She will make it a perfect holiday

(“Don’t touch those cookies! They’re for later!”)

Just like the ones on H & G TV

(“Don’t touch Santa! I’ve got him where I want him!”)

With the perfect table and decorations

(“Who moved the Easter bunny, --- --- it!?”)

Exactly like the ones in the magazines

(“Just leave the tree alone; I’LL decorate it!”)

And smiling faces all around the house

(“I expect a little cooperation around here!”)

Perfectly wrapped presents with perfect bows

(“Turn the tree…not that way…LISTEN TO ME!”

Cute Easter baskets for each little child

(“Leave those chocolates alone! You’ll ruin your lunch!”)

Marshaled prettily for a photograph

(“Oh, ----! There’s a grass stain on your church dress!”

Meemaw and Pawpaw will be proud of them

(“---- it! I told you not to play outside in your church dress!”)

The children’s table is just like a picture

(“Not yet!  We haven’t even said the  ----ed grace!”)

A perfect holiday, or she’ll just die -
No matter how many children are made to cry

asked the little doll, his blue overalls
and perky personality answering
his own question

I would take another stance: sometimes.

Some words are best left unsaid, but once said
those words are never forgotten

Not when meemaw passes away
or when papa follows her
into the great grassy patch in the ground
overlooking a lively city
filled with all the people
who never knew them and didn't care to

People wound deep
others can help by sticking in
their pieces of metal
as they dance their ballet-like dances

Fewer times than fingers
have I seen things restored
to their happy and bouncy state
when the depth of a fountain of love
spills out and fills up the holes of sadness

A Conversation about Whiteness

Wedding dresses, clouds in a summer sky
Those new tenny-runners in junior high
The towels the Navy issued all of us
Liquid Paper™ for covering typos

Wild geese winging the seasons, moved by God
The much-prayed pages in MeeMaw’s Bible
A sidewalk made playground with colored chalk
A blank page in the typewriter positioned

Ready, waiting for the next Langston Hughes
To write about rivers, or about…you

as published in LogoSophia

Gave up trying to remedy the formatting...

“The Result was Silence”

“Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence.” -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy

There is no silence in Kiev this dawn
Morning commutes, intermittent news feeds
Explosions. Power failures. How many will die
Without finishing their WORDLE today

Old men rattle their dentures in outrage
Sky News reports a couple of police officers
In the street below, smoking cigarettes
Which makes more sense than most things just now

Kharkov’s air-raid sirens are deeper than Kiev’s
There is no silence in Kiev this dawn

A Few Kind Thoughts for Roman Soldiers

If you have stood your watch throughout the night
To guard a clothesline of national importance
Dug foxholes only to fill them up again
And then patrolled through long days in the heat

If you have enjoyed Cinderella Liberty
And talking about poetry and girls
With a few mates down at the coffee shop
Because that’s all your poor pay can afford

You will then understand the conscript guards
Posted to keep order on Calvary

Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-Olds

Ghosts shriek in the wind from the Hindu Kush
Falling upon the lowlands in despair
Of any reality beyond death
In the blood-sodden sands where sinks all good

Walls, monuments, souls, hopes – all blow away
In the wreckage of long-fallen empires
Their detritus trod upon by tired men
Whose graves will be the howling dust of time

And yet the empire masters will return
And leave fresh offerings, remnants of the young:
A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,
A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull

(First published in The Road to Magdalena, 2012)

We Have No Enemies Among the Dead
For the Young Crew of the Moskva
14 April 2022

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave…
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea -The Navy Hymn

Proud admirals and presidents rattle their medals

The young – in screams among burst steam lines die
Explosions and darkness and seawater and hatches sealed
The bulkheads blown, there is no up, no down
Only pain and horror and throat-torn shrieks

Proud admirals and presidents jing-aling their medals

Training manuals, pocketknives, and comic books
Naughty pinups, letters from Mom, wrenches, and boots
Toolboxes, ball-point pens, and coffee cups
Fall with the young deep down into the sea

Proud admirals and presidents dazzle the room with their medals

Mothers and fathers grieve in emptiness
Our Leaders caution them to mind their attitude

Proud admirals and presidents – to Hell with their medals

Crazy Old Men with Rockets ‘n’ Bombs

When you read to your brother or sister
A go-to-sleep book about bunnies and stars
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing along with the washing machine
And help your MeeMaw up those tricky stairs
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sit on the steps late at night
And watch a pirate ship sail close by the moon
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you pray for the bombed-out refugees
And put a little extra in the collection plate
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing a song to the universe
It remains in the heavens forever

Because

You helped heal a wound in Creation

No Bombers Over Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic School in 1958:
A Brief Discussion of a Successful Cold War Tactic

from an idea suggested by Kirk Briggs

Some have scoffed about hiding under our tables
As protection from the Soviets’ nuclear strikes
But scorn not this truth of those factual fables:
It worked! No bombers! Post that as one of our “likes!”

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

                              Send Them Your Dawn, O Lord

We repudiate Putin and all his works
And all his pomps and all his engines of death
And all his malignant servile orcs
Who crucify humanity with lies

We are both Marys, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea
We bring the holy bodies of the sacrifice
To Your Garden Tomb; we await Your dawn
Baptizing with our tears this darkest night

We have nothing to offer in our desolation
Only our murdered children and blighted lives
Our brothers and sisters in Moses and Christ
Our mothers and fathers who were disappeared
The neighbor boy who played his tunes too loud
The pharmacist who tried to stop a tank
With her fists
The traffic cop who gave us speeding tickets
MeeMaw in the bombed-out nursing home
Our cousins in the bombed-out railway station
Our brothers, they say, in some bombed-out trench
Ambulance drivers, nurses, physicians, technicians
Farmers, janitors, electricians, schoolgirls
Teachers, bankers, cleaners, grocery clerks
A woman cooking thin soup over a fire
Abandoned little house pets fighting over
A severed hand in the center of the road

Send them Your dawn, O Lord, Your Easter dawn
Send them Your dawn, O Lord, at long last -
                                                                                  dawn

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

                         You are the Daily Good – Thank You

                               What good shall I do this day?

                                         -Benjamin Franklin

So much good is being accomplished today:
Women and men going about their daily work
Food pantry volunteers stocking the shelves
Retirees prepping meals for everyone else

So much good is being accomplished today:
Little children study (and clean their plates)
A teen shops for his MeeMaw so she’ll be safe
A neighbor gives comfort to her grieving friend

So much good is being accomplished today:
And you and I are going to be a part of that

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

                                   An Extended Metaphysical Warranty

You buy something and the man behind the counter
Asks you if you want to pay extra for a warranty
And when you ask why, doesn’t the gadget work
He’s grumpily ready for you to move on

Most things in life don’t have extended warranties:
Love, Hershey bars, tree frogs on the window screen
The John Wayne movie machine that broke long ago
But memories of MeeMaw are always fresh

You live through pain, and He who is beyond the stars
Gives it meaning – that’s the warranty

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

                             We Are Afraid for Each Other

We do not wear our masks against car keys
Or coffee cups or clocks or coins or books
Nor yet again in fear of paper clips
Or pocketknives or fountain pens or socks

We do not wear our masks against the sun
Or moon or stars or air or trees or flowers
Nor yet again in fear of autumn leaves
Or gentle rain or evening mist or dreams

We wear our masks because we are afraid
Of being humans, of loving each other

NB: This is NOT a plea for unmasking.  The fear is of hurting others. Wear your mask. Wearing a mask protects others. Wearing a mask is love. It's not about you; it's about protecting MeeMaw.

An entire life you'd lived
before meeting the newborn me.
Special recollections endemic to you,
your portrait remains in my mind,
long-lasting forevermore,
too fragile to crack at the base,
memories withstanding the passage of time.

Hidden tears -- no sadness, just numb --
atmospheric tones of silence and refrain,
solemn notes adorn the walls of time
as they await the change in hopeful tides.
Rusted scissors in the hair of strangers,
swiftly dusting the fallen scraps
while the sun begins to dip beyond
the realms of the small town called home.

Unwillingly enduring the loss of a half
I never had the chance to meet;
those wounds never seem to scar,
yet onwards you marched through the veil
of cloaked dimensions diminishing hindsight,
a fallen flag now ripped and torn,
fabric scattered across an empty hall.

With age comes a realization
of the obscure similarities between us two:
fierce loyalty defines our name,
unabashed quips at those deserving;
our tonal blades slice into skin,
a verbalization of the anger repressed far away.
Our fingers can move, but we cannot feel
the freedom of those who dilated our gaiety.
It is easier for us to hide ourselves away
from those undeserving of the thoughts we possess,
the lies we believe, the trauma that haunts
deep into the silent night.

Mayme you were to the blood not ours;
Mother you were to the three you'd borne;
Meemaw you were to the many you loved
who sprung from the effort you selflessly poured
into raising the fruits of your labor,
the unknowing preparation of a life not yours,
a labyrinth of encouragement and love
for those who'd come after you were gone
and we who maintain your abiding legacy.