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

          A Government of Merovingians, by Merovingians,
                                and for Merovingians

          John LeCarre’ asks what you owe to your country when
                                   you no longer recognize it.

                                  -cover blurb, Silverview

Inadequate klansies in gas-station shades
Bullhornistas polluting the civic peace
Q-Anonsters lurking behind their screens
Purported patriots hiding behind their masks

Doxers sneaking and spying like Milton’s Satan
Gollums clutching their “My Precious!” black rifles
Censors memory-holing literature and art
Anti-Communists Communisting our lives

Drug gangs and firebombs, looters and spies:
This is a nation no one can recognize

It feels like freedom, skeleton
Lock clicked and a little money--
Enough for bus fare and a room
In cheap places already seen,
Maybe for a couple of weeks--
The strength to go straight if choices
Overcome the tempter that speaks
Louder than the other voices.
You won't freeze in Florida or
Southern Alabam and might meet
A woman again,  with flavor--
Coarse salt and sweat, yet almost sweet--
And she might share a slight worn key.

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

              Upon Reading C. S. Lewis’ The Abolition of Man

                                                  For Grace

                      “…the doctrine of objective value…”
                                                   -p. 29

At least I think I read it, did I not?
The book exists and was read, but by whom?
I’m beginning to feel that I’m the trousered ape
Who feels that a slide rule is for scratching one's back

But reality obtains – if a tree falls
That tree forever falling in the forest
In 7th grade science, and no one hears it
It sends a sound into the universe

I think I understand about truth and space
But if I’m confused, I’ll simply ask Grace!

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

                  What if the Banker Had to Stand in Line at Your House?

                                    HOURS 1000-1100 and 1400-1500

What if the banker had to stand in line
          (six feet apart, please)
While you stared blankly at a computer screen
And finally mumbled, “Howc’nIhelpyoutoday”
While chewing gum and hardly looking up

What if the banker asked you a question
        (a mask is recommended)
And after a long, unproductive silence you mumbled
“notatthishouseyoucoulddoitonline”
Or “that’snothowyournameisinthesystem”

What if the banker actually did her job
          (WHAT!?)
Instead of balancing out her resume’?

"We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:—"
-Shelley


Dad would have been eighty today;
instead, years have gone by since I ran
the two and a half miles to the hospital
under a burnt, charry October wing

to visit him in his mechanical bed.
He was caving into himself, the doctors
blamed the liver, everyone was scared.
The halls were stocked with floating eyes.

Today the heat gripped the chopped hems
of street and ate away at our feet.
The dish of sky grew gray as mold,
striped with varices of rain that did not break.

Everything waits: Wednesday waits
for Thursday's lip, the moon waits
for the thunderbolt tongue, I am waiting -
for almost anything, anything to happen to me.

Can you fault us for thinking
this blue above is vaulted,
strung in bolts, in reams
of ichor,
of material suggested and believed
instead of stubborn physics?

Stereoscopic vision is great
for seeing the ants walk close
and the rehabilitated bees
on local blooms

It can’t see, properly,
that the azure ceiling is a lie
of just refraction,
that’s always there
as long as our clouds allow

it could be a sign;
that the ring
didn't fit easily
on the finger
effort was needed
it had to be forced
or it could
just be temporary
joint effusion
perhaps an unexpected
weight fluctuation
meaning nothing
yet i'll assign significance
to fit the narrative
feed anxieties
and support
a predetermined belief

he may say
all is forgiven
but that does not
mean he should
be held to it

these days it means
about as much
as when he says
"i'm fine"

there are songs
in the anger
of the waves
upon the rocks
and the tearing
of the wind
through the long grass
in the plotting
of the clouds
gathering low
in the sky
and
in the droplets
whispering
upon the page