He sat strapped into his chair like a shrunken scarecrow.
A motorized miniature from the Wizard of Oz, roaming the yellow brick road in his chrome chariot.
His clothes hung from his stick thin limbs like fresh wash on a clothesline.
As new as the day his Mom brought them home from the store.
Adournments for a body on display, not designed to be used.

Around and round circles ring, whole, symmetric complete.
But the coil of life, puzzle pieces in a whirl, must be free, infinite, unfettered.
The text misprinted, the logic destroyed, the flesh misshapen, the extremties unusable.

Tied to his wheelchair like the scarecrow to his rack, guarding a field of linoleum on the hospital ward.
His eyes blind to color and light, I saw only clouds as I peered into his mind with my inquisitive scope.
The boy's hair had the texture of straw on his nubbin head and he smelled of dry leaves before the winter's chill.
His useless limbs twisted and fine, delicate as dried twigs, they draped his John Deere in the vegetable garden of his imprisoned life, bound with the barbed wire of his treacherous genes.

He could move his head, and played a game of cat and mouse to us tinmen, who lumbered by his throne with our toolboxes full of bright scopes and latex gloves, frozen saucers and wasp sharp stings.
His head would bow, limp upon his neck like an overripe sunflower at the end of its stalk.
As our footsteps grew louder his Jack-in-the-box head would fly up, a clown's grin upon his silly face.
Was this the boy or his disease we would wonder despite the reruns of his show.
What could he know? This crumpled moonbeam parading as a child in rumpled clothes.

But one day upon a whim, I took him for a ride into the big blue sky and over the rainbow.
I grabbed the handles of his chair and slowly, slowly began to spin.
His head shot up like a shooting star, his twiggy limbs stiffened even more.
Faster and faster, I whirled him and twirled him.
A twister on the hospital floor, sending doctors, nurses and patients diving for cover as we spun, building like cotton candy strands.
His mouth opened wide, a huge smile spread across his face like sunshine pouring over a mountain's edge.
Beams of light speared through the clouds that filled his eyes.
A rusty hinged croak jumped from his throat as he hee-hawed a laugh as I flung him to the moon, ruby red slippers upon his feet.

1.
You can never go home,
not to the home you left.
When you leave, you get bigger.
Not necessarily in girth, but in consciousness.
When you come back,  everything,
even the walls of your parent's house,
seem to have shrunk.

2.
Look.....
Here comes the parade.
With its paper mache floats
and twirling batons.
Cub scouts and boy scouts,
all in a neat blue and drab green row,
followed by a high school marching band
playing "Stars and Stripes Forever".
From bygone wars, limbless surviving soldiers flinch with every cymbal crash.

3.
I watched billows of cottonwood clouds
swirl down a summer hometown avenue,
they met on the street corner for a song........
"Alley Oop", or "I Like Bread And Butter"
These ghostlike voices will live there forever,
innocent, asleep, numb, waiting.
Soon, the postman will bring your future.
Soon, you will be just a number on a lotery ball.
Soon, you will have to dissect luck or fate.

4.
I took my 87 year old Father to gather his tools
from his long time place of work.
The instruments of his livelihood.
He did not need them anymore, he had retired.
Some tools he had used since World War II,
some he made for a specific job.... never to use again.
All neatly placed in toolboxes built in the 30s and 40s,
yet not a trace of rust.
These were the tools of a tradesman,
a (Tool and Die Man).
He once told me, “Son, if I can’t fix it because I don’t have the right tool, I will make the tool”.
I thought him to be Superman.
But there I was, loading up my Father’s history,
to take home, to be sold to the highest bidder.  
I myself have made my living playing music for audiences.
I also have tools.
Guitars, amplifiers, harmonicas, microphones.
There will come a day, in the not too distant future,
when I will have to “retire” the instruments of my livelihood.
Though I will not be as stoic as my World War II Father,
I will go kicking and screaming to the pawn shop,
remembering every song that fed me,
and every chord that made people dance.

Come on down to your Fletcher’s Store
It has all your needs to complete your chore
Marshal has it all you see?
Be it tools or p.p.e.
Obtaining kit is not that hard
If you have your induction card
But without your little piece of plastic
The treatment you get could well be drastic
Other than that, a cost code will do
That will prevent any further ado
If Marshal is otherwise indisposed
Help is near, it has been disclosed
His faithful helper Spiderman
Will always help you where he can
On the PC he also goes
Logged on as Marshal, I suppose
But back to the master of the store
He knows what’s behind every closed door
What stock he has, he knows off hand
spanners, raincoats , every little gland
a special order or a request
You can be sure, he’ll do his best
He is a man of his word
At toolboxes you may have heard
Laying down the law, giving you grief
Hoping to catch the lowly thief
Spending time with him, I have found
He is a rock, steadfast, morally sound
And if at times you may need a friend
Someone to listen, maybe an ear to bend
Someone there, sound and steady
You can count on Marshal Geddie.

Ernest 28 July 2011  (VPT)

The poor children
That's what we were called
Surrounded by drunks and drug addicts
Single mothers and their hordes of children
The future cleaning ladies and harbour workers
We sometimes watched the orphans
Wondering what would become of them

In our own world
We were richest of them all
While the mothers worked
Through sweat, tears and stress
There was always someone
To show a little kindness
"Those kids can come with us, we're neighbours"
This meant pizza for dinner

The summers were for exploring
Golden fields hiding rabbits and phaesants
Truthfully covering a dump yard of course
Trees were naturally for climbing
Move through the forest without touching the ground
A tailbone got injured here and there
No time to see a doctor, it will heal on it's own!
Play hide and seek
Race each other on bikes
I always cheated
Where that stream really lead to, we never found out

But by that very stream we built
From planks and nails
Isolated with candlewax
A little cottage
Every day after school
No one knew where all the nails and candles had gone to
And how the community wood supply seemed to vanish
"Only the good planks" because we had standarts
Who would've noticed the little ones when the grass grew so high
It was our little secret

Naturally the road workers took it down
"Unsafe structure" someone said
A whole summer lay in ruins before us
The toolboxes were quietly returned to their rightful owners
Bored as we were, we gave it another shot
This time supported by a tree
We'd hoist ourselves up with a robe

That was taken down too
We felt sorry for the tree!
But winter's close
That meant snow castles
Never wondering what might happen
If the structure collapsed on us
The tunnels lead to nowhere and everywhere

The mothers were working
Who would stop us
But when our mum was home
All kids were invited for dinner
Us and 12 others
Future cleaning ladies and harbour workers
Blissfully unaware
What lengths the mothers went to, to feed us
I've never been poor in my life.

the backroad to
Florence, the one along Elm
that cuts past the McDermott
trailer park--

from matt's house past
Cedar and the old liquor store
at 50mph the cicadas sound more
like a cry or a lingering scream
the crickets don't stop for passing trucks
creaking to the metronome of a swishing
cow tail

farmers switch off their brights, come around
corners slow, in striped beat up Chevys, rusty
toolboxes weakly sliding from side to side
like their owners in threadbare leather seats
the young kids trail close, bumper
to bumper on a two-lane road, just me and
some kid named after his grampa, poppy,
Clint, who needs to get home before
mama chews him out--

sunday service still warm from this morning
where a single beetle clung to the wall and translated
my father's sermon, morse code for the elders, for the
elk and deer, he's been known to speak to hummin'birds
anyway, I think.

Toolboxes, pictures, clothes and more stuff
Where do I start this is gonna be tough
A bag for charity, the skip and to keep
A wall I've to climb cos it's all in a heap

Why didn't I sort it before I moved in
It's a lifetime of **** that I couldn't bin
And now the pile's grown and in disorder
I've even kept my old recorder

Its hard to decide what to throw away
So much reminds me of another day
I need to be ruthless, I have to do this
What doesn't matter and what will I miss

An old ***** box just full of old pics
Remembering that day when I was only 6  Over to the keep side, the skip pile still bare
Why is decluttering so hard, it's not fair


Another pile of clothes that don't even fit
The last time I wore it I looked like a ***
So why have I kept it, why is it still here
Now I remember and start to shed a tear

What on earth is this, a bit of old plastic
Oh yes, a souvenir when I danced the night fantastic
It looks like junk just a bit of old debris
But to me it triggers an old happy memory

I've now been rummaging here for a while   It's made me cry and it's made me smile
Over to the keep side, the skip pile still bare
Why is decluttering so hard, it's not fair

as published in LogoSophia

Gave up trying to remedy the formatting...

“The Result was Silence”

“Today I initiated a telephone conversation with the President of the Russian Federation. The result was silence.” -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy

There is no silence in Kiev this dawn
Morning commutes, intermittent news feeds
Explosions. Power failures. How many will die
Without finishing their WORDLE today

Old men rattle their dentures in outrage
Sky News reports a couple of police officers
In the street below, smoking cigarettes
Which makes more sense than most things just now

Kharkov’s air-raid sirens are deeper than Kiev’s
There is no silence in Kiev this dawn

A Few Kind Thoughts for Roman Soldiers

If you have stood your watch throughout the night
To guard a clothesline of national importance
Dug foxholes only to fill them up again
And then patrolled through long days in the heat

If you have enjoyed Cinderella Liberty
And talking about poetry and girls
With a few mates down at the coffee shop
Because that’s all your poor pay can afford

You will then understand the conscript guards
Posted to keep order on Calvary

Afghanistan, Graveyard of 19-Year-Olds

Ghosts shriek in the wind from the Hindu Kush
Falling upon the lowlands in despair
Of any reality beyond death
In the blood-sodden sands where sinks all good

Walls, monuments, souls, hopes – all blow away
In the wreckage of long-fallen empires
Their detritus trod upon by tired men
Whose graves will be the howling dust of time

And yet the empire masters will return
And leave fresh offerings, remnants of the young:
A British Enfield, a Moghul’s lost shoe,
A cell phone silent beside the Great Khan’s skull

(First published in The Road to Magdalena, 2012)

We Have No Enemies Among the Dead
For the Young Crew of the Moskva
14 April 2022

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave…
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea -The Navy Hymn

Proud admirals and presidents rattle their medals

The young – in screams among burst steam lines die
Explosions and darkness and seawater and hatches sealed
The bulkheads blown, there is no up, no down
Only pain and horror and throat-torn shrieks

Proud admirals and presidents jing-aling their medals

Training manuals, pocketknives, and comic books
Naughty pinups, letters from Mom, wrenches, and boots
Toolboxes, ball-point pens, and coffee cups
Fall with the young deep down into the sea

Proud admirals and presidents dazzle the room with their medals

Mothers and fathers grieve in emptiness
Our Leaders caution them to mind their attitude

Proud admirals and presidents – to Hell with their medals

Crazy Old Men with Rockets ‘n’ Bombs

When you read to your brother or sister
A go-to-sleep book about bunnies and stars
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing along with the washing machine
And help your MeeMaw up those tricky stairs
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sit on the steps late at night
And watch a pirate ship sail close by the moon
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you pray for the bombed-out refugees
And put a little extra in the collection plate
You are healing a wound in Creation
Made by some malevolent old man

When you sing a song to the universe
It remains in the heavens forever

Because

You helped heal a wound in Creation

No Bombers Over Our Lady Help of Christians Catholic School in 1958:
A Brief Discussion of a Successful Cold War Tactic

from an idea suggested by Kirk Briggs

Some have scoffed about hiding under our tables
As protection from the Soviets’ nuclear strikes
But scorn not this truth of those factual fables:
It worked! No bombers! Post that as one of our “likes!”

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

                          We Have No Enemies Among the Dead

                              For the Young Crew of the Moskva
                                                  14 April 2022

                                Eternal Father, strong to save,
                                Whose arm hath bound the restless wave...
                                O hear us when we cry to thee
                                For those in peril on the sea

                                             -The Navy Hymn

Proud admirals and presidents rattle their medals

The young - in screams among burst steam lines die
Explosions and darkness and seawater and hatches sealed
The bulkheads blown, there is no up, no down
Only pain and horror and throat-torn shrieks

Proud admirals and presidents jing-aling their medals

Training manuals, pocketknives, and comic books
Naughty pinups, letters from Mom, wrenches, and boots
Toolboxes, ball-point pens, and coffee cups
Fall with the young deep down into the sea

Proud admirals and presidents dazzle the room with their medals

Mothers and fathers grieve in emptiness
Our Leaders caution them to mind their attitude

Proud admirals and presidents – to Hell with their medals

Climbing to Fall
You wish to fly.

But you have broken wings.

You must nurse yourself and mend the wings to fly.

A scavenger hunt for life’s tools.

Sure , you might own some tools.

Toolboxes to fix things hold many more tools than you can afford

During the days you are in a cage.

A doggy in their kennel to wag his tail and do their tricks.

They fail to see your true talent or value.

As their own needs come first and fights irrupt if they are questioned.

What you find hope and healing from and need anything to finish such tasks

are undermined by the needs of the other who demands and brings pity light to what his toolbox needs.

You remain without mending supplies to fly away

On broken wings

So many years have past

where communication to others are garbled

Selflessly you toil onward

up the mountains of challenge

without safety ropes or nets.

If you should fall

It appears if there is no one below the steep cliffs that you climb

to catch you.

You fight to climb to the top to the bright hope filled future

and your success for family, career, and self care.

Those who treat you like “batman’s sidekick”

Do everything to make sure that they are further ahead

As they look back and ask, “aren’t you coming?”

Basket case

There is a smudge on my computer screen trying to clean it with spit,
but no, perhaps it is finger marks left behind by the strange people
Who sits in the back of the computer shop?
Their diet is cola and chocolate; they are thin, bald and weedy looking
I must whisper to them, or they shrink away.
They sulk if I disagree with their diagnosis, it will take time to get
my computer back.
When the owner closes the shop, they climb into toolboxes, the ones with
the helpful drawing of a screwdriver, maybe the smudge is a camera
watching me
when I have a drink tonight, I’ll pour it in the bedroom then go into
the bathroom and smoke a cigarette
buy a can of coke a bar of chocolate, eat and drink in front of the screen
and they will say, look, he is a basket-case like us.