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

                                     Talmud Portion for Today

In the Talmud portion for today we read
Of the priestly appointments for stacking wood
And of other liturgical usages
As preparation for the sacrifice

But some must read their portion for the day
By a battle lantern’s flickering light
Deep down in a bunker among the tombs
While rockets fall upon Jerusalem

Thus blood still splashes against the Temple walls
Thus blood still forms the letters of the text

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

                                     SORRY OUT OF SERVICE

SORRY OUT OF SERVICE

Thus saith the comma-less yellow plastic bags
Fitted to the gasoline pumps of the nation
Where men are free from fuel and punctuation
Free not to take vaccines, wear masks, or vote

SORRY OUT OF SERVICE

The check is in the mail that does not come
Or maybe in a hijacked delivery truck
Silhouetted by a burning liquor store
Where dreams of lottery winnings go to die

SORRY OUT OF SERVICE

And there’s nothing left in the looted shops
(Let’s blame the teachers, Asians, and cops)

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

                                         A Cargo Cult

Conversations are about packages
Packages considered, packages ordered
Packages delivered and packages stolen
Packages as the cosmic medium of exchange

Conversations are about packages
Packages that give meaning to our lives
Packages pinched by plundering porch pirates
Packages snatched by maskers in masks

What is it all about? the thinker asks -
What if the packages are filled with
                                                                      masks?

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

                  He was Hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street

               The madman shouted in the market place. No one
               stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his
                thesis was incontrovertible.

                  -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, 12.22.57

He was hollerin’ Jesus on Nowhere Street
At the Corner of Life and Death, ‘way gone
Where there was a grocery store when we was kids
Next to a soda fountain with pinball machines

He was hollerin’ – sinners can’t hear, I guess
And beatin’ on his Bible and dancin’ about
Like a man with a devil in his soul
And that ol’ devil was wearin’ him down

He was hollerin’ among the ruins, a shame
When he looked at me
                    and hollered my name

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

                              A Texas Ranger on the Trail

                                 For Ranger Brandon Bess

His steely eyes stare into the microscope
Following a ****** track of DNA
Across the scrubby badlands of the lab
And into computer analysis

His gun hand targets matching saliva swabs
With a hair-trigger spectrophotometer
Double-loaded with HLA-DQalpha
Against Minifiler STR at high noon

Say, pardner –

If you commit a crime in Texas, then you had best
Beware the Ranger with a Teichman test

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

                   About that Bicycle Leaning Against a Sunlit Wall

About that bicycle leaning against a wall
All artsy and stuff in the slanting sun
“Take my clear photograph!” it seems to call -
Nah, put away your Leica - it’s been done

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

                       A Footprint on the Road to Santiago

A footprint on the road to Santiago
It has meaning - a footprint, and another
An indent from the ferrule of a stick
Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

Sin-weary and sunburnt, a pilgrim plods
Through weeds and dust and sometimes traffic lights
And idlers mocking from across the road
Toward a vision of a Field of Stars

Where free from sin and pain and blood and scars
He may at last find peace in that Field of Stars

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

                  Online Certificate Program in Novel Writing

            “…that led me to answer an advertisement in
            the Sunday Times and take a job…with a
            correspondence school…”

             -Elizabeth Bishop, “The U. S. A. School of Writing”

And a certificate!

The ad presented as a joke, only it wasn’t:
(Famous Name Brand School)’s Continuing Studies Program
Will make you a Hemingway for eighty dollars
And there is a student testimonial

And a certificate!

Embrace the tools solidify develop
Accomplished authors craft tutorials
Dedicated dynamic cohort peers
Passionate instructors prestigious fellows

And a certificate!

Achieve the goal for which you have been aiming!
(And a certificate, suitable for framing)

Only eighty dollars

      “The U. S. A. School of Writing had been raided
       by the police shortly after I left…”

                                      -Elizabeth Bishop

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

                          Morning Coffee with Signor Bialetti

Wreckage is everywhere, two apple trees down
Limbs and leaves and litter, shingles and wood
The lawns are white with shoals of springtime hail
The lines are down and the power is out

But Signor Bialetti from Italy
A super-hero in aluminum
Is pleased to take his place on the camping stove
Twirl his moustache and stride through Sterno fire

Singing songs from his favorite libretti
While making us coffee – O brave Signor Bialetti!

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

                      Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-Olds

                     “You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.”

                             -Holmes’ first words to Watson in
                                     A Study in Scarlet, 1887

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 of more young men:
A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,
A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull


From The Road to Magdalena, Lawrence Hall, 2012, available via amazon.com

“Afghanistan, graveyard of empires” is a common saying whose source is unknown.