Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
This Unit Not Labeled for Retail Sale
You can’t break me apart, she said to me
This unit is not labeled for retail sale
And if you think that you like what you see
You can post your money for the emotional bail
A Christmas candy said “The Unit Not Labeled for Retail Sale” so I had a little fun with that.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the
Colonial Office
The Stray ‘Possum Café
The only comparisons in Western literature might be with the
Romantics or the Beat Generation, but the Russian Silver Age poets outdazzled
them in glamour and intrigue.
-Darran Anderson
We lay our scene not in Saint Petersburg
Where Anna Ahkmatova flirted and rhymed
With Gumilyov, Mandelstam, and Tsvetaeva
Among champagne, cigarettes, tears, and pearls
In the old and storied Stray Dog Café
But in a field on a December night
Where two opossums meet in quest of love
And wrangle in the leaves of intimacy
Poor strays making…art…without any fear
Of execution by the Kremlin Mountaineer
Saint Petersburg’s Stray Dog Café was a matrix for art, music, dance, and poetry from imperial Russia to the Soviet horror, and thence into the world. It almost serves as a sort of hinge between the 19th century and the 20th. Please read Darran Anderson’s professional and thus accessible article in City Journal: Anna Akhmatova’s Bravery.
I
am having fun with intruding ‘possums among the Silver Age poets, but as for
them, yes, they are essential. Their brilliance still shines for us and
influences what we write even if we are unaware of them – and for that most of
them were murdered by the mad tyranny of Communism.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
So This is the New Year
The road goes ever on and on…
-from at least three variations of a song in The Lord of the Rings
About this new year – it doesn’t look so new
A metaphorical kick of the tires suggests
It’s been down many roads before
But then, so have we
About this new year – it doesn’t look so new
But the first sunlight in the bare oak trees
And upon last summer’s ground-shoaling leaves
Lead me to pull on my boots and step outside
Frost, sky, sunlight, cardinals, squirrels, life
About this new year – it looks pretty good now
Lawrence Hall, HSG
The Last American
Westclox Baby Ben
(Maybe)
It ticked into my heart at the Goodwill store
Two dollars’ worth of Americana
A charmer in a battered metal shell
Hiding behind a tired plastic face
The tick, the tock, the talk of Peru, Illinois
The clock that woke America each dawn
For work and study, and to meet the Chicago train
For a century until time ran out
It clicks and clanks and ticks and tocks and talks
All-day dutiful hands, a jangling bell -
How long will this old clock last?
Only time will tell
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Hanukkah is a Light That Always Gets In
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Eight candles of the mind, then, of the soul
In a time of hooded pursuivants
Seeking for truth so that it might be suppressed
Seeking for light that it might be extinguished
There mustn’t be any candles, then, in the windows now
In this Abomination of Desolation
Where wrapped in reptilian rags from Amazon
Sullen illiterates screw their eyes against the light
If you are somewhat broken, read from the scroll
Beneath the lights of Hanukkah
Eight candles of the mind and of the soul
Note on the quotation: Babblings on the InterGossip led me to verify the above quote, which is from the poem “Anthem” published in Leonard Cohen, ed. Robert Faggen, Everyman’s Pocket Poetry series.
Lawrence Hall, HSG
A Porch of Worms on
the Feast of St. Stephen
These winter squalls are almost springtime rains
Warm days, cool nights, and windblown showers at dawn
And on the porch appear some curious stains
Dark squirming squiggles progressing up from the lawn
Up from the lawn, up from their earthen beds
In desperate trails of iridescent slime
As peristaltic tubes with wavery heads
Rhythmically marking out their march in time
But all too brief their escape, alas -
A feast for robins who will not let them pass
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Did You Enjoy Your
Christmas?
Christmas Night
That merry little Christmas that they sing about –
Did you open your gifts around a tree
Tinsel and ornaments and a brilliant star
Pajamas and cocoa and merriment
Did you enjoy a dinner with someone special
Or with happy children and a few friends
Then coffee and cake and quiet memories
Everyone free from telescreens and devices
And now with a fire and soft candlelight
Is this another gentle silent night?
I hope it is so, dear friend
