Une 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 MoreCategory: Poetry
Lady 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
Read MoreA Row of Missals on the Chimneypiece
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Those inexpensive missals, all in a row / Upon the chimneypiece of their little home / Each with its ribbons in orderly place / Like children in line for the Eucharist
Read MoreYou Did It and other Technobabble
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … I learned that my watch was praising me / For somehow managing to stand on my feet…
Read MoreMeditation and Merriment in Early Autumn
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … After summer rains the earth is still green / In the cooling breeze oak leaves dance happily / Old lawn chairs are the humble chairs of poets / Old lawn chairs are the glorious thrones of kings…
Read MoreA Decrepit Father Indeed!
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … 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
Read MoreWe Can’t Take Our Books with Us When We Die
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … 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?
Read MoreEvery Morning Begins with Sunlit Hope
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … 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
Read MoreYou Are The Poem
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … A camera time-stops images as electrical codes / Formed by Kyanon Kabushiki Gaisha / And if that is not high art, then what is? / But codes are not you in your many dimensions…
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