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

                                 Hey, I Really am a Neanderthal!

The spit-into-a-cup DNA folks
Advise me that 742 strands
Of vintage Neanderthal DNA
Are roaming loose in the tunnels of my being

It’s good to be descended from a fine old family
Maybe that’s why my ideas drag the ground
As I lope along following the science
Live chicken tastes a lot like rattlesnake

Why don’t you join me for dinner with the neighbors?
Their brains will go well with hyena blood

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

                              Select All Images with Traffic Lights

When the ink on his Gospel had barely dried
Saint Matthew was interrupted by angelic sights
And then to him a Voice from Heaven cried:
“Select all images with traffic lights!”

Old William Shakespeare was a poetic bloke
Who wrote his metered verse within the lines
But his editor demanded, with a voice that broke:
“Select all images with highway signs!”

So if, dear reader, you wish to have your say -
Forget it; you won’t pass the test anyway

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

                        A Song of the Lord in a Foreign Land

          “How could we sing a song of the Lord in a foreign land?

                                             -Psalm 137

By the waters of the common sinks and stinks
They sat and wept, remembering their homes
Upon the razor wire they hung their hopes
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

Their captors asked of them throughout the hours
Straight lines to the chow hall, well made-up bunks
On time to their classes and work details
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

The lyrics of their songs were written by night
The notes and tones well-tuned to concrete walls
How could they sing songs of the Lord?
                                              How not?
          (Let my tongue be silent during roll call)

We all are exiles in a foreign land
          (Let our tongues sing praise after roll call)


(After over a year of lockdowns, volunteers are allowed back into Texas prisons today, Wednesday, Saint Patrick’s Day, 17 March 2021. Saint Patrick, too, was a prisoner.)

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

                              Grandpa and the Kid

Grandpa gives his boy a toy truck
Or better yet a clanking army tank
Or maybe a plastic shovel and pail
Or a real Roy Rogers cowboy hat

And the little boy’s hovering mother clucks:
“Now what do you say to Grandpa? Tell me!
Say to Grandpa “Thank you.” We say “Thank you!”
No, don’t just run away; say “Thank you!”

[Extended Form for Certain Feasts and Seasons:

“Now what do you say to Grandpa? Tell me! Say to Grandpa “Thank you.” We say “Thank you!” No, don’t just run away; say “Thank you!” “Now what do you say to Grandpa? Tell me! Say to Grandpa “Thank you.” We say “Thank you!” No, don’t just run away; say “Thank you!” “Now what do you say to Grandpa? Tell me! Say to Grandpa “Thank you.” We say “Thank you!” No, don’t just run away; say “Thank you!” “Now what do you say to Grandpa? Tell me! Say to Grandpa “Thank you.” We say “Thank you!” No, don’t just run away; say “Thank you!” Amen.]

And Grandpa smiles and lights his favorite pipe
(His daughter rolls her disapproving eyes)
She sees tonight’s bath in the sand and grass
But Grandpa sees beyond this time and place

His boy builds a road, a fort, a castle, a corral
And Grandpa thanks God for his little pal

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

                       Robin Hood and Jacques Derrida

As the first stars came out above the leaves
Of Merry Sherwood, the lads in peaceful repose
Put away their after-supper mending of gear
And idled over their ale of October brewing

Then Robin Hood spoke to Allan-a-Dale:

Don’t sing to us of Neo-Post-Colonial White Supremacist Patriarchal People-of-Color Matriarchal LGBTQTY Non-Binary Feminist Chomskian Existentialist (existentialist – how quaint) Hegelian Post-Structuralist Logocentric Sausurian Psychoanalytical Post-Modern Marxist Jungian New Critical Cognitive Scientific Neo-Anarchic Canon-Repudiationist Neo-Informalist Catarrhic De-Constructionism.

Sing to us
                                                       a story.

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

                Socrates on the Courthouse Lawn in Liberty, Texas

                         “Strong minds discuss ideas,
                          average minds discuss events,
                          weak minds discuss people.”

                     -attributed to Socrates, but no one knows

Imagine if you will old Socrates
On an old wooden bench on the courthouse lawn
Playing checkers with all the other old men
On an old picnic table throughout the day

He lifts his old straw hat in the leafy shade
With his old bandana he wipes his old bald head
And sagely asks the old questions of us
And through his dialectic dismantles old cant

And that must be why, as the ages pass
They’ve made for him a monument here in the grass



(While passing through Liberty, Texas I saw on the courthouse lawn a marble slab engraved only with “Socrates”.)

Liberty County Courthouse - TexasCourtHouses.com
Liberty, Texas, Bed & Breakfast Hotels (usatoday.com)
Socrates (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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

                    Penguin-Random House Sends me a Survey
                    and Then Rules Me Unqualified to Respond

Survey Completed - Thank You / We're sorry.
You do not meet the qualifications
for this survey. We sincerely thank you
and appreciate your time and participation

You will be redirected in 3 seconds;
please click here to continue now.

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

                  An Unskilled Rotor-Tiller Tiller of the Soil

Plough Monday was by-passed some weeks ago
The Virus of Many Names kept me abed
And then the snow and ice kept me inside
And then – indolence, indolence, okay?

But today, oh, today!

The morning was fresh and cool and damp and still
I wheeled the tiller into the garden patch
Fresh gasoline, then primed the little bulb
And turned the red plastic lever just so

And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And said bad words
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And pulled the cord
And snarled bad words
And pulled the cord –

Pow!

For smoke and fire
And noise – hooray!
Then forward the tines

The tines at first bounced off the new green grass
I pulled the smoke and noise machine back, back
And held the smoke and noise machine in place
And wrestled it, pinning it to the earth until

It bit into the grass, the bright spring grass
And hurled it back, and then some earth, and more
And still more earth, sweet earth, the nourishing earth
Flung up and out and back again, and down

And there the earth must rest for a few weeks
Then to be turned again, sweet and warm
To receive the ready seeds of happy new life
And join in the miracle of Creation

And in the summer when the soft breezes blow
Zinnias and sunflowers and wild marigolds
Will lift their heads and sing hymns to the sun
And bees and hummingbirds hum the “Amen”

And in those days I will speak kind words
To them all, and study rotor-tillers no more

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

                         Cavafy’s Slight Angle to the Universe

          “…a Greek gentleman in a straw hat, standing absolutely
          motionless at a slight angle to the universe.”

      -C. S. Forster re C. P. Cavafy, quoted by Daniel Mendelsohn
            in C. P. Cavafy: Poems, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets

Maybe Cavafy stands at an angle to the world
The universe presumably built aright
In order serviceable, as Milton says,
All of creation as a liturgy

We all stand at an angle to the world
Which wobbles in its orbit more than it ought
We altar servers tripping more than we ought
When we forget the angle of Consecration

Oh, yes, Cavafy stands at an angle to the world
And he is right to do so –
                                                   and so are we

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

                                   Being an Eloi is Okay,
           But Make Sure the Smoke Alarms Have Fresh Batteries

Some poets are Eloi, deconstructing this
And disconnecting that in weak free verse
Between the reiki and the pilates
Trying to find an existential voice

And other poets are grim Morlocks, almost,
Through muscling chaos into meaning and light
Between the night shift and the morning cup
Trying to build a voice that speaks with strength

To shape lack of meaning into meaning
That is neither this nor that, but itself

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

                    Try to Look Like a Young Republican

Whenever a student told me of his night in jail
And that he had to go to court next week
I always suggested that he wear his church suit
Or at least a new white shirt and a tie

“Try to look like a young Republican,”
Was my advice
                               But I got over it

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

                 The Bishop Speaks of Lent as Basic Training

“Rise and shine and greet the new day, * *s!”
“Roll your socks to look like little ps!”
“Byda leff, byda leff, byda leff right leff…!”
“Shoulder-fired, gas-operated, semi-automatic…!”

“My gramma was slow but she was old!”
“SIR! I am a cockroach, SIR! Cockroach, SIR!”
“Don’t let your piece fall to the -* deck!”
“Get up! You ain’t got permission to faint today!”

“You call this clean!? My ’s cleaner than that!”
“You don’t * until I tell you to *!”
“Step over that * son-of-a-*;
I didn’t give no one permission to die!”

And the ancient liturgical El chant:

“This is my rifle; this is my gun!
This is for fighting; this is for fun!”

His Grace speaks of Lent as recruit training -
Maybe, with a nice white wine and the dover sole
If not the soul,
He thought that up in his first-class from Rome

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

                      When We Played Chase with Dust Devils

Long, long ago dust devils spun across
Our childhood playground where the school used to be
And we played chase with them across the sand
As they whipped up dry earth and long-dead leaves

They were a little scary in their speed
The way they funneled and circled around us
Malignant faces that appeared for moments
And disappeared again – surely only dust?

I didn’t think they meant us any harm
But looking back just now - I’m not so sure

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

                           A Cold Call from the Hearing-Aid Place

A cold call from the hearing-aid place
I heard the young nice lady perfectly

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

                 Building a Fence and Smoking Cigarettes

I passed two men who were building a fence
Cigarettes on their lips, work-stained old hats
Spirit level, carpenter square, calculations
The morning frost hard-worked into honest sweat

I passed two men who were building a fence
Its posts and rails strong-muscled into place
And hammered against the autumn hurricanes
With nails of steel, extruded steel, bright steel

I passed two men who were building a fence
With hands and tools and strength and uncommon sense

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

       What Face Mask is Appropriate for an Evening Wedding?

Color-coordinating your face mask
Matching it to the tie, belt, socks, or shoes
Is now a fashion challenge in taste, a task
Good hygiene in bright reds or subdued blues

Is this mask for the bride’s side, or the groom’s
And is the reception a barbecue
Or dancing through a mansion’s stately rooms
A truly masked ball with a harbor view

The only real problem in fitting a mask –
Does it make my face look wide? That’s all I ask!

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

                                A Flaneur in Old Khakis

A rustic dilettante, all ready to flirt
In his old khakis and a chambray shirt
Old boots, old gloves, a mattock or rake to wield
A boulevardier of row crops in the field

He tips his old straw hat to the morning sun
Considers the corn silks’ latest fashion for fun
Discusses pitch and tone with a passing breeze
And notes the colours in the apple trees

The latest songs and jokes he very well knows
And shares the latest gossip with clever crows
This rare sophisticate whose sidewalk cafes’
Are nature’s dreamy scenes along nature’s ways

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

                    I Will Never Take Instruction from a Consonant

Whenever I’m down, and feeling a little blue
I wonder whatever it is I can do
What traditional learning I can pursue
To recover the happiness I once knew

I shun the transient, the ever-new
The latest fashions the unlettered construe
For I will follow Wisdom, just and true
Wherever She leads me, my whole life through

I will never take instruction from a consonant
And I know, wise friend, that neither will you

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

                     Citizen Potato Head is a Class Enemy

         “A mister no more: Mr. Potato Head goes gender neutral”

              -Mr. Potato Head receives gender neutral name,
                                drops title (usatoday.com)

“Mr.” indeed! No, no, Citizen Potato Head!
Bourgeois titles are forbidden by law
As are toys lacking in social realism
Clearly you are no good Comrade of ours

Lower your eyes in shame, Citizen Potato Head!
Your periderm, your lenticels, your pith
Your reactionary apical buds and lenticles
Your counter-revolutionary vascular ring

Your heteronormative attitude -
All condemn you – and there can be no a-peel!

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

                               A Cup of Tea in the Hand,
                       a Pointless Neologism on the Lips

                “Tea is one of the mainstays of civilisation”

                 -George Orwell, “A Nice Cup of Tea,” 1946

In the afternoon (and you can look this uppa)
I don’t want a teafluencer; I want a cuppa

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

                       Poets Seldom Order Missile Attacks

         “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world”

                     –Shelley, “A Defense of Poetry,” 1821

In truth

Poets are the acknowledged legislators
          of nothing
                    Let us thank God that it is so

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
Among other shortcomings scribbling free verse
Without any consideration for meter
And failing to understand the rhythm of iambs

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
Hogging for grants and television time
Some writing more for politics than for truth
Obsessing on the I instead of All

Poets can be tiresome in their own ways
But they seldom order missile attacks

Poets are the acknowledged legislators
          of nothing
                    Let us thank God that it is so

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

                                      Are You a Brand?

I’m not a brand either; I enjoy no fame
No lines of this or that stamped with my name
A doghouse is the only thing I’ve designed
And the dogs weren’t much interested in it

The morning sun rises without my brand
And when wild clouds I didn’t design roll in
I don’t receive a percentage as raindrops fall
And own no copyright in the dreary day

I’m not a brand; the stars are cool with that
And Father Zosima tells us that truth is enough

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

                                 Welcome to Stoplight, Texas

             Shopping * Fine Dining * Antiques * Friendly Folks
       Annual Ye Olden Days Friendly Frontier Cowboy Festival
        Visit the Friendly World-Famous Parking Meter Museum
          We’re Your Friendly Hometown Family of New Friends

Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours Dining Room
Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed Drive-Thru Only
Line Forms Here One at a Time Cash Only
Road Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours

Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed Drive-
Thru Only Line Forms Here One at a Time
Cash Only Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours
Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed

Cash Only Closed No Restrooms Restricted
Hours Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed, Closed, Closed

                           Y’ALL COME BACK SOON!

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

     Chlorine Smith-L’Francoise d’Bayonne et Valle San Fernando
                                        Announces Her New Line
              of Sustainable and Rechargeable Skin Care Products

Along with my line of renewable tees
Hand-stitched in certified green factories
And my ecologically-sound handbags
(If you have to ask, you can’t afford one)

I announce today my sustainable line
                                       (ssssssssssssssssssssustainable)
Of skin care products made from the **** glands
Of the gently harvested influencers
Who panned my twooter site and my last film

(No, I don’t want to hear about the children’s
Bleeding little hands; I pay them enough)

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

                          Teeth are Curious Constructions

Molars for grinding
Bicuspids behinding
Incisors for wheat
Canines for meat
And for all your teeth
Above or beneath
Keep them neat
For kisses sweet!

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

                      When You are Chosen as Poet Laureate

Do you suppose someday you’ll see your name
In the content pages of an Oxford book
An Oxford book of verse for this or that
Among the greats (who will want your autograph)

Do you suppose someday you'll see your name
Across the top of Amazon.com
The poet of the week, the month, the year
Or, Heaven knows, the poet of the century

But if not, write anyway - you’ll hear your name
Whispered among the pages of Paradise

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

                                     Transacting Genres

A plucky heroine library spy
Paris during the German occupation
Who falls in love with a mysterious soul
In search of life’s meaning that winter in Madrid

An empowering iconic game-changer
Must-read that weaves a trail-blazing tapestry
As passion explodes across the pages
In a forbidden path of something or other

And like reviewers, while all of Europe is ablaze
She sells shop-soiled literary cliches

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

                       The Retiring of Old Snow

Clinging to blue shadows and shades and trees
Stained ice and sleet and snow from days ago
Silently steams away as vapour, as mist
Beneath today’s yellow and slanting sun

On Monday eve the skies were low and grey
And Tuesday morn soft flakes began to float
And then the rattle of indelicate sleet
Sent every creature to its appointed burrow

And now the little that’s left hides from the breeze
Clinging to blue shadows and shades and trees

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

                        Death Takes a Holiday in Cancun

In warm and sunny Cancun today
The senator’s children play on the beach
In frozen and powerless Texas today
The children of the poor die in the cold

In frozen and powerless Texas today
The senator’s staff all coven together
To tack together excuses and visuals
The children of the poor die in the cold

Today the senator’s words are loud and bold
And still
The children of the poor die in the cold

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

                                      Ice Wednesday 2021

Many crosses of ice but no ashes
Trees sagging from the icicles dragging
Little birds desperate for last summer’s seeds
The ice ground whitening, whitening, disappearing

The power flickers and flickers and fails
And the day is one of lanterns and firewood
Everyone wrapped up in blankets and thoughts
Reading books in glaring blue battery-light

The roads are closed, and we are exiled home
Our Lenten ashes are in having no ashes


“…last summer’s seeds” – I grow sunflowers and in the autumn save the seeds in that famous cool, dry place in paper or cloth, and in addition to commercial chicken scratch feed them to the birds and squirrels throughout the winter.

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

                   Ice Storm: Darwin Needs to Re-Think His Errors

The electrics flicker off then on, all night long
Which wakes me, and my wake then wakes the dogs
Who protest and blanket-burrow even deeper
While angry sleet rattles the window panes

When the weather is foul and the power fails
We are left with a flashlight and a book
Staticky noises from the radio
A bottle of cold coffee, and our thoughts

When the night is cold and the wind is strong
One comes to understand that Darwin was wrong

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

                      Not This Cardinal, Not This Snow

Men have written of cardinals before
(Both ecclesiastical and avian)
And men have written of fresh snow before
But not this cardinal and not this snow

And so we visit Plato’s obscure cave
To cast our vision around the shadowing flames
Plato will not tell us what we must think
And so we think out all things for ourselves

Men have written of cardinals before -
But not this cardinal, and not this snow


In this context “men” is inclusive. Honi soit qui mal y pense, as Fat Henry said.

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

                                   My Soul-Quest for My Meaning

V:

My parents don’t understand me; I’m special
So sensitive, an artist of the mind
So delicate, a bearer of all sorrows
So fragile, unsuited to physical work

They tell me to get off my (self) and find a job

R:

Your parents understand you perfectly

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

                                 Saint Valentine’s Day Snow

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
Light falls upon the pages of a book
Its words unread - the snow may come this hour
Between a noun and verb, a glance, a look

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
The figures of our story now pause for us
Impatient for their journey to proceed
But through the window waits another tale

Pale, wintery-grey and cold, diffuse and pale
Light falls upon the pages of our lives

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

                                     ­ Someday a New Arthur

               “Chasing Chaucer and Beowulf out of the Curriculum”

                                                  -S­pectator

Someday a new Merlin among the ruins
Will give a new Arthur a trove of hidden books:
Chaucer and Milton, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Keats
And maybe even long silent Malory

Someday a bold Arthur will command his scribes
To copy for the people the people’s words
Words long forbidden to them by narrow tyrants
Making words free to all, and letting in the sun 1

Someday a wise King Arthur will reign again
Within the greatest empire of all – the mind


1 Tennyson, “The Coming of Arthur,” line 60

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

                 The World Health Organization Concludes
                  That the CV Did not come From Wuhan

                                 As Cole Porter did not say:

I get no WHO from Wuhan
Is it influenza from Fiorenza
So tell me why should it be true
That I get a virus from you

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

                This Ashtray was Stolen from the Seaview Motel

                                                     Color TV
                                                  Weekly Rates
                                                       No Pets

I couldn’t live at the beach forever
A series of shabby little rented rooms
Cheap wine and thin volumes of free verse
Beach hippie chicks, White Rabbit, and guitars

I had to go away, or someday die
An unrealized old man set out on the curb
And so, stubbing out a last cigarette
I packed my seabag and caught the morning bus

I couldn’t live at the beach forever
And in the end became respectable

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

                  A Reasoned but as Yet Inconclusive Debate
                             on the Events of 6 January 2021


Some assembly was required; the arguments are from:

The Merchant of Venice IV.i
The Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 3
The Jerusalem Bible, Psalm 106


The quality of mercy is not strain’d
No person shall…hold any office
Happy are we if we exercise justice

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes
Civil or military, under the United States
And constantly practise virtue

But mercy us above this sceptred sway
Who, having previously taken an oath
We have sinned quite as much as our fathers

(Mercy) is enthroned in the hearts of kings
To support the Constitution of the United States
We have been wicked, we are guilty

And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
Shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
For the sake of his name, he saved them

When mercy seasons justice
Against the same
Having faith in his promises

The South Dakota Attorney General Killed a Man.
                          Everything Else Is a Mystery.

                                   -Yahoo!News [sic]

Mysteries obtain within each life and plant and mineral
And that there’s such a creature as an attorney general

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

                   A Saint Valentine’s Day Gift for my Daughter
                                Who Lives Far Away

Sunday Morning
Via electrical mail

Dear Child,

An agent of the federal government
May or may not deliver a package to you
Tomorrow, or not just one but maybe two
Or maybe one package at one time and

Maybe the second package at another
Or maybe there is only one package
Or maybe two, or, like Schrodinger's Cat
You may consider that there is a package

In your mailbox and be content with that
As a perception of reality

Love,


Your Old Dad

I re-post this most every year on Super Servile Sunday:

                                          Super Servile Sunday

O sink not down to that corrosive couch,
Docile before the Orwellian screen
That regulates the lives of the servile,
Dictating dress and drink, demeanor, dreams

Declare your independence from the sludge
Of vague obedientiaries who fling
Away their empty lives in submission
To harsh, diagonal inches of rule

Poor weaklings chanting tainted tribal songs
In chorus hamsterable, huddled, heaped
While costumed in their masters’ liveries
And feeling little while thinking even less

The very model of the State’s non-men
Predictable and dull, submissive ghosts
Crowded, herded through cosmic cattle chutes
Reflected in dim, noisy nothingness.

But you…

But you, O you, be not of them, but be
A wanderer in the moonlight, one known
To God and to His holy solitude.

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

                                  Ano­ther Day of Rioting

There they go again, screaming at each other
In a land of plenty, but all wanting more
Through posturing, threatening, bullying
And blaming each other for the wreckage

There they go again, screaming at each other
Bluejays and cardinals are the noisiest of all
And squirrels muscling in on the action
Crows criticizng from branches up high

There they go again, screaming each other
Around their seed-feeder beneath their oak

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

                      Prayer Group in a Cinder-Block Room

A Prisoner's Voice:

We’re all here for all sorts of different crimes
I made it for about three years last time
Built my business back up, rented a house
Married my baby-momma and started being a dad

And I was feeling good about everything
My old customers came back and trusted me
I was sure grateful to them; went back to church
My wife and kids and mom were proud of me

I got cocky; I thought I had it all whipped
I’m back in this white suit for another ten

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

  “San Francisco Sues its Own School District to Reopen Classes”

                                            -Associated­ Press

Student Voices:

“I need help in understanding Don Quixote”
“Karamazov for me,” replies her friend
“For Christmas I received the Q edition
of The Oxford Book of English Verse,” says another

(And the Board exclaims, “The Q edition!? Eeeeeeek!”)

“I’m prepping Latin with our parish priest”
“Well, I’m tackling The Faerie Queene this year”
“I’m writing our class play in iambic hexameter”
“I wish I could read Pushkin in the original Russian”

(And the Board asks, “Pushkin? What’s their team like this season?”)

Student Chorus:

“We’ve got to study harder, everyone agrees
Lest we be as dense as our school’s trustees”

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

                             If Your Life Were a Time Capsule

If your life were a time capsule of sorts
In what cornerstone would you brick in in
Against a mysterious opening day
When someone in the future would open you up

What would be found in the shell you left behind?
Shifting memories of moments of ecstasies
And mournful ghosts of sorrows best suppressed
And careful lists of long discarded dreams

If your life were a time capsule of sorts
What would you choose of you as a temporal deposit?

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


                            The Presentation of the Rodent

          “The Feast of Candlemas…is perhaps the most
            ancient festival of Our Lady.”

                                    -Missale Romanum

The Catholic funeral home calendar
Prints “GROUNDHOG DAY (USA)” in generous type
“The Presentation of the Lord,” well, not so much
And “                                      ” 1 not at all

Perhaps one day we faithful will look out
From our dark-tunneled burrows of lost time
And gaze upon the morning shadows to ask
If there will be 2,000 more years of civilization

Because in the Temple

Our Lady presents unto our Lord the Child
But we present unto ourselves - a rat



1 The Purification of Our Lady

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

                            Follow the Science Down Rabbit Holes

Infections are up and deaths are ‘way down
Or is it that infections are down and deaths are up?
Schools must be closed and the restaurants open
Or schools must be open and restaurants closed

Vaccinations are available, except when they’re not
And are necessary for all, except when they’re not
And masks are necessary, except when they’re not
And Saint Blaise blessed us at some thirty feet 1

The captains and kings 2 and whitecoats falter

And the rest of us

Can only leave all at the foot of the Altar




1 Per the bishop’s order, throats were blessed at a distance in petition to Saint Blaise, with the priest adding, “And we can hope there is a blessing.”

2 Kipling, “Recessional”

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

                   A Young Roman Responds to Saint Benedict

               “We are about to open a school for God’s service…”

                                           -Rule, St. Benedict

Okay, but what about your S.T.E.M. offerings?
Does your footer pitch have artificial turf?
The books are too heavy - I have a note
My feelings are covered by the ADA

Silence? But I gotta have my tunes, man!
“Correction of Youths?” My mummy will sue!
“Daily manual labor” – may I be excused?
“No talk after Compline” – But can I text?

*** *** nonononono ***, no?

Not for me, dude; and this I’ve got to say:
I know that your program’s famously prestigious
But I am, like, spiritual, not religious
And, hey, you know, you’re just not Harvard, okay?

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

                         Sensuous Sophia the *** Robot

I guess that’s okay, the wise man mutters,
But is she any good at cleaning gutters?

or

             Sensuous Sven the *** Robot

I guess that’s okay, the wise woman mutters,
But is he any good at cleaning gutters?

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

                  A Child of God and of Long Summer Afternoons

Do you remember lying on a grassy bank
On a summer afternoon, holding very still
Watching the minnows only inches from your eyes?
And do you remember the earthy smell

Of the amber-colored water?

How many moments in your adult life
Have been as good as that?