Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm

 

 

Peter Kreeft: The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written:

The Wisdom of the Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov

 

 

I was yawning over my book late at night

When the driveway alarm squawked unimaginatively

In its mechanical voice, “DRIVEWAY ALERT!”

With guard-dachshund and flashlight I addressed the alert

 

But there was nothing, only the wind and damp

Perhaps a squirrel had triggered the alarm

Which is silly, because squirrels don’t drive

And shouldn’t be wandering around in the lane

 

I am yawning over my book again -

What are you reading at bedtime just now?

In Monastic Solitude - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

In Monastic Solitude

 

In monastic solitude I sat

Among the lilting liturgy of the leaves

Vocalizing no prayers, thinking no thoughts

Only trying to empty my poor mind

 

And listen to the Hymn of the Universe

The blessings of bees, the chantings of cicadas

The singing Silence of the spring-ing sky -

But in all of this I was unsuccessful

 

And that’s okay

 

My mind is too cluttered to pause and to be

 

But still, you see

 

I thought I heard You sighing in the wind

The Distinct Click of a Zippo Cigarette Lighter - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

 

The Distinct Click of a Zippo Cigarette Lighter

 

 

A man

 

An old man

 

An old man slumped in a wheelchair

 

An old man slumped in a wheelchair outside the cardiac clinic

 

Smoking a cigarette

 

An old man smoking a cigarette, not the clinic

 

The clinic is not smoking in any way

 

While armed with smug looks of disapproval

We could pursue him with guilt and consequences

Along the disinfected corridors

Of offices, labs, and consulting rooms

 

Maybe even past the patch-painted corner

Where the cigarette machine used to be

And the pay ‘phone and the newspaper rack

But Bogart and the Marlboro Man are dead

 

A Zippo clicks as it did in his youth

Leave the old man smoking his past alone

Because he is alone, and because he is dying

And his cigarette is the only joy left to him

A Carpenter's Pencil - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

A Carpenter’s Pencil

 

 

For Gary Kirbow and The Guys,

 

Brent, Jeff, and Sam

 

 

A carpenter’s pencil – a marvelous magical wand!

With a mystical mark, a thoughtful touch

Of the master craftsman’s weathered hands

It wondrously works visions into being:

 

Transoms, beams, joists, joins, rafters, cabinetry

Trestles, trusses, uprights, piers, stringers, walls,

Timbers, cornices, doors, lintels, moldings, mullions

Trim, frames, laths, panels, planks, sills, and studs

 

The master shapes them with an artist’s utensil -

The marvelous, magical carpenter’s pencil

 

(At this point Kirbow will tell a naughty joke)

Death Comes for the Cardinal - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Death Comes for the  Cardinal

 

While tending the tomatoes and peppers and such

I found the corpse of a cardinal – too much!

 

And my sweet little cat with a grin on her mug

Licking her paw with a ‘tude all smug

 

I’ve told all the birds to watch out for the cat

But they will dive-bomb her – rat-a-tat-tat!

                                                                    

And thus a brave cardinal or insolent bluejay

Will be snatched to its death on a sunny day

 

O, bold birdies, soaring down from the sky

Mind the claws lest you dive and die

 

Or as is said in Iberia, by every don and dona

Always remember - leave that cat alone, ya!

 

                                          (Apologies to everyone in Catalonia)

A play on Death Comes for the Archbishop

The Drudge (POPUP) Report is (POPUP) Crushin’ (POPUP) Itself - not exactly a poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

The Drudge (POPUP) Report is (POPUP) Crushin’ (POPUP) Itself

 

Ad with rotten teeth Ad popup with a tattooed lady (so to speak) Ad with a skeleton and muscles exposed popup Hancock Whitney Jos. A. Bank HP Smart popup Tank Lane Bryant Walking shoes for elderly with poor balance Explore Dental Implant popup Prices HP Smart Tank Again popup Metal Barns The wooden popup hummingbird is taking by storm! [Taking what? And why take a hummingbird popup house by storm? Are they Nazi popup hummingbirds?] Logo Sportswear Relieves Shoulder Pain for Good Jos. A. Bank again I Found Out Exactly What popup My Dental Hygienist Uses to Whiten popup Her Teeth Garden Saving on TEMU Ad with rotten teeth Ad with a popup tattooed lady (so to speak) Ad with a skeleton and muscles exposed Hancock Whitney Jos. A. Bank HP Smart Tank Lane Bryant Walking shoes for elderly with poor balance Explore Den[I think the content is squashed in about here…]tal Implant Prices HP Smart popu Tank Again Metal Barns The wooden hummingbird is taking by storm! [Taking what? Popup And why take a hummingbird house by storm? Popup Are they Nazi hummingbirds?] Logo Sportswear Relieves Shoulder Pain for Good Jos. A. Bank again I Found Out Exactly What My popup Dental Hygienist Uses to Whiten Her Teeth Garden popup Saving on TEMU

Upon Finding My Old Copy of PARADISE LOST - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Upon Finding My Old Copy of Paradise Lost

 

 

Sacred to the memory of Tod Mixson, Robert Conn, and Dr. Huston Diehl

 

 

Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold

 

-Milton, “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”

 

 

With notes by Dr. Diehl, of happy memory

And my poor scribbles in the hand of callow youth

As memories of Thursday nights with Robert and Tod

Fetch back a golden age when we were young

 

Styrofoamed coffee (and sometimes Scotch)

We fogged the air with our pipes and thoughts

“Umbrageous grots” and “snaky sorceress”

Became our private jokes in public places

 

But now

 

I pray that we will laugh again at “dismal universal hiss”

When someday all are freed from this silence cold

 

 

They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,

Through Eden took thir solitary way.

 

-PL XII.648-649