist vision of decolonize this text white boy spear-heading queerphobic witch-hunt singular surrealities queer Shabbat dinners dialogue this trope diversity Rawlsian diagnosis basic earth cooperative existential Marxism for our times starting at the advocate level inextricably to reexamine his legacy linked black gender-ambiguous social and political struggles behavioral economics Afro-futurist vision of decolonize this text white boy spear-heading queerphobic witch-hunt singular surrealities queer Shabbat dinners dialogue this trope diversity

BAM! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM!  THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM!  THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BOOM! THUD! SNAP! BURN! FACT! S.T.E.M.! CRUSH! SNORT! SCHOOLED! WHAM! OWNED! BAM! BOOM! THUD!

Pomona at Play

Pomona dances among the apple trees
Light-footed through the glowing amber light;
At dusk, kissed by the last rain-drops, the breeze
Begins to sigh, and falls, to sleep the night.

And then pale Cynthia, the silver-crowned,
Rises to breathe upon each leaf and flower
Her sacred mists, softly and softly around,
And blesses dreams through many a silent hour.

Bold Helios will wake the sleeping east
And laugh away the magic of the dark;
He sets out daylight as a merry feast
And measures out his work with compass and arc

But later, them, for sweet Pomona’s play
Now celebrates the golden end of day.

Pomona dances among the apple trees
Light-footed through the glowing amber light;
At dusk, kissed by the last rain-drops, the breeze
Begins to sigh, and falls, to sleep the night.

And then pale Cynthia, in silver crowned,
Rises to breathe upon each leaf and flower
Her sacred mists, softly and softly around,
And blesses dreams through many a silent hour.

Bold Helios will wake the sleeping east
And laugh away the magic of the dark;
He sets out daylight as a merry feast
And measures out his work with compass and arc

But later, them, for sweet Pomona’s play
Now celebrates the golden end of day.

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

                                     ­          Pontifex Minimus

I met a man who once lived under a bridge
He said that was when he was happiest
But he found Jesus and civilization
So they put him in prison
He likes having a bed and three meals each day
But he misses his bridge

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

                                    Pontius Pilate and His Dog

When a man’s worked all day in signing off
On having any number of his fellow men
Imprisoned, flogged, branded, imprisoned, or chained
He’s happy to come home to his good ol’ dog

The master whistles, his happy dog barks
Man and beast in happy concord meet
Playfully tussling in their mutual love
While the servants cringe and cower in fear

What difference if a man executes his brother
As long as he and his dog have each other?

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

                                    In Anno Domini MMXXV
                    Pontius Pilate Asks Us a Serious Question

When Pilate asks us now, “Truth! What is that?”
He probably isn’t being sarcastic.

My Caesar and my Empire have I served,
A diplomatic functionary, true
To distant duties, and never unnerved
By greedy Greek or perfidious Jew

Outside the arca archa have I thought,
Festooned my desk and office with awards;
My Caesar’s honour only have I sought
While sparing for myself but few rewards

I built with focused care my resume’
And filed each memorandum, note, and scrip;
I justly ruled (no matter what they say),
And seldom sent men to the cross or whip

But, oh! That thing about an open vault –
I never got it.  And why was that my fault?

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

                 Poor Quality Control in the Manufacture of Days

This was another poor-quality day:
The leaves were good enough, as was the sun
But the temperature-control was out of whack
And the humidity was again all wrong

I’m calling a staff meeting in this matter
To ask why the hummingbirds left early
(I’m sure we’d all like to winter in Mexico)
And if the squirrels will report on time tomorrow

I’m not going Pollyanna with this report -
Work in the department has fallen short

An urgent message that was never written
Was then not left beneath the third lantern
On an arching bridge that was never built
Under a wondrous river that never flowed

And men wondered at the unwritten words
They could not find atop the fourth lantern
In an echoing tunnel never dug
Over the steppes east of an eastern shore

And the message never written did not say:
O prelates and presidents – for whom do you pray?

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

                            Port aux Basques in September

                    “Only a fish storm, no threat to anyone…”

                          - a weather guy south of the 49th

To our weather guy there is nothing north of Maine
He has never seen Port aux Basques
With summer snow still bright along the hills
Above ***-holey Canada 1 (mind the moose)

(“Only a fish storm, no threat to anyone…”)

He has never heard of Cape Ray or the Newfie Bullet
Or seen the little fishing boats tacking in at dawn
Or the astrolabe that says to the voyager
“Now here at last is your dear New-Found Land”

(“Only a fish storm, no threat to anyone…”)

He will never mourn the wreckage and loss
Because for him there is nothing north of Maine

(“Only a fish storm, no threat to anyone…”)

Town of Channel-Port aux Basques | Canada's Ferry Gateway to Newfoundland

Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?
CarryBOO herds in ballcaps, tees, and tats
Outlaw-scary-masks and gas-station shades
Parachute-pantsies and designer sneaks

          You write no books, you sing no songs – you shriek
          You do no work, you make no art          – you shriek
          You do no good, you help no one           - you shriek
          You make no thoughtful arguments      – you shriek

And all of you dressed like corpses-in-law:
Who can tell the Faw from the Aunty Faw?

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

                   Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter

                           For all Daughters and Their Fathers

Monsieur is dressed for a quiet evening at home
As is his daughter in her cozy white wrap
Leaning dutifully upon his shoulder as he predicts
With globe and maps the empires of her mind

The empires of her mind which she will rule
With subtle wit and work instead of war
With armies of thought and beauty and art and truth
To conquer chaos and set the world aright

She's a guardian of goodness in a little girl’s guise
(But inwardly, I think, she’s rolling her eyes)




“The Geography Lesson,” Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1812, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

POSS MARIJ <2OZ

A smart and funny kid, lanky and tall
Cliché mop of hair which on him looks good
Personality-plus, new jokes each day
He makes the day better by being around

He’s not around today. But here’s his name
His date of birth. Some words that don’t make sense…
So that’s why no one’s seen him since…since when?
But when you ask, no one says anything

A smart and funny kid, lanky and tall
No one can hear him crying in the holding cell

PowerPointLessNess

inspired by ConnectHook in Hello Poetry

Where is the screen is there an outlet here
Can anyone find a bulb for this machine
DATA FAIL RETRY oh this is
The wrong set wait a minute okay why

Don’t you all take a break while we sort this
Out I think that memory is in the car
Would you go check RESTART okay could
Someone find me RETRY okay listen

Everyone the computer doesn’t seem
To want to work today ha ha so um…

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

                              Practicing Mindful Breathing

We breathe mindfully but with our lungs
This necessity of life has become a trend
Which we study in meditative books
As if our alveoli were rosary beads

Even our watches want to instruct us
In the deep mysteries of inhalations
And like masters of postulants and novices
Ring us awake for our morning breaths

“Focus on your breathing” – how very odd
That we should respirate to the glory of God

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

                                 Prancing Chainsaw Dude

Prancing chainsaw dude
Humiliates all of us
And we obey him

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

                      Prayer Group in a Cinder-Block Room

A Prisoner's Voice:

We’re all here for all sorts of different crimes
I made it for about three years last time
Built my business back up, rented a house
Married my baby-momma and started being a dad

And I was feeling good about everything
My old customers came back and trusted me
I was sure grateful to them; went back to church
My wife and kids and mom were proud of me

I got cocky; I thought I had it all whipped
I’m back in this white suit for another ten

Premeditated Amnesia 1

For nothing here is old, save for deep layers
Of moss and muck and mouldering remains
Civilisations lit by visions and fire
Now lost beneath a Wal-Mart Parking lot

Incuriously the tentacles of Now
Slither more deeply into the pale past
And churn up yet another housing estate
At the corner of Kingsford Lane and Heather Way

Near the Motorcycle Church, for piston prayers:
For nothing here is old, save for deep layers





1”The U.S. is probably the contemporary world’s purest example of a society which is perpetually trying to abolish history, to avoid thinking in historical terms, to associate dynamism with premeditated amnesia.” -Alexander Woodside quoted by Susan Sontag:

https://bostonreview.net/susan-sontag-interview-geoffrey-movius?utmsource=Boston+Review+E­mail+Subscribers&utmcampaign=b581739691-EMAILCAMPAIGN201808170417COPY01&utmmedium=email&utmterm=0_2cb428c5ad-b581739691-41080789

Premium Leaded, Leaded, News, and Weather

The talking gas pump down at the Conoco
“Please enter your zip code and press the pound”
Says the temp will be thirty tomorrow
“Will this purchase be credit or debit?”

And that snow is a possibility
“Please remove nozzle and select product”
And that we must watch the road conditions
“Begin fueling now (beep beep beep beep beep)”

In a whisper:

But that’s the number 6 pump saying so,
And that one acts all weird in Bible class

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

                         Preparing a Wordle for the Third World War

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

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

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

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

       President Biden: There's Going To Be A New World Order,
     It Hasn't Happened In A While And America Has To Lead It

(President Biden: There's Going To Be A New World Order, And America Has To Lead It | Video | RealClearPolitics)

                                             ­            No

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

       President Biden: There's Going To Be A New World Order,
     It Hasn't Happened In A While And America Has To Lead It

(President Biden: There's Going To Be A New World Order, And America Has To Lead It | Video | RealClearPolitics)

                                             ­            No

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

                                     President Doctor Jill’s
                    Really, Really Secret Service Beefcake Boys

                    O that he were here to write me down an ***! But,
                    masters, remember that I am an ***; though it not be
                    written down, yet forget not that I am an ***.

                    -Dogberry, Constable of the Watch,
                    Much Ado About Nothing, IV.ii.76ff

Swimming-pool chums, closer than a brother
Flexing their guns and tats at each other

Nobody know who the new agents are
(Wanna ‘phone, wanna flat, wanna shiny new car?)

Want some shiny new tech toys, loads and loads?
What’ll you take for those nuclear codes?

Hunter’s good buddies living large on the beach
One says he misses his Colombian peach

$30K a month down in Malibu
To protect an artist (but not me or you)

Nothing to see here; now don’t get nervous
For we are the party-hearty Secret Service!

(Say, babe, what’s your sign? You come here often...?)