The Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast Down at the Post Office - 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 Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast

Down at the Post Office

 

 

“VEHICLES AND THEIR CONTENTS ARE SUBJECT TO INSPECTION WHEN ENTERING, LEAVING, OR WHILE PARKED WITHIN THIS RESTRICTED AREA. ENTERING INTO THIS AREA CONSTITUTES CONSENT TO THE INSPECTION. (39 C. F. R. PART 232.1(b)(2)”

 

-a new sign screwed to the wall at my rural post office

 

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

As it often is for weeks at a time, it seems

A moment in history? A loss? A death?

Maybe another Texas senator or bird dog? ¹

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

Some guy down the street flew it upside down

Protesting or surrendering or not paying attention

To the latest crisis in our decaying republic

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today -

I wonder if now it will always be that way

 

 

¹ A reference to a line in True Grit

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room - 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

 

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room

 

 

“This waiting room of a world.”

 

-fictional line by the character of C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands

 

 

How much of life is passed in waiting for others

To do what they promised they would do:

The mechanic who promised to call when the car was ready

The computer that promised your package on Monday

 

The lawn service that promised to mow on Tuesday

The friend who promised to meet you on Wednesday

The pharmacist who promised your meds for Thursday

The doctor’s appointment promised for nine o’clock Friday

 

The cable service that promised repairs by Saturday

Oh, sure, all those promises -

They simply went away!

A Parasol Mushroom - senryu, possible a haiku

 

 

A Parasol Mushroom

 

A tiny white house

Appears on the lawn at dawn

But where is the toad?

 

 

To a child a mushroom is a toadstool. I have never seen a toad resting on or sheltering beneath a toadstool, but I keep looking. I imagine it would be rather like Bilbo Baggins, smoking a pipe and reading its morning letters.

 

 

What Time is it in Wal-Mart? - 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

 

What Time is it in Wal-Mart?

 

 

                                                 And call to children in the yard

                                                 “What century is it outside?”

 

-Pasternak, “About These Poems”

 

 

My daughter gave me a nifty Apple watch

But years have passed; it mostly spends its time

On the charger, dreaming of happier hours

When minutes joyfully leaped over each other

 

I found my dusty Timex in a dusty drawer

$8.00 at Wal-Mart a long time ago

          (the watch, not the drawer)

I fitted it with a new battery (I can do stuff)

Its sweep hand leaps over its painted dial

 

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