The Apex Predator - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Apex Predator

 

They…

Have watched me rise from the darkness of war

Dripping with my enemies’ blood

 

-Beowulf, trans. Raffel, lines 151-153

 

 

The apex predator feeds upon the flesh

Of those who wanted desperately to live

To hew and chew and gnaw and digest and mesh

With those who died with no desire to forgive

 

The apex predator feeds while others starve

The sentient flee from him in grievous fear

But he always wins, his victims then to carve

In bloody fields and haunted forests drear

 

War ends violently in drang und sturm

And the apex predator is obviously

                                                          The Worm

We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time - poem about the guy who bit the head off a bat

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time

 

“Our family privacy” – people keep saying that

A friend came over and mowed my rankling lawn

Because finding a lawnmower mechanic these days

Is like searching for a unicorn in a shopping mall

 

Their family privacy – I’m blessed with friends

But lawnmower mechanics seem to be extinct

The temp today was 98 at noon

Nobody chants “Learn. To. Code.” anymore

 

Their family privacy – chicken pot pies

Are on sale at Brookshire’s for 88 cents

I’ll mail all those bills this afternoon

That’s a really nice shirt you’re wearing today

 

Their family privacy – a middle-aged woman

Sheds tears upon an altar of VHS tapes

 

In privacy

A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body - yes, a 5-7-5, unworthy of a senryu

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body

 

I listen to my body

All day, all night (Mary Ann)

If I eat too much

Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar - rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar

 

Piso mojado en Tejas y Colorado

Does not exactly trip from my English tongue

Cuidado that floor in El Dorado

For piso sounds slippily close to dung!

Loose Vowels - not really a poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Loose Vowels

 

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y – why?

(Asking for a dipthong)

The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars

 

Our new pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars

At Mass last week he informally presented

This suggestion: a choir. And guitars

But peace will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -

Guitars in church are why ear plugs were invented

Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam - poem

  

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam

 

 

And the sunlight clasps the earth

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

 

-Shelly, “Love’s Philosophy”

 

 

A kiss is just a kiss, as Dooley Wilson sang

In a Casablanca that never was

A kiss to give one’s life a bit of tang

A kiss to set a lonely heart abuzz

 

But great unwashed mobs stacked in their masses

Close-looped in a failed sub-culture of dust

Metal in their noses and tattoos on their asses

Can never find truth without a trace of trust

 

For love can never depend upon

The vigilante cruelty of a jumbo-tron

 

 

Tech company Astronomer launches investigation into 'kiss cam' moment at Coldplay concert - ABC News