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

We See Stories as We Walk - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

As I was a-walking One Morning for Pleasure – 

We See Stories as We Walk

 

 

From “Git Along, Little Dogies”

-American, traditional

 

 

The road doesn’t end here, but something did

In the lonely dark, with a cigarette and beer

A can of Miller Lite drained out last night

And a cigarette end, to mark an end

 

An end to love, now faded in the sun

One of each, not two, an empty man

Going home alone, stopping here a while

And wondering why his everything went wrong

 

The road doesn’t end here, but something did -

And maybe there’s a job waiting in Wyoming

Is There a Thai Army Knife? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Is There a Thai Army Knife?

 

 

“A man’s not dressed without his pocketknife”

 

-my father, and surely yours

 

 

At Christmas friends give me Swiss Army Knives

Precisely engineered with all those nifty tools

A most useful adjunct in all men’s lives

For camp and work, this little gadget rules

 

Most days I carry my British Army Knife

Rough and tough; it’ll take it on the chin

The workman’s friend both in peace and strife

(Oh, golly-gosh, the hinge is broken again!)

 

What knife is carried by a Thai G.I.?

Does the Garuda or Elephant adorn its grip?

When guarding a great nation’s land and sky

A soldier needs a blade of fine craftsmanship

 

And in peace, too:

 

It’s true of every worker, all through his life -

A man’s not dressed without his pocketknife

 

(Just ask your father)

He was a Cute Little Boy - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

He was a Cute Little Boy

 

And on occasion he was told no

          “One…”

Sometimes he was yelled no

          “Two…!”

Sometimes he was yelled no again

          “Twooooo…!”

And again

          “Twooooooooo…this time I mean it!”

Sometimes he was screamed no

          “Twwwwwwwwwoooo!  DON’T MAKE ME GO TO THREE!”

And again

          “Threeeeeeeeeeee! I SAID THREE! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!”

But then

          “Okay, one…”

And then    

“Two, if you’ll tell your sister you’re sorry…”

And then

          “OKAY, MISTER, THREE! AND I MEAN IT THIS TIME!”

And then

          (“Honey, don’t you think you’re being a little rough? Now you’ve made him cry.”)

 

And then years later the state superior court told him no

          And they didn’t yell.

          And they didn’t say “one”

          And they didn’t say “two”

          And they didn’t say “three”

What Does an I.C.E. Agent Do on His Day Off? - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

What Does an I.C.E. Agent Do on His Day Off?

 

He might want to pause and meditate

Upon the 4^th and 5^th Amendments (they’re in the file)

And the children he locked behind a barbed-wire gate

 

Or

 

He might prepare his defense for his Nuremburg trial

 

[The pronouns “he” and “his” are gender-neutral. This certificate of pronoun compliance is provided for Dr. Karen, Ms. Grundy, and the alligator-shoe boys at Target corporate.]

A Crude Review of my TV Service Provider - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Crude Review of my TV Service Provider

 

Unplug and re-set, wait for the blue light

And wait and wait – and now the controller’s not right

Our TV service is known as Spectrum

Which, as you know, rhymes with r****m

Ennui at the Gas Pumps - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Ennui at the Gas Pumps

 

You Have Been Approved

 

Please Remove Card Now

 

Select Product

 

Remove Nozzle

 

Begin Fueling

 

Did you bring the fuel ticket?

 

This number is unclear; why is that?

 

The boss wants to see you.

 

Welcome to Another 16-Hour Day

 

Yep

 

Yep

 

Yep

 

(Sigh)

Give a Man a Fish or a Bucket Truck - short poem

  

Give a Man a Fish or a Bucket Truck

 

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day

Give a man a bucket truck and he’ll

Block

  Every blind corner

          Every rural road

          Every lane

          Every driveway

          Every intersection

          Every pasture access

          Every field gate

In the county

The Manifest Destiny of Cooking Shows - short poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Manifest Destiny of Cooking Shows

 

There are no national crises so desperate

Or times so burdened by uncertainty, despair, and fear

That the American people will not rouse themselves

To applaud some guy on TV cooking an omelet

 

And let the people cry, “WHOOO!  WHOOO!”

Turning Over Parts of Poems with a Golden Shovel - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Turning Over Parts of Poems with a Golden Shovel

 

A golden shovel poem                        well, okay, maybe

Or maybe it’s like                              digging up a friend

Rearranging his bits                          rearranging his bones

And exclaiming                                  I have built a new body!

 

Maybe

 

A pile of bones there                          a pile of bones here

Another pile of bones                        a golden shovel

Ars per ars                                        gizzards and gristle

The gravedigger wants                       his shovel back

Her Delicate Wit and Charm - mildly amusing doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Her Delicate Wit and Charm

 

Her conversation and her charming intellect

Delight not like champagne in tingling sips

Bringing forth knowledge, subtle and circumspect –

But rather like Lady Macbeth exercising her whips

Going to Concrete Floor Space Hungry - bitter and artless doggerel

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

                                Going to Concrete Floor Space Hungry

         

Our masters couched in swollen luxury

Are flown in government craft to their private pleasures

While American workers wait in soup line misery

Or sleep on floors because the planes never come

 

We are the abandoned over whom they fly

Sending acronyms to beat us and demand our papers

Those uberklasse gauleiters of the sky -

More champagne, please! Such Great Gatsby capers!

 

Some call them morons, but they’re as smart as can be

It’s just that they don’t give a (bitcoin) for the likes of you and me

A Proposed Coda to the Rite of Baptism

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Proposed Coda to the Rite of Baptism

 

Priest, parents, and godparents say to the child after the blessing:

 

“This is your life, kid – it might sting a little.”

She Sings to Us - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

She Sings to Us

 

Far away she sings

Lady Moon sings to us both

Her soft, silver songs

The Jordan and the Chao Praya - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Jordan and the Chao Praya

 

Rivers of healing

Upon which we send our prayers

And hopes: Loy Kathrong

A Sir Philip Sidney Moment with a Rubbish Bin, but not a Red Rubbish Bin - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Sir Philip Sidney Moment

 

With a Rubbish Bin, but not a Red Rubbish Bin

 

After the passing of afternoon storms

A quiet moment of reflection at dusk

Our Lady Moon shone high above the trees

Sailing among the last sun-glowing clouds

 

I addressed the Moon as the goddess she is

Speaking of dreams, and asked her to pray for me

But suddenly she danced behind the mist

In playful teasing, or in stern disapproval

 

Perhaps one should not address our Lady Moon

While rolling household garbage to the end of the lane

 

 

Sir Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella 31”

William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”