Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                          A Rose of Chambray

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 54

Comparisons to a rose are common, even trite
The Elizabethans seemed to write with rose perfume
White roses for purity, red for desire
Innocent petals, Macbethian thorns

How, then, roses for you, rockin’ your jeans
And an old chambray shirt, barefoot at the easel
With a bouquet of artists’ brushes in your hand
And your brow furrowed with creativity

I give you a perfect rose anyway

Comparisons to a rose are common, even trite
But with you the comparisons are exactly right

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Ode on a Dark and Silent Electric Meter

                                For a Secretive Power Company

The Power is Out
That is all ye know
And all ye need to know

(as Keats did not say)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                    I Might Compare You with Helen or Adonis

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 53

I might compare you with Helen or Adonis
Or yet some other bright-marbled Hellene
An Aegean deity perfected to rule forever
Over that sea where the sunset kisses the stars

I might compare you with those Aegean winds
Who whisper warriors home to their lovers’ beds
Sailors to sea, philosophers to their pens
And all to sing the eternal verities

I might compare you with Helen or Adonis
But they would defer to your majesty

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                There are Treasures and Keys, But not Like These

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 52

We are a pair of diamond rings, you and I
Rare treasures sometimes hidden in a chest
And sometimes sparkling on each other’s hand
As though to dazzle the world with our full-hot fire

We are a pair of diamond rings, you and I
Odd bits of carbon firmed and formed by pain
By pressure pushing us into completion
And by our power we made our love victorious

We are a pair of diamond rings, you and I -
Others can only envious us,
                                                              an­d sigh

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                              The Heirs of the Heirs of Stalin


                   But how remove Stalin’s heirs from Stalin!

                          -Yevtushenko, “The Heirs of Stalin”


The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Fat boys fly Come and Take It flags on their cheeseburgers
Their double cheeseburgers with fat fistfuls of freedom fries
John Wayne-ing lines from Fort Apache and The Green Berets
Taking their orders from QAnon and Fox

The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Beefcake their *** toys in 5.56
They love the man who threatens their lives and wives
They kneel and grovel to him; they would ****** for him
Moulder in prison for him – and he would never notice them

The heirs of the heirs of Stalin

Whoop that their Leader is anointed of Jesus, that he saves
(His limousine will rumble over their poor graves)

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

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                       Love Abandoned Along a Desert Road

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 51

I wonder if my love forgave me at all
For tossing my sleeping bag, my books, my clothes
My typewriter and my dreams into my old MG
And pointing everything west into the sun

Shakespeare speaks of a slow return to her
But I stopped at the Pacific, and lingered for years
A few ‘phone calls from far away, some letters
And then forever silence

Relationships are not covered by a funeral pall

But still

I wonder if my love forgave me at all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                   Would You Like to Go for a Coffee with Me?

The sweetest words that anyone ever spoke
Were not by Shakespeare, no, not even he
But by many a shy and nervous bloke:
Would you like to go for a coffee with me?

Even Romeo would squeak it in a trembling voice
Fearing, hoping what might her answer be
Oh, what will be her answer, her pleasure, her choice:
Would you like to go for a coffee with me?

For a cup of coffee is a communion shared
A moment when friends make a discovery
Of a vision and gentle thoughts now paired:
Would you like to go for a coffee with me?

Oh, yes

The sweetest invitation that ever could be:
Would you like to go for a coffee with me?

14 May 2024

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  Shakespeare Didn’t Drive a Clapped-Out MGA

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 49

A time will come when you will audit me:
My prospects as a husband and provider
The possibilities of a comfortable home
And maybe the Mercedes you deserve

I amuse you now, but not for long:
A studio apartment with a rabbit-ears TV
A hideaway bed for frolics in the afternoon
Sale-table wine and Bugler-rolled joints

Not quite Rod McKuen, to my dismay:
It’s not if but when you go away

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                    After a Night of Thunderstorms

The zinnias are rich with the works of the bee
Meanwhile the mosquitoes are working on me!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                            Schrodinger’s Lover

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 48

I have always kept things carefully hidden
Especially the secrets of my heart
But a lover cannot be secreted away
Nor would anyone want this to be so

And because you are no one’s possession
You cannot be kept from the gaze of the world
Locked away in a metaphorical box
Because of anyone’s inappropriate fears

I have always kept things carefully hidden
But you, brave happy spirit, will not be bidden

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      This Time the Mind and Heart Agree

                               Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnets 46-47

My eyes delight in the beauty of yours
In all the catalogue of your sweet charms
Visions and scents of dreamy summer flowers
Blossomed in anticipation of love

My heart delights in the happiness of yours
The generosity of your saintliness
The rigor of your analytical mind
Your kindnesses to all humanity

There are perceptions and appearances, true
But then there is the perfection in you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                This is Your Shoulder-Fired, Gas-Operated,
                             Semi-Automatic Metaphor

In wars generals deploy sports metaphors
In sports coaches deploy war metaphors

Why are they being evasive about what they do?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     No One Writes Verse about the Precinct Dump

Look for the sign that reads PERCH TRAPS 4 SALE
After a hundred yards take the gravel road to the right
It’ll go down to this stagnant little creek
And that old bridge is stronger than it looks

Then up and to your left; you can’t miss it
Refrigerators and washers to your left a bit
As for the right, you just don’t want to know
But them buzzards today; they’re puttin’ on a show

There was this fat boy who used to work there
Made rhymes about garbage; must have been the air

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and You

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 45

Fire and air sound like a poetic cliché
A pastiche from half-remembered Elizabethans
Cut from Jonson or Marlowe, or Will himself
And pasted to a puerile plaint of love

But there is a reality in fantasy
And you are the fantasy in reality
There are swift messengers of fire and air
And you are sender, signal, and recipient

Fire and air only sound like a cliché
For you are truth, truth clothed in splendid array

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      The World is Ending Tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The world is ending tonight! We read it on The Q!
My people are saved, but I’m not sure about you!

The world is ending tonight! We need dried beans!
Cases of toilet paper and some wipey-cleans!

I need some more bullets for my AR gun!
We’ll defend our bottled water; you ain’t gettin’ none!

The world is ending tonight! We’ll be hydrated!
But you’ll die dry; you hadn’t oughter waited!

Sunspots are flaring out from Satan’s maw!
Not to mention lies told by Satan’s paw!

This hasn’t happened since 1854!
When this sinful world was destroyed before!

Oh, yes, our loving God is a-callin’ us home!
Except for them Jews and them sons of Rome!

We’ll all fly to Heaven on the northern lights!
Except for you unbelievers; you ain’t got no rights!

The world is ending tonight! Ash and ember!
(And don’t forget to vote for Trump in November!)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     Dull Substance Indeed!

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 44

When we are young we are like airy spirits
Smooth and lean and lithe, strong in limb and hope
Earth, water, air, and fire sustain our flights
Beyond all time, beyond the weight of substance dull

But with age, even the stars grow heavy and dim
The orders four of all created things
Burden our love with distances and walls
Pulling us down, wrecking our happy dreams

I cannot run to you, I cannot fly
And yet I know you’re here, in my poor mind’s eye

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 Submitting a Ballot Blank


                                   “Obey me and be free!”

                          -Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner


Feel free to submit a ballot blank
To ignore all those rotten cabbages in rows
We have only ourselves to thank
That our party leaders are Rolex-rich pharaohs

Feel free to submit a ballot blank
The parties’ incompetent choices need not be ours
Forced upon us through caucuses dark and dank
Let us assert our constitutional powers

When they issue us ballots bearing no real choice
We will return them just as empty  -
          That will be our silent, powerful voice

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                          Our Fair Lady Moon is Jealous of You

                                         Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 43

I see you best when I see you in my dreams
By day my vision is distracted and dull
But at night you are brighter than moonbeams
And among all the darkness brighter still

At noon you are a shadow in the glaring sun
But in the night you are the brightest light
Our Fair Lady Moon is jealous of you
And stars vie with each other to complete your crown

Maybe a vision in the day is not what it seems -
I see you best when I see you in my dreams

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

               We Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die


               Ecce nova facio omnia. Et dixit mihi: Scribe
               quia hic verba fidelissima sunt, et vera.

                                       -Apocalypsis XXI:V


We can’t take our books with us when we die
That reality shouldn’t bother me, but it does:
The copy of The Brothers Karamazov
I carried in Viet-Nam – off to a re-sale shop?

But God is the Word from Whom all blessings flow
And since He is the Word, all our books are His
How foolish of us if we fear that God
Has made no proper arrangements for them

Books are eternal:

Great blessings in paper and ink and page and leaf
For learning and leisure and wisdom and belief

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         A Nation of Couch Cabbages Blames the Chinese Communists

A question may be brought about ownership
And the turgid content of the daily trawl
But even before the question of censorship
                    One must ask
Why are adults on TikTok at all?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 William Needs an Intervention

                                     Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 42

Will, we need to talk:
                                                       this is all your grief
Your friend and your lover aren’t grieving at all
I’ve seen them swanning around The Swan in Southwark
Catching Pembroke’s Men in The Isle of Dogs

They saw your Julius Caesar here at the Globe
But were mostly canoodling high up in the back row
I cannot imagine they were admiring your wonderful verse
Grieving over the deaths of Romans, or thinking of you

Give over your hoping, your moping, your sighing, your wishing -
The Avon’s down the road; we should go fishing

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                             “A Non-Credible Bomb Threat”

How can a bomb threat not be credible?
Either there is a bomb threat
Or there is not a bomb threat
If the immediate determination
(And on what basis is this determination made?)
(And by whom?)
Is that a bomb threat is not credible
Then why is there an investigation?
A non-credible bomb threat by definition is an incredible bomb threat
That’s incredible
And since there is a bomb threat at a school
Then why are the children kept inside the school
(Shelter-in-place with a reported bomb or not-credible bomb?)
And thus blocked from escaping?

A bomb speaks more clearly than the school administration

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                           The Wandering Elizabethan

                             Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 41

I know you are young and handsome; you know it too
I know you are a high-born gentleman; you know that too
And most annoying of all, so do the girls
Including mine

Or, rather, not mine, because she’s fallen for you
I don’t like it, but I understand
When a beautiful woman chases a beautiful man
Including mine

You are tempted, for she is a beautiful she
But
You leave a rather lonely world for me

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     Did Saloons Really Have Those Swinging Doors?

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
In glorious CBS monochrome
Along Dodge City’s sound-stage cow-town street
And saunter through those familiar swinging doors

I’d like to order a beer from good ol’ Sam
And listen to Doc and Festus fussing at each other
While Matt and Kitty smile contentedly
And for a while we are all at peace

I’d like to mosey down to the Long Branch Saloon
That’s what I’d like, and leave the world tethered outside

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Little Papal Flags at the Eucharist

Little cardboard boxes at the ends of the pews
Held little Papal flags in white and gold
For the faithful disabled, an usher explained
To request a eucharistic minister going their way

How useful in several ways is this little toy:
I’d wave it in defiance of the House of Savoy

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                 I’m Not Going to Press Charges

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 40

I gave her my love freely; she did not steal
It only feels that way, for she is gone
She could not steal that which she was given
And she could not possibly leave it with me

The lock is broken, my poor room is rubbished
The neighbors saw nothing, my dog didn’t bark
The unseeing eyes of any cameras are dark
Love has no receipts, no inventory, no insurance

And so, officers of love, there is no report
Except that I lost my case in a higher court

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Memory Eternal and a Gift Card from Denny’s

                                                    for

                          William Tod Augustine Mixson

                Saint Michael's Orthodox Church, Beaumont

                                      “Memory Eternal”

A cup of coffee is a chalice in its way
It brings us all to a table of sharing
And consecrates old friendships with every sip
Blessing us at the end with an Ite of joy

But today there was an empty place
An empty cup, an empty plate, empty
Even the air was empty, empty and void
With a joke that wasn’t told today

Max found a Denny’s card among his things -
Tod treated us to breakfast once again

But not for the last time

He’ll tell us that joke at a more glorious feast

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                Shakespeare: Maybe We Need to See Other People

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 39

Perhaps if we separated for a few days
We would find more passion in our love



                       (Please note all this artsy empty space)



After fourteen empty lines I find
My deep, abiding love for you stronger than ever
But who’s this…you’re seeing some other man?
THIS ISN’T WHAT I MEANT!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                     “I’ll Be Away from My Desk for a Few Days”

                 “Look upon my absence, Ye mighty, and despair”

                                    -as Shelley did not say

Every once in an ego you’ll read on a site
“I’ll be away from my desk for a few days”
As if everyone must re-schedule his life
And wait forlornly for Mr. O’s return

Nothing else remains 404 Error 404 Error
404 Error 404 Error 404 Error 404 Error

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Shakespeare: Honoring a Muse is Sexist, They Say

                                    Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 38

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now
That the nine goddesses plus one are victims
Objectified passives honored in name
But neglected when the royalties are paid

But a muse is a goddess of power and truth
The artist or writer does indeed gaze at her
But the goddess gazes back, informing your art
With her beauty and her sternest truths

They say that honoring one’s muse is sexist now -
Ignore their jealousies: obey the goddess

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                         ­     The Spirit of Art

Is

The good, the true, the beautiful

Not

The sullen, the resentful, the envious

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      A Decrepit Father Indeed!

                                      Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 37

Sitting for an hour at an outside café
Sipping coffee and writing verse and, yes
Discreetly noting elegant mademoiselles -
I never got to Paris, but my daughter did

Waiting for a steamer along the Rhine
Midsummer Night in Finland the Brave
A blessing from Saint John Paul in Saint Peter’s Square -
Not those either, but my daughter did

But now

Flying to that second star to the right –
We’ll all get there in our dreams tonight!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                                  Our Eyes Don’t Really Meet

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 36


Our eyes don’t really meet, nor do our hearts
But from across the room we still are one
(with complimentary champagne to enhance the mood)
A secret one unknown and never to be known

Our hands don’t really meet, nor do our lips
But from across our dreams we still are one
(you whisper to me from my hollow pillow)
A secret and sweet secrets still to come

Our lives don’t really meet, but they will, you see
Some moonlit night when at last our world is free

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                Smoke Drifting Across America


                                “Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live”

                        Columbia campus protester apologises for
                            '**** Zionists' comments (bbc.com)


Ash-grey smoke drifts across America

                    “That’s a false narrative”
                    “That’s a false narrative”
                    “That’s a false narrative”

The narrative is metaphorical; the smoke is real -
Ashes and smoke from Auschwitz, from burning Jews

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      Rhy­mes and Crimes

                                 Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 35

I plead guilty as an accessory to crime
In aiding and abetting a violation
Against the peace at a certain time
Arrest me now; write out the citation

For you are both the criminal and the cop
Handcuffs for both the abettor and crook
Don’t let our crimes continue, and yet don’t stop
And please don’t give back the thing that you took

For you are a criminal, the most skilled at your art
You darling little thief: you stole

                                                    my heart

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                            Cloudy with a Chance of Happy Tears

                                       Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 34

You have teased me out of the house today
Without Leonard’s Famous Blue Raincoat
Because you said this impossibly sunny day
Would be the sunniest, funniest day of all

I was prepared to rebuke you with the clouds
That roiled and boiled almost immediately
But the dancing tears from your loving eyes
Are magic raindrops fallen from the sun

Not every day is a sunny day -
Except for every day with you

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Governor of South Dakota Takes a Shot at the Vice-Presidency

Who is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem? Dog controversy, more to know (usatoday.com)

Blazing a trail of death and ****** fur
She shot her dog, her goat, three horses too
Somehow they failed her, and so, we must concur  
She executed them in a ****** coup

When her family's animals disappoint her
She shoots them; she feels that’s her duty to do
Silencing each substandard bark, bleat, and purr -
Now what if she becomes disappointed in
                                                        
       ­                                         you?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                         Every Morning Begins with Sunlit Hope

                                        Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 33

Every morning begins with sunlit hope
Perhaps an echo of the Passover seder
“Why is this morning unlike all other mornings?”
Because this day our hope will be fulfilled

But it isn’t

The arrows of the pharaoh darken the sun
His beatings and executions extinguish light
We work and sweat and bleed, and are still found wanting
We take to our beds in exhaustion, and we dream

Next year in Jerusalem

Every morning begins with sunlit hope -
Maybe tomorrow will be the dawn of freedom

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 Hey! Hey! **! **! Mindless Chants Have Got to Go!

One seeks in vain for a “Hey! Hey! **! **!”
In the Bible, the Torah, the Bhagavad Gita
In Tolkien, Lewis, Frankl, or Yevtushenko
In any declaration of the rights of man

The Greek philosophers never barked “Hey! Hey! **! **!”
Phillis Wheatley would have rebuked that vulgarity
Lincoln yapped no such drivel at Gettysburg
Elizabeth Bishop argued with wit and grace

“Hey! Hey! **! **!” is boorish and ineffectual
And would never be spoken by a true intellectual

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                      Let’s Meet Again Next Week or Next Life

                                  Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 32

To ask to be remember’ed is good
Both for the humble asker and for the asked -
For both will pause to consider mortality
And both will pause to enjoy the happy now

We understand this world will pass away
That all created things must collapse and die
And yet we are promised them back again
And each other too, in saecula saeculorum

Then, yes, please, do remember me, if you would -
To ask to be remember’ed is good

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                               Let Us Proceed to Sonnet 32

                                Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 31

There is a reason why Boris Pasternak
Did not recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 31
To the Soviet Writers’ Conference in ’37 -

It’s a mess

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                      While Clenching Their Fisties

Old men do not now argue politics
At the coffee table in the grocery store
Old men, like some university students
Simply say what they are ordered to say

By voices bellowing from Orwellian telescreens

While clenching their Trumpy-grumpy fisties

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

         We’re Not Going Anywhere Until Our Demands Are Met

We’re not going anywhere until our demands are met
Well, okay, maybe Starbuck’s or Chipotle’s
With my Mumsy and Dadsy’s credit cards
Then we can paint our JEWS ARE NAZIS posters

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                 When to the Sessions of Sweet, Noisy Thought

                               Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

I don’t need to summon up remembrances
They simply wander in uninvited
In death just as they did in life, good friends
To sit together with our jokes, our drinks, our pipes

We still argue with each other, our minds
So familiar after all those happy years
Thesis, antithesis, and Dunhill tobacco
Ice cubes rattling in the soft summer dusk

Lewis and Tolkien show up late, stern Milton too
Remembrances? Not really – we are forever here



Nota bene:

In Moscow, 1937, during the annual Soviet writers’ congress—a time of severe purges—Pasternak took a courageous stand. Amidst the dull, regime-prescribed speeches praising Leninist-Stalinism, he did something extraordinary. He recited Sonnet 30 by William Shakespeare:

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear times’ waste.”

The impact was profound. All two thousand writers in the hall rose to their feet, joining Pasternak in this act of defiance. The number “30” became a symbol of resistance, a testament to the enduring power of poetry and memory.

Introducing a Sunday Series from Douglas Murray: Things Worth Remembering | The Free Press (thefp.com)

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                         Those Who Straddle the Temple Walls


                    “Choose you this day whom you will serve”

                                               -Joshua 24:15


For those who are desperate to be accepted as cool –

You cannot straddle the walls of the holy Temple
You cannot straddle the barbed wire of Auschwitz
You cannot straddle the banks of the Red Sea
You cannot choose two sides and call them one

Since the ****** time there have not been two sides

You cannot wear both the tallit and the snakeskin
You cannot break bread with your grinning executioners
You cannot dance to circled drums and bullhorn chants
You cannot forswear your family murdered in the gas chambers

Since the burning time there have not been two sides

He who chooses the fashionable, the clever, the cool
Chooses to be a kapo, a funktionshaftling
His people will despise him, so too his masters
                    (Who in the end will **** him in his shame)
And his memory will be a curse, not a blessing

But you –

Choose bravely so that your name will be written in The Book
And written in the hearts of your proud descendants

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  When Fortune and Men’s Eyes are in Disgrace

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

A good thing with being disgraced in men’s eyes
Is that that mostly they don’t notice you at all
As a nobody you are but a shadow at best
Or an accessory in their empty scenes

If they don’t notice you, then you are not disgraced
And you have better things to do anyway:
Children to raise, songs to sing, books to write
Each day’s honest labor at your honest craft

The resolution is

That some men might be disgraced in your eyes
That is, if you choose to notice them at all

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

              And Why is There a Police Car in Your Driveway?

                             Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 28

The days are a mess and so are the nights
Each day is burdened with labors unrelenting
Toils industrial and toils emotional
Everyone seems to want a bite of you

At night the stresses follow you to bed:
The boss’s write-ups seem to poison the pillows
The unpaid bills, the clapped-out car, the fears
The children’s report cards, the broken washer

You give life your all – you work, you struggle, you strive -
And why is there a cop car in the drive?

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                  These Here So-Called Schools These Days


             “Lead, Follow, or Get the H/// Out of the Way”

                  -a sign on the bulkhead in recruit training


Those coffee-shop cynics drowning in dejection:
Some of them wallow in existential abjection
And some meet every hope with an objection
Or with a sneering, irrelevant deflection

                    But I did something other than b//// and moan

I voted in my local school board election

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                     Weary with Dachshunds

                                   Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet 27

With an improving book I go to bed
                    (as P. G. Wodehouse said)
And two improving dachshunds on my pillow
                    (as Wodehouse almost said)
They then begin their journey at my head
Wriggling down to my feet and back again

They slurple messily from my bedside glass
And crumple up my copy of Hercule Poirot
Neither slows: they lick my nose, they tickle my toes
And will they finally doze? Nobody knows!

But

When comes the midnight moon, then all in a cuddly heap
Their little doggie noses snuffle at last in sleep