it usually leaps like a swordfish out of the ocean
and I’m able to harpoon it,
but as of lately,
I’m stuck with pond ****
and the tuna on my bad breath.

it’s nowhere to be found;
not in the parks,
the libraries,
the liquor stores
nor the circuit clerk’s office,

I tried fishing it out of the swaps of
spitfire and melancholy
but found nothing

I tried to ****** it with an excessive
amount of trouble and *******
but found nothing

I tried scooping the guts out of myself
like a hollowed out pumpkin and
splattered it with a wet slap
against an old newspaper
but found nothing

there’s nothing here;
no spark,
no imagination,
no ingenuity

what I’m I suppose to do?

as I sit here petting the black
velvet fur of my dog,
my toes won’t stop curling,
my nails are bitten down to the nub
and the stink of aging soars past
like eagles on fire

I have nothing to write about:
no unpopular opinion
no peculiar viewpoint
no bludgeoning over
the banality of
extinction

the only logical thing to do is
head out to see some local
band at a Chicago bar and see
where the alcohol takes me

I need the ammunition
I need the fuel
I need to make
something happen

the hard days of labor have diminished me
through attrition and lack of euphemism
but for right now, no matter how
saturated I am of feeling and thought…

whether I’m
drunk on sleep,
salacious on vulgarity,
grieving with quills,
vacant of *****,
dreaming of gout,
reading Géza Csáth,
listening to Sass Dragons,
burrowing under empty houses
or fixing the plumbing for the woman down the hall.

I still
can’t
coax
the word
out.

When I was
younger,
I had to learn.
Sit and wait to
write.
I  would get
impatient and force it.
If you read it,
you could tell.

Now I’m quite a bit older, and
I quit trying.
Fodder seems to be
everywhere.
I can write about
the most mundane
things.

Today I’m at the
library waiting for my
girlfriend to
finish up at the dentist.
She’s getting her
teeth cleaned.
All my drinking ruined
my teeth.
When I got them
pulled a year ago,
there wasn’t a
healthy tooth in my head.
I have dentures now, so
I don’t have to
worry about how much I drink.
I know this isn’t a
good poem, but
hey,
there she is
all shiny and bright…
and sober.

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

                            Graveside Service on a Blustery Day

               “The old order changeth, yielding place to new”

                           -Tennyson, Idylls of the King

The widower assisted to his place
Mourners in unaccustomed dresses and suits
A bible, leaflets fluttering in the wind
And gangly teens unsure what they should do

February clouds roiling and boiling
Even the officiant’s words are blown away
Prayers lifted into silence by the wind
They may have fallen by the gravediggers’ tractor

Or were blown through the leaning chain-link fence
Into the deeply darkening Grendel-woods

But still – in back –
                                                 a boy and a girl shyly touch hands

Lips cracked like old riverbeds,
skin paper-thin, torn at the seams.
I move through the world like a ghost in glass,
a hush beneath the sirens, unseen.

Hunger is a slow-burning fire,
a feast of absence, a quiet war.
Only the hollow-bellied know its song,
only the lost keep score.

Mama’s love was a blade in the dark,
a cipher I could never break.
I ran with the wild ones, teeth bared,
spelling my name in scars and mistakes.

But I am done with waiting,
done with the hush and the shame.
Let the dirt take me in,
let the roots whisper my name.

I was a bullet—
cold, waiting, silent steel.
But before the light fades,
his hands find me, real.

Love like a fever, love like a flood,
a martyr’s kiss, too good for my blood.
But his voice pulls me back,
his voice makes me stay,
before the night swallows me whole,
before I slip away.

Quenched at the wonders of your realm
Feathers crips on your chin
A chest heaving tortures of its time
Words hither from within
Doom fitted in your shoes
A harsh caress of sunlight on her back
Everlasting yet so quick to disappear
Promises shifting through your crooked teeth
Flesh dancing at the back seat of your Bentley
Hardened strokes of innocence  fading from existence
A fleeting being of chaos
Adorned by whispers of paradise
Pretty compliments coarsing your parched throat
Womanhood softening your calloused hands
Pleasure twisting within the veins
Fallen , we have fallen from grace
Reincarnation of a bliss to horrid to taint with our mortality
We were angels eager to break our chain and fall from heaven
Fortunate to have met
Yet Sinking in the disdain of our departure
I'm sure we'll meet again
By heaven
By hell
Or thy holy father
Or the strained curse of Lucifer's misfortune
Taken with two stones and one rock
A mouthful of prayer and eternities of sin
Joyous at the righteousness
Eager to bend the spine of his word
Fortune gracing her bust
Solitude wrapped around her neck
Fresh berries crushed between her breath
A sigh of content
Silence speaking in the presence of the Lord
Grace reaching its final peak
Snatched! Taken before recieved
Eyes pooling at the edge of their carnal nature
No deserves such holy pleasure
Says the devil to the fallen angel

My lover has crossed the sea, the great blue sea,
where the waves rise high and the gulls fly free.
With salt on his skin and wind in his hair,
he left me standing, silent, and bare.

The tide it pulls, the tide it sways,
stealing the light from my weary days.
I trace his name in the shifting sand,
only to watch it slip from my hand.

The moon whispers secrets across the deep,
as I sit alone where the cold winds weep.
Does he think of me when the stars ignite?
Or am I a shadow lost to the night?

Oh, sea so wide, oh, sea so tall,
have you no mercy, none at all?
Carry him back, bring him to me,
my heart is adrift, lost at sea.

The forest ground is rich and deep,
Sunlight flickers on my face,
The **** dirt clings where roots will creep.

Through towering pines where echoes sleep,
Fresh flowers bloom in wild embrace,
The forest ground is rich and deep.

The morning air makes my skin leap,
Goosebumps rise in nature’s grace,
The **** dirt clings where roots will creep.

Soft rays of light through branches sweep,
A golden glow in tangled space,
The forest ground is rich and deep.

The mossy trails, the hills so steep,
I breathe it in, my sacred place,
The **** dirt clings where roots will creep.

Forever here, my soul will keep,
Wrapped in the wild’s kind embrace,
The forest ground is rich and deep,
The **** dirt clings where roots will creep.

They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.