https://logosophiamag.com/2022/11/01/that-final-trip/

In the old French barracks, shelvings of cots
No ventilation – that was for officers
The night was hot, wet; sleep was difficult
No one knew anyone or anything

A siren. Life paused. Should we do something?
We barefooted outside in our skivvies
Hot. Silent. Still. Stuffy. Respirations
Is this a false alarm? Is it over now?

BLAM!
                                
Boom. BOOM! Boom-boom-boom-boom. BOOM!

And during a pause

a small voice said, “I don’t think they want us here.”

Abandon your book, says that Fresh Young Voice
Abandon your work, says that Fresh Young Voice
Abandon your life, says that Fresh Young Voice
And line up with me, says that Fresh Young Voice

I am now your book, says that Fresh Young Voice
I am now your work, says that Fresh Young Voice
I am now your life, says that Fresh Young Voice
And do as I say, snarls that Fresh Young Voice

We heard that Fresh Young Voice so long ago
Whispering to us about a certain Tree

That Happy Little Dachshund Dance

All dachshunds dance their days in happiness
And shake their bodies, tails, and ears about
And thank their humans every doggie day
With puppy kisses and yappings of joy:

          For cats to chase, for beds to muss
          For grassy lawns on which to play
          Hoovers to bark – oh, what a fuss!
          And your pillow at the end of day

For dogs still live in Eden, and that is why
All dachshunds dance their days in happiness

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                   That Untucked-Shirttail Guy at Every Meeting

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old man
Booming his gassy voice at every meeting
Whatever the topic he leads the van
Interrupting with his self-obsessed bleating

He was a banker, he tells us repeatedly
He knows about finance, more than the treasurer
And he was a cop, too, he yells out heatedly
And arguing the reports gives him much pleasurer

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old gent
He doesn’t know Jacques Merde, but he will always vent!

(He’s not unlike an American president)

“When I was in Graduate School…”

“When I was in graduate school when I
Was at Oxford when I was working on
My doctorate at the Sorbonne when I
Was on my fellowship when I was hiking

The Andes on my gap year learning from
The Colourful Natives when I received
The Something-Something Prize for Young Poets
From The Oppressed Grant Recipients’ Front…”

One notices that

Literary articles never begin with
“When I was busting my knuckles on the drilling rig…”

Wait! I thought I saw
A trompe l’oeil trompe-ing along -
I could have been wrong

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

       That Which Does not Exist Will End in the Next Half Hour

The MePhone beeps and then reports
That the rain that isn’t falling
Will stop in the next half hour -
This may be a metaphor for life

And if not life, then ten to twenty
If the presiding judge is lenient

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

                               That Woman on a Pedestal Thing

I tried to put her on a pedestal
But I didn’t have one, and anyway
She reminded me that I was out of line
In feeling that anyone but herself

Could put her anywhere

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

                               That Woman on a Pedestal Thing

I tried to put her on a pedestal
But I didn’t have one, and anyway
She reminded me that I was out of line
In feeling that anyone but herself

Could put her anywhere

That Young Man from Nantucket

As filtered through National Public Radio

There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose foot was caught in a bucket
He said with a grin
As he massaged his shin
          “Vers libre is a more affectively responsorial mode of
          privileging  my authentic voice with regard to the cultural
          norms that speak to the existential realities of my heritage
          instead of the mask of the external culture that fails to affirm
          my needs predicated on the living organic wholeness of, like,
          y’know, my own special existentialness, and, like, stuff.”

That Young Man from Nantucket

As filtered through National Public Radio

There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose foot was caught in a bucket
He said with a grin
As he massaged his shin

     “Vers libre is a more affectively responsorial mode of privileging my
      authentic voice with regard to the cultural norms that speak to the
      existential realities of my heritage instead of the mask of the external
      culture that fails to affirm my needs predicated on the living organic
      wholeness of, like, y’know, my own special existentialness, and,
      like, stuff.”

She is a 10,000-year-old girl
Although she is rather younger today
Only 240 or so
While taking coffee with James Madison

She has discussed the weather with Gilgamesh
Given Keats her handkerchief for his cough
Danced with the fairies on Midsummer Eve
And captured the castle with Cassandra

Because she has listened when the Nine have sung
An old soul she is, and so
                                                         forever young

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day




(2 March 1917 O.S.)

On this dark day, this evil day, this day
In a railway carriage on a branch line
Three hundred years of civilization
And millions of lives, three generations
Were signed away with a few penned words
In a railway carriage on a branch line
On this dark day, this evil day, this day

The 1970s

A giant Hannibalian elephant
Descending from the alps slowly to die
In the valley of the Po, pricked about
Bellowing outrage in its agonies

Of leisure suits and suburban barbed wire
Recorded on minutes of missing tapes
As polyester doubleknits await
A bump-up in the daily gasoline line

Hubris rotting in the dust of the age
And did you hear they’ve raised the minimum wage?

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

                               The ’57 Chevy in the Woods

The shell of a Chevy rusted in the woods
Almost lost in the blackberry bushes
All of its windows broken, the front bashed in
Pale creepers writhing in and out and down

A kind man gave his son this car, they said
The boy wrecked out and died at hot rod speed
His daddy had the car towed into the weeds
Not knowing what else to do in his despair

We carelessly flung pine cones at the corpse
Then in our shame slunk quietly away

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

                           The 7th of June, 1944 and 1970

My father beached at Normandy on the second day
(He was okay with having missed the first)
From there through France to Belgium in the mud
For a ****** Christmas in the icy Bulge

Munich, Buchenwald, Dachau, Zwickau
For me DaNang, Saigon, Ben Luc, Moc Hoa
I met a child in a Japanese army cap
But he wouldn’t sell it. We all have history

I wish I had that Japanese army cap
And that we knew what any of this means

The Admiral Who Tells the Youth of America to Make Up Their Beds

One is pleased to note that an admiral
A brave example of American exceptionalism
Who commands emails and fleets and his resume’
Possesses the skill to make up his bed
Give him another shiny medal for that
That should keep him amused and out of your way

A sailor and a monk must make their beds
At Reveille and Matins, dutifully
Subject to obedience under oath
For tidying up is a liturgical act
Each act in its own small way leading to
That one great Way of God’s eternal love

But if you’re not a sailor or a monk
You may well be blessed with a lover to kiss
A dog to pet, a child to love, a cup
Of coffee to be embraced passionately
Make celebrating the dawn with indolence
Your oath of obedience to needful things

Mussed pillows are fine for laying down your head
So
Disobey the admiral – don‘t make up your bed.

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

                            The Advent of Our Discontent

                             -As Shakespeare did not say

Everyone accuses everyone else
Of treason; they’d call each other Quislings
If they had any history, but they don’t
Only Hochhuth and Unferth on the air

But you and I have wood to split and stack
The garden to level and put to sleep
Cows to get up for the milking at dusk
And in the evening, a cozy fire to watch

Oh, listen to the migrating geese, up high!
Unlike us humans, they never learned to lie

“And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes”
-Chaucer

Everyone is a palmer this holy day
Seeking the strange, elusive shores of truth
Each pilgrim bearing in his eager hands
A palm frond and a photocopied hymn

The pilgrimage begins in the parking lot
And marshaled by the blue HANDICAPPED signs
Ascends to the doors, the narthex, and in,
Up to the Altar, there where all worlds meet

Come to Jerusalem; you’re on the way -
Everyone is a palmer this holy day

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                     The Aeolian Harp and the Aeolian Tree-Stump

Every tree is an Aeolian harp
Singing the Daily Office of the wind
Not often the night’s Matins and Lauds so much
But with the breezy dawn the service of Prime

And I know an Aeolian tree-stump too
Of deeper voices through its mysterious hollows
Wind whispering into the damp, dark earth
Then booming out into the air again

Every tree is an Aeolian harp
But a tree-stump can be musical too

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

                             The Age of the Clear Plastic Backpack

My school bag was an old Boy Scout knapsack
And in Indo-China I carried my kit
In canvas made in 1944
And on canvas we carried away the dead

As a civilian I carried a briefcase for a time
But a briefcase is like a narrow tie
They both show up on old-movie night
Just right for Tony Randall in the 1950s

I’m back to canvas, but now they make the kids
Carry clear plastic in our war against ourselves

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                           She Had a Thing About Amarillo, Texas

She bought a revolver and a box of cartridges
And on her way outta town she put six rounds
Into the Amarillo city limits sign
And for the most part lived happily ever after

Their revenue stream must be falling bad -
Yet another erectile dysfunction ad

My dad was on Omaha Beach but he
didn’t talk much about it so now
I’m going to take the rest of the day
to tell you all that he didn’t much talk about
we broke the Enigma code yeah we did
you can always tell a real veteran by
his thousand-yard stare, yessir, I know stuff
we kicked the Germans’ butts but he didn’t talk
much about it if not for us the French
would be speaking German yeah man yeah
when I was in graduate school but he
didn’t talk much about it we saved the world
when I was in graduate school when I
saw Patton those liberals in academia
he had this thousand-yard stare them snowflakes
wouldn’t hit Omaha Beach now they’d be browning
their pants when I was in graduate school
but he didn’t talk much about it yeah
that M-1 was the best battle implement
ever devised I got me one and boy
it’s got some serious stopping power yessir
I just love to go out to the range and pop some caps
with that bad boy the French are cheese-eating
surrender monkeys we can’t depend on the Italians
but he didn’t talk much about it when I
was in graduate school thousand-yard stare
my dad was there he didn’t talk much about it
here is a youtube about it if only
those snowflakes would watch Patton they’d learn something
left-wing academia he didn’t talk much about it
when I was in graduate school yeah man
I seen it on Band of Brothers liberal elites
Macron Macron Macron first front second front
‘cause I know stuff I got a whole liberry
but he didn’t talk much about it if not
for us yeah you’d all be speaking German
we saved France’s **** when DeGaulle told us
he wanted all American soldiers out of France
we asked him if that included the thousands
of American soldiers in French cemeteries
and that sure shut him up ha ha ha
bet you never heard that before and then
there was these old veterans at the airport
and this Frenchy asked them for their passports
and this old man had to look for his
and this Frenchy asked this veteran if he
had been in France before and this veteran
said he had and then this Frenchy he said
then you know you need to have your passport
ready and this here old veteran said that he
was at Normandy and there wasn’t no Frenchies
to give it to and you could hear a pin drop
ha ha I bet you never heard that one before
When I was in graduate school when I
was on my gap year but he didn’t talk much about it
snowflake liberal elites in academia
I love me my AK-47 that son
spits out some serious lead but he didn’t
talk much about it…


Me? Like, I had this deferment, my feet,
but I know all about it ‘cause I watch John Wayne
and my dad was in it so I guess he ought to know
and he was in a real war; you were only in
like you know them A-rabs and stuff…

The physician is a good man, wise and fair
But, ouch! - HIS FINGER DOES NOT BELONG THERE!

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                       The Apex Predator


                    They…
                    Have watched me rise from the darkness of war
                    Dripping with my enemies’ blood

                            -Beowulf, trans. Raffel, lines 151-153


The apex predator feeds upon the flesh
Of those who wanted desperately to live
To hew and chew and gnaw and digest and mesh
With those who died with no desire to forgive

The apex predator feeds while others starve
The sentient flee from him in grievous fear
But he always wins, his victims then to carve
In ****** fields and haunted forests drear

War ends violently in drang und sturm
And the apex predator is obviously
                                                  ­ The Worm

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]

They Shall Not Pass the Dumpster!

The Apocalyptic Battle of the Dumpster of Our People
Before the Gates of Kaplan College
Berkeley, Holy Saturday 2017

“Then shall he strip his sleeve and show his tats,
And say ‘this ink I had on Saturday’”
-not Henry V

In Berkeley, tumult; a protestor screams:
“They have opened the dumpster, and taken away
My Antifi poster of Cosmic Peace –
I’m going to **** someone! Death to Fascists!”

A Trumpi throws a traffic cone in love
Of the Constitution, and rallies then
The Go-Pro squaddies of the ball-capped cause
And bravely cries “To the dumpster, young heroes!”

And there upon that garbage barricade -
Oh, my children, history
  was
          not
                 made

The Archaeology of the Weekly Trash Pickup

Q-tips that know too much about your ears
A banana peel that’s lost its appeal
A church bulletin out of date for years
The festive lid from a microwave meal

The vacuum cleaner’s latest bag of dust
A toilet paper roll facing its end
A razor blade that now must go to rust
A coffee can (that rare Colombian blend)

A family’s weekly story goes out with the trash
But I hear the truck – I had better dash!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                               The Army of God and, Like, Stuff

They’re loud and they’re smarmy
They boo and they hiss
They say they’re God’s Army -
But does God know this?



An 'Army of God' Vigilante Group Plans to Head to the U.S.-Mexico Border (esquire.com)

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                The Arrogance of Proclaiming a Wake-Up Call

His wake-up call was but a manifesto
Retro1968 but less literate
Demanding that the world stop and pay attention
To the temper-tantrums of some middle-aged guy

Who knew all about guns ‘n’ bombs ‘n’ stuff
While the rest of us know all about raising our kids
Working 12-hour shifts, paying our bills
Building our lives, and taking care of each other

The rest of us have grown-up things to do
           The self-pitying waker-upper
Should long ago have ditched his childish ego
           And called himself

First Member of Social Group to Number Forty Two: “All right, you say you're a poet and you were composing, and you failed to hear Number Ten's greeting.”

Second Member of Social Group, accusingly: “Neglect of social principle.”

Number Six: “Poetry has a social value?

Number Forty Two to Number Six: “You're trying to undermine my rehabilitation! Disrupt my social progress!”

Number Six: “Strange talk for a poet.”

-The Prisoner, “A Change of Mind”

The arts community unmutuals
The individual who dares presume
To work outside The Committee’s deep love
For democratic creativity

The arts community instructs us all
In unison chanting freedom of thought
Painting, writing, and thinking within the lines
As set before us harmoniously

The arts community sets us all free
As long as we are free obediently

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

                        The Ashes of Lent Fall Upon Ukraine

“Remember, man...”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
Grey ashes of Lent that fall on everyone
Whether they will have them or not -
The still-warm ashes of our fellow man

“That thou art dust...”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
There is no line; the ashes wait instead
Among the swirling smoke to present themselves -
This tiny speck of ash was someone’s child

“And unto dust thou shalt return”

In Ukraine this season, grey ashes fall
And cover civilization as its funeral pall

A beautiful girl

Pleasingly and teasingly
Naughtily and saucily
Wooingly and cooingly
Playfully and seductively

Puts her clothes back on

Children shot daily despite our stern laws
But at least they are safe from plastic straws

Children shot daily, caught in street-gang fights
But at least they are safe from 100-watt lights

Children shot daily, high death rankings
But at least they are safe from parental spankings

Children shot daily, murdered by crooks
But at least they are safe from The Little House books

Children shot daily, may God bless their souls
And too our regulated toilet bowls

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

                                        The Axis of Petulance

The North Pole and the South Pole refused to speak –
They accused each other of being polarizing

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

                                 The Ballot Lay Before Me Like a Snake

The ballot lay before me like a snake
Or like a Klansman predatory in white
Slithering across the official page
That same old roster of the same old

Democrats
Republicans
Greens
Libertarians

That same old Unwanted List of ideologues  
Of plotters, scroungers, graspers, creepers, oafs
Aliases, scofflaws, incompetents
Poltroons

(I’m not sure what a poltroon is, but they are poltroons anyway, so there)

Ignoramuses, bigots, and bubbas in bad wigs
Best fitted for those old post office walls
Incapable of self-government, not to be trusted
With firearms, sharp objects, pointy scissors, or glue

(But those topics were not on the ballot)

The ballot lay before me like a snake
Or like a Klansman predatory in white
Slithering across the official page –

I gave it back as blank as the candidates

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

                                   The Bank That Used to Be

This temple dedicated to work and thrift
Is mostly empty now; its marble floors
Feature sticky yellow feet to keep
Errant capitalists away from each other

The offices are vacant; the lights are dim
A lonely teller in chemical-purple hair
And painted, rhinestoned, clawlike fingernails
Counts not deposits but her MePhone keys

There is no line along the yellow feet
Only one communicant with a deposit slip

Lawrence Hall HSG
[email protected]

                          The Baptism of Valaria Elizabeth

At the Altar
The young couple presented their first-born
Valaria Elizabeth, wrapped in a silvery gown
A happy child at play in the holy Jordan

At the Altar
Valaria Elizabeth, delightful in herself
Was glorious in white with many colors trimmed
And skillful stitchings as befit a queen

At the Altar
Someone asked Valaria’s dear mother
Did you craft this gown with love and thread?

“No, I bought it just yesterday,” she sweetly said

                        Welcome with love, Valaria Elizabeth!

The Beatnik Café’

Cigarettes, coffee, a ****** beret
Blue smoke and Blue Mountain, blue verse, blue rhyme --
O Come to the side-street beatnik café;
Here present-tense yourself; caffeine the time

Here order your Bacon very well Donne
And jam your java with croissants and Keats
Orate from Spenser; groove with Tennyson
Tap out a line of Seafarer-four beats

Tap out a manifesto; everyone does
Pulp-print Red rags yelp “Revolution Now!”
The typewriter is holy, and Up the Fuzz!
Bongo that Kerouac, and Howl, but how?

Bongo that beat, oh, yeah, it’s crazzzzy, man
Sheaffer that rhythm, cat; Parker that line
Ferlinghetti your truth to a yellow pad
Sharpen your verbs to a rebel design

Sharpen your verbs from a bottle of ink
Light up a Camel; blow intellectual smoke
Teach the ****** bourgeois how they should think
Grey-suited capitalists – what a joke!

L’Envoi – Time Slouches On

Tee-shirted capitalists joke in Mandarin
The latest chained coffee’s inside the mall
English and Apples are original sin
On glowing screens where the pale pixels crawl

And no one crawls through rhythm, rhyme, or verse,
Or bongos out an existential cry
For poetry is dead; the twitters terse
Reduce the ancient loves to I, me, my.

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

                   The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus

Garage-sale-blocked again, the one-lane road
Hosts cars on both sides, and oxygened-men
Defiantly aluminum-caning the middle
In their Quixotic quest for eternal youth

The BeeGees, Duck Dynasty, and Jesus
On collectible plates and VHS tapes
Marilyn and Elvis bourbon decanters
Chinese-made MAGA caps in camouflage

“They just don’t make things like they used to do” -
Which is true, indeed, for them, and me, and you

The Beggar at Canterbury Gate

The beggar sits at Canterbury Gate,
Thin, pale, unshaven, sad.  His little dog
Sits patiently as a Benedictine
At Vespers, pondering eternity.
Not that rat terriers are permitted
To make solemn vows.  Still, the pup appears
To take his own vocation seriously,
As so few humans do.  For, after all,
Dogs demonstrate for us the duties of
Poverty, stability, obedience,
In choir, perhaps; among the garbage, yes,
So that perhaps we too might live aright.

The good dog’s human plays his tin whistle
Beneath usurper Henry’s1 offering-arch
For Kings, as beggars do, must drag their sins
And lay them before the Altar of God:
The beggar drinks and drugs and smokes, and so
His penance is to sit and suffer shame;
The King’s foul murders stain his honorable soul;
His penance is a stone-carved famous name
Our beggar, then, is a happier man,
Begging for bread at Canterbury Gate;
Tho’ stones are scripted not with his poor fame,
His little dog will plead his cause to God.

1Henry VII, who built the Cathedral Gate in 1517, long after the time of Henry II and St. Thomas Becket

The Beggar at Canterbury Gate

The beggar sits at Canterbury Gate,
Thin, pale, unshaven, sad.  His little dog
Sits patiently as a Benedictine
At Vespers, pondering eternity.
Not that rat terriers are permitted
To make solemn vows.  Still, the pup appears
To take his own vocation seriously,
As so few humans do.  For, after all,
Dogs demonstrate for us the duties of
Poverty, stability, obedience,
In choir, perhaps; among the garbage, yes,
So that perhaps we too might live aright.

The good dog’s human plays his tin whistle
Beneath usurper Henry’s1 offering-arch
For Kings, as beggars do, must drag their sins
And lay them before the Altar of God:
The beggar drinks and drugs and smokes, and so
His penance is to sit and suffer shame;
The King’s foul murders stain his honorable soul;
His penance is a stone-carved famous name
Our beggar, then, is a happier man,
Begging for bread at Canterbury Gate;
Tho’ stones are scripted not with his poor fame,
His little dog will plead his cause to God.

1 *Henry VII, who built the Cathedral Gate in 1517, long after the time of Henry II and St. Thomas Becket

The Big Kids

For Claude Bevil Blanchette Hall,
Of Happy Memory

1954

Sprinkled by the janitor from a coffee can
The oily smell of the green sawdust sown
Along the old school hallway’s green tile floors
And pushed along with a long-handled broom

My brother’s at the door with my lunch money
He’s one of The Big Kids, 5th grade, y’know
High up on the third floor, where we can’t go

Not yet

What’s it like to be one of The Big Kids?

2017

My brother’s on a higher floor again
And what’s it like up there, where we can’t go?

Not yet

In memory of Forrest Bird, who saved the lives of millions

A little Bird, singing all through the night
A plastic box of green mechanicals
Its soft, subtle hiss-click there breathing life
Into and through the wreckages of boys

Americans, mostly, Vietnamese
Koreans, Cambodians, Lao, Hmong
And one who might have been a Russian (shhhhh….) -
The pretty Bird sang in their languages

And when they woke, the soft song that they heard
Was whispered to them by a little green Bird

Two feathers lay upon the new-mown lawn
Like aircraft wreckage after a combat pass
Remembrances of violence in the sky
Of death and blood – now only souvenirs

It was as always an unequal fight
The hawk falling upon a smaller bird
With superior stealth and strength and speed
And grappling-hook talons of screaming death

The little fellow made a good show of it
But he didn’t escape:
                                           hawks never lose

The Bishop of DaNang

In Grateful Memory:
Pierre Marie Pham Ngoc Chi,14 May 1909 – 21 January 1988

What did he think of his Americans
Some six or so, just kids, in jungle greens
Receiving from his hands the Sacrament
Of Confirmation there, among Marines

A Quonset hut chapel in the morning sun
Blistering the steel in its passage to noon
Anointing all with gun oil and with sweat
“Do you reject Satan and all his works…?”

The Word and his blessings, a group picture -
And what did the NVA think of him?

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

                 The Bishop Speaks of Lent as Basic Training

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

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

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

And the ancient liturgical El chant:

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

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