The Golden Gate of Jerusalem - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Golden Gate of Jerusalem

 

The Gate of Repentance

 

The Golden Gate captures the evening moon

Which shines upon the road a convict walked

At the rubbled base a snake pursues a rat

          a very troubled rat

While Roman squaddies stand the middle watch

 

The Gate of Mercy

 

The Golden Gate captures the morning sun

Whence the Messiah comes, or comes again

He is the Gate Himself, the Golden Gate

He comes from the Mount of Olives in golden light

 

The Golden Gate has been blocked for centuries -

This will not always be so

 

A Nation of Couch Schlubs Blames the Chinese Communists - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Nation of Couch Schlubs Blames the Chinese Communists

 

A question may be brought about ownership

And the turgid content of the daily trawl

But even before the question of censorship

          One must ask:

Why is anyone on TikTok at all?

The Great Gate of Kiev - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Great Gate of Kiev

 

Mussorgsky’s The Great Gate of Kiev is no hymn to the people of Ukraine (telegraph.co.uk)

 

If there was never a Great Gate of Kiev

Except in Mussorgy’s triumphal hymn

There ought to have been, and there will be some day

Trophied with captured Putinista flags

 

For now

 

Wherever a Ukrainian enters Kiev

By rail or bus, or in worn-out army boots

He is the Gate, the Knight’s Gate, the Golden gate

With a chapel and the most wonderful bells

 

And the pictures at an exhibition

Will be ikons of Ukrainian martyrs

Marcus Aurelius Down at the Auto Repair - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Marcus Aurelius Down at the Auto Repair

 

Marcus Aurelius down at the auto repair –

Now there’s an image, him being an emperor and all

One of those philosophers who think about stuff

Who ask questions and read and write and stuff

 

If a man complains about the cost of new tires:

          Meditations V.9 – “Be not unhappy, or discouraged…”

And

          II.4 – “Remember how long you have been putting off these things…”

 

If a warranty has expired:

          VI.53 – “Accustom yourself to listen carefully…”

And

          VII.24 – “A scowling look is quite unnatural.”

 

If the engine is blown:

          X.33 – “Now it is not given to a cylinder to move everywhere…”

And

          VII.54 – “…it is in your power to accept…your present condition…”

 

 

And with that, Marcus steps outside for a cigarette.

 

 

(Many quotations attributed to Marcus Aurelius are bogus; these have been verified.)

Kirbyville Automotive and a Roman Philosopher

 On his large, electrical sign at Kirbyville Automotive my friend Shannon Davis posted this quote from Marcus Aurelius:

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

One does not imagine that quotations from a Roman philosopher and emperor are commonly found on roadside advertising in East Texas.

Update: Apparently Marcus Aurelius did not say this at all.  This is just another misquote circling around on the InterGossip and believed by people like me who tend to trust maybe a little too much.

But I wish the man had said it anyway.

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