A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Pharmacy Aisle Marked INDEPENDENT LIVING

 

“We shall never surrender”

 

-Churchill, 1940

 

Bed and bath grip bars, universal crutches

Quadrupedal crutch tips, raised toilet seats

Cleaning wipes, reaching tools, bedside commodes

Walking sticks (but not one with an Elvis theme)

 

Sitz baths and universal urinals

Transport chairs, folding walkers, rolling walkers

Commode liner bags, inflatable cushions

Walker ski glides, walker tennis balls

 

None of this is depressing; it is inspiring:

“We shall never surrender”

Cataract Surgery (I'll keep an eye out for you) - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Cataract Surgery (I’ll Keep an Eye Out for You)

 

Cataract surgery, the left eye today

Which means I that while I can see through the right

The left side of the world is an iridescent pinkish blue

Through which only a few shapes can be perceived

 

And that’s fine (altho’ I keep tapping the wrong keys)

Sometimes we should look at the world differently

Think of Ransom on Lewis’ Malacandra

Or John Carter on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars

 

When you can see through only one lonely eye

Our home planet too is strange and wild

Groooving in Area 52 - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Grooving in Area 52

 

Maybe…

 

The Beatles got it wrong back-then-ago

When groovy discs through grooves grooved out our songs -

For we now groove in an Area 52

Not in a groovy screen-door submarine  

 

Certainly…

 

We groove and grok in bondage behind chain links

Where elderly men fondle their guitars

And middle-aged women dressed as majorettes

Jiggle duct tape and weight-loss medications

 

Maybe…

 

The Beatles grooved it right ago-back-then -

Old grooves, dull mediocrity still lock us in

A Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

A Cranky Little old Man Wearing a Bandage on His Forehead and Yelling at His Wife and Passersby While Standing in Line at the Wal-Mart Pharmacy Which Opened Five Minutes Late

 

“It’s crap, I tell you; it’s just crap! Hey, you bump me again and I’m going to whip your /ss! Why don’t these people walk in that other aisle!? Can’t they see that there’s a line in this aisle!? What’s that?  That’s just crap; I told you that! Hey! Why’re you people late!? I don’t want to sit down don’t tell me to sit down I don’t want to sit down this is all bullsh/t!  Hey! You people need to walk over there! No, I don’t want to settle down don’t tell me to settle down if these people had shown up for work on time they could have had our stuff ready by now but not they just come in a half hour late and they don’t care! HEY! Why aren’t these people on time I got things to do I need my stuff but they don’t care don’t walk so close to me go walk in that other aisle why are all these people here why isn’t this line moving I think that guy’s trying to sneak in no he’s at the wrong window! HEY! That’s the wrong window the line’s over here you won’t get no help there…!”

 

The bandage on his head needed no explanation.

Memorial Day: This Bloody Field - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

                                        Memorial Day: This Bloody Field

 

That we may wander o’er this bloody field

To book our dead, and then to bury them

 

-Henry V, IV.vii.75-76

 

Some say this day began

                   As a memorial to the Confederate dead

Some say this day began

                   As a memorial to the Union dead

We only know that now it is a memorial for those

Who died for causes far beyond themselves

 

The glory of our soldiers is in the orphans they fed

The huts they helped repair, the ponchos they gave

To the shivering cold, reassurance to the terrified

Poor comforts to the bombed-out and the dying

 

The glory of our soldiers

Is not in some strident Man of Destiny

Bellowing fancy words from a prompter screen

But in hungry men who gave their C-rats away

 

Before they died in some damned bloody ditch

 

In their honor, then

 

Let us quietly work in causes beyond ourselves

And risk being made into sacraments

Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight - rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Draining the Blood of Humans at Twilight

 

A powerful monster //  living down

in the darkness growled // in pain…

-Beowulf, Burton Raffel translation

 

In the sinister dusk // they seek our blood

A ghastly enemy // of disgusting thirst

Stealing up from the swamp // and primordial mud –

Well, we stole their habitat // – the mosquitoes were here first!

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate - rhyming couplet

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump Schedule a Debate

 

“No, sir, I do not bite my dentures at you, sir; but I bite my dentures, sir.” 

-as a brawler in Romeo and Juliet I.i.57 does not say

 

Neither man is a coherent talker -

This might end as combat by walker