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

The Lone Ranger Masks Again

When I was a boy I wore my Lone Ranger mask
I even wore my Lone Ranger mask to school
Where mean ol’ Miz Griggs made me take it off
But now I may (as opposed to “can”) wear my mask

Indeed, I must wear a mask, and so, ha!
Ya can’t make me take it off now, Miz Griggs!
I can wear my Lone Ranger mask, so boo-hoo!
Me and the Lone Ranger, we ride again!

Only…the problem is…I’m not in school

Rats

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­        The Mild Geese

The abbey geese, for reasons of their own
Waddled up from the pond and onto the lawn
To mingle with the habited brothers
After the midday Mass

Fr. R looked out, a bit cranky that day
And spoke with Benedictine clarity:

“White geese.”

“Black geese.”

“All geese.”

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   The Bowre of Blisse

               Goodly it was enclos’ed rownd about,
               As well their entered guests to keep within,
               As those unruly beasts to hold without;
               Yet was the fence thereof but weake and thin

            -Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto XII

While much of the world is bleeding and burnt
Democracy takes a summer holiday
Far away in Maryland’s gentle woods and hills
Where the screams of tortured children cannot be heard

Among the gardened and guarded streams and trees
Elderly men are guided in their play
By smiling minders gentle in their words
And ready with the proper remedies

While those who code are kept carefully near
To sweeten the words the old gentlemen hear

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                   Yet Another White Sahib Dismisses the Dead

             "This is not abandonment; this is not an evacuation.”

         -State Department Spokesman Ned Price, 12 August 2021

While Afghan heads, like American guarantees
Roll in the dust of Kandahar’s grim streets
Our diplomats demonstrate their expertise
Executing again their skillful retreats

An elegant man at a microphone
Unctuously soothing the doubtful press
Denies that our client state has been overthrown
In a futile game of colonial chess

The dead cannot argue what Ned Price might say -
It seems their blood has blotted his resume

['Not an Evacuation,' Insists State Department as Pentagon Sends 3,000 Troops to Evacuate U.S. Personnel by Spencer Brown (townhall.com)]

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                  A Single Tear from a Child

                               “I respectfully return my ticket”

                              -Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov

Children

Are ill-prepared to fall into this world
Naked and cold and wet at birth, and then
Flung into a series of awkward situations
Many of them involving pain and fear

Children

Are ill-prepared to live within this world
Isolated from the stars and each other
Trying to fit mythologies in place
Maybe it’s that old Garden of Eden thing

Children

Are ill-prepared to leave this shadowy world
Unlike Ivan, though, they have kept their tickets

Respectfully

Lawrence Hall
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                    Worm Tunneling Through a Time Hole

Flailing through time and wobbling back again
The Chinese navy rules five of seven seas
Ol’ Preacher on the watch-‘phone yells about sin
Father knows worstest in his cartoon tees

Failing through time and wobbling back again
The 1950s marshal rides in HD
America’s Dad is convicted of sin
Hey, sailor boy, buy me a Saigon tea

Falling through time and wobbling back again
Ol’ Preacher needs to tuck his shirttail in

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                                Red, Red Wasps

Some sing of red, red wine, but here I sing
Of red, red wasps, who do not sing of me
I loathe and fear them for their vicious sting -
I aerosol their nest, and then I flee!

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                Abraham Lincoln and Macbeth

                           After life’s fitful fever, he sleeps well

                                              -Macbeth III.ii.23

To imagine a modern president
Having a favorite Shakespearean play
Is not to imagine a president at all

Lawrence Hall
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                           The Emperor’s New Kafka

When an insect woke up one morning he found
Himself changed into a politician
And thus gatekeeper to Das Schloss, key clam
Through whom all arrival applications must pass

All shipping boxes to be checked for ticks
In a village that cannot be surveyed
Unescorted thinkers may not be seated
At corner tables in the Herrenhof

Many are desperate to be admitted
But few are desperate to be committed

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                Wear Leather Gloves While Working with Poetry
                         (There Might be Adverbs and Snakes)

Much of being is chaos; we try to shape it
Into meaning, not artificial constructs
But the meaning that is, already is
But tumbled through the weeds and brokenness

Clearing aside the brush and adjectives
Burning all adverbs as the ******* they are
And reconstructing the fallen away into
Fresh celebrations of transcendency

(Wear leather gloves from the Tractor Supply –
Among your ideas there might be snakes)

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                  Slo­gging Through the Cantos

A feral howl of sustained malevolence
The souring stench of anti-Semitism
Random ideograms scattered about
Appropriating a touch of Chinese cool

Defining tainted chic at Rapallo
Free verse scattered like post-war hopes shattered -
And did he take a splash of Mussolini
With his death-in-the-afternoon denials?

How awkward for those whose poetic sage
Was but a mad relic of a tattered age

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                Darwinians Infected with Cognitive Dissonance
                            Visit Gettysburg on July 5th, 1863

They consider the news in several editions
Ignore the diagnoses of learned physicians
Number the dead at the local morticians

And conclude:

“They must have had pre-existing conditions”

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

               What About that Kid with the Loaves and Fishes?

           There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves, and two
           small fishes; but what are these among so many?

-St. John 6:9

About that kid with the loaves and fishes –
Who was he? And what was he doing there?
Maybe he was selling snacks to the crowd
Or he was on his way to the fields with his lunch

But his plan for the day was interrupted
And he was chosen for a moment in time
When bread and fish and grass and rocks and sky
For us were made much more than they appeared

When his basket was made an altar, and he -
Like most of us, was more than he seemed to be

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                All Quests Lead to Jerusalem

                                          Veritas et Scientia

                                     -University of San Diego

Some find infinity in sequences
Of numbers following in slow ascent
Elusive knowledge along a pilgrims’ track
Like rosaries that count ideas

Some find infinity in sequences
Of letters following in slow ascent
Elusive beauty along a pilgrims’ track
Like rosaries that count our dreams

And all of this is true, each quest is true
If the track is mapped to Jerusalem

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                  Chuck Lorre is Shakespeare with a Laptop

Chuck Lorre is Shakespeare with a laptop
Bill Prady is Wodehouse at a whiteboard
Their Pasadena is the Forest of Arden
Or Totleigh Towers at a city bus stop

They have built for us an unfallen world
Of Woosterian plots and app-crossed lovers
At play in the laboratories of the Lord
Where the magic works but the elevators don’t

Chuck and Bill’s stories are always well-wrought
And they end each one with a provocative thought


(Nothing rhymes with “l’envoi.”)

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                           Enter Orlando – or you - with a Paper

                                           …these trees shall be my books
                    And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character

                                 -Orlando, As You Like It, III.ii.5-6

To write a poem and send it to the world
Is not unlike leaving it in a tree
For Rosalind, your Rosalind, to find
(Even at the risk of being scorned as an acorn)

Putting it out there can be dangerous
Art cannot be art unless it is shared
And Rosalind, your Rosalind, might not like it
(And then there’s that thing about a fallen acorn)

Oh, take the risk: for Rosalind, your Rosalind
Probably won’t conclude that you’re an acorn

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                               To Always be Splitting Infinitives

                              Those who neither know nor care
                        [about split infinitives]…are a happy folk…

                          -Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 1926

I seem to always be
Splitting infinitives
And between you and me
These are definitives

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                              In the Season of the Perseids

Most people find beauty in everything:
An old Peterson’s pipe, crickets, Irish coins
Fire trucks, fountain pens, a favourite old book
Cattails growing in ditches along the road

Short strings of words that breathe and sigh as songs
Sunflowers fainting in the afternoon
A treefrog pulsing on the windowpane
Ladybugs drowsing on a tomato leaf

Even so, how hard it is to feel beauty
In late July’s wearying, withering heat

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    P­aper Sacks I have Known – 2

Like a block of marble waiting to be carved
A paper sack is art waiting to be made
Because after Mom puts the groceries away
The empty sack is full of possibilities:

A royal crown with construction-paper jewels
A Robin Hood hat if you fold it just right
A Halloween mask for a scary trick-or-treat
(Smell my feet; give me something good to eat!)
A boat
A puppet
A pinata
A brave knight’s armor
A cat toy
A three-year-old-daughter toy
A pony express rider’s mail pouch
A kite (I could never make mine fly)
A book cover without adverts
A canvas for crayon art
A luminaria
A matte to be cut out, crayoned on, and framed

And after your art is sent into the world
That tuckered-out sack, that sleepy little sack
Is tucked into bed in the warm garden soil
To awaken in the spring as flowers for you!

Childhood - no batteries or programming required

Lawrence Hall
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                              Paper Sacks I have Known - 1

When I was a lad I was a sack boy at Mixson’s
I stacked and sacked coffee and corn and beans
To carry out to cars along the street
In a little town that no longer exists

Sacks in three sizes were my tools of trade:
The little ones for Papa’s cigarettes
The mediums for tonight’s milk and bread
The big ‘uns for the Saturday in-towns

Mixson’s is closed, as is my little town
And paper sacks, too, just cannot be found

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Cardiac Clinic Consulting Room

One’s bubble goes off-bubble a few degrees
For now there is nothing to do but sit and wait
No longer in control of anything
“Is there in your family any history of…?”

Pleasant young people in scrubs come and go
With papers and charts and machines that buzz
And in between the book is open but unread
While silent morning light louvres across the walls

The doctor enters with paperwork and optimism:
There are still possibilities in life

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                              Abject Horror in the Microwave

There are few crimes more likely to drive a man
A man, a sensitive man, a thinking man
To existential despair
Than the foul stench of cooking broccoli

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

              Too Much Coffee Can Cause Your Brain to Shrink

                 (Hey, it was on the InterGossip; it must be true)

Coffee causes your heart to beat too fast
Coffee causes your heart to beat too slow
Coffee causes your heart to beat just right
Coffee alters your DNA and your mind

No, it doesn’t!
Yes, it does!
Doctors say…!
Studies show…!

Say yes, say no, say so, whaddaya know?
Now pour me another cuppa that joe!

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                    Texas, Our Texas, All Hail the Secret State

            "The Biden administration is not being transparent…”

                                     -Governor Greg Abbot

Governor Abbot so loves his Texas folk
That he orders state troopers to keep them away
He surrounds himself with a security cloak
And with his good ol’ boys, the ones who pay

God forbid that the people who voted for him
Should forget their place, and dare to approach
The corporate hangar guarded against them
And risk his Praetorians’ stern reproach

Even the press is locked out, alone and lonely –

             The government of Texas is for Members Only

Lawrence Hall
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                              The Last Time I Saw Van Horn, Texas

Van Horn, Texas is a ****** colony
Eruptions delivered through a cosmic gap
Woo-hoo emissions into curvy space
And then limply falling back down, down to earth

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                            Daily Lesson Plans

This day is part of our assignment on earth -
I think I need to take more careful notes

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                        Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo…

They say (because there’s always a “they” to say)
That a new variant has come to harry us
With death, the fear of death, the denial of death
Even along crowded corridors of death

Where masses stumble over war metaphors
In the torchlight of perpetual outrage
While clenching fists and chanting molossus shrieks
In their world lit only by glowing screens

But you and I – we have our garden to work
Children to raise, and poetry to write

And God in Whom to trust

Lawrence Hall
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                 A Brief and Self-Indulgent Morning Offering

Dear Lord,

Thank you for this day
I ask you that I may
Pray it
Play it
And
Work it
Most to your pleasure
To the pleasure of those whom I love
To the pleasure of everyone I meet today
Rather more for me that you did yesterday
(but we’ll say nothing more about that)
And nothing for Satan
‘Cause he’s an ***

Lawrence Hall
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poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       Bob Newhart and the Treadmill of Sisyphus

                                                    “Hi­, Bob!”

                        Exercising While Watching BOB NEWHART

Several times each day I roll myself up
The torturous treadmill of Sisyphus
I am more of a marshmallow than a rock
Which is the point of this tiresome endeavor

Several times each day I find myself back
At the foot of the devilish device
To wheeze myself wheeze step wheeze step wheeze step
To promised abs of steel at the rainbow’s end

Dr. Hartley is on line one because
Sometimes you need
A telephone call from your driving instructor

Lawrence Hall
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                           This Poem is Your Work Too

This poem is your work too; you are its hope
Every poem is for the reader who gives
The poem a mission in its words and lines
A safe place to land, as McKuen says

This poem is your work too; you are its voice
So, please, dream it, breathe it, build it, shape it
Into something you want or need or love
Arrange it in a vase of summer flowers

This poem is your work too, a gift of caritas
Think it by lamplight; play it in sunlight

After all, you are its reason for being

Thank you

Lawrence Hall
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                               Some Nights Around 0400

Some nights around 0400
The silence calls you up for a dreamless dream
About your future and about your past
About that somenight when your dreams are done

The dancing figures of the flickering past
Figure across the pages of the night
Some as happy memories
Some in sorrowful rebuke

Your scope of activity is limited now
But what will you do in the morning?

Lawrence Hall
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                                        Happy to be Bourgeoisie

All cozy in my clichéd’ atmosphere
With a hammock beneath a backyard tree
And my riding lawnmower and a can of beer:
I am happy to be bourgeoisie, you see

Lawrence Hall
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              Because That’s What Momma Would Have Wanted

We’re angry – Momma attended this church
Thirty years ago, and no one remembers
No rosary; we’re not Catholic, praise God
Not since we put Momma in the nursing home

We’re angry – the priest shoulda remembered her
Even if he wasn’t even here then, and no music
Because that’s pagan; just get it over quick
And then let’s get on to the cemetery

We’re angry - just a ****’ Cath’lic service, okay?
Because that’s what Momma would have wanted

Lawrence Hall
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               Yeah, Well, You Know Where You Can Shove It, Pal

To a carpenter every problem looks like a nail
To a proctologist…

The End

Lawrence Hall
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                                    D­ressers of Sycamores

                 “I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamores”

                                          -Amos 7:14

Amos speaks blunt truth in humility
And being commanded from the fields to the roads
To remind us of our duties to God and His People
Is a disruption, not a promotion

We all dress sycamores in our own ways:
Carrying groceries, tending the sick
Plowing a field, repairing a broken truck
Mending a fence, taking a child to school

We should listen to Amos and to ourselves
For our service is noble if for the King

Lawrence Hall
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            If Everyone is an Iconoclast, Then There are no Iconoclasts

They pose as ever-bold iconoclasts
Though they never met an iconophile
And do they even know what an icon is?

Icons are flat; iconoclasts are flatter

Lawrence Hall
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                                  A Bouncing Baby Hyphen

Tiffany-Cherise Snark-Ponsonby (Tiffy)
And Terence-Rock Smith-Hoogerwerf (Rocky)
Married and hyphenated their hyphens
And made sweet hyphen in hymeneal bliss

And as these things happen, their hyphen was blessed
The old women of the parish counted the hyphens
To see if nine or fewer hyphens had passed
When Tiffy-Rocky were blessed with a beautiful hyphen

At the baptism they sprinkled in some apostrophes
For their daughter, Su’mm’er-D’awn-A’pril-Bre’eze

(Who was born in February)

Lawrence Hall
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                                     We are not Adjectives

Hemingway says we should eliminate adjectives
(I really have a thing against adverbs, actually)
And, yes, Mr. Hemingway is correct
(But I’m very sure I am too, totally):

Conservative, liberal, democrat
Republican, fascist, reactionary
Communist, progressive, socialist, green
Centrist, radical, neo-this or -that

Noise, all noise through the television night -
But you in your wisdom are peace  
      and light

Lawrence Hall
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                    When is a Man Ripe for Harvesting?

Sunflowers are easy enough – the petals turn brown
And the base is yellow, or better yet
When in the heat of summer birds and squirrels
Present themselves in your garden as dinner guests

But humans, now – that’s a bit trickier
It would be most undignified to be eaten
And pills and electrocardiograms
Are even more undignified in their own ways

Autumn would be better, on a golden day
Yes, autumn, bright autumn
                              when the geese are calling

Lawrence Hall
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                            Mysteriou­s Jellyfish Gathering

                        “Honey, did you pack the seascreen?”

That jellyfish gathering is no mystery
Like everyone they want to go to the beach
To play in the water, soak up some rays
Picnic, show off, buy some souvenir mugs

They caution each other about the humans
How bipeds are toxic to the slightest touch
They gaze deeply at the sand beyond the surf
And talk about the mysteries of the air

They brush the sand out of the children’s tentacles
At sunset, before packing up and going home

Mysterious jellyfish gathering grows in Rhode Island ponds | Centre Daily Times

Lawrence Hall
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     Brandeis University Promulgates an Edict Against Thinking


   “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood
    and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education,
     the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

                                  -Justice Brandeis, 1927


Addict homeless person ******* you guys
Rule of thumb picnic wife-beater trigger
Warning disabled victim survivor
Lame freshman spirit animal insane

Because

Potentially oppressive language gender
Exclusive ableist culturally appropriative
Terminology reinforce systems of violence
Identity-based language gender binary

Brandeis teaches a language of fear -
Scary enough at $60,000 a year!


Justice Brandeis on freedom of speech (bureaubrandeis.com)

Violent Language | Holding Ourselves Accountable | Prevention, Advocacy & Resource Center | Brandeis University

Lawrence Hall
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                                     ­  Bagram Air Base

                                      Shelley was Right

I met a veteran from an antique land,
Who said – “A looted fortress of concrete
Stands in the desert...Near it, on the sand,
Half sunk lies a computerized spreadsheet

Whose clever numbers and totaled-up tallies
Tell that our keyboard commanders well read
The shifting winds in political rallies
(Never mind an accurate count of the dead)

And on the side of a wrecked deuce-and-a-half:
My name is Builder of Democracies;
Look upon my Works, ye Mighty – and laugh!
The well-built airbase remains yet today

To that colossal base still standing there
The Chinese army speeds from far away.”

Lawrence Hall
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                               The Land of We’ll Get Right on It –
                                              Songs of My People

You are a valued customer
No public restrooms
We don’t carry parts for that
Restrooms out of order
We’ll be out to make a bid tomorrow morning
No public restrooms
We’ll have your mower fixed this week
Restrooms out of order
Our driver couldn’t find your house
No public restrooms
Your call is very important to us
Restrooms out of order
My best mechanic ran off with my wife
No public restrooms
Our service tech will be there between eight and four
Restrooms out of order
Our next representative will be with you shortly
No public restrooms
Click…if…buzz…you…know…brrrt…your…click…party’s…buzz…ex­tension…
Restrooms out of order
We’ll call you just as soon as it’s ready
No public restrooms
The pump reader doesn’t work; I’ll just take your credit card inside
Restrooms out of order
All our representatives are busy right now
No public restrooms
Our Monday Hours are 9-11 and 1-3
Restrooms out of order
Your security question is…
No public restrooms
It’s $250 just to take the dashboard off for a look
Restrooms out of order
I charge $75 an hour starting as soon as I drive out of the shop
No public restrooms
Our breakfast menu ended at 9
Restrooms out of order
I’m just not going to make it this morning, but I’ll be there tomorrow
No public restrooms
I need you to unplug the modem and look for…
Restrooms out of order
I’ll have to call you back, honey, there’s a customer (sigh)
No public restrooms
We don’t work on that model
We don’t work on Saturdays
We don’t work
Closed for Emergency
Closed for Lunch
Closed

Lawrence Hall
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                                     When the Rescuers Stood Down

                                               Surfside, Florida

As the rescuers stood down last night they left
Their prayers, their desperate hopes, their bitter tears
Upon those troubled rocks where they poured out love
They poured themselves, and they are empty now

What’s left must soon come down:

Concrete and steel, toys and dolls, Mama’s pictures
Letters from friends, ‘phones that won’t ring anymore
Eyeglasses, fountain pens, lesson plans, books
Spare change, unfinished poems, unfinished lives

The rescuers will return, and try again
Because their hearts are in that wreckage still

Lawrence Hall
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                                   Anticipating the Fourth of July

Our Republic has become a chaos of crime:
Riots and arson, shootings in the streets
Infotainhate programmed in angry loops
Mass murders of children by men in white coats

Honoring our freedoms by silencing each other
Pulling down statues and purging our thoughts
Through strident influencers behind their screens
Censoring books and art and even love

With drugs and guns and all such progressive things
(But at least we’re free of those bad ol’ kings)

Lawrence Hall
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              So, Newsreaders on National Public Radio, So, Like

Dear NPR Newsreaders:

You don’t have to begin most stories with “So”
Nor the rest of the reports with “So, like”
You could begin with a useful noun, you know
And speak professionally into that open mike

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     Scheduled Maintenance

Electrical mails and postcards announce

That my

Dog
Roof
Car
Air-conditioner
Heart
Colon
Eyes

Are due for routine checkup and maintenance

The dog is fitted with a muzzle for her exam

My colon isn’t so lucky

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    Warriors and a Warrior-Princess

Jason and his Argonauts fitted out a ship
And sought and fought for the Golden Fleece

Beowulf and his warriors fitted out a ship
And sought and fought for the glory of the Geats

Odysseus and his warriors fitted out a ship
And sought and fought for the glory of Greece

Aeneas and his warriors fitted out a ship
And sought and fought for the glory of Rome

My daughter and I fitted out some floaties
And conquered the backyard swimming pool

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                   The Topic was Forgiveness

He had forgiven his friend for shooting him
(He did not tell us what the shooting was for)
But his friend begged him for forgiveness, and it was so
Until his friend shot him a second time

“I ain’t forgiving the * for that”
He snarled as he counted his leathery scars
“Once was enough; and Jesus wasn’t there
So don’t tell me I have to forgive him again”

He hobbled away with a painful gait
Supported only by his cane and his hate

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Refilling the Hummingbird Feeder

Now here is a bee
So anxious for me    
                     to be
Far away from it