William Ernest Henley Never Owned a Snapper Lawnmower - doggerel

 Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

William Ernest Henley Never Owned a Snapper Lawnmower

 

Unsparkus

 

Out of the oil that covers me

          Black as the pit of a president’s soul

I resent whatever flawed designs may be

          With my unmechanical soul

 

In the fell clutch of a slippery clutch

          I have often winced and cried aloud

Under the bludgeonings of that son-of-a-Dutch

          “I’ll junk this [mess]!” I have avowed

 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

          Looms but the horror of engine-part prices

And yet the promise of a case of cold beers

          Finds me hammering again at these devices

 

It matters not how high the grass

          How charged with prices the hardware store bill

I am going to whip this foul machine’s [self]

          Or bury the [buzzard] in the nearest landfill!

The Curse of the - Dramatic - Dash: poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Curse of the – Dramatic - Dash

 

The dash for – dramatic pause – infests

Almost every – essay – these days

Such errant usages - have become pests

And thoughtful writers - might want to mend - their ways

 

A clear English sentence  - is tight - and terse

A model of - artistic - clarity

But all those pointless - dashes - just make it worse

Compromising its - structural - harmony

 

If in re-writing you find – you’ve placed a dash

Just rip that sucker - out – and toss it in –

                                                          the trash!

That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting - doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting

 

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old man

Booming his gassy voice at every meeting

Whatever the topic he leads the van

Interrupting with his self-obsessed bleating

 

He was a banker, he tells us repeatedly

He knows about finance, more than the treasurer

And he was a cop, too, he yells out heatedly

And arguing the reports gives him much pleasurer

 

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old gent

He doesn’t know Jacques Merde, but he will always vent!

 

(He’s not unlike our current president)

A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer - Senryu (maybe; people argue about senryu and haiku and cuckoo)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer

 

If only the day

Will live up to the promise

Of this golden dawn

Valkyrie Flight of the Lawn Chairs - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Flight of the Lawn Chairs

 

The Lion-Winds of March

 

Wild winds now rise to a Valkyrie’s strength

And dark clouds roar to the hammer of Thor

While lightning traverses the poor earth’s length

As if our Nordic gods have gone to war

 

As if our Nordic gods have gone to war

The walls and windows rattle against the rain

Foul enemies batter against the door

The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain

 

The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain

Have set my old lawn chairs to flying again!

A Ghost Road Through the Marsh - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

A Ghost Road Through the Marsh

 

 

The days are gone

When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;

 

-“The Seafarer”, Burton Raffel translation

 

 

Water ran in rivulets among the weeds

The wind was lowering, the rain had stopped, the sky

Was low and grey over a landscape bleak

With wreckage and windfall from the passing storm

 

An old man slowly worked to clear the road

While the young impatiently hooted and honked

Their displeasure that the world they hadn’t worked

Wasn’t working quite right for them today

 

The old man sometimes spoke with the ghosts of Rome

Who had built and marched their roads until

The egos and angerings of emperors and kings

Abandoned all good work to slow decay

 

The young one-fingered past him among the brome

And disappeared forever into the gloam

Soups as a Medium of Exchange - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Soups as a Medium of Exchange

 

In today’s trading soups were generally down

Although vegetable beef found a brisk trade

Potato soup was bullish in Block D

And each minestrone was five cigarettes

 

The market closed slightly up at evening count

But this could not compensate for the day’s fall

Naked-lady tats are expected to go high this week

Ten soups for an inked image of yo’ mama

 

The morning market will open in this metal hell

When some dumb **** rings that ****ing bell