Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                        Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains

The washing machine baptizes our busy days:
A shirt freshly stained with this morning’s coffee
Wrinkledy tees in grimy greens and greys
A child’s blue jeans all sticky with toffee

Dish towels we allowed to get old-food smelly
A nice dress sock on which the puppy peed
Blankies from the couch in front of the telly
The terry-cloth that toweled the shaving bleed

To the laundry room where all these wreckages convene
There to be made all fresh and bright and clean –
Thus
Let us give thanks for the washing machine!

This past year's scribblings can be found (maybe - Google improved their Blogger so much that it doesn't format) at:

https://poeticdrivel.blogspot.com/

20 September 2020 - Google "updated" (cough) their Blogger to the point where it no longer works, so I am back here until this fails again.

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

                     “Lawrence’s Apple Watch is Fully Charged”

Oh, sure, the MePhone is pleased to say that now
But long before the day spins down the watch
Percentages add up to little and so
I must find the magnetic sticky thing

The charger and the watch embrace with passion
You can almost see the electricity
That sparks their one-ness and their holy bond
Leaving my wrist empty and timeless for a time

“Lawrence’s Apple Watch is fully charged”
But reluctant to leave its charger for long

Leafy Labor Day and Summer’s Last Dragon*

In a happier world, children this day,
Barefoot children, running about in play
Would pause now at the end of summer time -
New school supplies from the old five-and-dime

Write those first smudgy lines with a new ink-pen
For tomorrow the new school year takes in
And count their cedar pencils, one, two, three
Then out again to the Robin Hood tree

A wooden sword, and a dragon to slay
In a happier world, children this day

(Their Robin Hood wants to slay a dragon,
and so a wrathful dragon slain shall be;
Little children know best about these things)

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

                               Learning to Comb Your Hair

Do you remember learning how to comb your hair?
Your mother had you look into the mirror
(What a handsome young man!)
And watch as she made magic with a comb

First, she chased all your hair forward and down
Until your eyebrows laughed for the fun of it
And then she chose an imaginary line
And parted the strands for the rest of the day

Hooray!

Do you remember learning how to comb your hair?
(Now in your mother’s memory send up a prayer)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                Scary Men in the Streets at Night

They swagger into the convenience store
Sullen in their grotesque tats and shabby tees
Shaven heads, unshaven faces, gas-station shades
Old roach-stompers, unwashed jeans, bad-/ss bling

A big ol’ Glock .45 on every man’s hip
Manly-man Velcro tactical gear
Beer-guts rolling over their leather belts
More than a hint of menace in their eyes

These are our local deputies, of course -
Our criminals usually show a little more class


(There is no one I admire more than a proper copper, but until local governments provide better training, better pay, better backup, and meaningful benefits to our police we’re going to have to suffer the leather-boy Barneys.)

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

             Leave it to ****** – The Shakespearean I.C.E. Episode

                                         Dramatis Personae:

Ward, a husband and father

Wally, Ward’s teenaged son

June, Ward’s wife, accomplishing hussefery in a dress and pearls

******, Ward and June’s younger son


Ward:

Wally, I knowest thou hath merry plans for the morrow
But I must tell thee, to thy woe and sorrow
That thou’rt to stay home, and mow the lawn

Wally:

Oh, golly, gee, seest thou my face turn wan?
Beloved father, I cannot with thy orders comport
For I cannot find my comradely passport
Nor, in addition to that paperwork dearth,
Yea, verily, my certificate of birth!
Without which workers are subject to arrest
By I.C.E., as the news and warnings attest

June:

‘Tis true – I.C.E. feareth every gangbanger and yob
But they will imprison some kid at his job
And Superman might get thee; I.C.E. hired him today
That is their new truth, justice, and th'American way

******:

Gee, Wally, if thou’rt carried to Alcatraz
Can I have thy room?

Voice Off:                            

                                                      We needeth no stinkin’ warrants!

Exeunt omnes, pursued by Dogberries with guns

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]

                                        ­    Leaving the Party

              “You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting
                With much admired disorder.”

                             -Lady Macbeth in III.iv.109-110

The party we leave is not the party that was,
Beginning in optimism and good will
In rooms well-lit with generosity and thought -
Ideas thoughtfully spoken and thoughtfully heard

We have all left a party for fresh air
To escape from hollow laughter and cliches
From shouted arguments and whispered schemes
Half-empty glasses and sour cigarette smoke

Screamed taunts that sting, a hive-like waspish buzz -
The party we leave is not the party that was

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

         Leaving the Party Early for Some Fresh Air and a Smoke

Our host was oozy one moment, threatening the next
The drinks were watery, the hors d’oeuvres nothing more
Than pigs in blankets of cruelties and cliches
Among guests likely to call them horse doovers

Through the bottom of my glass I could see
Only a few weak industrial fizzings
Recirculating from Tammany Hall until now
Pasting new labels over unoriginal sins

Unoriginal sins to file and shelve -
I left the Party in 2012

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

                                   Left in a Package Locker

“Left in a package locker” – that probably means
That someone left it at the post office in town
Because the private deliveries sometimes say
They can’t find our house, except when they do

It worked out well enough for Paddington Bear
But our depot was torn down years ago
And freight trains thunder by without a stop
Without regard for packages or bears

And so

We’ll drive to town next week to see if there
Is waiting for us, properly tagged, a little bear

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                               Lemons and the Divine Ekonomia

My neighbor has a lemon tree
He gives me lemons
And I too have a lemon tree
I give him lemons

This is not economy
This is Ekonomia

It is divine

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                           Lenin in Petrograd


               They're at it again! I wish they'd decide once and for all
                which gang of hooligans constitutes the government of
                this country!

                          -Uncle Alex reacting to fighting in the streets
                                         in Doctor Zhivago (1965)


More men in masks, and wearing scruffy clothes
Roaming the streets and waving rifles about
And which side they are on, nobody knows
Our capital is now all fear and doubt

Some demand my papers, and others my life
Some challenge my accent and exam my skin
Some threaten with a gun and others a knife
And some an unmarked car to throw me in

“Here, sir, the people govern,” Alexander Hamilton said -
No longer, alas; the people’s laws are dead

Imagine slaves buying their chains
Proudly bragging about their chains
Prettily decorating their chains
Gloriously celebrating their chains
And accessorizing their chains

Waiting patiently in long queues
All lined up by ones and by twos
Uniform in their chemical shoes
Beast-marked with their camp tattoos
Obedient to the latest news

Desperate for the latest ‘phone
Desperate never to be alone
Desperate for approval shown
Desperate for a cool ring tone
Desperate not to be unknown

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                    Lent is Not About Giving Up Things Lent is Not About
                    Giving Up Things Lent is Not About Giving Up Things
                    Lent is Not About Giving Up Things

All of my life I have been told
That Lent is not about giving up things
So was there a time when anyone
was told otherwise?

Kensington Avenue

With Leonard gone, who can wear a fedora?

A pilgrimage away from Kensington
Lovers and mountains and islands and words
Questions flung far into the universe
Returned as Alleluias angelic

Or as Comments Constant in lonely rooms
Where Marianne in memories spoke to him
Sometimes upon a wire from otherness
Finishing words about the avenue

Now home from mountains and islands and song -
Perhaps one answer was here all along

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                        American Children Begging in the Streets

                     (Let’s all feel good about child endangerment)

Children with plastic buckets run up to the cars
Hopelessly trapped by the traffic lights
They bang on the windows, they dash across lanes
Life-lessons in begging instead of work:


IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US GO TO DISTRICT PLAYOFFS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
PLEASE SEND OUR TEAM TO STATE
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SEND OUR BAND TO DISNEY WORLD
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SEND OUR CHEERLEADERS TO CAMP
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SOFTBALL TEAM GO ANGELS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR MISSIONS FOR JESUS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SPONSOR OUR DANCE TEAM
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP US BUY NEW SOCCER UNIFORMS
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
HELP SUPPORT OUR MISSION TRIP TO COLORADO
IT’S FOR THE MISSIONS
SUPPORT OUR SAFE GRADUATION


Adults in charge of these dear little souls:
Don’t send them into danger with begging bowls

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                    Let’s All Meet in Cicely

                      From a dream that sailed from Thailand

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
You can find me sitting outside The Brick
At peace as the gentle autumn breezes blow
Having put aside my hiking stick

Fleischmann joins us on that old wooden bench
Chris-in-the-Morning stops by for a beer
Hollings gives Shelly a husbandly pinch
She takes his broom and with it smacks his rear

Maurice and Maggie, Ruth-Anne, Marilyn, and Ed
Drop in with stories of love and life and history
And news brought in by plane and road and sled
To this Brigadoon of happy mystery

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
And share in its peace before we go

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                Let’s go for Coffee -- Grab Your Flak Jacket

Some give their sons semi-automatics and hate
Instead of family and purpose and love
Instead of guided study and structured faith
Instead of fishing poles and summer afternoons

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                Let’s Have a Little Less Holiness, Please

Insurrectionists…wrote “In God We Trust” on a set of gallows erected at the Capitol…

I Have Seen Christian Nationalism Up Close. It Terrifies Me | TIME

An AR and a Bible and a wheezecake pose
Promoting murders in the Name of God
Our god is a god of vengeance and love
Let us shoot straight, hold hands, and share Jesus

An AR and a Bible and a noose
These glories are anointed by God’s love
Them Jews crucified Jesus, you know
Does this bandana make my brain look fat?

An AR and a Bible and camouflage -
Lock and load for the empty words barrage!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                        Let’s Meet Again at the Robin Hood Oak

                                                        1.

­In my boyhood, to the Robin Hood oak
I tip-toed in those hot summer afternoons
With my three sharp arrows and my little bow
Craftily eluding the sheriff’s men

I softly whistled and waited, and then anon
From out of the sun-shimmering heat
From out of the merry magical greenwood
An answering whistle sighed through the air

Great skill at making a bow or a plan -
I was a favorite among Robin’s band

                                                         2.

In my old age, to the Robin Hood oak
I slowly walked in lonely afteryears
Carelessly, for I was a baron now
With my ownership and my walking stick

I whistled and waited, and waited more
From out of the sun-shimmering heat
From out of the merry magical greenwood
There was only a silence, a silence sad

Little boys grow up, and then must disappear -
And that’s okay; the magic is forever here

Let There be Barbies

          Let the children have their night of fun and laughter.
          Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.

                   -Churchill, Christmas Eve radio address, 1941

Some young mothers ban Barbies and Santa Claus
And all such trinkets and dolls and mummeries
Sacrificing childhood to fashionable gossip -
In obedience to the Holy Internet

A toy Cochise must never ride again
Or little plastic soldiers defend their forts
Or Maid Marian roam with Robin Hood –
Barbie must never be dressed for success

Little children can now sit on the floor
On Christmas morn to play with ideologies

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                           Let Us Celebrate No Tyrants Day


                           “We have no king but Caesar!”

               -A long-ago mob as written in St. John 19:15


Even the King of Kings is under the Law
And too, since Magna Carta, our earthly King -
From the people and their voices he can only draw
Such powers as their assemblies vote to bring

But may God protect us from a Common Man
Slithering to supremacy through serpentine speech
Emboldened by the power of cabal, club, and clan
Mobs chanting for their master, a soul-******* leech

God gives us His grace in a King and Queen
Republics give us the guillotine

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

                               Liberation Begins with our Minds

At lunch today, or during a coffee break
We could switch the break room radio on
To the voices of someone else’s America
Demagogues yelling at us what to think

Or we could open that ancient paperback
Held together with tape and rubber bands
And continue Saint Augustine’s Confessions
Which we began in our younger, happier days

Eternal words, and not some Leader’s noise
Because you and I are not trapped in time

The typewriter misses one of its keys
Every word is an orphan, and the lines
Wither away in an unfurnished room
Above a garage infested with ghosts

          Life is an unreliable narrator

The phone that isn’t connected doesn’t ring
While past-due notices fight among themselves
And on the hot plate macaroni boils
Sometimes you can see islands in the steam

          Life is an unreliable narrator

You’ve got a gift; that’s what everyone said

But

Your worn-thin sleeping bag is still your bed

          Life is an unreliable narrator

A proper English Communist, I say,
Should drink only that tea called Comrade Grey

Lighting a Candle before Mass

We light a candle for

       All good people
       All bad people
       And all good causes

Because

        All people are good
        All people are bad
        And we’re working on the causes

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

                 Like Candles When They Quietly Go Out

             He mourns the sons of princes, sown in the dust

                                          -The Seafarer

When we were young
A friend once showed me a passage in a book
In which the monks of a certain cloistered order
Were often blessed with wonderfully peaceful deaths
Like candles when they quietly go out

Domine exaudi orationem meam

Now we are old
Our books require a rather larger print
Our foolish dreams were put by long ago
And the works of our youth are memories
Like candles when they quietly go out

Domine exaudi orationem meam

And we are candles
Still giving out a little bit of light
Anticipating with hope the morning Sun

Domine exaudi orationem meam

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                           Like Children Dancing

Like children dancing, leaves form up in rows
Then skitter across each corner and street
As shoals in rolling ranks overflowing other ranks
Or little tornadoes laughing through circles and swirls

Like children celebrating their youth and strength
Leaves tumble and run before the shifting wind
‘Way up into the air and back to earth
In happy games of catch-me-if-you-can

Like children in the afternoon, just out of school
Autumn leaves joyfully mock every rule

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                         ­         Endsville

All in all, at the end of the day, and in conclusion, when the curvy lady sings, when the truth be told, when all is said and done, when the chickens come home to roost, when all the evidence is in, in sum, in short, in brief, the bottom line is, we can only conclude, to conclude, in the end, so as I said before, to sum up, and as Churchill / Gandhi / Harry Potter once said, therefore, all things considered, most importantly, taking the facts into account, to wrap things up, on the whole, and most importantly, and finally…

(I was going somewhere with this…)

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

                                       Like Love Withdrawn

After months of dreary drought and heat
Light raindrops fall upon the withered world
A few, a very few, and then they stop
Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

At dusk the paving into dryness steams
Only the hot and heavy air is wet
And smells of disappointment, dark and sour
Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

The westering sun shines briefly, and then is gone
Like love withdrawn upon waking from a dream

No picturesque ruins will remain for us
To wander through with our sketchbooks and pens
For drawing pictures or writing blank verse
About bare ruin’d 2 air-conditioning ducts

The baptismal font will be repurposed
As a bird-bath (with a plastic Saint Elvis)
And the stained-glass windows will be sold off
As fashionable bathroom accessories

The crucifix of deplorable design 3
Will be stored in the back of someone’s garage
Until the girls carry it off to the woods
And laughingly use it for target practice

A rubbly field will serve as a soccer pitch
Until seventy years 4 have passed away


1  Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
2  Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73
3  Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited
4  Daniel 9:1-2

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

                              Lines for Marina Tsvetaeva

        “Her poetry is…passion, pain, metaphor, and music.”

                                 - Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Her words soar over utilitarians
Past pale, pedantic propagandists who
Would wrench all poetry into a cause
As if verse were but a commodity

Her picture on a Penguin paperback
Embraces the viewer, stares back, dares back
Her eyes defiant, her arms folded in hope
Armored in her famous clunky jewelry

She bleeds onto the page, into the soul
Her words, suspended in truth against the age

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

          Lines Written Upon the Occasion of the Confiscation of the
          Former President’s Several Passports, Which May or May Not
          Have Happened

A flight risk? No, not that wretched has-been –
No civilized nation would allow him in!

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

             Lingering Death by Medical Office Telephone Tree

“The marshal’s been shot! Somebody get Doc!”

“Hello. You have reached Polysyllabic Medical Associates
Our hours are (mumble, mumble, mumble)
Our fax number is (mumble, mumble, mumble)
We are located up the stairs on Front Street
Next to the Long Branch Therapeutic Outreach Centre
And boutique, Florals by Miss Kitty
All patients and visitors are required to wear masks
If this is a medical emergency
Hang up and telegraph 911 from the depot
If you need a refill, contact your pharmacist
If you are a doctor, dial 1
If you know your party’s extension, dial it now

(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)

If this is for an appointment, dial 4

(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)

If you would like to speak with a nurse, dial 5

(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)
That number is not recognized; please try again
(Beep)”

“Somebody, go get the undertaker.”

“Hello. You have reached The Garden of Memories
Formerly known as Boot Hill
Our hours are (mumble, mumble, mumble)…”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                             Li Po Writes to us from his Mountain

                                      Li Po, “Ancient Air,” p. 84
                    A Book of Luminous Things, ed. Czeslaw Milosz

We read of the poets of China
In the days of the Golden Tang
In the time of The Gathering of Kings
When The Silk Road carried dreams

Government officials were the poets
And poets were the government officials
Who knew The Five Classics by heart
And wrote of China in Tang quatrains

They were writing to the Emperor
And now they are writing to us

With its four-beat
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Continental rhythm
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It pulls and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It plants and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It digs and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It mows and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It rakes and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
It bales and putts
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A little oil, a little gas
Putt-putt, putt-putt
A sweet machine
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Upon the grass
Putt-putt, putt-putt
When all is done
Putt-putt, putt-putt
And all is said
Putt-putt, putt-putt
There’s nothing like
Putt-putt, putt-putt
Massey-Ferguson red
Putt-putt, putt-putt!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                An Afternoon LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Walk
             Along Beer Can Road and County Dump Extension

Dewberries LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sassafras seedlings LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Virginia creeper LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER pine cones LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crumbling oak leaves from last summer  LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER winds sighing in the pine tops LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a little plum tree LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Canada goldenrod LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER poplar LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER swamp oak LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER mourning doves LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER slanting evening sunlight LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER Chickasaw plum LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER nightshade LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER red spider lilies LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a skink bluebonnets LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER clouds in the west LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER spiderwort LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a long eared rabbit loping across the road LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER sorrel LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a feather from a bluebird LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER waving field grasses LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER the neighbor’s cows browsing in peace LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER a crane flying up from a pond LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER crows fussing at me from the woods LITE A FINE PILSNER BEER…

Lawrence Hall HSG
[email protected]

                    Little Children are Much Like Dachshund Puppies

With wildly scattered toys the lawn is messed -
Children came to visit – O how we are blessed!

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

                             Little Corpses Everywhere

            Woman kept child’s corpse in a plastic storage tote

                                               -CNN

Little corpses decaying in storage totes
Little corpses by the hundreds in unmarked graves
Little corpses by the abortuary thousands
In bags neatly labeled “Medical Waste”

Little corpses with shrivelled ****-tainted lungs
Little corpses dropped discreetly in the creek
Little corpses all chopped and dropped and flushed
So that graduation night won’t be ruined

Little corpses in factories, mere skin and bones
Their agonies haunting our new smart phones

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                               Little Papal Flags at the Eucharist

Little cardboard boxes at the ends of the pews
Held little Papal flags in white and gold
For the faithful disabled, an usher explained
To request a eucharistic minister going their way

How useful in several ways is this little toy:
I’d wave it in defiance of the House of Savoy

Little Plastic Army Men in Action on a Snow Day

If I were a boy

I’d range my toy soldiers before the fire
Vast armies of plastic in green and grey
With the cannon blasting the enemy -
A glorious victory again today!

If I were a boy

I’d eat my morning cereal with Robin Hood
Propped up in his Whitman book before me
Its pages open to an England where
Every day is summer, green upon the lea

If I were a boy

My mother would remind me, to my sorrow
That I have a ‘rithmetic test tomorrow

No one ever figured out how Schlomo
Got off the ship with a life jacket
 
But there he was on the pier among the crowd
Sitting sadly on his little brown suitcase
 
And wearing a life jacket from the ship
With "Orinoco" stenciled across it
 
A sailor in a white uniform wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off
 
A policeman in a blue uniform wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off
 
Schlomo's father told him he wanted it
But Schlomo would not take it off
 
And on the bus ride through the city
Schlomo would not let go of it
 
And for weeks Schlomo wore his life jacket
 
In the park
In the dark
 
In his schule
In his school
 
Until one day in the park on the river's bank
He took it off
He threw it in
It promptly sank
 
Then he said to himself, our little Schlomo,
"I knew somehow - it was time to let go."

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                             Little Thoughts of God

          We are not some casual and meaningless product of
          evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of
          us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

                                     -Papa Benedict, 24 April 2005


Our children play with little toy trucks and trains
Comb Barbie’s hair and then arrange Ken’s tie
They get fussed at for pulling the puppy’s tail
They cuddle up with kittens and Winnie-the-Pooh

Our children create worlds with construction paper
Discover Narnia in a new box of crayons
They get fussed at for writing on the wall
They squirm in church; they tickle Daddy’s beard

Our children love their chapter books (and us!)
“Is this a picture of a pirate ship?”
They get fussed at for asking soooooo many questions
“Daddy, will you read us a story now?”

Dear Lord –

Let our children grow up and make us proud

Dear Lord –

Let our children grow up

Liturgical Dance*

The liturgy has always served as dance
Timed to the *courteis of the universe  
Choreographed with planets, moons, and stars
To celebrate and sing and taste the Truth

Thus every gesture, every careful step
Leaps wildly across the sacred arc of time
And circling ‘round, and ‘round again all meet
In elevation silent within a Cup

But pause and kneel now at the sacring bell:  
The liturgy has always been a dance

Lives Float Away

            “Leaves fall, and flowers die, lives float away”
                                 -Louis L’Amour

How easy for us to say that he shouldn’t have done it
And left behind the ending of his life
Sorrows found and written up as part
Of a gently worded police report

For we didn’t know that the sunlit days
We shared were to him a greyscape of despair
That he was shadowed and haunted by fears
And we were shadowed through our ignorance

How easy for us to say that he shouldn’t have done it
How easy to make excuses for ourselves

Llano Estacado

Escarpments and grasses forever and ever
Alive beneath the grey forever-sky,
Creation tumbling ancient elements
Into horizons upon more horizons,
Deep silences, from when there were no worlds,
Seldom interrupted, even by the nations.
The dawn wind sings a circle of low stones
A palace long before Coyote came,
The evening wind sighs through a picture rock
A language that was old when the moon was new.
A little crucifix bought in a shop
Near a wharf in Spain, and blessed by a priest
In haste for breakfast after early Mass
Lies near a fragment of a horseman’s boot
Above an arrowhead knapped from traded flint
Below a broken blade from a pocket knife
And a doll’s head torn by a very bad boy
Along a railway that follows buffalo
Not far from the historical marker
Where a pizza box leans against a fence.
But here on the Llano Estacado
Escarpments and grasses forever and ever

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                    ****** Sunbathing in the Garden of Literature

In the end everyone having been abusive
And babbling endlessly about it all
Dies

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

                                      Looking Back on the Day

Looking back on the day – did I give thanks?
I lazed over my coffee and the morning news
Noted the crows and the morning’s light frost
But that’s not good enough

I washed the dishes and a load of clothes
Looked into a novel and a poetry book
Sorted laundry and fed the squirrels and birds
And that’s not good enough

One give thanks for another day of life
By making that day what it should be

He was looking for something in a burning street
Among blown wreckage and necrotic smoke
Among the drifting ashes and debris
Alone among grey-morning-crumbling stones

He later could not remember much of it
Among the empty greyness - were there dead?
Among the silences where screams had flown
Alone among accusers who weren’t there

“Don’t look for it. Go into solitude.
Don’t look for it. It will be found for you.”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                         ­    Look in Thy Glass

                                       Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 3

I look into the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
They said I favored my mother when I was young
Red hair and freckles, and an impish grin
But later they said I had to become a man

She had her April, and then so did I
And there are Aprils enough for everyone
They are not my Aprils, but they will do
Every April reflects our youth back to us

I look into the mirror and ask, “Who is that old man?”
I miss my mother