Saturday, August 17, 2024
Where do Sunflowers go in August? - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Where do Sunflowers go in August?
May our love for the Sun, the will of
God, be as strong as the sunflower’s…
-attributed to St. John of Tobolsk
With the mower I took the
sunflowers down
The withered remnants,
stalks and heads and seeds
Those few remaining seeds
rejected by the birds
For reasons of their own
With the mower I circled
‘round and round
Building a thickish thatch
as a sort of nest
For seeds in anticipation of
autumn
The seasons know their own
With the mower I saw high summer
gone
I mowed – or had I mown?
Thursday, August 15, 2024
The Gravitas of Our Vice-Presidential Candidates - a poem, but not a very good one
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Gravitas of Our Vice-Presidential Candidates
In the end it was the worst speaker of the lot who received the most applause. People made no effort to follow him and merely roared approval at his every word…
Doctor Zhivago, p. 36
Like high school boys behind the old school gym
In micturic dispute about distance and size
Two men exchange puerile scurrilities
A pair of puffed-up potty-mouthed posers
They know all about army guns ‘n’ stuff
Each hero manque’ stuffier than the other
About their ranks and tanks and thousand-yard-stares
And whose AR is the bigger one
Like high school boys behind the old school gym –
And why must we the people put up with them?
Monday, August 12, 2024
Four Fresh Limes - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Four Fresh Limes
When my neighbor left four
fresh limes at my door
The universe did not hold
its breath
Camouflage Caps for Good Comrades - inferior doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Camouflage Caps for Good Comrades
The Presidency Really is For Sale
No bibles with the words of Roosevelt in red
Cleveland was above merchandising (perhaps)
There was never a Kennedy bobblehead
Lincoln never peddled tatty baseball caps
But now:
A Trumpy sippy-cup sounds about right
Let’s pray with autographed J.D. rosaries
Uncle Fester as G. I. Joe ready to fight
And personalized Kamala wind-up teethies
A rueful conclusion:
Few remember when our Presidency
Was a public trust of grace and dignity
Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is Inappropriate - doggerel
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Comparing our Secret Service with Barney Fife is
Inappropriate
Because we love and respect Deputy
Fife
In art, incompetence can
have a certain charm
But in stupid men with
guns the charm is lacking
Our agents can’t even keep
themselves from harm
Their greatest skills are
in shacking and slacking
Colombian floozies and
slanting roofs
Unman the best of them; they
lose their guns
They lose laptops, but
never their 90-proof
And break into private
property for poopy runs
To them a President
entrusts his life –
He’d surely be safer with
Deputy Barney Fife
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets - poem
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Night of the Murdered Jewish Poets
12 August 1952
When a tyrant has completed his catalogue of hate
Sent thousands to the noose and millions to the pyre
He ponders fresh murders as he sits up late
Whom else can he summon to his satanic fire?
There is agony in his soul – someone must pay
Those scribblers of verse – now there is treason
Another list, a list, without delay!
Poets to the Lubyanka – I need no reason!
I listen, I hear my night-whispering muse:
“Death is upon you, death, but first, but first…
the Jews.”
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