Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Do You Miss Your Trapper-Keeper?
This is the middle of June
so why
Haven’t the back-to-school
sales begun?
This year’s cooler than
cool styles
Have been stored in
shipping containers
For months or years on
Indonesian docks
Or in warehouses in Long
Beach
The teeny-boppers who
modelled those clothes
Might be in graduate
school by now
If school were as cool as
the ads
Taylor Swift would be the
principal
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Old and Unselected Poems
Why do publishers entitle volumes of verse
New and Selected Poems?
Is it the editors’ lack of imagination?
Or is it some sort of secular rubric
An inky “We’ve always done it that way?”
When you finish writing a poem it is new
It didn’t exist before you, and now it does
And someone who reads your poem has selected it
It wasn’t selected until someone picked it up
Every poem is forever new and selected
And to the joy of your friends, so are you
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Somewhere in New Mexico I Tipped a Waitress 25%
NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself.
-Walt Whitman
On a cool autumn morning
in New Mexico
A greasy spoon along the
interstate
Walt Whitman and I enjoyed
breakfast together
Bacon and eggs, hash
browns, coffee and toast
And it was very good – no heaves
of gas
But Whitman found an
errand in some other soul
And sang a different self
to California
McKuen rode with me the rest
of the way
Breakfast was ninety-five
cents; I added a quarter
The waitress was happy,
and so were we all
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Mockingbirds at Dusk in a Time of War
They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
Their leaf-rich oak could be their arena
Or it might serve them as their bower of bliss
For love in this magnolia-scented dusk
They’re still at it, whatever their “it” might be
But breaking off to blitz the subtle cat
Sneaking about in quest of a bunny or squirrel
But who from feathered fury must now retreat
They might be fighting; they might be he-ing and she-ing
But then
They might be mocking the rest of us
Bower of bliss – cf. Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Petite Bourgeois, Personal, and Self-Indulgent
I used to admire your poetry. I shouldn't admire it now. I
should find it
absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights,
affections...
it's suddenly trivial now.
-Strelnikov to Yuri in Doctor
Zhivago (film)
In the evenings I sit on
my summer lawn
Slouched in an old,
much-painted metal chair
That symbol of petite-bourgeois
respectability
With a little table for my
drink, my pipe, my book
(The cat pads by on
errands of his own)
At dusk a friend or two might
amble along
And join me for a glass, a
smoke, a talk
We casually swat at
mosquitoes and rumors
And argue about Doctor
Zhivago and Lonesome Dove
(A fast-diving mockingbird
mocks the cat)
In a fallen world of chaos
and suffering
With fear of revolution in
the air
Is it right to indulge ourselves
with such trifles
As sitting and talking
with old friends in the twilight?
Oh, yes
(The cat and the
mockingbird continue their game)
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Little Children
are Much Like Dachshund Puppies
With wildly scattered toys the lawn is messed -
Little children came to visit – O how we are blessed!
Lawrence Hall HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
From Shakespeare: My Spirit is Thine, the Better Part of Me
Cf. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 74
No kinsman could offer comfort there,
To a soul left drowning in desolation.
-“The Seafarer,” trans. Burton Raffel
When we die, our little things disappear:
Hairbrushes and pocketknives, fountain pens
Car keys, spare change, books, clothes, unopened mail
A souvenir coffee cup from Canada
An old uniform, a pistol from the war
A clock, a crucifix, Topsider shoes
Family pictures, a graduation ring
A magnifying glass, a radio
Bits and bobs, all sorts of trivial stuff
And a poem for you – it’s not enough
