Bring me a poem.  You can find them anywhere –
In the Aer Lingus, sitting next to you
And sometimes scattered among the summer leaves
Misplaced in gutters or floating in the air

Strolling along Bachelors’ Walk, or maybe
Adrift upon the Liffey-water, where once
The gunboats roared like dinosaurs, their years
Passing like smoke, like burning, falling walls

Poems everywhere –

Beside the fire, drinking a cup of tea
Or talking with a friend – poems everywhere!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                 For Bob Newhart of Happy, Happy Memory


         “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.”

           -Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons


With just a telephone, a clipboard, and a stutter
He was a happy band of some of our best friends:
May we with him
At last approach that Inn where all are welcome

The joy he gave us proceeds before him
The angelic choirs soften their hum and throb
Because
That loving Voice we all most long to hear
Will gently say,

                                                     “Hi, Bob.”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                For ******-Dog of Happy Memory

                                    and for his pet human Max

          The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this
          selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that
          never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.

                                     -George Graham Vest

His fuzzy little bed is empty today
His dinner is untasted, his water bowl full
Awaiting his ungentlemanly slurps
And his favorite toy seems lonely and lost

He will not claim space on my pillow tonight
Nor chase dream rabbits while cuddling with me
Nor lick my nose to wake me up at…
(Geez, ******, do you know what time it is!)
Leaping and barking to be allowed outside

He will not bound into the kitchen at dawn
Happily barking his joy unto God
Circling and snuffling for his breakfast treat
A bit of bacon or egg from a loving hand

Because his brave little soul has flown
To wait for me at the foot of that glorious Throne

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                         ­   Ford vs Chevy

In an era where everyone was either Ford or Chevy
I was an MG roadster
Unreliable
But lots of fun

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                   For English Pick Up the Anglophone

For English pick up the Anglophone
For French the Francophone
For others in Canada the Allophone
(“‘Allo! ‘Allo!”)
For Mandarin or Cantonese the Sinophone
For Portugal the Lusophone
In Deutschland perhaps the Deutschesphone
(or perhaps not)
And in Russia the Russophone

Please phone in, everyone

Because isn’t it wonderful -
So many phones, and each with a direct line to God

Forestry for Romantics

Silence obtains in the forest clearing
The leaves all seem to be holding their breath
Little rabbit pellets on a pine tree stump
Cut only yesterday, still oozing sap

Fresh raccoon paw-prints in the muddy spots
But nothing moves – we are intruders here
Suddenly a silent shadow – a hooded hawk
Over there – a woodpecker drilling for bugs

If we hold still, stand still, not whisper a word
The forest will return to her appointed works

If the Faith is a Lie (pretend this is centered)

               For if a preest be be foul, on whom we truste,
                   No wonder is a lewed man to ruste

                    -Chaucer, General Prologue, 501-502

If the Faith is a lie, then let it lie
Let’s not make it up as we go along
Waving a fashionably duct-taped book about
And chanting “This is all you need!”

Because some millionaire has told us to
Nor yet the famous ‘blogging priest who boasts
And posts photographs of his gourmet meals
While begging money for his many trips

If the Faith is a lie, then let it be
But it isn’t – and neither, please God, are we

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

                                  For Jack on his 16th Birthday

                              Music, Magic, and Father Brown

In the long ago I was reading a book
(And doubtless thinking many brilliant thoughts)
Sitting in my car outside Our Lady’s Church
Waiting for some old-lady meeting to end

And suddenly, silently, there you were
A little boy standing at my shoulder
Peering through the window, and then you said
These thoughtful words: “You look like Father Brown.”

And suddenly, silently, here I am
Standing at your shoulder and looking up
For now you are taller than I – and that
Is in the nature of how things should be

But a blessing now on your birthday, you see
For you and Cate are always a blessing to me!

For John Keats

Wanderer by moonlight, you never knew
That mellow autumn of elusive fame
Which you well-earned in your suffering youth
Through the fatal cough as you labored in haste

In haste to set in jeweled, sunlit lines
Each joyful day’s delight in nature and man
Before they faded into that long night -
You never knew what treasures you left to us

Then may your desperate pilgrimage to Rome
Lead you at last to more glorious Stairs

Wanderer by moonlight, you never knew
That mellow autumn of elusive fame
Which you well-earned in your suffering youth
As you laboured in haste through hastening death
 
In haste to set in jeweled, sunlit lines
Each joyful day’s delight in nature and man
Before they faded into that long night -
You never knew what treasures you left to us
 
Then may your desperate pilgrimage to Rome
Lead you at last to more glorious Stairs

Former People

For W. K. Kortas

We Former People have no reputation
So we are free to starve to death in peace
Or if we are unsightly in the street
Free rides to The Palace of Workers’ Justice

We might be beaten, we might be given a meal
Before we’re freed to a courtyard echoing
With the rattle of mop buckets and screams
And stood in liberating rows and shot

In glorious sacrifice to the Cause
Of progress and equality for all

Former People

For W. K. Kortas

We Former People have no reputation
So we are free to starve to death in peace
Or if we are unsightly in the street
Free rides to The Palace of Workers’ Justice

We might be beaten, we might be given a meal
Before we’re freed to a courtyard echoing
With the rattle of mop buckets and screams
And stood in liberating rows and shot

In glorious sacrifice to the Cause
Of progress and equality for all

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

Former President Trump Splits Two Infinitives and Botches a Number of Subject, Verb, and Adjective Constructs While Proposing the Arming of Teachers

    “...it's time to finally allow highly trained teachers to safely and
     discreetly concealed carry, let them concealed carry.”

                      -Former President Donald J. Trump
                    to the National Rifle ***., 27 May 2022

All teachers trample the Constitution
All teachers promote contempt for the Flag
All teachers should be in an institution
All teachers are weird (and that one’s a fxg)
All teachers despise the military
All teachers should be slowly microwaved
All teachers hate meat; they’re vegetary
All teachers hate Jesus; they can’t be saved
All teachers are evil; the children are harmed:

And thus, they say, all teachers should be armed

Previously published as “Texas’ Proposed Concealed Carry Law” in Dispatches from the Colonial Office, 2018, available from amazon.com.

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

        Forming a Committee Around a Car That Wouldn’t Start

The engine wouldn’t turn over; the electrics were dead
We stood around the open hood, each scratching his head

1st Member:

“It appears to me it’s the dead battery
There’s no indication of a charge, you see”

2nd Member:

“I’m a college graduate, so I am smarter
Obviously the problem is with the starter”

3rd Member:

“There’s a smell in the engine, something tannic
And I should know; I’m a certified mechanic”

4th Member:

“I’m a knight of the road; I drive a freighter
Just let me at that broken alternator”


But none of our skilled efforts came to pass
Because no one had bothered to check

                                                                                                        the gas

Mr. Big Businessman...

                       There wiste no wight that he was in dette

                          -Chaucer, General Prologue, line 279

If this were fifty years ago he’d sport
A cheap brown suit and a loud, too-wide tie
But now he wears knee-pants and cartoon tees
And fashion shoes that look like cancerous growths

And speaks like Chaucer’s merchant of his gigs
Contacts and contracts and deals to be made
Important ‘phone calls that must be taken now
In a voice of in-crowd guffawery

But when he clicks off his shiny MePhone
He asks for gas money to get him home

For Ngo Dinh Diem

No flame eternal burns over your lost grave
Unknown beneath an hourly parking lot
Or maybe out back among the garbage cans
No guards of honor pace in mirrored boots

Forth and back in mummery choreographed
Along a field of honor’s concrete walk
No busloads of tourists leave gift-shop wreaths
No bands or speeches mark your martyrdom

Nor would you need them
Nor would you want them

For your small flame is on an Altar set

For our Mothers on Christmas Eve

Beyond all other nights, on this strange Night,
A strangers’ Star, a silent, seeking Star,
Helps set the wreckage of our souls aright:
It leads us to a stable door ajar                                                          

And we are not alone in peeking in:
An ox, an ***, a lamb, some shepherds, too -
Bright Star without; a brighter Light within
We children see the Truth three Wise Men knew

For we are children there in Bethlehem
Soft-shivering in that winter long ago
We watch and listen there, in star-light dim,
In cold Judea, in a soft, soft snow

The Stable and the Star, yes, we believe:
Our mothers sing us there each Christmas Eve

(ca 2015)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]


                                For our Mothers on Christmas Eve

Beyond all other nights, on this strange Night,
A strangers’ Star, a silent, seeking Star,
Helps set the wreckage of our souls aright:
It leads us to a stable door ajar                                                        

And we are not alone in peeking in:
An ox, an ***, a lamb, some shepherds, too -
Bright Star without; a brighter Light within
We children see the Truth three Wise Men knew

For we are children there in Bethlehem
Soft-shivering in that winter long ago
We watch and listen there, in star-light dim,
In cold Judea, in a soft, soft snow

The Stable and the Star, yes, we believe:
Our mothers sing us there each Christmas Eve

For our Mothers on Christmas Eve

             For Katherine Mattie Bevil Blanchette Hall, 1922 – 2010
                                         and all our mothers

Beyond all other nights, on this strange Night,
A strangers’ Star, a silent, seeking Star,
Helps set the wreckage of our souls aright:
It leads us to a stable door ajar                                                          

And we are not alone in peeking in:
An ox, an ***, a lamb, some shepherds, too -
Bright Star without; a brighter Light within
We children see the Truth those Wise Men knew

For we are children there in Bethlehem
Soft-shivering in that winter long ago
We watch and listen there, in star-light dim,
In cold Judea, in a soft, soft snow

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

                                  Whe­n a Man is Old

                           For Presidents and Others:
                     A Meditation on Aging Gracefully

Now when a man is young, he gives his strength
In service to his nation and the Faith
In war and peace, and at his family hearth
In work, and in his humble place at Mass

But when a man his old, he then should choose
To ‘change his work for a good walking stick
And sit outside the Blue Boar Inn with pipe
And glass and friends and happy memories

There is honor in manly endeavors
And honor in finally letting them go

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

                              For Protestors in All Causes

Please –

Stop pumping your fisties up in the air
I’m tired of seeing your old armpit hair!

Oh, yes, you believe in this week’s cause
But that grotesque growth would give a lawnmower pause

And one more trifling thing (so please take note):
You shout and clench your fist, but do you vote?

Something About Life

                                      “Live.  Just live.”

                               -Yuri in Doctor Zhivago

The plane lifted, and the cheering was wild
And then pretty quickly the pilot said
“We are now clear of Vietnamese
Territorial waters.”  There was joy,
Even wilder cheering for most, and quiet
Joy for a few.  For me, Karamazov
To hand, peace, and infinite gratitude.
“I’m alive,” I said to myself and to God,
“Alive.  I will live, after all.”  To read, to write,
Simply to live.  Not for revolution,
Whose smoke poisons the air, not for the war,
Not to withdraw into that crippling self-pity
Which is the most evil lotus of all,
But to live.  To read, to write.
                                            But death comes,
Then up the Vam Co Tay, or now in bed,
Or bleeding in a frozen February ditch;
Death comes, scorning our frail, feeble, failing flesh,
But silent then at the edge of the grave,
For all graves will be empty, not in the end,
But in the very beginning of all.

For Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died

From 2015 - for Rod McKuen

The gentle singer of our youth has died
The poet of empty Sunday afternoons
And solitary strolls through Balboa Park
Among lovers and Frisbee-chasing dogs

Of laughing with shipmates while cleaning rifles
Because we knew more than the armorer
About dreaming away from learning war
About pretty girls laughing in the sun

And a chansonnier in sweater, sneaks, and jeans:
The gentle singer of our youth has died

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                             (From The Saint Tibbs’ Day Songbook)

                          Last Christmas I Gave You my Pancreas

I thought there was an idea here
But maybe not
Just a few questions, ma’am
About the guy who received your heart and gave it away
Did he drop it off at a re-sale shop?

Giving a body part at Christmas is sing-able
           Because
“Last Septuagesima Sunday I gave you my heart”
Is not something you can dance to easily
Especially if you have no cardio-pulmonary functions

I thought there was an idea here
Maybe it’s those Nyquil dreams again…

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

                               For the 20th of January
                                      1961 and 2021


                 The deed of gift was many deeds of war

                                         -Robert Frost

Miz Hawkins brought a television to school
So we could watch the inauguration
Of a president “born in this century”
But he seemed really old to us anyway

God looked like President Eisenhower
And God was surely a Methodist
President Kennedy was a Cath’lic
(In their basements they hid shortwaves and guns)

Shortwaves tuned to the Vatican and that ol’ Pope
So could a Cath’lic be a good American?
But the nation was young, and so were we
And America was God’s best creation

And because America was the Leader of the World
And we had whipped the Nazis and the **** [sic]
All by ourselves, and invented the Bomb
We were the blessing of democracy over all

Robert Frost spoke grand words in the January frost
I was hoping for his “Stopping by Woods”
Because I had memorized that in school
But he gave us something else, “The Gift Outright”

And then with frosted breath the President
Asked us what we could do for our country
Our country later asked us about Viet-Nam
But for now Miz Hawkins shushed all us deeds of gift

The nation was young that day, and so were we –

And everything seems so much older now
Our long ago optimism a deed of gift
To angry old men whose voices rattle

Rattle from behind armored glass and barbed wire
Barbed wire left over from DaNang and Saigon
And a thousand abandoned desert posts
Each a gift outright to Ozymandias

Who late bestrode the littered Capitol steps
His wrinkled lips loud-yelping in command
Over our increasingly antique land
“Made it, Ma! Top of the World!”

The happy crowds of ’61 are sand
There are no crowds in ’21, only silence
Behind ranks of soldiers (properly vetted)
Standing in empty streets, waiting for a Traveller

References:

Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright”
Shelley, “Ozymandias”
Warner Brothers, White Heat (film), 1949

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

                 For the Cranky Old Man Who Complains
                About Girls Wearing Short Skirts in Church

If it were a crime to be young and pretty
The kids could be up for the death penalty

If it were a crime to be young and pretty
The case against you would be adjourned sine die

For the Faithful Departed

Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum

-Henry V, 4.viii.115-116

Workmen approved indeed1, from far away
Like Abraham, exiled from the fields of home
But leaving here in their adopted land
Their blessings always, through family and faith

And so we ask Our Lady in several voices -
     Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
     Notre-Dame de LaSalette
     Our Lady of the Americas -

To welcome Luis and Oscar to God’s Home,
That promised Place of refreshment, light, and peace2


1 2 Timothy 2:15
2 from several Catholic prayers for the departed






Of your kindness pray for the repose
of the souls of Luis Castro and Oscar Rivera

September Twilight

The gasping summer heat withdraws at dusk
The hot winds still themselves, and now defer
To autumn’s promise and an easy truce
Sol slips behind the trees; the empty sky

Takes little note and fades among the stars
The summer grass is tired, but, bravely green,
Hosts cricket games for pouncing cats and dogs
Points cheered by choirs of cicadas and frogs

This is the thinking time.  The book’s at rest
Unread, face down upon a lichened bench
While votive fire glows in its copper bowl
And dryads whisper in the gathering dusk

Ancestors seem to gather round, to mark
The changing seasons on their holy earth
And tho’ their tread no longer makes a sound
Their merry tales more remembered than heard

Their happy presence in the first-star-hour
Reminds us that whatever-was remains
And will remain until the calling of time

I was just passing through
You didn’t know me; I didn’t know you
But I should have known you’d steal from me
When you told me to Have a Blessed Day

You never came back with the change
And that is sad. We have come to accept the lies
Of praychurs, presidents, and prime ministers
But one expects better of Sonic waitresses

And  you told me to Have a Blessed Day

So you’re 40 cents to the bad, that’s true
But I’ve got the dollar I was going to tip you

And, hey, y’all have a blessed day, y’hear?


(May God bless her for really-real; generational poverty sees things differently, and, anyway, she may have learned it from the 501C3 preacher-man.)

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

        For the Sullen Old Grump Waving a “REPUBLIC NOW” Sign

A republic

Guillotines, cronies, self-mutilations
Tossers rioting with glowing smart-phones
Books and art banned according to The People’s will
Rolex evangelists commanding through fear NOW

A republic

Oligarchs who never busted a sweat
Except on the golf course or while working a tan
Illiterate graspers in tailored suits
Protecting us from thinking for ourselves NOW

A republic

Purging all beauty and leaving us only
A desolation of gossips and their grievances NOW

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

                  For Training Purposes this Life May be Monitored

An examination of conscience is good
Thinking about things at the end of each day
Hail Marys mixed in with exasperation
Rough words that should never have been spoken

Reading casual cruelties on the InterGossip
Whatever God’s plan might be, that wasn’t it
Gratitude for work, gratitude for meals
Gratitude for peace at the end of the day

And as for the occasional bitter cup
Your Mother taught you right: offer it up

Time stops. The sweep hand seconds that no-motion
It fluttered in warning for several days
You were warned, and now you are out of time
That thing on your wrist is now but a weight

Oh, what is the nature of time? one asks
Oh, where is there a fresh 370?
The watch-opener reposes patiently
The tiny screwdrivers wait silently

Because without a 370 battery

(Which you can’t find in this town)

A watch is only useless tattery

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]


                                           For Cate and Jack

                                           Or Jack and Cate?

                                                On Christmas


Certain joys about Christmas are always true
For among the season’s constant blessings
                        Are you!

For us there is no Stray Dog Cabaret -
Our art burns at the end of a welding rod
And in the muscled turning of a wrench
In heat and sweat against a frozen bolt

Old work trucks parked in an oyster shell lot
Eaten with rust from the chemical air
And past the gates, cracking units, and tanks
A plywood paradise with ice-cold beer

Some of us work the night shift to pay our way
Through college, where we learn that we are

                                                             privileged

Scrambled Eggs in Rainwater

Field Medical Service School

Shivering in the rain, up in the hills
Of Sunny Southern California
Kerosene cookers and their gust-blown smoke
Squid-wet Corpsmen in flying wet slickers

Mess kits held out to sullen, cursing cooks
Slam-slopping glops of sausages and eggs
Cold coffee in aluminum canteen cups
No cover, no shelter for floating food

Or for sergeants bellowing in the dark –
And we laughed through it all, for we were young

No One Ever Said the War was Over

No one ever said the war was over
They were honest in that one thing, at least
Since that which never began cannot end
Not for those in a war that never was
Some made fortunes, some got a bus ride home
Some shook it off, and made it out okay
And some stare vacantly in lonely rooms
Red, yellow, green – what did they ever mean?
“Thank you for your service” – what does that
mean?
No one ever said the war was over

The War Correspondent

A helicopter skeetered bravely in
And pitched and yawed against the enemy fire
That wasn’t there.  The manliest of men
Descended unto us in flawless attire

His tailored khaki suit was starched and pressed
Its creases as sharp as a Ka-bar knife
Never was a reporter more perfectly dressed
For getting the news while risking his life

The C.O. sped him past our positions
And hustled him into the T.O.C.1
To ensure each noun and preposition
Would be written for the greater good, you see

Much ink and Scotch were undoubtedly spilled
In air-conditioned comfort, no heat or mud;
With scripted heroics his notebook was filled
No need to stain his suit with his precious blood

After an hour he was hustled back
To Saigon for an evening reception
After he wrote of a great attack
And wired New York his immaculate deception

A helicopter skeetered bravely out
And yawed and pitched against a ******’s shot
That wasn’t there.  A great Communist rout?
There’s more than one kind of jungle rot


1Tactical Operations Center - command bunker, often air-conditioned.

Pupils Fixed and Dilated

He was not permitted to die in peace
The only mercy granted was release
From fear, and mortars falling from the sky
There was no possibility of saying goodbye
And the river water stank, as did the night
His end was as flickering as the light
Pale gaspings, a fluttering pulse, dead sweat
D5W, battle dressings, and yet
The only mercy was in his release
He was not permitted to die in peace

Saint Matthew chapter 6, verses 1 through 4
That’s in the Bible too – don’t be a bore

“Found a Dead Body This Mornin’ Early”

Rainy and cold. Breakfast at the café
Early. Warm inside. Windows all steamy
Still dark. That first cup of thank-God coffee
Sausages, eggs, and wheat toast on the way

An old friend walks in. Hangs up his wet coat
“Coffee, please.  Pancakes.”
               “Are you off to work?
How about that early project?”
                “Naw, I’m done

Think I’ll go home and hit the recliner;
Found a dead body this mornin’ early”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
13 August 2024

                                             Four Fresh Limes

When my neighbor left four fresh limes at my door
The universe did not hold its breath

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

                      Four Out of Nine Muses Recommend Poetry

Four out of nine Muses recommend poetry
More doctors recommended Camel cigarettes
But we are not speaking of burning poetry
Except by tyrants, who are frightened of words

Kalliope, Cleo, Erato, and Euterpe
Have split the poetry racket among themselves
The other Muses have business of their own
Worthy enough in their own arts, we’re sure

But oh, our four Muses, our Muses four -
We sing for you along your Ionian shore

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                 Four Shirtless Boys on a Mountain in California

                            Sergeant Schneider’s Prophecy

There we are in a fading color photograph
Posing atop a mountain peak in Big Bear
Immensely proud in our Edmund Hillary moment
Though most every casual hiker has been there

On Monday morning we were back in Camp Del Mar
Navy Corpsmen standing formation in Marine green
“Split off into groups of four,” Sergeant Schneider barked
“Look at the other three. Within a year
                    One of you will be dead.”

Half of Mike’s brain was blown in Viet-Nam
The other Mike died in Minnesota last year
                     I don’t know what happened to Bill

Foxy John’s:
Beer, Wine, Good Food, Low Prices

Between class and the night shift, Foxy John’s:
Books and ideas, an old Sheaffer pen
Notes scribbled on a yellow pad, a pipe
Of Holland House, coffee, another cup
The old MG stands loyally outside
The San Diego night smells of the sea
Damp and cool out beyond the fluorescents
And at dawn, between the night shift and class
More coffee, more tobacco, weary eyes
Ill-focused on Henry at Canossa
And the ocean tides and the morning fogs,
Turning the seasons, mark shifts and studies.

How curious never to meet ol’ John
And so to learn just why he is foxy

How we Teach our Children Hymns and Carols

“We have seen His star in the east at a 20% discount”

Joy to the world at Canadian Tire
And free shipping until sing of Mary
Amazon roasting on an open fire
And no payments until January

O holy night down at the shopping mall
Adeste fidelis in a traffic jam
I saw three ships in large, medium, and small
O Christmas tree buy a Pajamagram

A new Rolex watch on this silent night -
But park with your packages out of sight

Fragments in a Fragmented Season

Neither a cyber-warrior nor a cyber-worrier be

But is this flower a patriotic flower?

The nation that never had much use for me
Except to send me to an undeclared war
Is suddenly broken

Was I playing with the puppies when the revolution began
And so didn’t notice?

“Take It Down!” someone scrawled on a statue in New Orleans
Dear New Orleans: Saint Joan of Arc was never a Confederate

Dear Canada: Do you really want to be a republic?

The vice-president takes shelter within his armored hair, and is silent

The Real Knees of Irving, Texas

Think about a Wal-Mart employee taking a knee during the morning Wal-Mart chant

It’s the Russians, no doubt

Chess ratings are up

Everything’s an Orwellian Two-Minutes’ Hate now.  Even the hours and seconds are outraged

“Your attitude’s been noticed, comrade.”  - House Warden to Yuri in Doctor Zhivago

Maybe the Republic will be in better shape next season.

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Let’s see – add Colin Dexter, John Updike
And a few pounds of Graham Greene, perhaps
John Steinbeck, Rex Stout, and Ford Madox Ford

Packed in foam peanuts with T. S. Eliot
The Little Office of the Blessed ****** Mary
Olivia Manning, Henrietta’s War
“Leaf by ******” for a few ounces more

Tolkien and Lewis, those Oxford scholars -
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For the CBC Anchormen’s Quintet

Take the keys (of C and G), call a cab
Take the ‘phone from the moaning baritone
Bury their sheet music beneath a slab
And chase from the bass the inverted cone

Hot coffee to purge demons a capella
With fervent prayers to our merciful Lord
Please save each and every harmonic fella
And free them from the ringing chord

Oh, call a priest, call a mom, call a cop
Because friends don’t let friends sing barbershop!