Once I knew a place, a place I never truly found significant.
A vast stretch of abandonment and history - long forgotten and left to be consumed by Time himself.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly understood.
Decorated by Mother Nature with an asortment of trees and shrubs and an abundance of flowers it's only scar which betrayed it to the present was a solitary man-made structure, tattoed with the bold letters of "FALCON SECURITY" - surely an untold testimony to this place's past life.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly acknowledged.
Ocassionally it would become the temporary haven of hobbos and hermits alike. Living in mutual homelessness they sort comfort under the trees, in the confines of the hideous building or simply amongst the long, billowing grass of the place. They would build thingie-ma-jigs, what-ja-ma-call-its and thing-a-ma-bobs and sell them to the curt passerbys of their place.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly appreciated.
Surrounded by infastructure, and industry it stood out like a rose amongst the thorns and brought beauty and clarity back into the otherwise monotonous, morbid environment. It stood defiant and strong against the hungry, salivating greed of humanity - yet someday it was bound to succumb to our over-powering ambition for development.
Once I knew a place, a place that no longer exists.
In the blink of an eye that place was destroyed - uprooted and upheaveled.
Every tree, every shrub, every flower ripped out and now gone. No longer a haven but a grave yard where the dead lay scattered like fallen soldiers across the battlefield. Victims against the War of Industrialisation they fell prey to mans' heinous desires.
"Collateral damage" for a "brighter" future they say.
I say, who needs another vehicle retail outlet.
Once I knew a place, and I will never know that place again.

Becoming a Witch

I heard all the grumbles so I sat for a bit , the group getting ready for a quiz Let it rip
"I don't know if its worth all this study and trouble ... I mean really who cares if I use a candle on my altar thingie for the west to signify water?
I mean Lets get to where we get to DO stuff and wear all that cool Jewish jewelry"

"Yes ! and I want at least 13 cats cause that's my lucky number but I wont have time to clean up after them good thing they are independent"

"I want to get to the spells I hate my hair and I want to be taller and I really need to make Sarah sorry she took Jim
Look at this little table its full of neat stuff a Old Book and a funny curved knife and another one that's straight too "
This incense smells great and I bet that it's ***, did you do the assignment? No way did you?"

"Well its just meditation so she wont be able to tell whether I focused or not why should I bother ...I have all the books and can download online"

"I don't need a teacher at all anyway I can figure this out looks easy enough to me why should I practice when I can sit here and Google most anything I need to hear?"
"Ya you know that you right I'm not going to stay, will the rest of you come we have better things to do today?"

Sudden silence I heard as they left with a bluster why indeed must they know Wand from a Censor why should they trouble about flowers and herbs with Google right here its all but absurd
When I think of the time i spent learning this craft between dish's an husband an 2 full time jobs
yet the days that were allotted made my heart light as slowly the mystery's came in to light

Why do I bother to Teach in this time ...I'm slower then Google and memory betrays and fast is not anything now I can claim
So my classes get smaller seems like each year there must be an Insta-Witch lurking out there
So I take my old books and bones and memory and tuck us in bed Tomorrow we will see what "The Google" has said

Solita@2005

I can only ask the world of this one small favor if ever an hour shall fit and the words could be beacons of light and please just remind me to stay awoke with gentle wind at my back bringing grace into view as it recedes back amonst the ocean and the pillars of prayer that chatter those by the wailing wall and embraces those that tap upon the rattling door that keeps all the children in the haze of a pasture in the heat of the life it enables just as the psalm is his wisdoms delighte as the air blows through martrix bound code cadets out to circumvent a cataclysmic drive to mate and just move to another and then again in the canal of sight and sound and a collective failsafe that will abort a life like an absence that has been inflated around a parade float as the gathered selection of these types that think a giagantic caricature could ever be the answer we sought when the major and minor dont differ the playpen of such men and the zen of another culture without this beautif notion. Zen be my trigger anddplay in the realm of the game caught dead to its life inmy aim so i fire but miss by a mile in its eyes was the wild soulfire of the warwielding and battle crys deep in the sounds of the ones before whom never shot with this gun mans way to dwindle without any extra provocation needed as the sun can burn til its over and the sky will die oh sitting at the peak of a trip ive found in me somewhere just startled and sad to be him always knew this was unrelated but relevant reaching fingers darling to the baby of the fam a few people together bond with the twisting genetic tumble lay down with my chest to the sky of my own self saturated in the conversation last upon my drifty lips just slap at the man at the gate called the end in the ending of all and the affect makinf reflections by the bay of days wuth the haunting of its machine by the ghost of poor working soul
My friends say my parents have said then i forgot by the lake of recall made to the mists in its mouth in the water in the wet wisdom dreaming of man when list in the blanket of night.
Oh ******* words and ******* too if you think ive an answer for you just the sound of me laughing to pieces nothing will last but nothing claims so spread your arms open wide as rays pull you back from the brink and all can be whole if only for tonight swept tight in the skin of the crawl made to wander in search of another to seed as its life pours itself back out into another manic molecular arrangement is made up in script of those if its sun artic laughter so iced mended and cold rendered to cut to the deep of the mind absurd ol me and the powers that be wrapped so tight in the arm of celest the name of earth as of early where its charge made planets to swirl axioms everywhere you look and in every book and inside the dna of all these men... Lost as ever
**** the daylight and ******* howl at the moon and be that golden light that can make a symbolic stand never delivered from surrender that was left as his testament shook to the place you can go where you can hold as it blows the beginning back to its own conception and reduced back to the file used to make space time a funny little thingie in the gears of a train never ending stopping only in the valley of the stars in the chasm uninfered by the redundancies of intention

Thursday

week has slo~mo’ed, edged on, visitors gone,
two and half rain days, but a mere coincidence (?),
it’s appearance, their concomitant dis-appearance,
inclemency has kept us closeted and cozily, but not a-lonely,
for the world’s tumult~tilting-plane distracting enough,
its axis! seems more than a few degrees a-kilter,
(lively, lovely word, rarely used), and since when have I awoken with
mine eyes have seen the dripping rhymes, for my germanic-jewish
is pretty prosaic, my musings confined to a middle-of -the-night “thingie,” but here and hear I am jingling away in anticipation of a rain-all-day situation, and frankly, a tad less political west wing,
King Lear worthy drama, polarizing, thee-ate-her, might incentivize an exciting trip to the emerald isle’s solitary gas station and IGA supermarket (weekend supplies for the newest arriving morrow-guest-mongers,) for sure-as-right-as-rain-it-will-be-ceasing,
they will be soon enough be landing by F-Day (3) ferry, on the morrow, with their own Shakespearean screenplay, and many compliments on the verdancy (a previous never employed actor’s verbosity) of our tree encased, oak surrounded, tiny cottage hideaway, where we are all the world’s a stage, and we, the designated locked down, can be all ~ heavenly host, wait staff, sommeliers, and most importantly, their captive audience members…for their small life’s litle newest pieces, require us to be fully updated…

enough folderol! first glance reveals wet everything, windows moisture painted; and a halfway penetrable fog  means incautious
summer drivers will be out mise en vigueur, french for ‘in force’, testing their luck upon our ****, curvaceous, ample bosomed hilllock roads, (stop),  excited by their chance to prove their stupid mettle…and their auto’s european superior brakes & suspension…

so the six am borderline of unofficial time division has passed and it is still Thursday, still wet, fog-ever-so-light touch lifting, and the challenges of writing a good piece of poem, yet sizzling in the mind’s frying pan, is still a long haul walk down the creaky corridor to the
just-kitchen ing ya, and the bed’s seductive dulcets.
singing why not “Stay (just a little bit longer”) (1)…

thus throughly convinced, bury dreams of Javanese Enlightenment within the seducing drowsed plumpness of my pillow
unti they arrive in force, but that is a different story already written…(2)

<>

Stay… ah, just a little bit longer
(Please) please, please, please, please
Tell me that you're going to
… Now your daddy don't mind
And your mommy don't mind
If we have another dance, yeah
Just one more, one more time
… Oh, won't you stay, just a little bit longer
Please let me hear
You say that you will, say you will
… Won't you place your sweet lips to mine
Won't you say you love me all the time
… oh, yeah, just a little bit longer
(Please) please, please, please, please
Tell me you're going to
… Come on, come on, come on (stay), yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Come on, come on, come on (stay), yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Come on, come on, come on (stay), ooh, la-de-da
Come on, come on, come on (stay), my, my, my, my

Today I ****** In The Sink.  

couldn't hold it to aim toward the toilet,
I drank too much soda and I had to go *** bad
there my engine was cast went right for the sink
can't even wink to dismiss this earthly bliss with a time well spent in thought

In my experience, men who *** (or tip their *** bottles) down the sink, don't tip it straight down the plughole - they tip it down the sides of the sink first.  They also decide to economise on water to the extent that they make no attempt whatsoever to rinse the *** off.  This means that before long, like a few minutes as the water evaporates and the urea becomes concentrated,  - YOUR SINK WILL STINK!!!  And, as the sink always seems to be the one you want to brush your teeth in, this means that your first task in the morning is to scrub out the sink else half way through brushing your teeth you will suddenly feel rather ill and probably throw up down said sink, which will then need an even more thorough clean.  But the sponge you scrub the sink out with will then need to be hidden from the rest of the family who will otherwise attempt to wash either themselves or the tea-cups with it.  Our sink is a pretty basic one with a straight tube draining the waste water away, but if you have one with a u-tube thingie fitted, it will always retain some *** no matter how much water you use in a futile attempt to rinse it out, and every time you approach the sink your stomach will clench in fear of the stench that will rise from the plug hole as you reach for your toothbrush.

That lopper-thingie on the end of a pole
Indelicately intrudes among the leaves
Telescoped out, its harsh geometry
Unnatural among the greenery

There seeking out an elusive apple spared
The nightly browsings of the day-shy deer
Or the nightly pillagings of raccoons
Who destroy more than they will ever eat

But there’s that apple – careful, careful – snip:
And down it falls, with an apple-saucy flip!

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

                                 Flying to London on Nitrous Oxide

                                              For Dr. Armstrong

Doctor A. dropped a black cloth over my eyes
As if I were facing a firing squad in a vinyl chair
An uncomfortable vinyl chair
The firing squad is not in the chair; I am

How silly to think of a firing squad in a vinyl chair I mean how would they all fit, eh

I give the finger to an oxygen thingie
And air is piped into my itchy nose
scratch scratch
“I’m turning the nitrous on now, just let me know…”
What shall I think about during dentistry…?

A holiday in London long ago
I’m walking along crowded Oxford Street
A motor-scooter cop is writing a ticket
For a tiny little car that’s double-parked

Across the street is a used-book shop
I want to browse the old Oxford editions
(OUCH!)
But first I’ll find breakfast
I’ll find breakfast
I’ll find breakfast
(oh that one’s only a little ouch)
And what a happy breakfast!
In this little café with windows all steamed
And I find a seat among the shoppers and workers and shoppers and workers and the nice English waitress is from Viet-Nam and I was in Viet-Nam and she is still from Viet-Nam I was only in Viet-Nam and she is very English and writes on a pad eggs and sausages and toast and eggs and sausages and toast and after breakfast I’ll walk across Oxford Street for Oxford Books I can see in the dusty window and the nice English waitress takes my order for eggs and sausages and toast and somehow I never get across Oxford Street to browse the Oxford books because “I’m switching you back to Oxford oxygen now and you’re all done just sit there for a few minutes” and she wipes the drool off my chin and the ordinary air hisses through the nasal cannula and I feel a little fuzzy and I’m not in London and there are no eggs and sausages and toast but yes I can stand now and yes just go see Erin at the front for the paperwork and then I’ll ride in the passenger seat to Jack in the Box for some sort of golly-gee-**** breakfast swaddled in paper and coffee in a paper cup which I will have to chew and swallow on the right because my left is all numb and I’ll dribble on myself and I wish I were in London but I’m not but coffee from Jack in the Box after being NPO after midnight is okay too…

I wuz talking to Clyde down the hardware store
(on the phone, coz we don’t go out no more)
‘N I was kickin ‘bout how tired I am of making do,
Specially when it comes to … ya know, the loo.

He said cousin I’ll be right over with a wrench:
You won’t believe it – we got it from the French!
It’s half off for you all, they call it a bidet,
And it won’t even take me twenty minutes to fit it.

Afore I had time to say slow down brother,
He had this new pooper in place of the other
Kinda oddball lookin, but shiny and clean,
With some doodads on it I surely’d never seen:

I gotta run cuz, he goes, but don’t waste no time,
Just settle on down and you’ll do just fine!
I sez but whaddaya – heck, you’ll figger it out bo,
And I hear his truck peel out and go.

Well I positioned myself in the standard location,
And acted as anyone would in that situation.
Then I craned my neck back, looked over and down,
Took a hold of some thingie and fiddled around.

The first thing that happened wuz just-yer-everyday,
But the SECOND –

I Just Don’t Know What To Say.
How that THING took liberties with a Godfearin man
Is more than I can ‘spress, maybe the Devil can.

The next thing I remember I’m out back in the yard
-I think I wanted something heavy for to hit it –
When I heard the Missus comin back from playin cards
Yellin, What’s this Thing?
- I said, Hon, that’s the bidet.

Well she went on for a while, what a fool she took me for
And how come there was so much water on the floor;
But I talked her down nice, explained it pretty well,
And I sez why don’t You relax, and just ease yourself a spell.

And Man, before I ever heard that bathroom door slam,
I was off in my truck right out of Alabam’
But I took my AR-15 and shoved grenades in my pants,
Coz I wanna be ready when we declare WAR ON FRANCE.