Builders of Empires

July 18, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Great men of thought, of character and strength / Have built from time to time empires of industry / Empires of soldiers and sailors forcing conquests / Of ancient lands and nations for their own purposes

An Amazon Driver with Skull Earrings

July 11, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall No, of course he’s not an Amazon; he’s a manNavigating a big ol’ delivery truck through lifeFerrying to addresses this side of the StyxBrown pasteboard boxes and white plastic envelopes I wanted to ask him about his goal in lifeBut he was in a hurry to turn aroundAnd continue […]

Sons of Liberty

July 4, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Amanda Pizzolatto … We must take action this very hour / To take back what is ours / Taxation needs representation / Or we will start our own nation / Take some action, toss the tea / Stand up and shout with me

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

July 3, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … He was my beautiful boy, and, sure, / The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk; / A man of Newfoundland, my small big man, / Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Saint Joseph and Ice Cream

June 27, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Every man is a father after the Order of Saint Joseph / Every child is his to nurture and protect / A man must practice wisdom and honor / In order to pass them on to a new generation

In Search of Lost Timepieces

June 19, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … When clocks were electric and mechanical / They almost never agreed with each other

A Field Guide to Fields

June 13, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … the most glorious field is in midsummer hay…

A Dream About Birdcage Walk

June 6, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … In the perfection of an impossibility / I was tagging along behind Margaret Thatcher

Lest Our Old Shoes Sit Easier Than Our New

May 30, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … When we were children we were proud of our new shoes / Our once-a-year shoes in situational poverty / Although we went barefootin’ most of the time / As long as the weather and parents allowed

“Remarkably Like Any Other Place”

May 23, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Life is a pilgrimage from cell to cell: / The bedroom of one’s childhood, the college dorm / The noisy barracks, merry in spite of all / Eighty conscript soldiers bunked out in rows

Time is a Falling Leaf (Battery not Included)

May 16, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … A child and a puppy playing on the lawn / Tumbling through soft grass in the bliss of June / We joy in their celebration of life / Everything is new / Except that it isn’t

Michael & Gianna

May 13, 2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Lyn Wilson … Gianna did not always understand jazz. / It had become popular during the war, / Sometimes chaotic, / Sometimes smooth and calming.

The Pale Lady of the Well

May 9, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall …when outside at dusk with poetry and pipe / And a whisper of single-malt offered to the earth / Sometimes I seem to see visions proper to a Celt / And hear soft songs from the dawn of time

The Saturday Morning Tee-Ball Hero

April 25, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … A little moppet scampers around the tee / Waving her plastic bat as a warrior’s sword / Or as a fairy-wand to magic the day / Her first-ever tee-ball lesson with Dad…

Who Has Been Eating My Chair?

April 18, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Lawn chairs are for lawn-sitting quite at our ease / Soft summer evenings with a book and a glass / With birds and squirrels chittering away / Merrily over their supper of chicken scratch

Send Them Your Dawn, O Lord

April 11, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … We repudiate Putin and all his works / And all his pomps and all his engines of death / And all his malignant servile orcs / Who crucify humanity with lies

Oh Mother of the Holy Offering

April 8, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Amanda Pizzolatto … Oh mother of the Holy Offering / How patiently you wait for the light of day / In silence you bear your suffering / For you know death will not keep Him away

The Shape of a Poem, the Shape of a Life

April 4, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … Yes, they are awkward, those poems written in shapes / But if God writes our lives as poetry / Limned and formed for our continuation / We ask that He shape us with clarity and charity

Everybody Writes a Poem About the Moon

March 28, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

Everybody writes about the moon / Often trying to force a balky rhyme / Along the continuum of spoon and croon / Which just won’t fill the bill, the quill, or the time

Wake Up, Back Yard!

March 21, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Brave seedlings from last year’s sunflowers arise / Among the tiny wings of zinnia buds / And the pushy skunk cabbages who hang around / Like playground bullies who ought to go find jobs