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Northern Poet Oct 2017
Why am I so obsessed
With checking my notifications
If no one texts me
It feels like suffocation
That little red dot
Next to my application
It ***** me off
When it won’t work down at the station
I've got a mate who's into spontaneous flirtation
He met a bird on this app
I think she's Croatian
They went on two dates
And then went on vacation
Meanwhile I'm sat at home
Watching babe station
I fell in love once
Then realised it was infatuation  
She said I had no drive
But she had no imagination
When we go out
Theres no conversation
Even Siri
Gives me ******* quotations
My new phone
Is the new sensation
Checking Facebook
My only temptation
I check my phone
Just to know my location
**** it
I’ve had it...
With this nation
Brian Turner Aug 2022
Shining lights on a Dalmatian shore
Broken little mirrors on an aqua sea
provides the backdrop for boys wrestling on a concrete diving board

Girls soaking each other with a push button tap
The thin old man in speedos intervenes
One hand holding a roll up
The other gesturing in Croatian

The setting sun behind the city of Split
Is a rusty heat haze for swallows to dart over
Truffle oil fills the air from the cafe
A couple use sign language to speak as the sea roars in

Backs and shoulders covered in beautiful inked art with Angels, crosses and devils
Pine trees provide shelter on the stony beach
Families playing cards and laughing.

The church bells signal it is time to go in
We start up the hill and look back at the sky.
A night to remember and a night to repeat.
#Croatia notes from our regular stay in Storbrec near Split in Croatia
Remember, The Olympics
Not for Politics, but sport
Leaders of so many countries
Choose to use this to distort
The reason all are gathered
To present their efforts best
Not just for Queen or Country
But to continue with their quest
To achieve a brand new standard
A true Olympian at heart
It's time for the worlds people
To come together, do their part
We all cheer for our countries
But we should put them on the shelves
For the next two weeks in London
Cheer on the athletes, themselves
Today I am Canadian
Tomorrow maybe, Dutch
American and English
And French...well not so much
Albanian, Croatian
Serbian as well
I will cheer all the worlds athletes
And I will be the first one who will yell
When a record does get broken
Or a personal best is set
If a time gets smashed in swimming
Or a ball goes in the net
My country is my favourite
But, whichever flag's unfurled
For the next two weeks in London
I am a citizen of the world
I will sit here on my sofa
Acting like I'm on the bench
and I'll cheer on all the athletes
But...I won't cheer for the French!!
judy smith May 2015
Murva fashion collection introduced at Eco Fashion Week has been a life long process for Ivana Knezovic, Creative Director / Designer. This was not only the 29 year old Croatian designer's first collection, but also her first international performance.

She debuted her eco-friendly collection titled Rust & Flow on the runway at Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver, Canada. Her pieces are all made from eco-friendly wool flannel.

Ivana Knezovic made interesting use of symmetrical lines, and I admired the draping from the shoulders framing a dress low-cut in back. One dress had several parallel vertical cut lines on the backside.

Many of her tops had capes, hang from one shoulder or both, paired with slim pants or a skirt. A nice touch of dramatic flare as the models moved down the runaway.

“Fashion design was always in me,” say Ivana Knezovic. Having resided in New York, Toronto, and Switzerland, designing was something she always wanted to do. "Murva is the name of a tree in my village. My company represents a return to my roots, to who I am at my core."

"I like structure. I like hiding the body behind some kind of a structure," said the designer who makes all her own clothes and cosmetics. "Eco is a product of maturity and of wholeness that you can only achieve when you really and truly grow up."

As a designer, she told me that she strives for “pure minimalism,” yet her eco-fashion designs are made for a sophisticated, minimalistic, and determined woman.

Exactly what the eco-fashion movement needs.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015
Johnny Noiπ Oct 2018
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the Renaissance. Now Laura has been reborn.}

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Still Crazy Jul 2018
Sapiosexuals^

she quoted Shakespeare most appropriately when needed,
her fevered fervor scientific was the non-fossil fueled engine that STEMed her quantum analytics of NFL football,
as an intellectual amuse bouche, that was uncannily correct,
on FIFa she passed it was just too corrupt, but Wimbledon was”fun”

we all bet her predictions for her error rate was insignificant

she claimed her knowledge of a cure for Alzheimer’s was done,
but bio-pharma suppressed, and a single pill existed taken once, could cease and desist the brain for craving *******, but the politics were too complicated and really boring to explain

instead she preferred to wile the hours hanging with
lesser poets, to see if taking them at their word
was an accurate indicative of their professed prowess in bed

but when she sampled my wares regularly,
I called her study statistically biased,
to which she replied,

“ain’t you the lucky one,
that my standards are lowly rigorous,
and you possess a mighty cute bi-assymetry“
in Croatian or Mandarin (unsure)

smart lassie indeed
^ aw just look it up
When and where did I begin, do I begin, shall I begin?

With vague childhood memories of growing up, in not too wealthy circumstances during the years after World War II, in a small part of a big town house in a little district town surrounded by mountains?
With being afraid of the chicken and geese my grandmother kept in our backyard? Of the delirious fever fantasies I still remember during two attacks of scarlet fever exactly around Xmas-time in two consecu¬tive years when I was 4 and 5 years old? (Must have been a real treat for my parents, and my grandmother, who was living with us!) Or with the fears and nightmares I had about having to go and fetch a bucket of coal from the dimly lit basement, whose dark corners in my imagination were full of hidden dangers and hideous monsters?
Or with the routine of crossing main street to go into the smoky old little pub with an empty mug, worm my way through the forest of trousered legs, hold up my mug and a few coins to catch the innkeeper’s attention, watch the tap beer fill the mug until it made a nice foamy crown on top, and then carefully manage the high steps of the stairway back up to my father´s supper table without spilling any of the precious liquid?
Or with first memories of suffering injustice, of a child´s most ardent wishes coming true (rare) or remaining unfulfilled (the rule), of happily riding around on a bright red wooden fire engine, clutching my favorite cuddly animal (of off-brown cloth, stuffed with sawdust, lovingly made by my mother)? Or with spectacular (and usually ******) crashes with my first wooden scooter, then proudly and even more daring with a precious metal scooter with which one day I managed to crash through the glass door leading from the backyard to the hallway and, miraculously, only suffered some minor cuts?
With the fast years of grade school at whose end where not only my first pair of glasses (much hated) and the then obligatory entrance examination to high school? Or, on  a quite different scale, the end of the allied occupation of Austria and the birth of a new, neutral and independent state - registered by me mostly because of diverse ceremonies that interrupted the school routine and brought unusual treats like ice cream or chocolate bars from parents & uncles & aunts?
With the first two grades of highschool, when I got up at 5.15 a. m. every morning and sleepwalked/scurried to the railway station to catch the express train at 6.15 a. m. that took me to the next Gymnasium 50 km away? With the pleasures & dangers of these daily train rides, the first cigarette smoked there, on the lavatory (with much coughing and a sinking feeling in the stomach); the first strange sensations - sweet and hurting - when a certain girl walked by; the occasional fights with other boys about God-knows-what-seemed-so-serious at the time? Or the memories of the huge fist that grabbed my heart when I saw my best friend, who tried to show off while our train was entering the station, miss the iron steps and simply disappear under the carriage - and with incredible luck resurface seconds later, white as a sheet but unharmed?

Or maybe with the hours I spent, after several years of not so enthusiastic practice (which nevertheless provided me with the basic abilities) alone with the piano in my grandmother´s salon, playing sonatas and dances and ètudes with growing ease and ple¬sure? Or with the bitter, bitter tears of pain and disillusionment when, at the age of 15, I had to bury my dreams of becoming a pianist because my hands started hurting terribly after only a few minutes of playing and the doctors told me, after one year of trying all kinds of treatments, that I had developed chronic tendonitis? Maybe with the many hours I spent reading numerous books of all kinds or sitting at the piano as an adolescent, improvising then popular songs (like the Beatles), or just playing some fantasy tunes, trying to give shape to my feelings and moods? With the memories of when I ´courted´ my then girlfriend not with words but with passionate songs played on ivory keys - and of my hurt pride and feelings when she, apparently unimpressed, preferred a more world-wise class-mate of mine and left me almost wrecking the poor piano with violent dissonances in e-flat minor hammered on the bass keys?
Or maybe with the first sobering experiences at summer jobs in steel mills, on construction sites, in the roofing business? And with the first 'wild´ parties during these summers at the garden house of a friend, where only a few years before we had been playing Cowboys and Indians, fighting the neighborhood boys, and where now we were sipping wine and/or gin tonics etc., smoking expertly, dancing to loud and slow music, hugging our partners close, feeling very wise, terribly attracted and at the same time a bit afraid of what might come of it?
Or with the final two year of high school that went by like in trance, filled to the brim with a hyped-up mixture of studying, playing billiards, dance class, dating, promising glances, secret meetings on warm summer evenings and at the skating rink in frosty winter nights, summer jobs, parties, the shocks about the death of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, organizing the graduation ball, ceremoniously opening the polonaise, living through the ups and downs of the final examinations, getting terribly but wonderfully drunk on the afternoon after the oral finals and recovering sufficiently within two hours to gracefully play the role of the class speaker and deliver the public address at the farewell dinner ...
And then the final trip of the graduating class - two weeks together on the beach in what used to be a budding Yugoslav seaside resort (and now is a recovering Croatian seaside resort), with the sun and the sea during the days, dancing and wine in the evening, my first experience at a strip-tease show (rather pathetic, never saw another one) and, a few days later, a heated but somewhat inconclusive evening with a member of a group of Swedish girls that had arrived at our bungalow village...

... then coming home, parties continuing, but noticing how gradually the closeness of all the years of small class community begins to loosen, the growing awareness that a formative period of your life has come to an end, you will not go back to school again in fall ... and by mid-summer everybody has discovered that ... my highschool girl friend tells me about her plans for the future ... I tell her about mine ... and we quietly acknowledge (looking back, it is almost unbelievable how quietly this is done) that we do not appear in each other´s plans ... years of relationships grow pale and finally evaporate under the hot summer sun ... I work another four weeks in the steel mill, read, meet with friends for drinks in the evening, start thinking about how student life will be, what The City will be like ... eager to get away and yet a little hesitant of the unknown ... playing the piano often, taking my leave from people, from places full of sweet and painful memories ... sorting schoolbooks, putting things away ... already growing out of the room I have shared with my ´little brother´ ... out of my parents´ house, my grandmother´s world, my brother´s boyish affection ... growing out ... growing up?

                                                           ­                   © Walter W. Hölbling
takin the load down the dirt road,
thinkin about the reggae girl me once loved,
boy did i like the way she rubbed,
i notice me rasta themed pants had a little bump,
me third leg was feelin a little stiff,
i decided to light me a little splif,
me started to rub thee bumb in me pant,
no way i was bout to stop, no way, no chance,
i feel a sensation, me son is Croatian,
me lost control of me rig and next ting ya kno,
me in the ditch wit at sticky hand,
me **** leg cost me 1900.00 annually in
insurance. me learned dat me dont
have much indurance. da lesson to be
learned is if your feeling an itch on ya
**** leg, pullover because if ya dont
you be broke as a reggae boy lost at sea
TERRY REEVES Feb 2016
I USED TO THINK THAT DOGS THOUGHT IN ENGLISH,
BUT, OF COURSE, IT COULD BE GERMAN OR SPANISH,
IF YOU TELL THEM TO SIT, THEY MAY NOT RESPOND,
JUST RUN AWAY TO THE BACK OF BEYOND;
I'M LOOKING UP 'SIT,' IN RUSSIAN, 'GET OFF
THAT ****** CHAIR,' IN CROATIAN AND 'COME
HERE, THERE'S A GOOD BOY' AND 'WELL DONE,'
PERHAPS WE JUST NEED AN 'ESPERANTO' SO
THAT THEY WILL ALL DO AS THEY'RE TOLD,
OTHERWISE WE WON'T LET THEM COME IN FROM THE COLD,
'STAY,' IN SWEDISH COULD MAKE THEM PEEVISH,
'FRIEND,' IN SWAHILI COULD MAKE THEM AN ENEMY,
WE DON'T WANT THEM TO BARK, MOPE AND PINE,
DON'T FORGET THE MAGIC COMMAND - 'NEIN, NEIN, NEIN!'
SOMEONE TOOK THEIR DOG TO SOME GERMAN SPEAKING FRIENDS SO THAT IT WOULD HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF COMMANDS.  AMAZING!   'NEIN,' = NO.
Terry Collett Jun 2013
Benedict turned the page
of the Dostoyevsky novel.

His brother puked in the bidet,
too much cheap wine,
Benedict thought,
but he’ll be fine.

He immersed himself deeper
into the Russian world
of ****** and fear
and dark corners.

Crime and Punishment
was one good tale all right.
Even the book cover held
the attention, he thought,
turning it briefly over.

His brother’s moans
interrupted the puking.
Benedict asked an
are you all right?
There was a groan
of response.

Benedict recalled the time
he had been in that condition
in Yugoslavia the year before,
same cause: too much
cheap wine.
And that beautiful guide
came to his room
to see how he was
and sat on his bed
and all he could think of
was when would
the puking end.

No thought at all
of her presence there,
her body so close,
her perfume making him
more nauseous.

She was Croatian,
he thought, pausing at the page
of the Dostoyevskian novel.

And that waitress
he and his brother had liked
in the restaurant
at the Yugoslavian hotel.

*****. Yes, that was the name.
Got no where though.
Just the luck of the draw.

His brother returned
from the bathroom
and flopped on the bed.

The puking over maybe,
Benedict thought
and his brother hoped,
pale of complexion,
perspiration on brow.

Outside the window
the Parisian streets
echoed with life:
Cars, coaches, buses,
people, natives, tourists,
males and females.

Tomorrow they’d be out
on the streets again.
Sit in restaurants where
the famous once sat
over coffee or beer:
Hemmingway, Sartre,
Picasso, Henry Miller
and the others.

Art thrived here.
Ideas born
from philosophic minds.

Benedict book marked
the page and closed
the book and put it aside.

Some one laughed outside
in the street, another sang,
voices of ghostly singers
of the past, breathed
from the walls.

His brother returned
to the bathroom,
more puking.
Benedict thought:
poor brother.
Of course, he mused,
gazing at the Parisian
night sky, they’d never
tell their mother.
why,
why must my mind float,
float so far in to the ocean,
on a boat,
a boat made of strong roach,
growing thoughts
in me brain compartment
that have no rational
like the socks department
of Walmart next to the Starbucks
on exit 15 on the i95
looking back on the poem
that i wrote as high as Ben Bowen
i feel a sensation
that me reputation
is less than Croatian asians
i must say
i would appolagise
all day
if i had the chance
i love you
my followers
live my dream
love
***
of
i
.
Universal Thrum Nov 2014
We stand on the bluffs above the breakers, watching the sea foam swirl like the madness of our broken world. We linger. The dense feeling of fate pervading us. The unbreakable diamond line tethering us to the crystalline moment, frozen in a picture, put in a box, never to be seen again. The wind blew and a pinprick shift in movement, insignificant as an eyelash, brought down an empire made of ash.  We walked those charred triumphant streets, riddled with rotting bouquets of flowers from yesterday’s parade. It was time to take comfort in strangers. She turned to me, “I want love like the ocean, it always comes back”. I think of her floating on the Adriatic contemplating our blossoming love, croatian street art, and holding her body close as a baby in the floridian waves. Now a million shards of glass laid lost on the savage sea floor, mirrors reflecting a thousand truths, hidden from her eyes by the churning tide.

Words don't matter anymore. I scream in frustrated contempt, “Why are you acting crazy! Why are you disturbed? Where is redemption here?” It is gone for now, a dog running wild in the woods. I wake up and try to explain the unconsciousness, but it’s like singing to a self possessed crowd in a run down karaoke bar. Grasping at cigarette smoke.

My last act of friendship could be to obliterate you and expose you for the liar you are. Instead I will let silence settle over any righteousness I feel, any angle of truth I claim to possess, letting the birds sing their songs for us, and the thrum of the world will hold me in its arms.  I will release the great burden there alone. “There are things I can tell you, and there are things I cannot say, I hold nothing against you, I forgive you.”

“You are a child, I do everything for everyone, I give everything, and everyone just takes from me!”  She viciously hisses in another’s voice, a harpy sent for blood, *****, and sacrifice, lashing about with claws meant to tear out the heart of man.

“I may have a child’s heart, filled with infinite forgiveness. I may be a flawed man, but I won’t turn from that truth, in it is wabi sabi beauty. I’m not seeking to rationalize or justify my actions, the past doesn’t interest me that much anymore. The feeling you give me now is a toxic one, like a ****** hitting rock bottom, I want the poison out of my veins.”

More screaming. Rampage, wrath, hell fury and doom. An **** of anger directed at my peaceful countenance, an all out assault fueled by brimstone, baiting the Buddah under the bohdi. My murderer is my muse. The citadel is overrun again by the Amazonian hordes set for the massacre, spear point to throat, mutilating the glinting marbled halls, painted red. So **** me now, my quiet pride and solemn truth are unassailable. You lob bombs at an iron sky. One built after years of hellish wildfire to bring down Zion. Yet the walls drip with life, you can taste it in the air. The overcoming of emotion, like fresh white clouds drifting above bloated bodies floating dead on the burning acrid water. And maybe only a dry heart pulp remains in the humid sun, but I don’t think so, there is juice here in this soul, the nectar is still sweet, tempered by age. I bite my tongue and laugh at the helplessness of love gone wrong, a faux pas matched only by a priest farting at a funeral. I wink at death, clapping and singing songs with a final gasp, we die like Hector dragged in the dust.

Days later, she writes a mixed apology. Staking a claim on humanity. Can she see into her own eyes? Does she know the past as I do, can she own her duplicity, her renunciation of all that she claims to hold dear? We were one once. Symbiotic, duads, all I did, she did, all I was, she was. Blame still taints my heart.

I want to strip off my clothes and howl in the rain, as the forest sends thunderous chamber hall applause to my release. I want to howl for the toil. I want to howl for the ecstasy. I want to howl for all the unrecognized love, all the unfulfilled expectations, the selfishness, I want to howl for the sacrifice, and the collapse of return, I want to howl.

Somewhere, does my scream still echo? A voice on the radio answers.

“Those things you keep, you better throw them away. You want to turn your back, bury your old ways. Once you were tethered, and now you are free. Once you were tethered, well now you are free. That was the river, this is the sea!”

I walk around a drafty room, hugging myself like a crying orphan seeing all the doors closed on the last day of autumn. If I can make it through the biting winter; holed up somewhere in an abandoned hollow, hands in ratty brown clothe gloves, patched pants and ***** scarves, spring will be beautiful, and I will lay in fields of burgeoning new blossoms. A thousand times Odysseus.
asia is the victor of manual labour in croatian tale
a breadbasket of rice left the loser without weight
another favour is a un agreement towards aliied habitat
so a currency isnt the clear way to a refuggee camp
the sheep will someday overpower the treason
but for now lay in the shadow of a communist state
Dr Peter Lim Jul 2021
My heart dwells in beauty
in her ***** I find my perfect rest
I'll serve her in unfailing duty
I know I'll be abundantly blest-

let my brush be my ardent voice
let every colour in majesty  assume
our coming-together is all our joys
every painting should smell as perfume
William Rogers Apr 2016
I gave 75 cents to a homeless man
sitting on the frozen sidewalk
holding a half eaten loaf of rye bread.
It's 13 degrees and the sun's out.
Times Square, December 2, 2005.
A lanky man dressed like Santa walked by,
glared and shook his head at me.
He took a step sideways
and continued on, stumbling down the sidewalk,
stopping to lean against the building
twenty yards away.

He slid down the wall
and sat in an empty doorway,
his red and white costume sloping down on one side,
the elastic beard matted
with sweat stains and fresh egg yolk.
Gaps in the fabric revealed black stubble
with streaks of gray along his cheek bone,
his belt far too big for someone twice his size.
One of the lenses on his fake coke-bottle glasses
was cracked down the middle, but he didn't notice.

How come Santa drinks so much, my little cousin asked,
trying to absorb the idea of habits.
She's smarter than most seven-year-olds.
Some day she'll realize the therapeutic power of bourbon,
whether she wants to or not,
by virtue of a twisted and distorted lineage.

Remembering back to a time when I believed,
I asked myself,
Was he always so intense and disruptive?
Did he always look so disheveled?
Waking up in ****** unfamiliar motels,
fur stuck to his tongue,
feeling cheap and
smelling like reindeer?

Doesn't he have family to go home to?

I distinctly recall Santa getting agitated
at a pawnshop in Jersey,
hocking a six year old Rolex knockoff,
arguing with a deadbeat in an orange latex bandana
about whether it could get him 5 bucks or 50.
Santa is a hobo who should be in rehab
but decides to sit back and take blame,
driven by dollars and cents, not peace and love.
Fictitious friends have more of an impact,
imagining someone out there barks like a dog
when a strange man in card-carrying colors
gets too close to either side of the line
and lodges himself in a chimney
too small for his socks
but too large for his vision.

Think of the profile:
An obese elderly  man, about 6'1",
big bushy white beard
puffy red cheeks
and glazed over eyes. Dresses in red velvet,
has eight deer he runs until they drop,
overwhelmingly fond of children,
known to sneak around
in the darkness late at night,
carrying a sack,
usually around the holidays.
Santa is a transient worker.
But does he have a record?
Was he always a bag man?

Busted for B&E;
at the Christmas Tree Shop in Danbury, 2001,
then fast forward to indecent exposure
inside a moving vehicle
somewhere around 23rd Street
where the sun becomes the moon.

Everyone is old enough to know
not to sleep in soiled piles
reeking of their own fermenting remnants
of a night gone sour.

But he meets Betty Ford for drinks anyway
in a seedy club in Queens,
one night too many,
one night in particular, in 2003,
strung out stiff on single malt,
he grabbed the reins, lost control
and flipped back to front on a car full of elves
at a busy intersection somewhere around LaGuardia.

He showed up in night court
with a ****** who promised him a good time
but gave him more than he bargained for.
He never said he was innocent,
just that he didn't think he could be convicted.

Across the street, he pulls himself up,
throws an empty bottle against the concrete wall
and crosses back over toward us.
The stale stench of cheap red wine
permeates from the center of his beard,
with permanent stains across his chin
and all along the white fabric pleasure
path that connects one head to the other.

Santa glares at us again,
mumbles something in Croatian
and falls face first into a pile of stones
deep down the alley,
two sheets to the wind,
and ten steps closer to Brooklyn.
Johnny Noiπ Oct 2018
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Teddy S Jan 2021
My best friend has brown eyes,
But every time the sun hits them
They turn gold
My best friend has dark brown hair
When I first met her it was the longest hair I’ve ever seen, dyed blonde at the ends
Now it is short and just as nice
My best friend used to be shorter than me
Now I am the short one in the group
As everyone towers over me
My best friend has the greatest smile
Every time she laughs it’s like pure sunshine
Sunlight pouring out of her smile
My best friend speaks Croatian
So we text each other in Croatian,
We always say Bok instead of bye and volim te instead of I love you
My best friend is great at acting, I tell her to not forget me when she’s famous
My best friend is amazing
Volim te, Sunca
Simon Monahan Jan 2018
I heard that Russian tongue but once
Slavonic syllables spilling with facility
From the lips of a venerable old man
An aged Croat friar reciting poetry

His eyes shone with that joy authentic
Which is the sweet fruit of deep, long, suffering
A happy man who remembers pain
A brave man who has not forgotten fear

With sly wink and a mischievous grin
He reminded his shocked parishioners
That his schooling was not Croatian
That his youth was Yugoslav

Naturally, we asked about that red time
When red meant a new order
When red meant fire burning churches
When red meant martyr’s witness

But he only ever said one thing:

“They killed thousands of priests,”
Was how he summed up the wrong,
And with a grim grin he added simply
“But… we were strong.”
This was inspired by Lawrence Hall's Russian Series, which I have been reading with delight.

While I've read a touch of Tolstoy and Dostoyevksy, as an ethnic Croat who grew up at an ethnically Croatian parish church, the largest part of my encounter with anything Russian has been the oral tradition of a people who has a long memory for recalling wrongs they have suffered, both real and imagined. Croatians do not remember the era of Yugoslavia with fondness, but my pastor never had anything more to say on the topic than that they suffered, but were strong. He still can recite Russian poetry from memory. I hope that this serves as a worthy, however humble, tribute to Lawrence Hall's series of pieces, which span with ease the range from serious to fun, including much, most edifying, in between.

— The End —