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

                         Preparing a Wordle for the Third World War

I would have said that the Cold War was the Third
Viet-Nam was hot enough for me
But the old men rattling their dentures in anger
Assure us that this new war is the one

Today I withdrew some cash from the bank
Topped off the gas tanks and the lawnmower cans
Bought water, toilet paper, and batteries
And propped my walking stick beside my bed

My daughter says that tomorrow we start WORDLE
With “PEACE” - her warfare is the best of all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                             Wordle for Klingons

Let the captain win now; he is one of your betters -
Revenge is a dish best served with five letters

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

                             WORDLE for Dullards Like Me


E A G L E

X A X X X

B A D G E

X A X X X

L A T C H

X A X X X

H A R M S

X A X X X

M A T E R

X A X X X

H A I R S

X A X X X

R A T S S

NOT IN WORD LIST

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

        On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines

                            (Scribbled with a little help from Shelley)

Look upon my Verbs, ye Mighty, and despair!
No more lines remain. Round the decay
Of my online Competition, of vocabulary bare
The lone and level squares stretch far away

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]  
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!)

After a rather enjoyable Saturday
Which marked the return
Of my mother and grandfather
After a fortnight's stay in Chennai
I was really looking forward
To some R&R on "precious" Sunday
It started promisingly enough
Getting up as late as nine o'clock
Enjoying a hot cup of filter coffee
Prepared by my dear mother
Solving Wordle in three attempts
Watching photos and videos of trains
Playing my all-time favourite game 'Choices'
Enjoying a rather delicious brunch
Again prepared by Amma
Followed by my customary afternoon siesta
Which lasted more than two hours
Just as I was beginning to think
That I couldn't have asked for a better Sunday
I had to begin the rather tedious process
Of filing my income tax returns
Fortunately, Amma was there to support me
And take me through the entire process
Which involved numerous calculations
Some of which, were more confusing
Than even the questions asked in IIT-JEE!
After nearly two hours of breaking our heads
And cursing the Finance Minister profusely
Which, by the way, was entirely my doing
The returns were finally filed
And the tax duly paid
As I heaved a sigh of relief
Having gotten a huge monkey off my weary back
It dawned on me
That tomorrow is Monday
And I have to go to office as well
Which involves getting up as early as six o'clock
Followed by a commute in the dreaded Mumbai local
With its super dense crush load
And once I reach office
I have to share a tiny cabin
With my boss and his wife
And endure a lecture or two
About my recent lack of success at work
In this rather claustrophobic setting
Oh boy, I'll never get a break, will I?

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!”

you’re busy playing wordle in a ******* bathroom
you’re talking to your future self inside a vacuum
you only know their songs from one of the guitar hero games
but you’ll wear the t-shirt all the same

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

                                I Don’t Know How Life Can Go On

Life can be an impossible hurdle
Just now I want to hide and turn turtle
My breakfast within me has begun to curdle
Because for the first time I lost the Wordle!

the flesh goes familiar, those “things “ that manufactured
desire frequent, hacked by time, weakness of spirit, no blame,
just the same, the not so vague re-collections, not insane, we-
we’re crazy desirous in ways only humans can rationalize
naked crazy desire, mating for life, the eroticism of certain letters,
e, k, s, t & y
and unbefitting, un-bewitting:
accident incredible incredulous,

you have spelled ecstasy,
not reality for ecstasy
is a state of trying to
make memories so crazed
that they become
lore
factual,
actual,
but beyond
belief,
singed with
grief, at their
disappearance
from current
history.

we play Prince, Michael Jackson,
The Commodores,

like the way
we tasted,
eclectic,
eclectic,
*******
direction,
the wordle
of interconnected
devolvement
fluidity

she states you write differently,
what’s the differential that been inserted?
are you pregnant or just elder?
her head shaking, possible sighting
of tears, fall into teacups, poured into
the aquarium, where the species
remind us we don’t cross breed,
and when we don’t, we master
the creation of rationalizations
and know, no, that it is a far worse
than the then of naked, pure, unlimited
desire.

ah.


we agree,
that changing my name
would be gracious,
efficacious,
hazardous, potentially
noxious and go back
to our laptops to
shed verbal tears.

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

                                   “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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                            The Kittens Come on Little Fog Feet

                                 As Carl Sandburg did not say

At dawn: coffee and the Wordle and thoughts
The moon’s still full, but one last star winks out
The dew-bathed oaks drip onto a tricky word
Fog drifts in silence among the tricky light

A little paw stirs soft autumn’s molding leaves
And then two eyes appear, and a greeting tail
The forming image of the cat completes itself
And then another – two abandoned cats

These tiny orphans approach – and love begins
To them I pledge
They will never be hungry or lonely again

Lawrence Hall, HSG
[email protected]

                                            Monsoon Coffee

The old men argue whether we have monsoons
Or if our afternoon thunderstorms are unworthy
Of scientific labels, notations, or marks
To be discussed on the six o’clock news

Each day at four I take my coffee outside
To sit beneath the oak and take the air
With a book, the Wordle, or an empty mind
As thunderheads rise like monsters in the east

Fearsome clouds menace the sky-paling moon
And breezes wind themselves up for the daily monsoon

I'm close to the Gnostics at times
Know the Gospel of Thomas
Believe Jesus was gay
But I don't wanna be one

I believe in faith
Have read Things Not Seen
My Irish eyes are green
Pray Thy will be done

Hagia Sophia
Asian Mother Mary
I've known the unusual
But revere the ordinary

So much rain today
Wordle from my dad
Sad
Grey

          Water Way

I'm close to the Gnostics at times
Know the Gospel of Thomas
Believe Jesus was gay
But I don't wanna be one

I believe in faith
Have read Things Not Seen
My Irish eyes are green
Pray Thy will be done

Hagia Sophia
Asian Mother Mary
I've known the unusual
But revere the ordinary

So much rain today
Wordle from my dad
Sad
Grey

          Water Way