But Truly Write - poem

  

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

But Truly Write

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 21

 

…poems are gatherings of words, in good order, in simple order, plain and appealing.

 

-Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook, p. 77

 

A line of contemporary prosetry

Is a catalogue of florid structures and worn-out cliches

Pancaked with adverbs and tiresome metaphors

Flung down in a confusion of unconnected gasps

 

If you have something to say, then say it

Then tidy up the lines – like washing your face

With soap and water and a cotton towel

And then admire the sunlit, fresh-air truth

 

Craft your lines of transcendent poetry

As clean sharp-edg’ed truth in well-scrubbed words

County Road 400, an Extension of the County Dump - photograph

 

Shakespeare, Venus, and the Travelling Salesman - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Shakespeare, Venus, and the Travelling Salesman

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 19

 

Dear Will,

 

About your obsession with mortality:

Transitions and death are essentials in life

And we must face the obsequies of ashes or earth

But there are other topics upon which to write

 

Let us not consider funerals today

Let us sit upon the lawn and smoke our pipes

And write about new leaves on ancient oaks

(You’ll pen far better lines; you always do)

 

Today we’ll ignore our own mortality

And tell inappropriate jokes about Venus

          and a travelling salesman

I Will Not Compare You to a Summer's Day - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

I Will Not Compare You to a Summer’s Day

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

 

I will not compare you to a summer’s day

Summer is heat, humidity, and drought

A disapproving sun burning the earth

A dusty, weedy landscape fit only for snakes

 

Instead, you are a perfect autumn day

A day of good old sweaters and leafy walks

Invigorating winds all fresh from the north

And inside, cups of cocoa and a merry fire

 

I will not compare you to a summer’s day

Your autumn is far more lovely and temperate

Time is not a Bloody Tyrant - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Time is not a Bloody Tyrant

 

Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 16

 

Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing

Like bluebonnets, butterflies, and bumblebees

Painted with pencil or pen by a Hand divine

And set in place as a measure of being

 

Time cannot be our enemy; we live along it

And like the ground it stabilizes us in place

And like our eyes it gives us vision to see

Each other in our Spirited nobility

 

Life is not what we take nor what is taken

But what we bring -

Time cannot be a tyrant; it is but a created thing

A Dollar Box of Crayolas - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Dollar Box of Crayolas®™

 

I wanted the biggest box of Crayolas

I had to have the biggest box of Crayolas

I could build worlds with the biggest box of Crayolas

I needed that biggest box of Crayolas!

 

But the wise voice of situational poverty spoke:

“I am not spending a dollar on a box of Crayolas.”

 

The biggest box of Crayolas is now about four dollars

Allowing for inflation, much cheaper than in ‘55

I should go buy the biggest box of Crayolas

Maybe I can find a Big Chief Tablet®™ to go with it

On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines - a pastiche of Shelley

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

On the Happy Occasion of Completing a Wordle in Two Lines

 

(Scribbled with a little help from Shelley)

 

Look upon my Verbs, ye Mighty, and despair!

No more lines remain. Round the decay

Of my online Competition, of vocabulary bare

The lone and level squares stretch far away