Where Words Matter More Than Noise - 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

 

Where Words Matter More than Noise

 

As a wise friend says

 

“The unacknowledged legislators of the world” ¹

Do not assemble in chambers of marble and oak

With speakers’ maces, in ermine-collared robes

Their speeches taken down by The Guardian and The Times

 

But rather at corner tables at Kosher Sam’s ²

Café Zanzibar ³, The Stray Dog Café ⁴

With disposable pens, and in jeans and tees

Their speeches interrupted by each other

 

Ideas later sharpened into verse

And published in LogoSophia and Eliot’s HP ⁵

 

 

¹ Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry”

² San Diego

³ Nacogdoches (and can you spell “Nacogdoches?”)

⁴ St. Petersburg

⁵ LogoSophia and Hello, Poetry

I Miss Kosher Sam's - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

I Miss Kosher Sam’s

 

Wish I could remember what street it was on

It’s been so long ago, when Kosher Sam’s

Was my coffee shop, and I was young

One day I also ordered a slice of cake

 

The cheerful waitress asked me how it tasted

I suggested that maybe it was a little bit dry

She grabbed it up and rushed it to the kitchen

She and another waitress and The Sam Himself

 

They took clean forks and tasted and talked about it

They took more forks and tasted and talked again

And appeared to come to a mishpat at last

Sam brought to me what was left of the cake

 

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” he firmly ruled

I took and ate (tho’ it really was a little dry)

On an evil day I left San Diego

I wish I’d stopped to say goodbye to Kosher Sam’s