I just finished watching the movie LEAN ON ME (1989).

I graduated from Andover often considered the best high school in America. But the school I just watched in the movie is better than Andover. The school is Eastside High School in Paterson, NJ.

Morgan Freeman, who I consider the best actor ever, stars in the movie. If you have never seen the movie, see it now. If you have already seen it, see it again.

The story of the movie is a microcosm of the state of Earth. The new principal of Eastside, Joe Clark, played by Freeman, saves the high school and the lives of all associated with it--students, parents, teachers--through his love and the love he regenerates in all of them.

As I have said before, only love can save Earth, the love of all 8,000,000,000 of us.

Lean on all others.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Out of the night that covers me,
     Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank my God, King Christ, for He
     Has come and conquered, O, my soul.

Clutched by a fate that's felt like chance,
     I've winced and wept and cried aloud.
Under the gaze of God, my stance
     Is on my knees.  My head is bowed.

Beyond the place of wrath and tears,
     Where Death casts shadows, shade on shade,
The menaces of bygone years
     Are disappeared.  My debts are paid.

My gait's as strait as heaven's gate,
     My way as narrow as a scroll.
Christ is the master of my fate.
     Christ is the captain of my soul.

i close my eyes
to see you i close my eyes,
the world suddenly is leaving
entirely
is leaving, of its  own accord, is leaving,
    is falling like an eyelid, tired
on the keys of a piano, the stillness of the morning covers us,  white
white,
bleached by the winter, waiting for the pious sound,
waiting
for the snowdrops to bloom

hear listen to the sound
of the crisp snow spinning the air
say hello where are you
say farewell to the old moon
while rivers are carrying their quiet darkness
and all the poems untouched
by emptiness
remake or retake
get drunk with lucidity
get high as the wind passing through
untold stories

Out of gratefulness came gracefulness.

A grateful being makes
a graceful being.


Shell ✨🐚

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                  ­    Corporal Karamazov Flies Home from the War

                                           “Which war?”

                            “Your war – there’s always a war.”

Every young reader sees Alyosha in himself
A sensitive mystic, misunderstood by most
Questing for an answer to a question unasked
Politely shown the door by Father Zosima

As Old Karamazov? Impossible
53 is an age of antiquity
As Dimitri, Ivan, and Smerdyakov?
They are unable to sort out themselves

Lost in thought in a contract airline seat:

A 22-year-old just two days off the line
A patriarchal colonialist ideologue