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

                             “My Temple Stands in Ephesus”

                                            -Pericles V.i.241

“My temple stands in Ephesus,” the goddess says
I don’t believe in goddesses, of course,
And stern Saint Paul would cut up rough about them
But we could wish them so, temples and gods

We could board a ship with a seeing eye
A ship of wonderful cargoes safely stowed
And let there be “Lords, Knights, Gentlemen,
Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers”

To speed our stories and our very selves
To where a temple stands in Ephesus

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

                                           My Wordle Stats

If I turn the distribution bars on their side
They seem to make…a gesture
                                                               (I’m mortified!)

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

                 -Father Zossima in *The Brothers Karamazov

I am Napoleon now.  I want to be
Napoleon, and it is so.  I can be
Anything I want to be – isn’t that
The cleverness you’ve always taught to me?

My truth is the truth, and it must be yours
My self-determination - it obscures
Your bogus science and reality
Fiat and fashion my truth thus secures

I am a poached egg 1 now. That’s what I want –
It’s illegal to argue that - so don’t!

1 The allusion to an argument in C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is well known.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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                  National Public Radio on Saturday Morning
                  While Driving to the Dump in an Old Pickup
                  Whose Radio Receives Only Two Stations

Wait, wait; don’t bore me

(knowing chortles and polite applause)

In the work cart I find a luna moth
And is it dead?  With gentle hands I lift…
And off it flies! into the sunlit leaves
Breeze-wavy in the pale September sun

          Among the apple and cherry and oak

I labor away at summer’s excess
And clear the paths and glades of weatherfall
Sorting out litter to a merry fire
And billets to store for the winter hearth

          Sweet gifts of apple and cherry and oak

The bees seem to wonder what I’m about
Sitting awhile, and thinking the summer out

          Beneath the apple and cherry and oak

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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                         Maybe Edmondson and Wells are Right

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 20


                  I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm.

           -St. Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons


How awkward that a beautiful woman
Might not be a woman except in her heart
And in her bearing, demeanor, and dress
Making a choosing, and not a demand

But if I am asked about matters of DNA
I hope I may freely reply, “Coffee? Or tea?”
Neither censured nor restrained nor vilified
Beneath the Cross free to accept or not

We are all children of God, woman, and man -
Let us all care for each other the best we can

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­   Navigating the Rules

                        Everything not forbidden is compulsory

                           -T. H. White, The Book of Merlyn

The rules are immutable and absolute
Except when they’re not. The rules this week
Are whatever the powerful might say -
Questions are a burden; simply obey

Accept that whatever you think is wrong
To the truculent who disapprove of you
For you are outdated, a relic, a prat
And you are wicked to disagree with that

Anything in your defense that you might urge
Is now a forbidden ism subject to purge

Navigation Lights

Like spirits of the ancients, veiled fireflies
Patrol as appointed the haunted dusk
Their cold lights winking secret messages
From lawn to tree, and then across Creation

And silent in her elegance the Moon
Escorted by strong Jupiter the bold
Is pleased to grace the skies with her presence
Herself obedient to that once-seen Star:

We are never adrift in our own dark nights
For they are marked with navigation lights

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    Negotiating Toilet Paper

The escort carried three rolls of toilet paper
As she walked me to the classroom area
One each for Dorm A, Dorm B, and the guards
Some fellows walked casually along the path

“And you guys know how to walk single-file”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Sure thing, ma’am”

And thus in silence they formed that single-file

“One roll of toilet paper per prisoner per week
Sometimes it’s just not enough,” she said
“We had a meeting on it; I told the guys
Sometimes administration just doesn’t get it”

Dignity, like treaties, can be broken
In many ways

Lawrence Hall 2d
Negotiating Toilet Paper
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                    N­egotiating Toilet Paper

The escort carried three rolls of toilet paper
As she walked me to the classroom area
One each for Dorm A, Dorm B, and the guards
Some fellows walked casually along the path

“And you guys know how to walk single-file”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Yes, ma’am”

“Sure thing, ma’am”

And thus in silence they formed that single-file

“One roll of toilet paper per prisoner per week
Sometimes it’s just not enough,” she said
“We had a meeting on it; I told the guys
Sometimes administration just doesn’t get it”

Dignity, like treaties, can be broken
In many ways

Written by
Lawrence Hall

The squirrel makes a fuss - he must discuss
Drink-sharing with the thirsty honeybees
Who hover greedily above the bowl
And claim all water rights for bees alone

The squirrel pleas with “Please!” to all the bees;
In conclave met they buzz, and grant the fuzz-
Y neighbor limited let to get wet
If when drinking his fill he holds real still

And the bees’ pet human has come and gone –
He leaves them water, then leaves them alone

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

                                       Neither a King nor a Boss

A gas station close by the overpass
A display case of shiny knives and knucks
One of the knives features a naked lady
Some of the knucks are labeled “KING” and “BOSS”

But would the object of a metallic punch
Have time to read either the “KING” or “BOSS”
Before he fell among his blood and pain?
A legless man in a wheelchair rolls by

To his blue tarp and sleeping bag close by
The gas station close by the overpass

Neither a Menshevik nor a Bolshevik Be

                                     What is’t you do?
                           A deed without a name.

                                 -Macbeth IV.1.48-49

This is not a matter of recusancy
To wish a blessing on your houses both
That in the Grace of God you amend yourselves -
But go away and do it somewhere else

And take with you your posings and your twootings
Your alligator shoes, expense accounts
Your plastic soldiers all saluting you
And your designer plots of great import

And leave good folk alone to their good work
With sweat-stained hands in clean domestic peace

Some call it somethingphobic and bellicose
Crude masculinist supremacy (by far)
Insensitive, sexist, and just plain gross –
But it’s righteously vegan – my weekly cigar!

Two wideawake birds bumped into each other
On the distant island of Ascension
Said one to the other, “Excuse me, dear brother!”
And the other replied, “Don’t mention
                                                         ­                 it.”

The birds might say, “Oh, look at the pretty humans!
They have waited all winter for us to return!”
And so we have, like seasonal hoteliers
Inviting our guests back for their holiday

The seed-buffets on little metal trays
And little plastic houses in the trees
Bespeak our thoughtful hospitality
For little friends who live upon their wings

Now summering in nest and eave and steeple
The birds must laugh, “Oh look at the people!”

Neo-Post-Colonial Artificial Intelligence Deconstructed

All intelligence is artificial
We do not huddle in burrows, issuing forth
Only to chase down other living things
Beat them to death, drink their blood, and eat them

We moderns huddle in cubes above the ground
With indoor plumbing through pipes that sometimes freeze
While we are gazing, searching for lost truths
In glowing screens made in slave-labor camps

And we have stopped slaughtering other creatures -
We have machines to do that for us now

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

             Never Mind the Guns and the Fentanyl; Seize the Books

          By 1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,
          4,175 titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…

                 -Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War

Ideologues search libraries for ***** books
Because reading might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

Censors search Mary Poppins for ***** words
Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas
And encourage them to think for themselves
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious
Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas




How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)

The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Film censors aren’t protecting children from Mary Poppins – they’re protecting themselves (yahoo.com)

States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives : The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR

List of banned films - Wikipedia

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/22/police-officer-searches-middle-school-library-after-complaint-abo­ut-concerning-illustrations-in-lgbtq-book/

Someone is cutting down free little libraries in a Chicago suburb and police are searching for the suspect (msn.com)

Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries following new education reform - CBS News

The police officer who searched for a book in a Great Barrington classroom also used a body camera. The ACLU has ‘deep concerns’ | South Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

       “Never Surrender” Sneakers – Collectible Bone Spurs Edition

Now we have lived to see a president
Hawking tatty cartoon-character shoes
Having already pawned his soul for rent
And now the bailiffs are turning the screws

Never Trust a Guy Who Irons His Jeans

Strong canvas is the stuff of adventure
Like a cowboy lassoing horses wild
It captures the ocean’s galloping winds
And to even wilder ships harnesses them

Strong canvas is the stuff of manly work
Defense against fierce cactus and desert dust
Loops for the hammer, pouches for the nails
Sacred vestments anointed with sweat and dirt

A good man works hard, and says what he means
But never trust a guy who irons his jeans

It appears, not every century, no
But every four years in the season of snow
When presidential candidates are hard-pressed
For votes, and in new lumberjack shirts are dressed

The Brigadoon Diner appears in the mist
Whenever there are babies to be kissed
By politicians flown first-class from the city
In designer boots that have never been s**tty

Pancakes and coffee, and an incessant buzz
In a down-home America that never was

New Hiking Shoes for the Trail Ahead

The road goes ever on and on…

-J.R.R. Tolkien

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes still in their box
From a year ago – in anticipation
Of a summer vacation that never was

And there was no holiday again this year
It was all coronavirus and hurricanes
I had forgotten those shoes, but here they are
All ready for some sunlit summer road

While I was looking for something else I found
A pair of hiking shoes, and a bit of hope

New Moon Over an Old Planet

A thin lunette, silver reflecting gold
Assumed into its dance among the stars -
It was, it is; it will forever repose
Within the shining monstrance of creation

Some will adore, some will deny, but still
The sun, the moon, and the stars obey, and move -
Truth is not dependent upon perception
Or upon lies loudspeakered into our cells

The bearer, even if unseen, is forever -
A thin lunette, silver reflecting gold

The Brothers Karamazov, Book II

There was little news from Russia today
At Optina the midday liturgy
Was over around eleven or so
The faithful crossing themselves as they left

Mostly poor folk, walking to their homes for lunch
And then back to work.  They hardly noticed
A party of their betters strolling about
Reading tombstones, giggling about the quaint monks

Waiting to see a reed swaying in the wind
There was little news from Russia today

Let the childhood dose of cod liver oil
Perish from its own sour smell and foul taste
Send yellow squash to the poor children in China
May Popeye keep his spinach to himself!

But not bananas!

The appeal of the peel, yes, what a deal!
A wrapper that children may throw away
A summer-yellow star sky-spiraling
Onto the garden grass (it’s good for the soil)

Alas, poor banana, joy to eye and tongue:
Why is it that the Cavendish dies young?

News on the Internet

***, it’s the age of hyperbole!
Legendary icons dropping their jaws!!
Aliens in spaceships watching humans flee
A purple polar bear flapping twelve paws!!!

Blockbuster! Stunning!! Your life will be changed!!!
Putin really is that albino monk!!!!
And did you hear that the Pope is deranged!?!?!?!?!?
He keeps in the Vatican a sacred skunk!!!!!!!

Tectonic plates are shifting; France is gone!
Heart-stopping, eye-popping, cow-flopping news!!
****** called it in on his new smart ‘phone!!!
It’s all the fault of the Catholics and Jews!!!!

Mass graves in Texas, Ireland, and The Hague!
Looky here, see, here’s some pictures an’ stuff!!
Okay, the sources are a little vague
But we want to believe, and that’s enough!!!

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Logosophiamag.c­om
Hellopoetry.com
Fellowshipandfairydust.com

                                                        Nguyen and Tex

The receptionist calls loudly for Nguyen
Mispronouncing the name Nuh-Goo-Yen
Which is what some Americans still do
Although the patient is an American too

Some usages we need to narrow down
Some usages we need to broaden a bit
This is a medical office waiting room
Where all may diversify on the guest wifi

An Irrelevant Consideration:

The thought occurs that calling for Nguyen in Saigon
Would be like calling for Tex in Abilene

Night Class – Cellphonia in F Flat

A chamber piece for two sulks and a soda

He yawns, his head propped up against a wall
Of head-stained, head-banged green fluorescent blocks
In the back of the room, in Marlboro Country
Reposing in sad, sullen insolence

Furtively strumming a silent keypad
Flinging his unique existential angst
Into cool, pure, plasticized electrons
And out into the meta-fusional night

Where there’s real life, man, not these books and stuff,
Real life; you wouldn’t understand. I’m me
And you don’t know who I am, man.  I am:
An inspirational singer-songwriter

My own me journeying onward to me
An artist, a great soul misunderstood
Raging against a machine that isn’t there
An angry rebel on government grants.

Lawrence Hall
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Night Court

For the Prosecution: Spring Allergens
For the Defense: Anti-Histamines and Acetaminophen

If only headaches went away at night
They don’t, and a fresh catalogue of pills
Does nothing except fog reality
The world spins on and on, and sometimes off

The pillow is a bitter accuser
Detailing again all of life’s mistakes
The sheets and blankets wrinkle in disdain
The world’s last spring-wound clock grinds through the hours

Maybe the world will stabilize at dawn
If only the headaches will go away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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                                       Night of the Long Sporks

Republicans have their sporks out for each other
Slashing each member with unpassable bills
Impeaching each MAGA sister and brother -
The 118th Congress gives me the chills!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
11 August 2024

                          Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                          12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                ­                                  the Jews.”

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                         Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets

                                               12 August 1952

When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?

There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!

I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
  
                                                                                   the Jews.”

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

                                     ­                  No

When you say no
To a baby or a dachshund
Someone’s feelings are hurt
So you pick up the baby or the dachshund
And apologize
Which doesn’t make sense
Because sometimes no
Is what needs to be said
But still it hurts
Even though you say

I’m sorry

Dixit ergo Iesus ad duodecim, “Numquid et vos vultis abire?”

“Will you also go away?” He asks us.

                                                        ­              No.

Only sinners mourn at the foot of the Cross
Only sinners approach the baptismal font
Only sinners recline at Table with the Lord

To whom shall we go?
                                   An empty shopping mall?
A 501C cafeteria?
A feast of ashes with the cardinal?
                                                       ­               No.

There is only one Place, one Space, one Grace

Only sinners are invited, and so
Our yes to Him – we will not go

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

                      Noah Sends out Another Dove Today

                           Some other land, some other sea

                                         -Cavafy, “The City”

If Noah were to release that dove today
It would fall along with the olive branch
Along with all hope, blasted out of the sky
Its ****** feathers fluttering to earth

Among refugees who haven’t the right papers

Is there a man of such steely self-control
Of such virtue, character, fortitude
Strength and pride in his manly role
Confidence and heart and stern attitude

Valor, endurance, resolution, will
Courage, patience, defiance, intellect
Manliness, ruggedness, rock-like, chill
Decision, quality, all cool and collect

That he doesn’t have to go and upchuck
Whenever he hears that “Desiderata” muck?

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

                                     No Howling, Please

                                   A rebuke to Ginsberg
           While acknowledging that the typewriter is indeed holy

I saw the best of my generation
Refuse to howl, not in the situational poverty
Of their birth, not in others’ noise and drugs
Not in their elders’ go-fight-our-wars-for-us

I saw the best of my generation
Doubling up in unfurnished rooms
Doubling up on the day and night shifts
Making each sweated-out life into a poem

I saw the best of my generation
Work
                     and thus rebuked for their privilege

Lawrence Hall, HSG
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                                        No, I Will Not Watch X

For all the same reasons I repudiate Q
I will not watch X, not even for you
And I regret that you asked me to -
They’re both a Macbethian witches’ brew

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

                                     ­     No, Mr. Sandburg

The fog doesn’t come on little cat feet
It stinks and slinks across the fields
Maybe Grendel creeps within it -
He wants to eat us before dawn

Non Draco Sit Mihi Dux 1

That wicked liar offers us a poisoned cup
In whose sheeny surface we see ourselves
Reflected in his cold imaginings
And not our own, in what we ought to be

There is another Cup for us, not this one
Just as there is a stone that must be moved
A bird of night to be repudiated
A thorny bush that burns, but not itself

A blessing breaks that false and bitter cup -
We share the one that God has lifted up


1 In English, let not the dragon be my guide; it appears on the medal of Saint Benedict as NDSMD.

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                              Nones as a Religious Category


                               …afterwards our pupils
                               will not forgive in us what we forgave

                                             -Yevtushenko, “Lies”


If children ask for bread will we give them

Musical stylings of abysmal mediocrity
Packaged in the poster-art palettes of the sixties
When the altars and the hymnals were stripped
Of everything beautiful, true, and good

When

Latin missals were reduced to baby-talk
Felt banners appeared like refrigerator art
The Body of the Lord was shoveled aside
In a malformed tabernacle of hammered scrap

And maybe that’s why the young people leave -
We’ve given them little in which to believe

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

                          Non-Profit, NGO, and a Yo-**-**

The status of my bank account tells me
That I too am a non-profit organization

All Souls’ and All Saints’ were made to disappear
Easter is bad enough with rabbit eggs
And Christmas was appropriated by The People
As a tribute to (belch) Glorious Excess

But no one has taken Good Friday away
With gifts and treats and two-for-one specials
Down at Chez Bubba’s Discount Liquor and Smokes,
And Colonial Auto Parts stays open - why not?

But while the world spins along on its way
A few eccentrics remember Him this day

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

                        No One is Your Vibrant Stereotype

One’s words and one’s friends are not tuning forks
They do not vibrate, and are thus not vibrant
Nor are they folksy, colorful, or quaint
Curiosities for you to collect

Poetic verse is free of DNA
An iamb suffers no identity
It boldly speaks its rhythm clear and strong
And metric feet march to their own chosen beat

But

If you feel that any culture should vibrate
Then go sit on yourself and just…rotate

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                 No One Keeps a Diary Anymore


                  Which is better — to be ruled by one tyrant three
                  thousand miles away or by three thousand tyrants one
                  mile away?

                                                  – Mather Byles


No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
Men have been hanged for what they have written
It may be that they revealed some forgotten crime
Or worse, that they possessed the gift of thought

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way
The Moms for Liberty are scared of books
Even the diary of a little girl
Because children must not read or write or think

No one keeps a diary – life is safer that way -
And have you self-purged your own books today?


South Carolina school district reviews, returns books after ban attempt (msn.com)

The first Mom For Liberty to successfully ban Anne Frank went on an antisemitic livestream - Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                     No One Writes Verse about the Precinct Dump

Look for the sign that reads PERCH TRAPS 4 SALE
After a hundred yards take the gravel road to the right
It’ll go down to this stagnant little creek
And that old bridge is stronger than it looks

Then up and to your left; you can’t miss it
Refrigerators and washers to your left a bit
As for the right, you just don’t want to know
But them buzzards today; they’re puttin’ on a show

There was this fat boy who used to work there
Made rhymes about garbage; must have been the air

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                         It Wasn’t the Fourth of July

                 That we may wander o’er this ****** field
                 To book our dead, and then to bury them

                                 -Henry V IV.vii.75-76

It wasn’t the fourth of July, but it was about then
Near the Cambodian border, on the Vam Co Tay
Searching for two American airman whose machine had gone down
Down, down into the steaming green Vam Co Tay

Bloated and floating, quite still when we saw them
The sloshy prop wash bumped them about a bit
Empty eye sockets, mouths open in silent screams
We poncho-linered their bodies aboard the boat

Cigarettes of despair against the stench and rot
This was not what we sang about in school

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                      Nora, Theo, and Pushkin-the-Rescue-Cat

After rough adventures Pushkin has found his way home
The children celebrate with him his happy new life
By crowning their purring prince with vines and flowers
And he is pleased to accept their adoration and love

Too soon children must leave their merriments
And rebuild civilization among the wreckages
In a time of hatreds and ideologies
When all seem to have forgotten the way to Jerusalem

And so for now

May children enjoy the springtime of their lives
For they (and the cat) remind us of our appointed path

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

                        No Revolution Today, Thank You

Sure, I miss standing in formation at dawn
The quick inspection and loud verbal abuse
Rushing through a steel-tray breakfast in rows
And marching to the rifle range in rows

Sure, I miss formation in the dawn of life
Slinging a rifle over my skinny shoulder
Thrilling to “BATTALION! PASS IN REVIEW!
RIGHT SHOULDER ARMS, AND PASS IN REVIEW!”
As did my fathers back to the Civil War

But that was what I did, not who I was -
I took an oath to the Constitution

And not to some fat slob who needs a shave