Let's Go for Coffee - Grab Your Flak Jacket - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Let’s Go for Coffee - Grab Your Flak Jacket

 

Some give their sons semi-automatics and hate

Instead of family and purpose and love

Instead of guided study and structured faith

Instead of fishing poles and summer afternoons

Your (Famous Name Brand) Credit Card Has Arrived! - an assemblage of corporate techno-babble

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Your New (Famous Name Brand) Credit Card Has Arrived!

 

UserName already taken card

number invalid access code too short

access code already taken last four

digits of your social download the app

link pay save 3 easy ways to activate

scan the QR code with your phone’s camera

error visit MyFamousNameBrand.com/Activate

register your account for consumer center

error error error invalid please say yes or no

I didn’t quite get that call 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX

this call is being monitored for your protection

we didn’t tell anyone that enable

paperless statements set up alerts error

your number is invalid your number is invalid

your number is invalid all our representatives

are busy right now but I could refer you to

our site your number is invalid select

your savings every day earn save save

even more that number cannot be accessed

see your rewards program terms for details

please try again

 

Prisoners Working in the Early Morning Rain - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Prisoners Working in the Early Morning Rain

 

We have all worked in the rain – building fences

Getting up the cows for milking twice a day

Sloshing through the muck to make deliveries

And usually with some choice in the matter

 

Prisoners have choices too – cells or a work detail

In designer costumes with horizontal stripes

Not much of a choice, but the work is needful and good

Picking up the litter of freedom and patching the road

 

Through the wipers I wave. They wave back. Rain -

We have all passed by our fellow man in the rain

Orgiastic Screaming from Below - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Orgiastic Screaming from Below

 

Those who called for Nonsense will find that it comes

 

-C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

 

We have seen Milton’s Pandaemonium

Choreographed on a wide palantir

Fallen angels praising the Great Fallen One

In a High Council of electrified lies

 

Great thunderings of fire and rolling smoke

Issuing from a shiny plastic throne of power

The Great Fallen One framed in Elvis lights

On the floor the lesser ones screaming in ecstasy

 

The Great Fallen One has a plan for us

After all the balloons, too, have fallen

[Allusions to C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings]

My Great Replacement Theory - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

My Great Replacement Theory

 

(or maybe just a lesser replacement theory)

 

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass

Which used to be my job, but they stepped up

And in stepping up they are replacing me

Which is good - I miss my youth but delight in theirs

 

A boy and a girl giggled and whispered

In a language I don’t know except that

Having once been young, I know it well -

A perfect translation was in their eyes

 

All languages come from Old Solar, Lewis says

And to Old Solar will someday return

We must all be replaced someday

For in Creation’s Great Dance that is a step

 

Teenagers opened the doors for me at Mass

And God will open another door afterward

The Mysterious World of Azalea - poem

  Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

The Mysterious World of Azalea

 

If I were a child, this would be a happy place

A hidden leaf-mould world, all darkly green

Summery green beneath the shaded sun

Between the roots, beneath the leaves, alone

 

If I were a child, this would be a happy place

A brand-new comic book, some army men

A Roy Rogers cap pistol without any caps

A plastic Tarzan leaping from branch to branch

 

If I were a child…but alas, I’m not -

I’m pruning back limbs and checking for rot

Who Gives a Fig? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Who Gives a Fig?

 

Some people say that they don’t a give a fig

Which we would never hear from a happy fig tree -

The one at the bottom of the garden gives its fruit

As a blessing to every passing animal

 

Squirrels and rabbits, sparrows and mockingbirds

Share in this sugary summer delight

I speed by on my riding lawnmower

And take a fig myself, only to give it away

 

Some people say that they don’t a give a fig

But I think we need more figs in our lives

 

(As Amanda Holmes did not exactly say)