Landing at Port aux Basques - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Landing at Port aux Basques

 

 

“He was faithful and daft to me”

 

-as Marc Antony did not say

 

 

We were approaching Newfoundland aboard the old Caribou

I climbed up on deck in the icy, clear dawn

A mysterious woman in a Burberry coat

Smoked cigarettes in the lee of a ventilator

 (and ignored me)

 

In the cold I surveyed the brown and white coast

And reported back to Dan that there was snow ashore

“You’re daft,” he replied, “those are just little houses.”

But there was snow indeed on Port aux Basques

 

We rattled Dan’s CRV up Highway 1

          (driving around a dead moose in the road)

On daft adventures all the way to Saint John’s

 

Dan is the only one who has ever called me daft; indeed, except in the movies I have never heard anyone else use the term.

The Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast Down at the Post Office - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

The Flag and the Fourth Amendment flown at Half-Mast

Down at the Post Office

 

 

“VEHICLES AND THEIR CONTENTS ARE SUBJECT TO INSPECTION WHEN ENTERING, LEAVING, OR WHILE PARKED WITHIN THIS RESTRICTED AREA. ENTERING INTO THIS AREA CONSTITUTES CONSENT TO THE INSPECTION. (39 C. F. R. PART 232.1(b)(2)”

 

-a new sign screwed to the wall at my rural post office

 

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

As it often is for weeks at a time, it seems

A moment in history? A loss? A death?

Maybe another Texas senator or bird dog? ¹

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today

Some guy down the street flew it upside down

Protesting or surrendering or not paying attention

To the latest crisis in our decaying republic

 

The flag was flown at half-mast again today -

I wonder if now it will always be that way

 

 

¹ A reference to a line in True Grit

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Life as a Noisy Waiting Room

 

 

“This waiting room of a world.”

 

-fictional line by the character of C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands

 

 

How much of life is passed in waiting for others

To do what they promised they would do:

The mechanic who promised to call when the car was ready

The computer that promised your package on Monday

 

The lawn service that promised to mow on Tuesday

The friend who promised to meet you on Wednesday

The pharmacist who promised your meds for Thursday

The doctor’s appointment promised for nine o’clock Friday

 

The cable service that promised repairs by Saturday

Oh, sure, all those promises -

They simply went away!

A Parasol Mushroom - senryu, possible a haiku

 

 

A Parasol Mushroom

 

A tiny white house

Appears on the lawn at dawn

But where is the toad?

 

 

To a child a mushroom is a toadstool. I have never seen a toad resting on or sheltering beneath a toadstool, but I keep looking. I imagine it would be rather like Bilbo Baggins, smoking a pipe and reading its morning letters.

 

 

What Time is it in Wal-Mart? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

What Time is it in Wal-Mart?

 

 

                                                 And call to children in the yard

                                                 “What century is it outside?”

 

-Pasternak, “About These Poems”

 

 

My daughter gave me a nifty Apple watch

But years have passed; it mostly spends its time

On the charger, dreaming of happier hours

When minutes joyfully leaped over each other

 

I found my dusty Timex in a dusty drawer

$8.00 at Wal-Mart a long time ago

          (the watch, not the drawer)

I fitted it with a new battery (I can do stuff)

Its sweep hand leaps over its painted dial

 

Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Kreeft, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, and a Driveway Alarm

 

 

Peter Kreeft: The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written:

The Wisdom of the Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov

 

 

I was yawning over my book late at night

When the driveway alarm squawked unimaginatively

In its mechanical voice, “DRIVEWAY ALERT!”

With guard-dachshund and flashlight I addressed the alert

 

But there was nothing, only the wind and damp

Perhaps a squirrel had triggered the alarm

Which is silly, because squirrels don’t drive

And shouldn’t be wandering around in the lane

 

I am yawning over my book again -

What are you reading at bedtime just now?

In Monastic Solitude - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

In Monastic Solitude

 

In monastic solitude I sat

Among the lilting liturgy of the leaves

Vocalizing no prayers, thinking no thoughts

Only trying to empty my poor mind

 

And listen to the Hymn of the Universe

The blessings of bees, the chantings of cicadas

The singing Silence of the spring-ing sky -

But in all of this I was unsuccessful

 

And that’s okay

 

My mind is too cluttered to pause and to be

 

But still, you see

 

I thought I heard You sighing in the wind