DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE TRANSPARENT DESTRUCTION! - poem (of a sort)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE TRANSPARENT DESTRUCTION!

 

 

Macbeth to the witches:

 

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags.

What is't you do?

 

Witches:                        

 

                                     A deed without a name.

 

-Macbeth IV.i.48-50

 

Bricks, freedom, columns, windows that let in light, old trees that shaded the lawns, dignity, decency, mercy, kindness, self-discipline, honor, precedents ancient and modern, protections, chapters and verses, the majesty of the law, literature, music, art, dining with utensils, logic, education, good taste – all must go DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

 

 

 

Wreckers guide steel treads

                                                       DO NOT TAKE PICTURES         Over fragments of Amendment V

Trenchers rip the

                             heart  DO NOT TAKE PICTURES     out of Amendment IV

 

Excavators heave Amendment XXII

                                                DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

                                                                              into garbage skips

 

Cranes stack bits of Amendment VI against a chain link fence

 

DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

 

And at dusk a fire, a big, beautiful fire, chantings and clenched fists while tokens of the freedom to disagree, freedom from a government religion, freedom to choose one’s own books, and freedom from fear rise as flame and fire and smoke, and The People wave their made-in-China gift-shop bibles with the words of Our Leader printed in red and sing along to the musical stylings of Horst Wessel.

 

BUT DO NOT TAKE PICTURES

You are the Poet and the Poem - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

You are the Poet and the Poem

 

You are the poem and the poet

Without you the sun could not rise

Bringing light for the flowers

And warmth to bless this happy land

"There's Husbandry in Heaven" - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

“There’s Husbandry in Heaven”

 

 

“…There’s husbandry in heaven;

Their candles are all out...”

 

-Macbeth II.i.6-7

 

 

Good folk will tend to see the good in all -

When Banquo was aware of the starless night

He saw in that not a lack of light 

But rather the careful conservation of light

 

And so we see this night, this rainy night

Not as a time of cold and darkness and damp

But an occasion for hearth-gathering the family

For cards, chess, read-alouds, blankies, warmth, peace

 

Good folk will tend to see the good in all

And good must then on all of us befall

Who is My Favorite Hero? - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Who is My Favorite Hero?

 

Do you now, or have you ever…

 

Worked double shifts or double jobs to pay the bills

Read to your children instead of yelling at them

Had to jump-start your car in the pre-dawn cold

Jump-started your neighbor’s car in the pre-dawn cold

 

Do you now, or have you ever…

 

Done some hard time in the military

Served in the volunteer fire department

Attended divine services without making a fuss

Milked cows, chopped wood, raised a garden

 

Do you now, or have you ever…

 

Know which end of a hammer hits the nail

Built a home library for your children and yourself

Set a daily study schedule for developing your mind

Raised your children after your spouse bugged out

 

Do you now, or have you ever…

 

Gone to work zero-dark-early and stayed there late

And did more than was expected of you

Taken your children on nature works

Volunteered at your local hospital

 

Of course you have

 

So who is my favorite hero?

 

You are

Stop Running - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Stop Running

 

1 Kings 19

 

Stop searching. Hold still

Rest now under a broom tree

And He will find you

About Your Poem - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

About Your Poem

 

If you send a poem, and only one or two read it

And no one ticks a box or writes a response

Then have you worked a positive good into the world?

Oh, yes!

 

For you have written a verse upon a page

Upon a leaf that sails upon the air

Upon wild solar winds and to the stars

To where

 

A Voice reads it as a love letter to all

Who are so very blessed in knowing you

Macbeth Will Have No Say About It - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Macbeth Will Have No Say About It

 

 

                       Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse

 

-Macbeth III.ii.50-52

 

 

Finishing the chores as the evening light fails

And high above me in the paling blue

Three crows calling out harshly as they soar

Indeed making wing to a rooky wood

 

Good things of day, good animals, in peace

Are safely penned in their barns and byres

And we marvel at god’s kindness in all things

A warm fire, lanternlight, supper, blessings

 

Let us hear nothing of the tyrant’s foul plans

But instead, happy stories, Evensong, then sleep