Saint Vincent Ferrer and I Go Fishing in a Toilet Tank - weak doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Saint Vincent Ferrer and I Go Fishing in a Toilet Tank

 

 

And the master-salesman asked of him and me:

Is the flapper-valve, yea, verily, two inches or three?

 

-not exactly according to Ultimate Guide: Plumbing, Creative Homeowner, 2021

 

 

Toilet bowls are fascinating to dogs and cats

Like watering holes on the Serengeti plains

Their cousins hunt among the desert flats

In the seasons between sweet nourishing rains

 

Strange noises in the dark…

 

But when the water gushes both day and night

St. Vincent and I must pray and think and work

To work this ceramic water-hole aright

For Luna and Pushkin to hunt and lurk

 

The animals watch impatiently…

 

Our labors at last are proven to be blest

As water flows like a smooth anapest!

A Sidewalk Table at Pouline's - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Sidewalk Table at Pouline’s

 

V: Monsieur…

 

R:                     Oui?

 

V:                              Your life has no meaning

 

Please let it have no meaning somewhere else

 

R: But my coffee, my croissant…

 

V:                                                    Oui, you have paid

 

And have left the perfect tip. The afternoon

 

Is slow and there are certainly plenty of tables

 

Your appearance and demeanor are parfait but…”

 

R: Oui?

 

V:             You have sat here ten minutes into the time

 

At which you commenced to appear desperate.

 

R: But how?

 

V:                If you must ask then you are desperate

You have not been accepted into the mysteries

And never can be. You have been caught out

Please dispose of your Mont Blanc pen

 

Your embossed note cards, your important papers,

And your leather portfolio crafted in understated elegance,

And go deliver groceries or wash cars.

 

R: Does it really show?

 

V:                It’s as if you

Were taking a selfie

At Shakespeare & Co

 

R: Then all is existential despair

 

V:                Oui, former monsieur

Tell Me About Your Day - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Tell Me About Your Day

 

The evening air is cool – let’s sit outside in the dusk

Tell me about your day, your work, your friends

I like your friends; they write such lovely verse -

Nothing as nearly good as yours, of course!

 

The evening air is cool

 

I enjoyed breakfast with my friends, our weekly outing

We talked of our children and our hopes for them

Later I worked at chores in the garden and house

And read new lines from my favorite poet

 

The evening air is cool

 

I so enjoy talking with you – do I talk too much?

Too little? Just right? You are such fun to listen to!

 

And the evening air is just right

So I Got to Pike's Peak... - short poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Some Adventure!

 

I saw the sunrise glory of Pike’s Peak

From the window of a car, for I was weak –

While morning freed the mountain from fog and gloom

I mostly saw the fluorescents in the emergency room!

 

(Many thanks to Dr. Lam and the other kind and considerate professionals, including the helpful security guard, at UC Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs)

Your Heart as a Tabernacle - short poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Your Heart as a Tabernacle

 

From an idea by Blue Sapphire

 

The heart is a tabernacle upon the Altar

Within it reposes our hopes and dreams

We open it as sacrament, as sacrifice

A gift that in the end is given back to us

Lady Macbeth and a Luna Moth - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Lady Macbeth and a Luna Moth

 

A luna moth is elegant in her green

Like Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

Beautiful and yet somehow sinister

Those wing’ed eyes – they seem to look at us

 

Eyes

 

That measure us for a dagger or a cup

She clings to a lichened brick wall at night

Wings pulsing against that wall, waiting, waiting…

Suddenly wild flutterings as she flees into the dark!

 

Exit, pursued by a cat

Jesus and a Reference to Fowler's Modern English Usage - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Jesus and a Reference to Fowler’s Modern English Usage

 

“But who do you say that I am?”

 

“Whom!” boomed a voice from the back of the room

 

And St. Peter asked of him

 

“A community college graduate, I presume?”

(This is from an old joke by C. S. Lewis or in a book about him: "'Whom,' he said, for he had been to night school.")