Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware Coffee Cup - an elegy

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Boeing, Studebaker, John Deere, and my Tupperware™ Coffee Cup

 

 

“The days are gone…

When wonderful things were worked among them”

 

-The Seafarer, trans. Burton Raffel

 

 

My Tupperware coffee cup is as a chalice

With which I salute the beginning of each day

Cool, colorful, comforting craftsmanship

An honest, utilitarian work of art

 

We are told such things will be no more

“Made in USA” is “Factorum Romae”

Younger nations will find us camping among the ruins

Of works and arts we no longer comprehend

 

A colonial soldier might note that once we were a great people

His colonel will reply, “Tosh! They’re simple savages.”

 

Smart*ss Watch - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Smart*ss Watch

 

It clings to my wrist like a faithless friend

Good fun to pal around when we met

But getting just a little tiresome with time

Unreliable in his many promises

 

He fails to make the appointments that we set

Or note the weather or mark activities

I dunno; maybe he’s making time with that Timex

My long-time steady who could sure tick my tock

 

Sweet face, delicate hands - she’d been around, but

Maybe I was wrong – I think I’ll dial her

On Reading a Poem by Du Mu - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

On Reading a Poem by Du Mu

 

Everything is far away

China is ever so far away

The dynasties are far away

A golden dragon might fly us there

 

The moon is across the river

The blue-black river in the mist

A fishing boat is tied to the gate

The water-gate of our inn

 

What do they mean, the moon and boat?

Maybe the moon and the boat mean nothing

They simply are; they are themselves

Or perhaps we mean the moon and boat

 

Because of Du Mu and his words

The moon and the boat are forever

The blue-black river is forever

In reading of them so are we

 

 

“A Night at the Inn While Travelling”

Three Hundred Tang Poems

Translated by Peter Harris

London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009

Hobbit Day - short poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Hobbit Day

 

22 September

 

I read that today is Hobbit Day

On the autumn equinox every year

I was both delighted and surprised

Even though in our shared adventures, dear friends,

 

Every day is Hobbit Day

I first read The Hobbit as a discarded paperback at the Station Hospital in Da Nang.

Such Men Will Someday Live in Palaces - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Such Men Will Someday Live in Palaces

 

Cf. Saint Matthew 11

 

I am only a visitor here, unqualified to speak

Of the incessant sufferings of men of God

Who may not go beyond the compassing wire

To see a reed shaken with the wind

 

For they sometimes are wind-struck reeds themselves

Planted for a time in this desert of penance

But they are men, and do not easily shake -

When the bitter wind blows they stand up straight

 

They do not raise their fists against the wind

But rather their hearts in manly strength and faith

 

Such men will someday live in palaces

At Rao's Bakery - Coffee, Croissants, Children, and the Constitution - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

At Rao’s Bakery - Coffee, Croissants, Children, and the Constitution

 

At dawn - hot coffee and a fresh croissant

A family grouping at the table next

And a little child whispering to her mother

The Preamble to the Constitution

 

I turned and said, “Oh, I want to hear that again”

Proudly the little girl stood beside her mom

And in a strong, clear voice began: “We the People…”

 

 

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 

 

I can’t do that anymore. Can you?

 

The child certainly earned an ‘A’ today

This coffee / croissant / American day

A Road Crew Singing "Red, Red Wine" - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Road Crew Singing “Red, Red Wine”

 

A road crew of only two riding with the fill

In the bed of a county pickup truck

Patching potholes in the late summer heat

Singing “Red, Red Wine” over and over

 

“Red, Red, Wine”

 

One takes off his sweat-soaked striped shirt

A voice from the cab tells him to put it back on

They stop and take shovels and out they leap

To shovel with the shovels fill into holes

 

“Red, Red Wine”

 

They sing those three words over and over

The only words of that song they know

 

“Red, Red Wine.”

 

On a road cratered with holes and emptied dreams