Often times I wonder
as I sit in my little car
in my little town
with my little friends

if the world is bigger than I?

Then I realize this life is too short to squander
and the past is now too far
to keep yesterdays frown
for life never truly ends

And I smile secretly at the sky

They tell me that the romantics
had a curious way about
the way they loved and hated
and the things of which they wrote

Their love is better best forgotten now

Still they amazed me with their antics
their scandals the world still loves to shout
the way they so simply and wordily stated
like the world's chaos was their little note

So in their image, do I dare to grow?

the romantics
after meeting you
will idealize love

the poets
after loving you
will romanticize loss

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

                                A Lust-Crazed Darwinian

                                           Isaiah 11:6-9

Outside the window I see in the autumn oak
A face-off between a squirrel and a cat
Small cat. Large squirrel. Insults given and received
They would **** each other, just like humans

The Romantic wants to see them at play
The Darwinian wants to see who wins
And if the squirrel would eat the brains of the cat
Just as the cat would eat the brains of the squirrel

And leave little headless corpses on my porch
Which is why I am a hopeful Romantic

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

                          The Unfashion of the Romantics

                    …the romance of intellectual adventure.

                      -Daisy Hay, preface to Young Romantics

Thesis:

The Romantics are simply demode, my dear
Those structured paleo-colonialists
Who rattle on about flowers and love
And craft blank verse about walks in the wood

Antithesis:

Oh, but note, if you will, young lovers who
Thoughtlessly put their sunlit heads together
Over an open Keats, reading to each other
Among the unwritten leaves of their youth

And now note, if you will, young thinkers who
Thoughtfully put their sunlit words together
Over an open Byron, arguing for freedom
Among and for the peoples of the earth

Synthesis:

The young are lines of iambic pentameter
New lines, new lives, discovered in each other

A hand on your face
Lips wet to the touch
Smudging you with kisses
I love you so much..

Outcast and outlaw and wild Romantic
May I rest my heart in thine gentle hands
Let it beat naked, open, and frantic
Will you pluck its strings, kiss these shiv’ring strands?

I pray, will thee guide my wandering pen
Across the page, through the spectral divide
Help find the words that evade me again
Trying to make sense of the mess inside

A desperate plea from a kindred soul
Seeking anyone who can understand
To find the words that make me feel whole
And sink teeth into the life I had planned

Find me, my lost flame and distant lover
Together, what worlds can we uncover?