A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to Emmaus - poem about long sermons

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to Emmaus

 

This is a warm Sunday in November

But we still watch for I.C.E. in the parking lot

And for a cold front promised but not delivered

Through the almanacs and weather distorts

 

Just now the celebrant, too, seems to be stalled

Chocked up at Luke 18 with his mutter running

The same illustrations repeated over and over

Like that same old cactus in a Road Runner short

 

Dear Lord

 

I pray for your priest while he is rebuking sin -

Please help him bring his homily to an end!

A Child’s Thanksgiving… WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG MAN!? - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Child’s Thanksgiving…

WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG MAN!?

 

Sort of like Christmas, with its own small joys

Turkey and dressing, but not any toys

 

Grandpa at dinner babbles about his bowels

With a chorus of most dramatic vowels

 

Grandma discourses on her surgeries

The latest ones implanted mechanical knees

 

Mother and Big Sis are busy in the kitchen

With a whole lotta hissin’ and (rhymes with kitchen)

 

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY, YOUNG MAN!?

DO YOU WANT TO FEEL THE SWIPE OF MY HAND!?”

 

“They get it from those app things today -

I think you need to take his ‘phone away”

 

The uncles thunder on about politics

And any who disagree are Bolsheviks

 

The aunts all painted like marionettes

Escape to the lawn for their cigarettes

 

And I am exiled to the children’s table

With snotty little cousins, like unclean elves

And eye-brow-warned to behave ourselves -

And that’s the end of this Thanksgiving fable

Remembrance of Poetry Magazines past - poem (fancy that)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

                               Remembrance of Poetry Magazines Past

 

 

Our intellectual Marines,

Landing in little magazines

      Capture a trend.

 

-Auden

 

 

          UP THE REVOLUTION

A travel-back-in-time wish for me might be

          ECOLOGY NOW

To those hippie book shops in San Diego

          //// THE PIGS

Mimeographed little poetry magazines

          GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

With their mimeographed art-class covers

MAKE LOVE NOT WAR

 

TUNE IN TURN ON DROP OUT

Posters for the protest in Balboa Park

          DROP ACID NOT BOMBS

Sunlit little tables and cigarettes

          //// NO WE WON’T GO

Chipped cups of Jamaica Blue Mountain

          POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Percolating The Revolution in CAPS

          DON’T TRUST ANYONE OVER THIRTY

 

          PEACE LOVE AND HARMONY

Hippie chicks in turtlenecks and berets

          FLOWER POWER

Their delicate laughter scorning the Proletariat

          NEED RIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO COOL PEOPLE ONLY

 

And, like, do you dig Yevtushenko?

Cats, Coffee, Choices, Autumn Leaves, Friends - short poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Cats, Coffee, Choices, Autumn Leaves, Friends

 

I sat outside this golden autumn day

Thinking about things, as old people do

And about the thoughts you send my way –

I thought

About choices. And Coffee. And cats. And leaves.

And you.

Northern Lights and a Little Magic - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Northern Lights and a Little Magic

 

I walked out to the hayfield under the stars

To see the Northern Lights that weren’t there

But the grasses whispered in the autumn night

And then best of all

I heard you singing

Cranky Old Aunt Robert - poem

  

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Cranky Old Aunt Robert

 

“I just don’t go to funerals anymore,” he said

Oh, he was all right, the town’s bachelor lawyer

He was just like that, as everyone agreed

A bookish old lawyer and the town eccentric

 

When we were young, he and I read Paradise Lost,

Along with Friend Tod, of happy memory

But with time he recused himself from life

And had me ‘phone him about the town doins’

 

“I just don’t go to funerals anymore,” he said

But a week or two later

                                            he did

Your Words, Your Way - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Your Words, Your Way

 

At the end of the day, your words, your way

Now healing and sealing the wounds of your friends

Giving grace and peace to the Vespers hour -

We open your book and look, and read your joy

 

At the beginning of night, your words, your light

Through your verse rehearse the teachings of peace -

They are to us a healing waterfall of dreams

And then a covering warm with autumn-night stars

 

Now you sleep too; this soft blanket is for you

For your happy dreams, sweet and true, all night through