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

On the Consumption of Art

March 14, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

But we do not consume a work of art / Sometimes we almost seem to marry it / Joining art in a sacrament of love / Beyond the velvet ropes of ownership

All Intelligence is Artificial

March 7, 2023.Reading time 5 minutes.

No, no, we are not banks of blinking lights / And random teletype-type taps and beeps / Like Patrick McGoohan’s educational General / Or George Jetson’s mainframe at Spacely Sprockets

People of the Book

February 28, 2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

The Thought became Incarnate in Judaea / And thoughts become incarnate in the books we read / For thoughts are tabernacles of our hopes / Tents in the deserts of our wanderings

A Premise of Joy

February 18, 2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

Their wedding ceremony was deeply moving; / Adil needed a few moments to take it in. / He watched his new bride. / Joy barely covered what he felt on this night.

For Jack On His Birthday

February 14, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

In the long ago I was reading a book / (And doubtless thinking many brilliant thoughts) / Sitting in my car outside Our Lady’s Church / Waiting for some old-lady meeting to end

Memphian Lamentation

February 7, 2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Let us instead look within our fatal selves / With every resentment validating the Fall of Man / With every snub murdering Abel again / With every lie sentencing Christ to death

Tolkien’s Shelob the Spider

January 31, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

A poisonous lump of flesh in malignant repose / Her lair all befouled with scraps of souls / In life sought out with her multiplex eyes / Her Sauron-eyes – it was the hopes that died first

The Cat as an Argument Against the Concept of Evolution

January 24, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

On the sixth day God made the animals / The cat generally disapproved of the others / And in a superior fashion licked its paws / In the springtime shade of the very first oak

Edna St. Vincent Millay and Her Pickup Truck

January 10, 2023.Reading time 1 minute.

The fragility of teenaged boys is well known / Despite their tough hands stained with oil and grease / And their slouch and their ‘tude, wanting to be grown / Their loud voices disturbing the classroom’s peace

St. Nicholas’ Night

January 5, 2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

The original Santa Claus / Was a man who lived in Turkey / A very long time ago, tis true / A jolly, dear old Bishop / Who took his duties seriously / And a smile when times were blue

The Christmas Puzzle

December 29, 2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

Oh Christmas crib, oh Christmas crib, / What a privilege you were blessed to have / From you food to animals was given / And now you carry the Bread of Heaven / Oh Christmas crib, oh Christmas crib, / What a privilege you were blessed to have

Children Following the Star on Christmas Eve

December 27, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

Good children dress warmly to watch for the star / The star of Bethlehem, the shepherds’ star / The star of the magi, true-guiding star / And more than all of these, the children’s star

Word Sung as Light

December 20, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

A deep, slow stream of tones, of modes, of chants / Where time and all eternity flow as one / Through voices and dreamlike echoings / Among the Altars of the earth and sky

Christmas Choirs

December 17, 2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

Oh listen, listen, how the bells doth ring
Echoing over the blankets of winter’s sting
Like a single candle flickering in the night
Giving off some hope, warmth and light
Burn bright, burn long, and send incense up above
Like the Seraphim burning bright with love