Failed Blessings
By Samantha Terrell … I bless you with will and water, but / you thrash and writhe in its small spray.
Read MoreCategory: Poetry
Laundry Day – The Solemnity of All Stains
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … The washing machine baptizes our busy days: / A shirt freshly stained with this morning’s coffee / Wrinkledy tees in grimy greens and greys / A child’s blue jeans all sticky with toffee
Read MoreMake Thee Another Self
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … After the Order of Saint Joseph, all men are fathers / Commanded by God to protect all children / Permitted by God to protect all children / Empowered by God to protect all children
Read MoreHoly Smokes: Habemus Papem
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Latins and Sabines may have watched for smoke / From the Vatican Hill across the way / Wondering if a careless shepherd had set a fire / Beyond the Seven Hills of holy Rome
Read MoreShakespeare & Chinese Verse
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Dear Will, / About your obsession with mortality: / Transitions and death are essentials in life / And we must face the obsequies of ashes or earth / But there are other topics upon which to write
Read MoreFragments of Life and Literature
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … We have mysterious runic messages still / Appearing this morning – there, on the road – see them?
Read MoreFragments of Life
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … The seasons pass and footsteps pass, leaves fall / But nothing changes for those frozen in place / By the decrees of stasis and stagnancy / Progress blocked by torpidity and time
Read MoreUne Joke
By Jordan Ellis Christensen … In the netherness of my person / A fine instrument I do possess. / From which trumpets fine tonal arson. / Such odorous notes I oft obsess.
Read MoreLady Day Lullaby
By Amanda Pizzolatto … Hush little darling, don’t say a word
I will tell you about the Mother of our Lord / And how one day a great angel came / Surprising her by calling her by name…
We Know Where The Holy Grail Is
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … We know where the Holy Grail is / Each Sunday we see it on the Altar / As a cup, indifferent in its origins / In the catalogue of a church supply…
Read MoreYour Favorite Author is Nothing Without You
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … When I was a child I read without discipline: / Robert A. Heinlein, Robin Hood, cowboy yarns / Pirates raiding across the Spanish Main / Penrod and Sam, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn…
Read MoreEach Birthday is a Step in the Right Direction
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … A birthday is not the beginning of something new / But rather part of a continuing story / From its Prologue and its Chapter One / Through the dark leaves of Mirkwood and beyond
Read MoreForming a Committee Around a Car That Wouldn’t Start
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … The engine wouldn’t turn over; the electrics were dead / We stood around the open hood, each scratching his head…
Read MoreLate January is a Time of Grey
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … I read a little in Billy Collins just now / Because Tolkien is in the other room / Along with the laundry and an unmade bed / Late January is a time of grey…
Read MoreAnother Turn Of The Year
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … About this new year – it doesn’t look so new / But the first sunlight in the bare oak trees / And upon last summer’s ground-shoaling leaves / Lead me to pull on my boots and step outside
Read MoreDid You Enjoy Your Christmas?
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … That merry little Christmas that they sing about – / Did you open your gifts around a tree / Tinsel and ornaments and a brilliant star / Pajamas and cocoa and merriment…
Read MoreThe O Antiphons, the Star, and Us
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Solstice is not a time when the sun stands still / But rather a season when the sun stands aside / That we may better know the mysteries of deep night / In darkness just before deep Light returns
Read MoreA Dixon Ticonderoga #2 Pencil from 1955
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … The yellow paint a little aged now / The green metal ring a little bit dull / The eraser now hardened beyond all use / The point well-sharpened with a pocketknife
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By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … “‘Tis my limited service” on Sundays to mind the door / To open it to the faithful with cheerful greetings / This is pretty much my skill-level, this modest chore / Such is the ancient custom for Sunday meetings
Read MoreSunshine is Dogshine
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … A dachshund will burrow under the garden fence / For every dachshund thinks she is a wolf / A fearsome apex predator with a squeaky toy – / This is in the nature of dachshunds
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