Thursday, October 10, 2024

One Does Not Pre-Imagine Pre-Edward R. Murrow Pre-Babbling - not exactly a poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

One Does Not Pre-Imagine Pre-Edward R. Murrow Pre-Babbling

 

A Lesson in Clear Writing for Journalists

 

Hunker down, swath of destruction, hunker down, write your Social Security number on your arm, hunker down, eerie, hunker down, monster, hunker down, time ticking down / away, hunker down, pre-positioned, hunker down, pre-planned, hunker down, pre-need (and maybe even pre-hunker down), hunker down, pre-deployed, hunker down, spooky (and possibly pre-spooky), hunker down, snapped like matchsticks (“Daddy, what’s a matchstick?”), hunker down, doomed paradise, hunker down, paradise lost, hunker down, lost paradise, hunker down, apocalypse, hunker down, biblical, hunker down, storm of the century (again?), hunker down, doomed, hunker down, doomed, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, pummeled, hunker down, power lines brightly bursting, hunker down, eerie calm, hunker down, eerie quiet, hunker down, birds chirping, hunker down, unexpected sparks, hunker down, hazards are unfolding, hunker down, street lamps waver, hunker down, one-two punch, hunker down, what we know, hunker down, hunker down, hunker down

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

A Treatise on the Burrowing Habits of Dachshunds - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Treatise on the Burrowing Habits of Dachshunds

 

A dachshund will burrow under the garden fence

For every dachshund thinks she is a wolf

A fearsome apex predator with a squeaky toy -

This is in the nature of dachshunds

 

A dachshund will burrow into your tightly-closed hand

Nosing out the doggie treat you have hidden there

A fearsome apex predator and omnivore -

This is in the nature of dachshunds

 

A dachshund bill burrow into your end-of-day lap

Watching both the television and the cats

A fearsome apex predator drooling on your book -

This is in the nature of dachshunds

 

A dachshund will burrow, borrow, beg, and bark

And in her foreshadowing of that better World to come

A dachshund will burrow deeply into your heart -

And love you forever

 

This is in the nature of dachshunds

 

And of you

Friday, October 4, 2024

Falling Into Truth - poem

  

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

                                               Falling Into Truth

 

The fall of October’s leaves is nothing new

Except that it is – this leaf never fell before

And we were never here to watch this leaf

Because we and the leaf were somewhere else

 

Except that we were, we are, we will be

A little leaf, each of us, springtime-new

Then dancing merrily the summer through

Now floating gently into a winter’s sleep

 

A coverlet soft, a hymn, a night-light moon

Sleep - sleep – another spring is coming soon

Thursday, October 3, 2024

WE ARE AMERICANS! We Buy Toilet Paper and Fight! Fight! Fight! - a sort-of poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Dock Workers’ Strike – BUY TOILET PAPER!

 

WE ARE AMERICANS!

 

Whenever threatened by enemies furry or domestic

By hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, storms

By shortages of food, water, and electric power

By aliens stalking us and eating our cats

By famine, fire, dispossession, revolution

 

WE BUY TOILET PAPER! WE ARE AMERICANS!

 

We are armed with our AK-16s and AR – 47s

Uniformed in our Wal-Mart camo from China

Size 89XXXXL-Lard-ass

And we will by God stand together as ONE -

And fight each other to the death for toilet paper!

 

Oh, and do you know Jesus?

Saturday, September 28, 2024

His Check Engine Light is On - a weak excuse for a poem but there's a nice fresh metaphor

 


Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

His Check Engine Light is On

 

He came by today, a friend from long ago

“I haven’t seen you in a hamster’s age.”

“Yep, too long.”

“How ya doin’?”

“Good enough for government service.”

“Wanna beer?

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“Kids all doin’ good?”

“Yeah; real proud of ‘em. All grown and gone. Yours?”

“Oh, yeah, doin’ doin’ just fine.”

“Heard you was in th’ hospital last year.”

“Yep, made almost about three months of of it.”

“Too much fun.”

“Yep.”

“At our age…”

“Yep.”

“Kids these days.”

“Yep.”

“You okay now?”

“Better’n I deserve. You?”

“Well, you know, my Check Engine light’s on.”

 

 

Fresh metaphors are scarcer than crocodile feathers. Thanks, Chris.

Meditation and Merriment in Early Autumn - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Meditation and Merriment in Early Autumn

 

     We cannot stay young and strong for long -

     Both of us have grey hair at the temples

 

-Du Fu, “To the Recluse Wei the Eighth”

 

After summer rains the earth is still green

In the cooling breeze oak leaves dance happily

Old lawn chairs are the humble chairs of poets

Old lawn chairs are the glorious thrones of kings

 

The seasons remind us of our mortality

We sit and ponder the mysteries of change

We will die, to be replaced by other poets

Who will sit and ponder the mysteries of change

 

And still, whatever these deep thoughts betoken -

I need to mow, but the lawn mower is broken

 

 

Three Hundred Tang Poems

Translated by Peter Harris

London: Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2009

A Colonial Project - poem

  Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com Dispatches for the Colonial Office   A Colonial Project   Am I a victim of   A Colonial P...