Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Who Shares Your Desk?

Hundreds of friends share my desk with me
Leaving coffee and wine and tobacco stains
All over the place, their thoughts cluttering my mind
Dreams and possibilities for my heart

Yevtushenko and his Silver Age poets
More Russian poets
Shakespeare in a worn college omnibus
Larry McMurtry
(One must understood that in Texas Lonesome Dove is a holy text)
The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse
The Oxford Book of Narrative Verse
The Oxford Book of Christian Verse
The Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse
Leonard Cohen and his famous blue raincoat
Cavafy at an oblique angle to the universe
Wordsworth and Dorothy out for a walk
Plath
Keats
Sondheim
Montale
Hopkins
The Oxford Book of English Verse, the 1939 Q Edition
(Not that Q!)
The Oxford Book of English Verse, the 1999 Ricks Edition
Pasternak
Lewis
Frankl
The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse
Kafka
Herrick
Milosz
Virgil
Tennyson
Wavell and his manly flowers
Claude McKay
300 Tang poets (they do seem to drink a lot)
Mary Oliver and all her doggies

So there they are, in untidy rows and piles
(The Tang poets simply will not behave)
They are patient with my slovenliness
Pens, screwdrivers, a Rosary, two light bulbs
(I don’t know why)
A thermometer from my grandparents’ house

A 1962 Missale Romano and a toy fire truck
An Orthodox ikon from Tod of happy memory
A Tupperware coffee cup they don’t make anymore
Spare spectacles for seeing what comes next

Hundred of friends who ask the best of me
And who don’t mind my rows and piles of words
They talk to me, and I ask their advice
I pray I am not a disappointment to them

Or to you