Drip, Drop, Drip Drop,
The bucket sloshes,
The old woman kneels
To clean the threshold
of the ones she serves

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop,
The bucket sloshes
She thinks on her past
And her life and her hopes
her dreams, her last
husband long gone
her friends who’ve been near
her enemies who’ve hurt her,
those she holds dear

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop
The bucket sloshes,
She washes away
She sets herself to work
and begins to pray

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop
The bucket sloshes,
As she moves down the hall
Her heart, it labors,
as she scrubs at the floor
the billows of her breath
begin to bore
into her hands
she can work no more
she needs a small break
to labor without work

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop
She weeps for those who have not drawn near,
For those who are hurting, and lonely, and fear
She will stay forever, in her master’s doorway,
She would rather die, than never have stayed

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop,
The bucket sloshes,
her made clean heart aches,
is comforted by
a sovereign king’s ways
trials and terrors and toil and sin
good he has planned,
don’t let uncertainty win

Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop,
The bucket sloshes,
She goes back to work
To labor and love,
The last to the first

Frau Doktor,
Mama Brundig,
take out your contacts,
remove your wig.
I write for you.
I entertain.
But frogs come out
of the sky like rain.

Frogs arrive
With an ugly fury.
You are my judge.
You are my jury.

My guilts are what
we catalogue.
I'll take a knife
and chop up frog.

Frog has not nerves.
Frog is as old as a cockroach.
Frog is my father's genitals.
Frog is a malformed doorknob.
Frog is a soft bag of green.

The moon will not have him.
The sun wants to shut off
like a light bulb.
At the sight of him
the stone washes itself in a tub.
The crow thinks he's an apple
and drops a worm in.
At the feel of frog
the touch-me-nots explode
like electric slugs.
Slime will have him.
Slime has made him a house.

Mr. Poison
is at my bed.
He wants my sausage.
He wants my bread.

Mama Brundig,
he wants my beer.
He wants my Christ
for a souvenir.

Frog has boil disease
and a bellyful of parasites.
He says: Kiss me. Kiss me.
And the ground soils itself.

Why
should a certain
quite adorable princess
be walking in her garden
at such a time
and toss her golden ball
up like a bubble
and drop it into the well?
It was ordained.
Just as the fates deal out
the plague with a tarot card.
Just as the Supreme Being drills
holes in our skulls to let
the Boston Symphony through.

But I digress.
A loss has taken place.
The ball has sunk like a cast-iron ***
into the bottom of the well.

Lost, she said,
my moon, my butter calf,
my yellow moth, my Hindu hare.
Obviously it was more than a ball.
***** such as these are not
for sale in Au Bon Marche.
I took the moon, she said,
between my teeth
and now it is gone
and I am lost forever.
A thief had robbed by day.

Suddenly the well grew
thick and boiling
and a frog appeared.
His eyes bulged like two peas
and his body was trussed into place.
Do not be afraid, Princess,
he said, I am not a vagabond,
a cattle farmer, a shepherd,
a doorkeeper, a postman
or a laborer.
I come to you as a tradesman.
I have something to sell.
Your ball, he said,
for just three things.
Let me eat from your plate.
Let me drink from your cup.
Let me sleep in your bed.
She thought, Old Waddler,
those three you will never do,
but she made the promises
with hopes for her ball once more.
He brought it up in his mouth
like a tricky old dog
and she ran back to the castle
leaving the frog quite alone.

That evening at dinner time
a knock was heard on the castle door
and a voice demanded:
King's youngest daughter,
let me in. You promised;
now open to me.
I have left the skunk cabbage
and the eels to live with you.
The kind then heard her promise
and forced her to comply.

The frog first sat on her lap.
He was as awful as an undertaker.
Next he was at her plate
looking over her bacon
and calves' liver.
We will eat in tandem,
he said gleefully.
Her fork trembled
as if a small machine
had entered her.
He sat upon the liver
and partook like a gourmet.
The princess choked
as if she were eating a puppy.
From her cup he drank.
It wasn't exactly hygienic.
From her cup she drank
as if it were Socrates' hemlock.

Next came the bed.
The silky royal bed.
Ah! The penultimate hour!
There was the pillow
with the princess breathing
and there was the sinuous frog
riding up and down beside her.
I have been lost in a river
of shut doors, he said,
and I have made my way over
the wet stones to live with you.
She woke up aghast.
I suffer for birds and fireflies
but not frogs, she said,
and threw him across the room.
Kaboom!

Like a genie coming out of a samovar,
a handsome prince arose in the
corner of her bedroom.
He had kind eyes and hands
and was a friend of sorrow.
Thus they were married.
After all he had compromised her.

He hired a night watchman
so that no one could enter the chamber
and he had the well
boarded over so that
never again would she lose her ball,
that moon, that Krishna hair,
that blind poppy, that innocent globe,
that madonna womb.

Joel is a doorkeeper
for a rusty warehouse
and has a wife
a very angry spouse
and a son
one day his hip was out
two bodies going
on different directions
his blue uniform T shirt
floating in the powdered air  
barely walking up and down

he fell
while cleaning the murky water
that flooded the region
of cement factories and grey hills
two weeks without his employers
to even pay for the pain killers
or severance pay and no off time
his face had the expression of a struggling
red snapper

together
we would watch a gossip show
on the TV
while he ate spiced dry beef
boiled eggs and rice
the stories on the TV were mostly about
spouses, children, abandonment and
violence and
girls sleeping with their step dad
a psychologist and the skinny loud mouthed
blond moderator
who acted as the defender of society
completed the act

Joel could not stand up to open the door
a doorkeeper who couldn’t open the door
finally, after two weeks of silent pain
they gave him an assistant
we packed the last China bound container
bellied up with modems
to be refurbished and resold
to a billion internet hungry
Chinese beings

My job was done
two weeks past and I came back
he was not there anymore
but I found him
200 yards away under his shack
a crammed cardboard cluster of homes
he was in bed
lost 40 pounds and was
piped up, draining blood
from the chest
and a bag of ***** attached to the waist
someone was laying next to him
sleeping the afternoon
he smiled at me
missing two front teeth
skinny as a mummy
had three tumours
one trapped between the kidney
and the spine
one more in the stomach and the last one
next to the liver
he was to be taken to the hospital
with a danger of loosing
the kidney and his life
I gave him a kiss on the forehead
and left

It was the same pink sunny day
the same old trick of a life
but something was not right
it never usually is

Joel is a doorkeeper
for a rusty warehouse
and has a wife
a very angry spouse
and a son
one day his hip was out
two bodies going
on different directions
his blue uniform T shirt
floating in the powdered air  
barely walking up and down

he fell
while cleaning the murky water
that flooded the region
of cement factories and grey hills
two weeks without his employers
to even pay for the pain killers
or severance pay and no off time
his face had the expression of a struggling
red snapper

together
we would watch a gossip show
on the TV
while he ate spiced dry beef
boiled eggs and rice
the stories on the TV were mostly about
spouses, children, abandonment and
violence and
girls sleeping with their step dad
a psychologist and the skinny loud mouthed
blond moderator
who acted as the defender of society’s
completed the act

Joel could not stand up to open the door
a doorkeeper who couldn’t open the door
finally, after two weeks of silent pain
they gave him an assistant
we packed the last China bound container
bellied up with modems
to be refurbished and resold
to a billion internet hungry
Chinese beings






my job was done
two weeks past and I came back
he was not there anymore
but I found him
200 yards away under his shack
a crammed cardboard cluster of homes
he was in bed
lost 40 pounds and was
piped up, draining blood
from the chest
and a bag of ***** attached to the waist
someone was laying next to him
sleeping the afternoon
he smiled at me
missing two front teeth
skinny as a mummy
had three tumors
one trapped between the kidney
and the spine
one more in the stomach and the last one
next to the liver
he was to be taken to the hospital
with a danger of loosing
the kidney and his life
I gave him a kiss on the forehead
and left
It was the same pink sunny day
the same old trick of a life
but something was not right
it never usually is

Frau Doktor,
Mama Brundig,
take out your contacts,
remove your wig.
I write for you.
I entertain.
But frogs come out
of the sky like rain.

Frogs arrive
With an ugly fury.
You are my judge.
You are my jury.

My guilts are what
we catalogue.
I’ll take a knife
and chop up frog.

Frog has not nerves.
Frog is as old as a cockroach.
Frog is my father’s genitals.
Frog is a malformed doorknob.
Frog is a soft bag of green.

The moon will not have him.
The sun wants to shut off
like a light bulb.
At the sight of him
the stone washes itself in a tub.
The crow thinks he’s an apple
and drops a worm in.
At the feel of frog
the touch-me-nots explode
like electric slugs.
Slime will have him.
Slime has made him a house.

Mr. Poison
is at my bed.
He wants my sausage.
He wants my bread.

Mama Brundig,
he wants my beer.
He wants my Christ
for a souvenir.

Frog has boil disease
and a bellyful of parasites.
He says: Kiss me. Kiss me.
And the ground soils itself.

Why
should a certain
quite adorable princess
be walking in her garden
at such a time
and toss her golden ball
up like a bubble
and drop it into the well?
It was ordained.
Just as the fates deal out
the plague with a tarot card.
Just as the Supreme Being drills
holes in our skulls to let
the Boston Symphony through.

But I digress.
A loss has taken place.
The ball has sunk like a cast-iron ***
into the bottom of the well.

Lost, she said,
my moon, my butter calf,
my yellow moth, my Hindu hare.
Obviously it was more than a ball.
***** such as these are not
for sale in Au Bon Marché.
I took the moon, she said,
between my teeth
and now it is gone
and I am lost forever.
A thief had robbed by day.

Suddenly the well grew
thick and boiling
and a frog appeared.
His eyes bulged like two peas
and his body was trussed into place.
Do not be afraid, Princess,
he said, I am not a vagabond,
a cattle farmer, a shepherd,
a doorkeeper, a postman
or a laborer.
I come to you as a tradesman.
I have something to sell.
Your ball, he said,
for just three things.
Let me eat from your plate.
Let me drink from your cup.
Let me sleep in your bed.
She thought, Old Waddler,
those three you will never do,
but she made the promises
with hopes for her ball once more.
He brought it up in his mouth
like a tricky old dog
and she ran back to the castle
leaving the frog quite alone.

That evening at dinner time
a knock was heard on the castle door
and a voice demanded:
King’s youngest daughter,
let me in. You promised;
now open to me.
I have left the skunk cabbage
and the eels to live with you.
The kind then heard her promise
and forced her to comply.

The frog first sat on her lap.
He was as awful as an undertaker.
Next he was at her plate
looking over her bacon
and calves’ liver.
We will eat in tandem,
he said gleefully.
Her fork trembled
as if a small machine
had entered her.
He sat upon the liver
and partook like a gourmet.
The princess choked
as if she were eating a puppy.
From her cup he drank.
It wasn’t exactly hygienic.
From her cup she drank
as if it were Socrates’ hemlock.

Next came the bed.
The silky royal bed.
Ah! The penultimate hour!
There was the pillow
with the princess breathing
and there was the sinuous frog
riding up and down beside her.
I have been lost in a river
of shut doors, he said,
and I have made my way over
the wet stones to live with you.
She woke up aghast.
I suffer for birds and fireflies
but not frogs, she said,
and threw him across the room.
Kaboom!

Like a genie coming out of a samovar,
a handsome prince arose in the
corner of her bedroom.
He had kind eyes and hands
and was a friend of sorrow.
Thus they were married.
After all he had compromised her.

He hired a night watchman
so that no one could enter the chamber
and he had the well
boarded over so that
never again would she lose her ball,
that moon, that Krishna hair,
that blind poppy, that innocent globe,
that madonna womb.

There were rainbow colors in the skies
=
She had clouds in her eyes
=
She saw things with colors no ones ever seen before
=
She had keys to every door.
=
All of them except for his heart
=
And it slowly tore her apart
=
It tore her to pieces
=
And now she is dreamless
=
And all of her colors are gone

Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

      The Doorkeeper of Notre Dame and a One-Fingered Greeting

                                “I pray you remember the porter”

                                                -Macbet­h II.iii.22

“‘Tis my limited service” on Sundays to mind the door
To open it to the faithful with cheerful greetings
This is pretty much my skill-level, this modest chore
Such is the ancient custom for Sunday meetings

A family of long acquaintance approached, almost late
They live some miles away and had a long drive
Their youngest son held his hand out at the holy gate
I thought his intent was a youthful high five

But with only one finger he greeted me!
And that was my lesson in humility

As for the boy’s lesson

While the servers rang the welcoming bell
His momma yanked him outside and gave him
                                             (peace)

Standing alone in
dying light, to find darkness of
sun crying in bushes.

You were not me in
shipwreck. The sea wos rising,
Will call doorkeeper.

Truth was not the need.
Will collect messages of
sad, ravaged moon.

beard, ashen grey, swept by the winds
of years and centuries, aeons gone by,
misunderstood, forever chagrined
by the earth and the men and the sea and the sky

on staff he leans, weighed down by sins
of the heart and the mind and the hand and the hip
wild hair and locks bellowed by winds,
white shredded sails on wreck'd mast of ship

he'd put down his scythe, his sickle and reaper
bought a break as death's doorkeeper
but the hubris of world dictator
bade him grasp the detonator

soon swarms of poppies blood-red
scarlet and pink as tired sunset
angry as the blood of maidens
blushing as illicit bedspread

scattered as myriad bloodshot eyes,
of mothers mourning as child dies,
as gore spurting in the skies
as brothers shot amid war-cries

ploughed the fields with hearts that bled
plagued burnt hills as barrows of dead
mutilated, youth-abated,
limbs of lives amputated

the squeal of babe, the cry of lamb,
crushed as raspberries in a jam
mulched the fields in pants o' breath
****** by masters of their death

for death now trampled underfoot
the innocent boys, girls and babies
turned their skin to gunpowder soot
ravaged their limbs with famine 'n tabes

ash and hail, desolation,
earth reeling from stagnation
sent death pleading for abation
from the lord of creation

but 'twas nowhere to be seen
not in the heavens with his queen
nor in the throne-room overseeing
for he is forever the elusive being

now hiding from celestial choir
now living in eternal fire
now head burning in funeral pyre
at one with souls as they transpire

as the madness and the envy
mad desire, lust and frenzy,
continue, continue, unabated
till all consumes, as is fated.

broken, bent, o'er his staff,
bent over countries in bloodbath,
o'er the bodies rent in half,
o'er waste of human wrath

over the greed that never ends
never pays dividends
devours 'n divides family 'n friends,
itself consumes, in the end.

Doorkeeper,
where can I find an attention spanner?

Wrenching the nose, brings forth blood,
so it don't freeze, yawn and rub eustacy
from your wide open heavily hooded eyes

Eutopian Earthian Mind Schemes,
not dreams, moral equivalency resets/upgrade

Free any ostiarius,
and find doors open
in the realm of curiosity,

the bane of short attention,
at tenere, eh, stretch

the fabric of reality just so far, the bubble
we be sayin' wagwan like a password, pops

and what is going on, lets any enter, imagining

this exclusive, exceptionalist aweformed bubble…

when a reader re ads attention tension,
pop, the idea that was the weasle,
offers a way to say this and get free. An ostiarius,
freed from slavery when we read the idle teacher

of decolonizing clogged cognitive colons…

and the sweet persuaders remind us whose time\

Yours, we took this much attention,
but you can still use it, we sorta cloned you.

Fear of staying in sidelines,
as a waning voice,
and falling in a drain.

You stand at the door of light,
and see the truth― boundaries
crumpling.

Afraid of transmission of lies,
interfacing long threads
of darkness.

It was extraneous, A
lot of heat generated by the
conversions. The doorkeeper remains the same.

The wisdom goes with
a begging bowl. Spirit was to
become an incomplete text.

The man/woman walked to the entrance and was denied.
Even had the guts to request why?
Except for the doorkeeper only reply you still have time.

Another came to the entrance and requested a free pass.
Only to be denied like the couple before him/her.
And like the other requested to know why?

Others came and got the same decision too.
Until the Almighty God intervene to explain.

I gave the world one begotten son to represent me through the world.
And many failed to express the qualities that he preached.

The racist saw the color of another skin.
And cried loudly with a protest they couldn't enter in.
The gossiper cry loudly when they were denied.
As if pretense was a quality I accept.
The ****** shouted with fear.
But understood why they won't be invited?

All my commandments state what I require?
Least when you at heaven's door.

Oh, if we could go back to the fifties one group be happy.
The decade of I Love Lucy.
Father Know Best and Leave It To ****** show.

And a host of others that mirror falseness.
It great to hear one race talk about those golden years.

Of course, one group still were maids and doorkeeper, shoeshine boys and entering the back door to work.

Or fed at the back of businesses.
Which I have never gotten when you a business your idea is to make money.

Then I am still trying to figure out the water fountain discrimination because the water was the same.

Oh, let's not forget the protest of the buses.

Yes, the decade was the fifties when we heard about Little Rock.
Hell, there just something about the so-called ***** south stupidity.
Nothing like a southern bigot.

Some couldn't even spell the N-word they seem to always forget a "g" when writing.
Now the music that was a different breed because you saw various singers that could and couldn't sing.

Some shook and some yell and some didn't shake a thing.
And yes, the decade saw the rising of the King" not Elvis but Martin Luther.

Oh, these were the golden days for them because they saw no problems.
And to this day, many still can't solve them.

You failed yourself,
when I was done with the depth
of the sea for truth.

*

You were not being in-
hurricane, when doorkeeper slept,
without any bearing.

*

The life betrays to
everyone. You stand *****
when the blue rains come.

Some of us
Are born
Happy
Some of us
Are born
Unhappy
In death
I chose love over happiness
It was my mistake
That I didn't know
They aren't mutually exclusive
At least I died a thousand deaths
And lived a thousand lives
And sang a thousand songs
Maybe, even loved a thousand lovers
When it came to be shown
To the exit
A thousand questions came
To my mind
The answers to all my questions
Was love
So I asked the doorkeeper
What is the secret behind
Inner peace
He told me
There is no greater love
Than letting passion ****
You slowly
I understood
I was born happy
But, I was born to be loved
Therefore, I was destined to be unhappy
If I thought I was alone
A thousand deaths wasn't enough
I had died a lonely soul
And I still didn't understand
What he meant by passion
How can one feel passion
Without life
In my confusion
I shouted at him
I am already dead!
He replied
You need to look at yourself
Truly
And stop thinking with fear
Have you ever cried?
Have you ever loved with your spirit?
Have you ever loved yourself?
In the end
It is the love we have received
That we can give
Otherwise men are destined to be cruel
And subjects of cruelty
If you think you can
Have a legacy
Without a sensible idea of peace
No one will understand you
No one will want to
That is your destiny
Which you believe will save you
From a pitiful conclusion
One without peace
Will know violence is like fear
It tears your soul
And affects others
Even when you are busy
Using your head
Then I finally said
Am I ready?
He asked
Ready for what?
I sort of asked in an impatient voice
To die a man without love?
He crossed his eyebrows
Curled his fingers
Considering my incongruous statement
And ruminated
I asked him, incredulous
What do you think you are doing, being silent?
He immersed himself in the cosmic ocean
I jumped to save him
And found salvation in rescuing his soul
From the clutches of rivers
The pernicious verses of Hell's gates
Under the porous cover of the night
He had deceived me
By telling me he knew all about death
At least, I found that I truly knew love
Peace never came
As a leopard never finds satisfaction
Chasing prey that runs away easily
Is the joy of living
And the struggle of resolution
A resilient person
Will know the difference
Between a hundred revisions
And a million doubts
A wise man knows when to stop
Sounding foolish is not bad at all
I noticed that the doorway of paradise
Opened in my mind's eye
And the gates were inscribed
"Where do we go to die?
Where do we go when we die?
Are sometimes the same question
If Hell is the answer."