Couplet for a Military Dentist

The call of the bugles, the thunder of drums -
Mount up! And ride to the sound of the gums!

Some have said that the bravest thing we do
Is to get up each morning and face the dawn
It may be so. The light is grey and cold
There seem to be no reasons to go on

And yet - the morning sun begins to kiss
The sensitive, delicate springtime leaves
Turning their own hopes to the morning sun
Stretching their chloroplasts awake to life

So even as sunlight embraces the tree
So maybe there will be kisses - we’ll see!

CPAs for Christ

Voice: an old-time numbers warrior

“I just didn’t feel welcome in a traditional church,
You know, the stuffy cowboys for Christ church,
With latte’ splatters on my alligator shoes
And ink stains on my computer-worn fingers

“Here I’m welcome to keep my green eyeshade on
Because Jesus loves everyone, even CPAs
It’s like the old times when at night accountants
Swapped stories around the expresso machine

“There’s just something real plain and honest here,
Praisin’ that Great Auditor in the Sky.”

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

                                     And Whose Fault is That?

          Then said Jesus unto the twelve, “Will you also go away?”

          Then Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we
          go?  You have the words of eternal life.”

Catholics are much disapproved of these days
And whose fault is that?
Catholics even disapprove of each other
And whose fault is that?

Lawsuits and lockouts and altars abandoned
And whose fault is that?
The ‘net all clogged with angry Catholic sites
And whose fault is that?

Well, yeah, mine too

We are perfectly free to go away
But we won’t – because He asks us to stay

The drunken Navy cook was suppurative 1 with tats
And the supply boat was always sunk or late
Our officers would not release the c-rats
So one night someone forced a lock, and we ate:

Tin-can crackers, mother////ers and ham
Mystery meat with beans in tomato sauce
Beans and baby ////s and some heavy jam
Beef slices with potatoes in sphagnum moss

But Lieutenant Macbeth, a lord over the earth
Found us, and then he much displaced the mirth 2


1 Cf. Chaucer’s cook in The Canterbury Tales
2 Macbeth III.IV.132-133

In the end, Lieutenant Macbeth (not the ////’s real name) could do nothing since the looted c-rats were so widely distributed that he’d have had to write up the entire unit.

Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux. Et facta est lux.

-Genesis 1:3

We call this hour pre-dawn; but it is not;
Just as we do not call this hour post-night
It is not pre-anything; it is itself
With not-yet-light that is given in peace

The creatures of the night have gone to bed
The creatures of the day are not yet up
And so there is mist and silence and you
As prayers of beingness offered at dawn

As prayers on the morning of Creation -
Before the alarms alarm and the buzzers buzz

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                             Creation Sings Hatikvah

The Torah unrolls in a soft, whispered wind
The wanderer finds shade under its protection
The scholar refreshes himself with its words
The nations sit and attend to its truths

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

The voice of God is in the whispered wind
His Words from before the first ever dawn
Flowing through the Beginning and even now
A blessing upon Jerusalem, upon the world

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

Our voices too are in the whispered wind
The Torah unrolls for us in a whispered wind

Creation sings Hatikvah, sings our Hope

Crew Quarters...

        (When I was a-serving of their majesties Brown and Root)

Rows of racks under aquarium lights
And scattered paperbacks: Louis L’Amour
Bravo Company battlefield yarns, (love)-books
About blonde hot rod babes with really big (pretties)

The crew, all older than I, were better books:
Mechanics, enginemen, crane operators
Welders, riggers, radiomen, divers
Draftsmen for the “as built” modifications

The cook was a nervous man from New Jersey
He looked over his shoulder and dropped things

World leaders thunder denunciations

          But my dachshund puppy annoys the cats

Bombing planes fly in nuclear drills

          But my dachshund puppy just ate a moth

Religious leaders are shredding their files

          But my dachshund puppy barfed up that moth

I don’t know if I’ll lose my job next year

          But my dachshund puppy got spanked by Queen Cat

The fat boys on the radio yell a lot

          But my dachshund puppy is barking mindlessly

My senator says he stands up for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is stealing the cat food

My president seems to play golf for the flag

          But my dachshund puppy is napping in the sun

          And the cats are quite happy about that

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

                        Cry "Havoc!" and Let Slip the Dogs of Joe!

That’s it. I’m not visiting the White House
Presidential dogs that bite are just too much
(If only Joe kept rabbits, or even a mouse)
I fear they’d find me toothsome to their touch

I wish I could attend a poetry reading
Or see Marine One land on the White House lawn
But I don’t want to be the lunch the dogs are eating
Or their contains-real-meat dog chewy-bone

I’m not visiting the White House, okay?
(And I haven’t been invited anyway)

“Monarchy can easily be ‘debunked’, but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut -- whom no rumor of the polyphony, the dance, can reach – men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead -- even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like ****** nature, will be served -- deny it food and it will gobble poison.”


Quote by C.S. Lewis: “Monarchy can easily be "debunked", but watch th...” (goodreads.com)

Cuddly Carnivores

Why do we humans cuddle carnivores
Give names to yapping little quadrupeds
Who growl at socks and shoes and closet doors
And rumple all the covers on all the beds?

What possible use is a dachshund pup
Who chews whatever her tiny teeth reach
And what doesn’t digest comes right back up:
Little dogs are impossible to teach!

But in my arms my Astrid softly snores -
That’s why we cuddle baby carnivores

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                       Cups and Jugs and Kettles and Beds

                                          St. Mark 7:1-13

Let the coffee cups rattle with denunciations
About the contextual meaning of “beds”
At the fossil table in the roadside café
That Javneh of theological studies

For the health and comfort of our other guests
No smoking, please

Curating...

                         To a Curator who Curates Everything

Today one reads that you curated tea
Before curating a bus into town
To curate your job at the coffee shop
And in the afternoon curating friends

Before curating to the artists’ loft
To continue curating the novel
You’ve been curating on for several months
While curating your classes and career

Your life is not a museum, you know
So DROP the CURATING; just let it GO

https://logosophiamag.com/2022/09/20/curious-events/

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

                DaddyPaw’s Letters from the CCC Camp

           For George (“DaddyPaw”) Hargrove, Hebo Ogden Hall,
And all Who Served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933 - 1942

He found his DaddyPaw’s young adulthood
In a box of letters from New Mexico
About fighting forest fires and building fence
To the stockyards at Magdalena

“The peas must be coming in by now,” he writes
“Are yall getting enough to eat? How’s my dog?
I’ve got swell friends but I sure wish I was home.
And did yall get the five dollars I sent?”

We stand in reverence of a generation
Who almost never had enough to eat

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

    Dag Hammarskjold  Negotiates with Himself and with God

                 Cf. Auden’s introduction to Vagmarken


          We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny
          but what we put into it is ours.

            Vagmarken (Markings), p. 55 in the 1965 Knopf edition


When you were a little child
If you attend a school named for Dag Hammarskjold
How long did it take you to learn to spell his name?

And you are now an adult
And blessed with Hammarskjold’s Vagmarken
How long did it take you to joy in his transcendent good?

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
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
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                        Daily Writing Discipline

My self-appointed duty is to write a line or two
Each day, no matter how busy I have been
But today at work I thought of little except you
And how your name is a verse upon the wind

On the 20th of July in ‘69
I was on the Tien Sha peninsula
Probably shooting penicillin
Into some kid’s /ss for gonorrhea

(That too was a moon shot)

And listening to Radio AFVN
Not paying any attention at all
To Kennedys landing on the surface of
Their girlfriends and then leaving them to die

Soon I was sent to see the moon in Cambodia
More bodies floating in the water there

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

Dawn at the Waffle House

The official Waffle House “Good morning!”
This morning is a barely audible solo
An exhausted night-shift-ending yawn-out
From a waitress who has served eight hours of hope

The morning cops, all uniformed and young
Pop in to caffeinate; an old man owns
His corner booth, still searching for the truth
And a signal among the fluorescents

The celebrant elevates the coffee ***

And now the sun will rise, the night will pass
And all will celebrate this morning mass

Dead Fish in the Street

Little dead fish shining in the morning sun
Everywhere filth and stench, glasses, a shoe
A sodden large-print bible in the muck
A welcome mat in the middle of the street

A woman’s purse without any I.D.
Other than a picture of a little boy
Happy and proud in his baseball uniform
An electrical line down – is it live?

Broken furniture and toys, and broken lives
A street of dreams, dreams swept away and smashed

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

                                     ­             DeafCon 1

She said existential
I thought she said transcendental
She doesn't like her dentist anyway

I regret to inform you that I am terminating
Your employment with my computer.
Several months ago you began failing
In your duties; your performance was poor
And sometimes you left work without notice.
Last week you didn’t show up at all.
You refused to be repaired and you refused
To be re-installed, and so I am letting you go.

This week you have taken to sending me notes
That you are the default program and wish
To resume your duties.  I must tell you
That I have hired a Mr. Freeware, who
Shows up every day and does the work well.
Not only does he work, he works for free.
I would not have met him had you not failed,
And so, you see, it’s really your own fault.

You need not ask for a reference.

Sincerely,

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Avuncular in his style, jolly and loud
An epiphany with an entourage
Of functionaries who survey the crowd
For any lack of enthusiasm

Applaud they must, wearing upon command
Cheap slogan tees averring that their school
Is like totally awesome and ‘way cool
They leap and bounce and cheer as they are told

Chanting a theme, this year’s predictable theme
Desperately cute, a motivational meme -
Oh, those childish, subservient creatures!
The worst part is that they are the
                                                             ­      teachers

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

                                      Poetry Magazine Responds

Dear Valued Customer We have received
your email and it has been assigned
to one of our e-commerce team members.
Should we require additional information

we will contact you. Otherwise please be assured
that your request will be processed in a
timely fashion. Sincerely, Customer Care Department

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

                                        Death at 0200

Graduation shouldn’t be marked with casualty lists
Commencement’s happiness blighted by dawn
The quotes from Frost and Lincoln ashes and smoke
“Go forth!” now cancelled by “services pending”

Graduation shouldn’t be marked by casualty lists
A seat in university taken by another
A summer wedding that will never take place
A name not on the list at recruit training

Graduation shouldn’t be marked by casualty lists
Of lives ended in the springtime of youth

A plastic fabric forest of oak leaves
Some blue, some white, almost abstract in shape
An anonymous professional hand
Through unheard signals draws them open, then closed

My friend will be okay: “just a precaution
Overnight for observation, then home
A little heartbeat irregularity
We’ll get you to a room, something to eat…”

Beyond the fabric forest of oak leaves
Other voices, always soft, always kind
Softer and kinder still: “if you will sign this
End-of-life care, DNR, who can we call…”

A moment alone: “Oh, Momma…Momma…”
Whispered out into Creation

                                                       ­        and heard

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                       Death Falls Apart in White

Snow does not fall in July, and yet there is white
White falling like snowflakes or flower petals
White scatterings across the summer lawn
Ghostly among the leafy sheltering oaks

The hawks are back

An egret about her business of bugs and snakes
Sudden violence high up in the gentle air
Flesh and life claw-ripped, torn, and devoured
Unheard below, only feathers falling as death

The hawks are back

This artificial paradise of feeders and seeders
And flower-bordered lawn is a scape of death
From which the gentle rabbits, birds, and squirrels
Withdraw in silent fear

The hawks are back

Dia de Muertos in a Parking Lot
23 July 2017

The big trucks roll along the interstates
And bear in their wombs the American soul:
Made-in-China shoes, ‘phones, dolls, cartoon tees
Scented soaps, baseball bats, and hipster hats

And the dead. Disposable merchandise
In the commerce of nations, the subjects
Of learned discourse and bigoted rant
Everyone in America wants to be famous

Coyotes dispose of their human cargo

And

How easy for us to say we didn’t know

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                             Decaying Orbits

Wild vultures swirl in distant elegance
Circling gracefully in the high, cold blue
Wings beating the downdrafts into place and space
Then orbiting down, a narrowing decay

And landing lumpishly upon the dead
Their distant grace was but foul deceit
Up close they know only ***** and filth
Their orbits have decayed into decay

Perhaps at a distance we seem beautiful
But would we want to know ourselves up close?

December Through the Windshield

The windshield wipers hiss-scratch-thunk, scratch-thunk
Scratch-thunk against the pre-dawn wind and rain
Thick sodden leaves protest against their fall
And cling forlornly until swept away

To disappear into the autumn night
Their loss unseen by two frail beams of light
Patrolling in advance, into the cold
Ignoring the casualties left behind

December hastens to the year’s end while
The windshield wipers hiss-scratch-thunk, scratch-thunk

De-Colonize This Space

Drum circle protests genderplop demands
Indigenous discount store camouflage
We demand persistent stereotypes
Solidarity initiative project

Take back the people’s cultural statues
Ethnographic curatorial practices
Red spray paint fire imperialism
Repatriate the Iphone Starbuck’s cups

And don’t forget the “Hey! Hey! **! **!’
Because we’re, like, artists and stuff, you know?

2. De-Colonize This Space Too

Guns and cholesterol made America great
Fat white boys in discount store camouflage
Duct-tape the Bible and the border wall
We won our freedom with our Kalashnikovs

Fake news back-stabber not a war hero
SecondAmendmentSecondAmendment
Lock her up get ‘em outta here yuge deal
You RINO losers can grab my MAGA

You snowflakes are sissies, you millennials too
But ouch! my heel spurs hurt, oh boo-hoo-hoo!

Upon Reading a Patronizing Review of Ferlinghetti’s Delightful and Revelatory Entertainment, Little Boy



The only problem with the Proletariat
Is obeying the pretentious ***** that
Insist on calling us the Proletariat -

Resist their Insist!

For I will not be labeled by some artsy-crat

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

                      Decolonize Unpacking Actualization

Let’s unpack the cliches and hyperbole
The nuclear option and we’ve got this
What we know now we have our options frontline
Off the table Armageddon option

Privileged out of an abundance of caution
Like an actual warzone actually
Or forging a road, a path, a plan
(Says he who never saw a blacksmith’s forge)

Decolonize decolonization
And actuate actualization

(By blazing a trail that unlocks the future)

Decorating a Mansion

Let be set out a wooden crucifix
Of indifferent and artless workmanship
Upon a table where the lamplight falls
In yellow circles on a book or two,
And sheets of paper and a quirky pen.

Let be set up a surplus Navy bunk
With mattress and blanket, and pillow too,
If Brother Guestmaster has them to hand,
Luxury enough for merciful sleep,
Or combat desperate against fearful dreams.

Let be set into the wall a hook or nail
To serve the office of a wardrobe there,
Burdened with little but perhaps too much:
A decent habit for the liturgies,
A worn-out coat, a hat against the sun.

Let be set into the cell an exile,
A man of no reputation at all,
Unnoticed in the streets, unseen, unknown,
But who delights in anonymity,
Here in this palace in Jerusalem.

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

                  Decorating for Christmas – “What Can I Do?”

A little girl tugged at my arm and asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senora Anil because I didn’t know

She came to me again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Miz Bev because I didn’t know

She came to me once again and sadly asked
“But what can I do?”
I sent her to Senor Nicho because I didn’t know

Some sturdy young teens brought in the Creche
And there the little girl knelt and placed the straw
And then each figure in turn; she talked to them
And cautioned them all to keep Baby Jesus warm

And that’s what a little girl can do

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                       Deep Woods ON

The label on the bug repellent ought to say
“Welcome to our Human Buffet Today!”

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
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, HSG
[email protected]

                                             Dense Fog Advisory

One wonders why fog should always be dense
Forever faulted for having no sense

Maybe because it’s a low-hanging cloud
Low-hanging around with a low sort of crowd

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                         ­ Dentistry and Dogs

                  What would the world be like without dogs?

                                                 -Mary Oliver

Our little bit of the world was frozen that day
At the dentist’s office something that makes something else
Do something else was frozen and would not work
And so I waited with Mary’s book about dogs

Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world.

The frost was still upon the windowsill
As an hour passed for me and Mary’s dogs
Their adventures in the woods, their lonely times
Their happy glances into their human’s eyes

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet, / ate a book

Even though the something else was frozen in ice
Our little bit of the world was warmer for a time

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased


Quotes from Mary Oliver, Dog Songs, Penguin, New York: 2013

Interstate Ten before it was an interstate
Arrowing west to California, one lane
That way and one lane this way; one way west
And one way back again
                                                    admitting defeat

In the desert a rest stop. Desperate trees.
They seemed as desperate as a pilgrim
Lost in his going somewhere, and they
Weren’t going anywhere among the dunes

They said to one pilgrim, “Whatever dream
You’re living – it might not work out, okay?

Pontius Pilate was probably being flippant
When he asked of a prisoner, “What is truth?”

But he was an administrator, and so
He possibly did not know

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                Did Anyone Think to Roll the Stone Back into Place?

Easter Monday

Did cemetery management offer a refund?
(High quality burials don’t come cheap, you know)
And what happened to the guards posted to that tomb?
Probably a disciplinary write-up

Easter Tuesday

Upper Room Inc. sent a bill for a missing Cup
(We can’t have people pinching stuff, okay?)
At least it wasn’t a fraternity party
And the taxes these days; you wouldn’t believe!

Easter Wednesday

This stuff about miracles just makes me scoff
(Say, boss, can I have this next Sunday off?)

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                     Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?

A medical professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was reading
                                                 Poetry, I replied
Poetry of suffering in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians who were there

She asked:

Did civilians write poetry back in th’ day?

I changed the topic to my blood pressure



Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004

This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered. There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices / my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find beauty among the horror

Did Russians Hide Nukes in the U.S.A.?

The western sky is blue; the east is red
But try to put it right out of your head
If you find a Russian under your bed
Concealing a nuke that will **** you dead

The Intergossip surely must be right
So hit the keyboard now, and share the fright
On Social-Medium-Range all through the night
And type it really fast before…that LIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ding-****, the east is red, the west is blue
And ashes drift about, flake news, untrue

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                     Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors?

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
In glorious CBS monochrome
Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow-town street
And saunter through those familiar swinging doors

I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam
And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other
While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly
And for a while we are all at peace

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered outside

To be chanted whenever the O Machine 1 fails:

Rumor has it that the Enigma
Was to Churchill a foul stigma

And that the ancient, creaking Babbage
It was to him but so much cabbage

Colossus One and Colossus Two
Those gadgets too he began to rue

They say he let them rust and rot -
The pity is that he did not


(I checked with the Lizard People on this – Churchill’s secret Second World War computers, powered by a primordial Lemurian source of energy so dangerous that even speaking its name in the ancient language of the Atlanteans is said to be fatal, are secured in a locked vault on Oak Island and guarded around the clock (set to Martian time) by the Trilateral Masonic-Vatican Continuum of deadly albino flying fish.)

1 E.M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” 1909, Much-anthologized

“Did Y’all Read About Those Chips in the Bible?”

In the Supermarket Checkout Line

“Did y’all read about those chips in the Bible?
Yessir, they got these chips now, and we ain’t
Gonna be able to buy or sell nothing
Without these here chips in our bodies

The C.I.A., some of those people got’em,
Yessir, and you ain’t going to the grocery store
And buyin’ nothin’ without ‘em. I read
Where it’s in th’ Bible, and, yessir, it is

Me, I’m standin’ on th’ World of th’ Lord
And I ain’t havin’ no chip put in, nossir”