Saint Robert Southwell (not a catchy title; I'll work on it...)

+21 February 1595

Without you

Our souls, like looted chapels, lie in heaps
While still Our Lady of Walsingham weeps

Saint Robert Southwell (not a catchy title; I'll work on it...)

+21 February 1595

O clever Jesuit! sneaking about
From house to house, and, too, from heart to heart
Speaking the treason of faith, hope, and love
And bearing true the Passion of Our Lord

O pray for us, poor brave seeker of souls
We faithful remnant of Our Lady’s Dowry
Against the whisperers, the rack, the rope,
Hiding, flying before pursuivants

Without you

Our souls, like looted chapels, lie in heaps
While still Our Lady of Walsingham weeps

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

                                 Saint Valentine’s Day Snow

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
Light falls upon the pages of a book
Its words unread - the snow may come this hour
Between a noun and verb, a glance, a look

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
The figures of our story now pause for us
Impatient for their journey to proceed
But through the window waits another tale

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
Light falls upon the pages of our lives

The Holy Grail, the Chalice of Our Lord
Borne to Glastonbury, the Isle of Avalon
By the holy man of Arimathea
Then lost, and quested for by noble knights

The Holy Grail is present still, each day
In vessels blessed for sharing Eucharist
Whose Elevation in the Upper Room
Was then, is now, and forever will be

In setting fit, in prayerful accord:
The Holy Grail, the Chalice of Our Lord

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

                                    Salt and Mrs. Lot

We are told that Mrs. Lot was turned into
A pillar of salt for looking back to view
The flames of cursed ***** and Gomorrah
For looking to the past, instead of tomorrow

Maybe

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

  “San Francisco Sues its Own School District to Reopen Classes”

                                            -Associated­ Press

Student Voices:

“I need help in understanding Don Quixote”
“Karamazov for me,” replies her friend
“For Christmas I received the Q edition
of The Oxford Book of English Verse,” says another

(And the Board exclaims, “The Q edition!? Eeeeeeek!”)

“I’m prepping Latin with our parish priest”
“Well, I’m tackling The Faerie Queene this year”
“I’m writing our class play in iambic hexameter”
“I wish I could read Pushkin in the original Russian”

(And the Board asks, “Pushkin? What’s their team like this season?”)

Student Chorus:

“We’ve got to study harder, everyone agrees
Lest we be as dense as our school’s trustees”

Sängerhalle für Kinder

A happy child with sunlight in her hair
Joyfully shrieking her own *An Die Freude
Splashes her friends with water and mud and fun
And they, as happily, splash in reply

The children assemble in a muddy creek
Instead of the Sangerhalle at Die Wartburg
Not making revolution, but childhood songs
Manifestos of freedom to fling about

The forest, then, is their true singers’ hall
A celebration of innocence for children all

Santa Fe: La Conquistadora

In the long ago La Conquistadora
Conquered us, without conquering at all;
She sits in state among the roses of spring,
Our Gentle Lady liege, Queen of our hearts.

Sarah’s Kittens

Java and Chai are enjoying a busy day:
Learning that refuse bins tumble easily
And that falling into the water dish
Is baptismal redemption from that fall

That lusting for the flesh of hummingbirds
Safely a-buzz beyond the window panes
Is a joyful way of passing an hour
Before attending to the doggies’ bowl -

The kittens’ dish is full, but they want more -
What is a home without a carnivore?

Or two!

X-treem card?
(Beep!) World Poker Tour card?
Credit card?
Debit card?
(BEEP!) Insert card now.
No, not that way, stupid!
Turn it around!
Would you like a receipt?
Why not?
What is your weight?
What is your (beep!) fate?
Would you like a free car wash?
Don’t talk to me like that –
I’m going to make you push some more buttons.
Push the “enter” button
which is cleverly (beep!) hidden
in a thicket of other buttons.
Oh, dear, you couldn’t find
The “enter” button in time!
Start over (Beep!) hahahahahahaha.
Gas went up ten cents a qallon since you got here.
There’s a motorcycle gang waiting behind you.
Impatiently.
Hurry!
You want air? (Beep!) Drive around back
And have your credit card ready.
Do you want water for your radiator?  Yes?
Arctic Mountain Springs?
Montana (Beep!) Mountain Springs?
Sierra Mountain Springs?
All-Natural Mountain Springs?
City water??????
Would you like to come inside
and buy (Beep!) cigarettes from a hefty country girl
with a mouth full of chewing tobacco?
No?
Lift handle and select…
COMPUTER ERROR
Please start over.

“Whatever Power or powers there might be,
The rules can’t possibly apply to ME.”

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

                         Are We Looking Through Sauron’s Eye?

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

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

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

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

                         Are We Looking Through Sauron’s Eye?

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

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

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

Save the Date

O how I do hope you will Save The Date!
It’s a special occasion, so don’t be late
Be sure to sign in with the guard at the gate
I leave on the twelfth; I simply can’t wait
That’s when I’ll be executed by the State.

*Registered at Coffins ‘n’ Stuff, Thibodeaux’s Funeral Home,
& Jardin d’Memoires and Gift Shoppe

Once upon a time each morning began
With a ventilation shaft and the night’s
Foul fall of dreams, drama, and downed debris
Dammed and maybe ****** against the window screen

And then an apartment window so high
I could see only the San Diego sky
Train windows, the Mojave through the glass
Then only for a little while
                                                       there was you

The scenery keeps shifting, and that’s okay
Life is a John Ford movie every day

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

                                     Scheduled Maintenance

Electrical mails and postcards announce

That my

Dog
Roof
Car
Air-conditioner
Heart
Colon
Eyes

Are due for routine checkup and maintenance

The dog is fitted with a muzzle for her exam

My colon isn’t so lucky

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

                            Scheduling the Execution of a Friend

Oh, yes, that oak is a friend, a fine old friend
Happy companion of lazy summer days
When I sat in its shade and drowsed over a book
Gently fanned by the leaves in those dreaming hours

Home to the mourning doves and angry jays
Preening cardinals and shy chickadees
Flying squirrels by night and grey squirrels by day
Armadillos, opossums, and raccoons

But dying now upon its grassy lawn -
The tree service will come for it at dawn

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

                Scholarship Applications as Existential Despair

I made all AS in honors english
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I am active in my cruch. And sunday school
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends

Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I like hunting deer. And my family
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I go out to much for anytime for hobbies

Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends -
My powerful quest of excellence never ends

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

                Scholarship Applications as Existential Despair

I made all AS in honors english
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I am active in my cruch. And sunday school
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends

Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I like hunting deer. And my family
Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends
I go out to much for anytime for hobbies

Shopping, video games, hanging with my friends -
My powerful quest of excellence never ends

For Danielle and Sarah, school librarians

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

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

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

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

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

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

A solution driven technology
Committee…paying it forward…globally
Competitive…peace poster…this flu season
We have had extra reminders in place

To wash hands and be contentious1 of spreading
Germs…child-centered learning…preparing your child
For the twenty-first century…a vibrant
And diverse living-learning environment

A cross-section of the district’s stakeholders

And, as ever,

Home of the Fighting Something-or-Others


1"Contentious of spreading germs" was the wording on a site during this year's 'flu season.

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

                                     ­ Schrodinger’s Bullet

Is there a bullet in the cylinder?
The armorer thinks not
The assistant director thinks not
The actor thinks not

The dead…will know

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            ­  Schrodinger’s Turtle

                    Don’t let a quantum mechanic work on your car

A cat on a fence post probably got there himself
And may be observed to be alive or dead
A turtle in a box is not on a shelf
“And I don’t know why,” the scientist said

“Meow,” the poor little cat cried out in dread



Please know that I am on the ViaSat / Verizon / Directv / Netgear axis of frequent lack of service. I never ignore correspondence, but in the mornings my InterGossip works very slowly at best and in the evenings even more slowly and increasingly not at all. Responding to you may take some time.

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

                              Science Experiments and Pirate Ships

                                For Gordon, of Happy Memory
                                 Whose Death Began in Viet-Nam

My boyhood pal’s home is now mostly gone
A concrete slab among some sunburnt weeds
The crumbling front-porch steps still stepped in place
But leading only to memories in the empty air

There where his bedroom laboratory used to be
We traded Heinlein stories and comic books
Experimented with chemicals and radio kits
And planned camping adventures that never were

His father was a widower who didn’t like either of us
But maybe that part of it doesn’t matter now

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Sean Spicer Never Metaphor He Didn’t Like

Walk back those Spicerian goosesteps, dude
(And while you’re there, unblame the Russians)
Similes using ****** are always rude
And now you’ll suffer Tweeter concussions

Cops will drag you away from your lectern
Like that screaming fellow aboard the plane
And make each reportorial neck turn
Heads swiveling to see where you’ve left your brain

Blame everything on the Russians?  You bet!
It must be true; it’s on the GossipNet

Searching for a Lost Jungle in the City

The city is mysterious, a grid
Of paths, most of them laid wonderfully straight
Upon which brave explorers roam, well-armed
Against the strange and hostile denizens

How curious to leave a jungle known
And go in search of a jungle not known
Predicated upon legends and yarns
Lost forever in a tangle of dreams

Among the still uncharted traffic lights
In a gridded city of mystery

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

                                 Searching September for You

Everyone writes poems about September
That month which serves as a hinge to each year
Tired summer collapsing into cool autumn
A new term and new terms on the quarter-day

I remember walking in the fields with you
And holding hands among the stubbled crops
While you sang to me and our changing world -
You were the joy of golden Michaelmas-time

And though all those Septembers have flown away
Whenever I pass a field
                                                   I look for you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Search Them Out. **** Them All

Do you truly and honestly want your writing
Finally to be actually and really stronger?

Then go search out your adverbs. Destroy them all.

Do you want your writing to be stronger?

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

          The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars

Our new pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars
At Mass last week he informally presented
This suggestion: a choir. And guitars
But peace will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -
Guitars in church are why ear plugs were invented

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Second Star to the Right Past Solitude

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 9

Tears sometimes obtain in a widow’s eye
And sometimes contempt, or secret relief
But none of this is the fault of a single man
Whose basic purpose is to serve as a fourth

His love does not lead to family rows
And though his bed is couched in solitude
This solitude is a dreamy, pillowed peace:
Nocturnes from Chopin, a book beside a lamp

Tears may obtain in a widower’s eye
But a single man sleeps beneath that second star

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                       Seekers after Eternal Truth


             “Things are hopeless, hopeless! But they’re not serious.”

                          -Finian McLonergan in Finian’s Rainbow


We are all seekers of eternal truth
Searching the holy texts for messages
Asking the stars to say more to us
Questioning the smile of Our Lady Moon

We want to know existential reality
The universe and our places in it
We ask the elders, we ask the winds
We ask the winds from North, South, East, and West

We all look for Narnia behind wardrobe doors
(We also do laundry, windows, and floors)

Gas, yes, but we need more products than that
For the Great American Road: check the water,
And check the oil, check the number of kids
Fighting with each other in the back seat

Select some Eagles tunes and fuel them too
Into the six-layer CD machine -
Let’s bust out of Texas and head for Horse Springs
Which isn’t there anymore, but Magdalena is

And they’ve got twenty-seven radio telescopes
Out on the plains to fuel our dreams and hopes

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

      Self-Government in the United States with Tats and Extra Fries

                              “Here, sir, The People rule.”

                                 -Numerous attributions

I blame the Russians. And people who read books.
And that ******* in these here schools
The Navy SEALS is actually Lizard People
I only know what Q told me, okay?

I seen them suitcases of electoral votes
For the junior high cheerleading squad
It was stolen, I tell ya! Sarah Palin rocks!
It’s all in the Bible, you ******-freak

Secret U.N. observers occupy our town
And that is why the InterGossip’s down

A table of Jesus-stuff at the door
A beefish man in gas-station shades
Channeling Chaucer’s Pardoner – he ain't
Never heard of him – in peddling salvation

“It’s for the church. It’s for the missions,” he says
Ignored by most.  Then in a mutton moment
He spreads his legs and clutches at his (faith)
Laughing a pelvic ****** at his fellow apostle

A gormless guide to The Golden Shore
Touting tawdries and tidings at the truck stop door

Semester Exam

Fluorescents flicker and fall upon bowed heads
And printed letter-paper, organized
By title, paragraph, number, and line,
Interrogations set in Bookman Old Style

And then words fall, flung bravely to each sheet
As desperate, inky thoughts flailing for breath
While to battered be by split infinitives
Demanding an A, praying for a prom date.

The paper's a mess, one’s mind is in shreds
Fluorescents flicker and fall upon bowed heads

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

                        Death Takes a Holiday in Cancun

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

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

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

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

                  Send Not to Ask for What the Vulture Seeks

                                                  or

                         Try not to Look Like a Dead Cow

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

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

                              Send Them Your Dawn, O Lord

We repudiate Putin and all his works
And all his pomps and all his engines of death
And all his malignant servile orcs
Who crucify humanity with lies

We are both Marys, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea
We bring the holy bodies of the sacrifice
To Your Garden Tomb; we await Your dawn
Baptizing with our tears this darkest night

We have nothing to offer in our desolation
Only our murdered children and blighted lives
Our brothers and sisters in Moses and Christ
Our mothers and fathers who were disappeared
The neighbor boy who played his tunes too loud
The pharmacist who tried to stop a tank
With her fists
The traffic cop who gave us speeding tickets
MeeMaw in the bombed-out nursing home
Our cousins in the bombed-out railway station
Our brothers, they say, in some bombed-out trench
Ambulance drivers, nurses, physicians, technicians
Farmers, janitors, electricians, schoolgirls
Teachers, bankers, cleaners, grocery clerks
A woman cooking thin soup over a fire
Abandoned little house pets fighting over
A severed hand in the center of the road

Send them Your dawn, O Lord, Your Easter dawn
Send them Your dawn, O Lord, at long last -
                                                                                  dawn

You wake up in the morning and you know
You’ll only be all wrong again today
A prisoner of constant condemnation
And even your silence is suspicious

Your soul dissected for any dissent
Examined with sneering disapproval
And any hope is hissed with decent scorn
Your silence is especially suspicious

But maybe…

Maybe today – maybe it will be different…

You foolish boy; how wrong you always are

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

                         Sensuous Sophia the *** Robot

I guess that’s okay, the wise man mutters,
But is she any good at cleaning gutters?

or

             Sensuous Sven the *** Robot

I guess that’s okay, the wise woman mutters,
But is he any good at cleaning gutters?

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

                                     Seraphim of Sarov
                                         And the Bear
                                      And the Robbers

Saint Seraphim was seen feeding a bear
He would have fed the robbers too, poor men
With both the little in his larder bowl
And healing from the greatness of his soul

With his own axe they beat him near to death
Before looting his cell of its rumored riches
They found indeed a treasure of great wealth:
A peasant’s Ikon of the Mother of God

For the rest of his life

Seraphim leaned upon his axe and upon God
Taking our brokenness upon himself

Sergeant Schultz Saw Everything

This sad world needs another Sergeant Schultz
That merry miles ponderosus who
Carried his rifle like a walking stick
And celebrated strudel instead of glory  
His innocent joy repudiated
The burning-soul ******* of war
In seeing nothing he saw everything
Through ordinary men living in hope
The liturgy of daily happiness -
This sad world needs another Sergeant Schultz

I ate my lunch on a tectonic plate
It drifted away - my dessert is late!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              Setting a Cat Among the Pigeons

After two months
I filed a complaint with the insurance company
After four months
I filed a complaint with the state insurance board

Neither the cat nor the pigeons are much moved
Except to disapprove of me for noticing

That nothing much has moved

Setting the Night Watch

Nature exists without anyone’s permission:
At dusk the loud cicadas in the oaks
And the soft crickets dwelling in the grass
Sing an evening hymn to the setting sun

Sparrows and mockingbirds leave off their wars
And all make wing to Shakespeare’s rooky wood
While little dogs patter the day’s last patrol
Snuffling the bounds as true as timber wolves

And as a tourist comes a straying man
Oblivious to the changing of the watch

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

                               Seven Haiku for the Pleiades

The seventh poem – think of the Subaru badge – is not seen. That thoughtful poem is the one you will write.


1.  Two Goddesses and a God Come to Visit

All in the same sky:
Luna, Venus, Jupiter
While the soft winds sigh


2.  Barefoot in the Stilly Dawn

Barefoot in the grass
Eyes to the east, the stilly dawn
The stars have withdrawn

.
3.  Dachshunds on Their Dawn Patrol

Every dachshund thinks
That she is a timber wolf -
Perhaps it is so


4.  Summer Lingers

Yes, summer lingers
Crickets sing throughout the night
Their October hymns


5.  A Prison Visit

The horizon has no meaning
If the prisoners look up -
Concertina wire


6.  The Prayers of Planets and Stars

The planets and stars
Need not our prayers; they never sinned -
Do they pray for us?

Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas 1

“Lest our old robes sit easier than our new”

Macbeth II.iii.37

Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?
This Octave day in darkness cold begins
And on the radio the same dark news
That began this fading Gregorian year

The well-turned compost heap of history
On which we flung the grounds and husks of hope
Expecting little, and so not disappointed
No resolutions, then, no black-eyed peas

No cabbage; let the months fall as they will:
Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?

Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas 2

     Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a      
     thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning
     of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is
     only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

     -Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?
This Octave day opens in darkness cold
And on the radio the same cold news
That began this fading Gregorian year

And ends it, churned by a news-o-matic
To be poured into an old plastic cup
As steaming-hot clichés to be consumed
By the devout, obedient faithful

The faithful, who worship a falling light bulb
Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?

Seventh Day in the Octave of Christmas 3

     “O moments big as years!”

     -John Keats, "Hyperion"

Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?
This Octave day opens in darkness cold
And on the radio the same dark news
That began this fading Gregorian year

But let us face this next turn of the time
With Aves on our lips and in our hearts
With the cold courage of Crusaders
And the cool kindness of missionaries

And may God grant that never again we ask:
Does the year fail, or is it we who fail?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      A Decrepit Father Indeed!

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 37

Sitting for an hour at an outside café
Sipping coffee and writing verse and, yes
Discreetly noting elegant mademoiselles -
I never got to Paris, but my daughter did

Waiting for a steamer along the Rhine
Midsummer Night in Finland the Brave
A blessing from Saint John Paul in Saint Peter’s Square -
Not those either, but my daughter did

But now

Flying to that second star to the right –
We’ll all get there in our dreams tonight!