Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Lawrence Hall Oct 2020
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                   The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

Garage-sale-blocked again, the one-lane road
Hosts cars on both sides, and oxygened-men
Defiantly aluminum-caning the middle
In their Quixotic quest for eternal youth

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus
On collectible plates and VHS tapes
Marilyn and Elvis bourbon decanters
Chinese-made MAGA caps in camouflage

“They just don’t make things like they used to do” -
Which is true, indeed, for them, and me, and you
A poem is itself.
Erin M Petersen May 2012
She came from a childhood of magic
of scrap metal bubbles and a love of Christmas
a father whom was often gone but never forgotten and never unloved
a mother whom tried for her little girl but ended up lost in the bottle to wash the world away
born in the small world that was Dogdeville, 1947
but being whisked away to Madison, a bigger better place
of sound public education and endless Indian trails along the deep blue lake
She grew with independence and an inevitable book under her arm, for that was what she knew
{a latch-key-kid from age five up}
pouring her heart into the creation of stories and poems
filling her mind with the worlds of great authors
'the classics'  
a seven year old to afraid to share the depth of her written word
speaking to a class with heads down on their desks for she feared the thoughts in their eyes
her last word greeted by the great applause that brought her to love writing
love books
love English {her never ending favourite class}
She grew with words as her protection
and friends who understood her strange imagination
learning to drive in her boyfriends truck
his head between his legs in fear
leaving school a credit short when a fun night turned into a little baby
growing inside her young body
{in those days you couldn't go to high school an unmarried pregnant teen, you just couldn't}
17 at Martha Washington Home for ***** Mothers
her graduating was thanks to English {as many things in her life are}
a caring teacher who stood up for a scared young girl
we still haven't found were Nadine is {the little baby that grew inside her}
that next year she started college
a freshman in a class of thousands
University of Wisconsin Madison
hiding away in her studies
{creative writing}
over sized glasses and frilly wild hair
once again she graduated and
She was off
leaving Wisconsin in the dust
out to California {her land of dreams}
gate 6 and the shifting mass of house boats
raising three boys on 36 by 8 feet of bobbing wood {in the shape of a football}
my two uncles 'The crash and burn brothers' and my father 'baby poops a lot, batteries not included'
walking day after day to the Bait Shop Market for black coffee
and the feeling of being alive
She came to age in the craze of the 60's
continued to grow through the fight of the 70's
remembers the blue romper in high school gym when Kennedy was shot
marching with students on the streets when Martin Luther King went down
listening to Bob Dylan
'The Times They Are a-Changin' through it all
{The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.}
her friends shared hatred of government as Nixon came and went {she never would have voted for him. Not in a million years}
the draft of their friends
going to a land that they all knew they wouldn't return from {far away from those they loved}
She became to personally know Melba Pattilo-Beals as they worked together
editing 'Warriors Don't Cry' {the story of a young black girl going to white school}
in a society run by the music
Peter Paul & Mary
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
Janis Joplin
Jimmy Hendrix
The Rolling Stones
Crosby Stills & Nash
The Who
The BeeGees
The Grateful Dead
Rod Stewart
Joni Mitchell
Joan Baez
Country Joe and The Fish
run on the beat
the lyrics
the melody
the overwhelming need to be
different
through the 50's
60's
70's
80's
90's
The Hippie Movement
Vietnam
Kennedy
Nixon
Through raising three boys
two university degrees {UWMadion's creative writing and law}
second one while raising me
Through all of that and so much more
she was lived
seeing the world through the eyes of a writer
a child
a teen
a mother
a grandmother
an editor
a lawyer
a women
She is the reason I am living
and she gave me the love of writing
and the love of the world.
my grandmother
Ronnie Jun 2014
Somebody said to me
Who is your favourite person?
But don't say your boyfriend or girlfriend,
Your mother or father, or sister or brother,
Nor your best friend through years gone by
If you looked at your whole life as a story
Who would be your favourite character?

I thought it would take so long to answer
But then it came to me so smoothly
Like a dimmer switch turning on
Smooth, but so quick, so obvious

"Joseph" I answer.
He s my special needs cousin
He will never surpass the mentality of a 3 year old
He loves trucks and buses and traffic lights
He loves fans and blonde girls and rainbows
He loves my mother, his auntie
He loves a girl from his special needs school
He loves anybody that will stay still long enough
He loves the BeeGees
He loves wearing mums glasses

At 26 years old, he is a man
But a man that will only ever be a child
He is the favourite, he is the most special
For he is the articulation of what human nature is capable of
He is the picture of a man not influenced by people
He is the face of the most basic human ability
And he is so positive

26 years on and he still asks
He says he will drive buses when he grows up
He says he will buy a laptop when I make money
He says he will go out with Blonde Girl when he's older
He says maybe he will buy a iPhone when he's older
Grammar was never his strong point
But who would correct a 3 year old who said 'a' not 'an'?

He is a simple human being
But represents our complexity all the same
But the best thing about him is that he shows
When you take away so many major human traits
The leftover base line is an optimist
He is full of hope

To me, he signals that deep down,
Human hope
Human optimism
It is inane
A personal reference to a cousin, so not exactly what I expect people to really understand what I'm saying. It's a tribute to him really; my whole family know to love him while we can, because it's a miracle he's made it even this far along.
Ken Pepiton Jul 2020
2020 -day 201

Sunday, July 19, 2020
6:49 AM

first 活 {livelihood}
remember meeting the enemy
seeing it is I
I am my opposition
I am the reason I lie I know

this is the day to keep my head,
if all about me are losing theirs.
this is
the day
the schism in the isms is widening
we may see scabs falling from
wounds healed at word
one,
hope, really, no wu wu, wei true hope
taken unseen as possible
- in a realm of imagining all things
- either possible or not things at all

wise to the ways of thought taught
conditionally
from the vibe in the tribe who took
triggering the primal scream from a theory
to musing drum music isn't good to sooth
the troubled soul instituted intuitive as
stories passed from inside to insider
states of waiting for
inseeing
ensuing peace...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds

positioning super beings in mythic roles
once played by mortals,
is there an institute rising from its knees,
believing a we is enabling, any we

audacious hope tied to the idea that was
institutionalized in a polis with no
memory of standing as free men,
free to imagine the world we
formed from was an institutional lie.

Tweet... retweet liar liar seat on fire,
get up and run
with the lemmings disneyfied as a certain
truth, we all saw the cute little rodents
unreasonably leap into the sea,
as nature guides for the good of the species...

but we know the scene, the stage, was set
off stage, obscene, the critters were
herded over the cliff, for the shot, but
we saw it
we know how it was done, but the message
institutionalized in baby boomer minds,
passed on to children who had children who
live fully disneyfied lives,
in true imaginary prowess of children...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds

A good man leaves an inheritance to his
children's children.
Mine get the wind, not good union
jobs, no guild proven tasks to perform to spec,
to gain
tenure, hold on
confess, professor, confess

are you now or
have you ever been the other in a mob,
did you run the other way?
or did you stand
institutional, alone? stretch it stretch it
-post Patriot Act,

is this the turn-key total war,
are we the children in the wolderness
hidden
by old hippies who read books and smoke *****,

but never lied, not even a little bit
to skip taxes,

the law does protect the satisfied poor,
who rear curious children formed
to fit smoothly into forms of being being
sold for tasks needing intel
teliosis tell me is that the goal, that brave
sorting of knowers from those
who can't get a grip on the
truth in the military
universal mind,
unified as the us, the objectional form of
we, the people, who hold certain truth,
as our state, once we swear allegiance,

wait. watch. lie, say you know you saw
lemmings suicide for lack of reason,
just as crazy as a riot of *******,
marching into my valley
through the fourth wall into you,
inner you,
what do you know?

You got infected by an idea virus
vaccine, some old hippie dreams set aside,

as sub science connected tenuously sparks,
shock
pain
why
-- oh, I see says the pin, penned between
trigger and spiral rifling
misfires of the un loaded gun...
----

䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


once, north of the rairoad track,
down in slaughter house canyon,
I met a Gila Monstor, face to face,

I assumed it was a he as much as me and
I heard a question, I would have asked
were I such a thing being a he as much as me.

The question was why I would think
**** it, fear it, jump back

while I were so far away, come closer,
come and see,
I
think of me being a she as much as me
as
any pain avoiding being,
I am she who uses mornings,
to recover from each night by
basking in the morning light to loosen
old bones stuck in the cold
inner being, the soul at the heart,
of the mindless, dreamless state of being
mortal
under the influence of time and chance
and creatures of the night
ah, she says, I see,
why you seem afraid of me,

differing POV, see, down low, you know,
no big fat lizard, big around as a ball bat,
long as a little leaguer's arm,
looking me right, seeing me straight from
an angle I never imagined
possible,

insanity, as defined by the inner child,
who still can hear hummingbirds
asking renewal of the famed
font of aqua dulce from
the legend that led
them, the flock that lives in the oak,
nearly always  only after the
flowers have gone brown in July...
----

䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


No unfinished thing is ever finished,
only finished stories end in hell,
and even then,
we unbelieve our way out,
time and again we escape the madness,

merely to stir up the dust that first formed
a reason to be at all.

Were I a gemstone cut to fit a brazen niche
beneath a gear and spring in an old watch,
fit, solid, held in underling relationship,
as a point,
balancing, perfectedly enough for a time,
the measuring assuring we see, as
life passing before our very
un ordinary, common sense of self

con science, con carne, con fusion
sub all that
under all that, sub conscience, sub knowing
I know you are you alone and the bell,
tolls for me, the after all,
being
imagined as you

stand and see if you were I
as I am me,
would you have reason to **** me?
...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds


In my youth, we all lived in
Real McCoy
Western movies, tales of conquering
common folk,
whose signs needed Dave Wassen to make any sense,
but that link is likely lost,
despite all the merit badges earned
-- you could not learn the sign language of the plains
-- you needed to live in a time before we became enemies

we welcome strangers passing through

bo'weevilish little critters, jes' lookin'
fo' a home... the pattern,

the frame, the threads themselves all twisted
and tied, crisscross
woof and warp, first we weave the canvas,

then we set the sail, or stitch the story,
Cluny Abby edifies some,
as did Medussa, on reflection,
subtle ivy bound
gardens of stone people memorialized,
became wordless tales for children to believe,
you see,
you may become as one of these,
the leaders who led us to now, some how, we
imagine,
we were manifested now, from underlying
circumstantial evidence of unseen, yet

see-able, visible, ignorable or not,
feeling a blind insight where darkness seems
a spot,
only empty. A place to rest a while and
imagine
peace as a river flowing from another's belly
to swallow me in being
as I seem
some days more than others, aware of efforts
to wind the invented witnessed cloud
of unknowing too tight to tic,
tic,
take a clock from long ago, one of those
hour glassic witty inventions for
timing eggs. Nada mas.

But, imagine, time shifting phase, each grain,
each
Leucippus bit re read as Democritical atom,
bouncing in picometer hops
in picosecond times
spanning all the years since one, the number,
was the onliest number
that you never see,
being as
you are later, after ever began, you began.

You continue, after I am gone.
But, don't forget your lines, your cue, you know
the reason you read.
My angel told you, no excuses, read or end up,
famous for your ignorance.

-- note: I read that the Donald Trump, as seen on TV,
claims a real bond to the Bible that binds him
and his base spiritua/financial
constituency, that which constitutes the
aberration being bid by mobs to become great, once more
swell up into an epluribal us being
under a
boss, the man on the horse LBJ wished to be,
the sky pilot Bush two boasted of being,
from the backseat, screaming Mission Accomplished,
while the BeeGees signal once more,
we started a joke...
that has the whole world laughing
at our grovelling
under the man we witnessed rising on the Obaman ashes
in Afghanistan, prophesied from Hollywood when Jack Reacher
was fit to that little guy, who stars in the Scientology
story. Jack Reacher is a myth, from my youth,
a type - like Marshall Dillon, but un civilized, and
able to accomplish any less than Supermanic impossible mission,
with pure Horton hearing, and Little Red Hen persistence.
But this was not my knack, I rest my case,

Once we are aware, you are the point of balance,
my point is made.
-- buried deep behind the guilt and shame and blame
wait, while seeing

Nothing doing is nothing done and
never imagined impossible again
(Peter Graves was Marshall Dillon's brother,
and both were Jack Reacher sized men, once sent on
Missions Impossible, as messages embodied, like
messianic hope some say
has always been a lie, heros always empower Tyrants
history claims, after all,
look around,
see...
past why or how, reasoning now,

it is true,
some wise of our kind, wandered to the edge
of the civilized state, believing as they walkt away
fore warned, each had a vision, a
knowing for some unseen reason, next is solid,
now is not,
take one step toward all you wish were true,
do
not lie to you
and you will never
lie to anyone regarding self
being me, not I,
we
see.
there was always a way to get by,
any damming thing,
and if you can not handle that truth,
you are fired,
go to hell and wait, end of story,
time out
test me, I am an American,
claiming this grew from seed Ben Franklin sowed,
I chuckle. You underestimated life,
witnessed from so great a cloud as commonly
contains reasons for having been,
stacked neatly in examined lives, lived. Read or be
ignorant, actively ig nor ing if nition.

Behold how great a fire...
----
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds
䕕 accepting subtility as grace abounds
䕕 accepting that means some thing, U+4555, it is the key element in the current idea Anime, the old idea cartoon, the under layer of a painted impression of realtiy at a given moment in time.
As an atheist, I accept consciousness of self (and/or free) will to surrender existence via one last breath by dint of senescence or cessation by self imposed choice (especially instances where terminal illnesses promises agonizing, festering, or kickstarting physical unbearable zingers),
thus tis fitting and proper to accept said unavoidable sentence given at birth asper death
although approximation surmised asper when termination of existence limned
an keen awareness of mortality, the body electric (no matter constitution trimmed
to optimal health, there doth not exist means to graft eternal longevity and belie
escaping descending into maws of oblivion, thus impossible to outwit curse to die,
thus necessary yet painful task to accept with stony silence grave fum foo fie
especially when joie de vivre instills this once gun shy now grown chap to utter a friendly “hi”
To an anonymous passerby, this self-induced exposure
   re: gestalt therapy tests comfort zone be
cuz, a rush of sheer delight arises when being amiable, civil, and exuding noah dee
manned, but simply reveling in the infinitesimal linkedin union, and tis also free
with an asset to impact positive repercussions toward those in near proximity – hee
haw, this euphoric after effect, when a stranger reciprocates pleasantly and doth smile
and possibly even surprises her/him self blurting out a verbal greeting, a trial
most unknown pedestrians seem taken aback, when a spontaneous impetus to while
away my consciousness aware that nobody escapes “stay n alive”
the recurrent refrain courtesy of the BeeGees, who set disco afire in every drive
in dance hall, whence a brief dalliance from hated grim reaper truncated wish to jive
until some indeterminate date of particular choosing, one would forsake the live
wire  coursing thru each master fully baited cell to relish (hot diggity dog) and strive
to maximize the transient personal foray, when corpse eternally resting in peace
a random fluke of seminal fusion, where no renewal sans the chronological leave
essentially forks over beating, mating and throbbing heart ceases, where survivors grieve
aware corporeal essence undergoes decomposition, and recycled, unless one doth believe
in afterlife, which no challenge made, yet for me,
thine molecular matter slipped back into mobius feedback fruit loop
becoming fodder to sustain other organic matter, yet I will never know
if thee cellular composition of yours truly will enrich soil on does scoop
and/or atoms of mine indistinguishable, where madding crowd doth troop
wherein microbes (if one adept to hear vocalizations), would be analogous to indigenous tribes as victors voicing war whoop.
Yo I used to, wanna follow tha, most expensive taste, waste,
Most of my time, looking at the dimes, but had pennies,
To invest in, man I'm looking, down the barrel of time,
Price on my head, diamond in the range, and it's strange,
They shame, the average mayne, gotta be on the dope game,
But I changed my names, my ways, rather, do it the right way,
Like a spike lee joint,let me anoint, as I appoint, raw imagery,
How many feeling me, we at the tip, of the century, how many moby's,
Out here, tryna be an Ahab, I stab ya with the lyrical vocab, rehab,
My mind, back up in the lab, and the jab, deeply begin to grab,


Ya intellect stinging, feel the bells ringing, slowly beginning,
Demise a weakling,  never do it with feeling, only when I'm rhyming,
Timing, off the right beat,hype speech, too deep to impeach,
Nixon ****, I benefit, like Americas corporate, I object,
Let's stay on topic, flash the new optics, trending hot picks,
Fools still running, moufs like a *****, I just hit the switch,
Avoid the glitch, let me take a sip, brew batch for you and you,
My crew too, so let's keep it real, and spin this venue, true,
Stands over false, defense, keep it tense, enemies on a fence,
Tryna climb, but they way behind, I stay on the grind, focus divine


Glow it like a candle, block out the scandal, mics my animal,
That I've tamed, **** shame, I still get hate, on my birth name,
I'm just playing cool, rockin hip hop jewels, a beat for ya to cruise,
In ya car too, summer time vibes, stay alive, heart the BeeGees,
One luv to my hip hop cuties,and the homies, in the communities,
Hold it down, ya can be a queen, or a king, with no crown, sound,
Off only with the real, like MJ rock only what you feel, forreal,
Not here to steal, ya spotlight, I'm here to re glow, the appeal,
Definition, stimulate a visual, reverse the state of, the indivisible,Yo
First off rest in peace to the gods Fife and J Dilla
The real hitters spitters of rhymes iller
Back to return the perm to spurn yearn
My critics back into the vinyl barns storms
Out my thoughts I'm oh so real feel
Me like day and night and I'll be sure
You cop the uncut version lyrics pure
As the ocean after the rain comes
The rainbows strain out the Earth's pain
Humanity failing the state of simplicity
Too much fantasy not enough reality
I feel like it's the beginning of last prophecy??
Feel me??


Let the funky-o-roma take you into a love's coma
Traces mind's like marijuana true blazin' stoners
Masons builder temple fillers multiple killers
Of bad vibes feel the knives of leechin' jives
On that beegees **** I'm just tryna stay alive
In gangsta's paradise saw the sun sparkling ice
Sweat drips off a heats tip let the words encrypt
Like space aged matrix back to the mothership
Like G Clint and parliament black 'stablishment
Miss the e cuz the e ain't for free- in -doom
Put it together you'll feel a sudden gloom
My eyes couldn't cry cuz of the skies flies
My universal thoughts floating atop
I swear I got props from other dimensions
Strengthen
See the aliens stencilin' grass whistlin'
Pictograms this ain't a hologram ****
I'm just tryna show ya something other than the *******
ram spam

— The End —