A Tom Bombadil Day - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Tom Bombadil Day

 

 

                                          “How bright your garden looks!”

 

-Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings, Book I

 

 

Tomato seedlings from the hardware store

Happy little things, six of ‘em to a pack

I sing to them as I drive them home

They seem amused: I am no Tom Bombadil!

 

I sing to them more nonsense songs

(If no sniffy old Lobelias are listening)

As I gently, gently transfer them

With a pat and a prayer into the earth

 

And I sing to them; you will understand

For you too have lived in the dear old Shire

Reality Will See You Now - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

                                            Reality Will See You Now

 

I am a student of medical waiting rooms

The same Motel 6 paintings and decor

Receptionists giggling behind rippled glass

About weekends and boyfriends and inadequate husbands

 

Patients waiting as patiently as Russians

Tattoos and ball-caps lined up in plastic-chairs

Clutching bills and lab reports in nervous hands

Or greasy, year-old copies of Reader’s Digest

 

Or bending over their MePhones in a servile bow -

“Mr. Hall? The doctor will see you now…”

A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life - a sort-of poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life

 

Optometrist 17 March 0845 Netgear DirecTV Viasat Verizon Spectrum Xumo? Xuumo? Carlos 1775 1812 PSA Eliot Cohen BRING PLANTS UNDER COVER computer paper brekker c Max 0800 Tuesday find quote from Doctor Zhivago When is Gonculator Day? Intek 10.5 “Did civilians write poetry back in the day?” Subaru password username amazon apple Christus patient portal HUMMINGBIRDS! Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund visitation Sat 5-7 funeral Sun 2 1030 St. Elizabeth’s Refresh+ or Lumify water co-op board meeting Kirk Santiago de Compostella breakfast singles orange juice cheese creamer cat food detergent pods taco shells 0900 dentist Epiphany prison at 1700 cancel DirecTV cancel Viasat Mary Oliver OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE Q EDITION LONESOME DOVE as DIGENES AKRITAS life is the meaning of what? Jaw-dropping breaking silence breaking cover breaking bombshells shocking bombshells the shell of a bomb the Alien and Sedition Acts and Frodo

 

Nazis wear ball caps

 

The building has left Elvis

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