A Covid Christmas
But first we celebrate the great world’s turning
With Advent and the holy Christmas time
With liturgies followed by the Yule log burning
Through feasting and cheer, and each well-sung rhyme
Tag: Lawrence Hall
The Advent of Our Discontent
Everyone accuses everyone else
Of treason; they’d call each other Quislings
If they had any history, but they don’t
Only Hochhuth and Unferth on the air…
Waiting for the Messiah Someplace Else
The Magi journey through space and time
Our journey is in waiting for a star
To shine upon us all, and lead us to
The Temple where all waiting finally ends…
The Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Assistant Principal
Of math the assistant principal spoke:
The elegance of a geometric proof
When it brightens the mind, the eye the sky
Completing a song of the universe…
“I Had a Lover’s Quarrel with the World”
Mr. Frost crafts smooth, flowing iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter, sometimes rhyming but sometimes not. That he makes rhyme work so well demonstrates the excellence of his art; there are only five – arguably six – vowel sounds in English, which rhymed through the pen or keyboard of a learner usually ends in clunkiness or unintended comedy.
Read MoreA Busy Dachshund Puppy
She bites into cranky old Pepper-Cat’s tail
(Something so twitchy must surely taste good)
And Pepper-Cat spanks her; oh, what a wail!
(Dear pup, there’s a difference between could and should)…
Tolkien: A Review of a Book and a Movie
J.R.R. Tolkien, a Biography by Humphrey Carpenter is a nice little biography for those who love Tolkien and the Inklings. Humphrey Carpenter’s several biographies are always well-researched and, even when alluding to awkward moments in the subjects’ lives, infinitely kind and generous.
Read MoreBooks Are Secret Places
Books are secret places where words go to hide
When the world goes wrong, and children are hurt
By grownups who never learned how to read or love
Or even tell funny stories around the campfire…
You Shut Up! No, You Shut up! No, You Shut Up First!
Censorship is the control of public speech by a government agency; it has always existed and always will. Even the freest government cannot allow state secrets to be published. Censorship, when kept in its legal place, is good; when it is not kept in its legal place, it is bad.
Read MoreTwo Political Campaign Signs Set on Fire
Perhaps that’s all the fire they’ve got this year
Obediently yapping into the dark
In camouflage knee-pants and plastic shoes
Both sides agreeing only in their hate…
Political Voices
Bitter Old Men Yelping at Each Other:
My country, ‘tis of thee
“Get out of your bunker and get out of the sand trap!”
Sweet land of liberty
“What do you want to call them? Give me a name. Give me a name!”
Loaves and Wishes
“Is there a vegan option?”
“Are these fish from renewable stocks?”
“Is this bread gluten free?”
“Is this all you’ve got – bread and fish?”
Robinson Crusoe Orders a Generator from Amazon.com
In practiced unison we again recite
The liturgies of flashlight batteries
Bottled water, paper plates and plastic sporks
And Meals-Ready-To-Eat, though they really aren’t
Mi Corazon
As we were finishing our meal and our catching-up, the restaurant manager walked by slowly with an elegant, elderly lady on his arm.
“This is my son,” the elegant lady said to us. “Don’t you think he is handsome?”
The Juggler of Midlothian, a Worthy Man
He steps into the center of the lobby
He steps up and sends into inner space
Tennis balls Tennis balls Tennis balls
Tennis balls
Water-Stained Pages in a Missal
Crinkly, wrinkly pages in a missal
They’re water-stained – how did that come to be?
Book Shops Offer Us Civilizations
Book shops offer us civilizations
Democracies of the living and the dead –
Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Langston Hughes, and you
Over cups of coffee wrangling meter and rhyme…
The Chainsaw Days of September
These are the chainsaw days, humid and hot
Wind-blasted shingles and wind-blasted trees
And clearing windfall in the gasping heat:
Litter to the burn-piles, firewood to the stacks…
A Review of Hugh Lofting’s ‘Victory for the Slain’
There is much more to Hugh Lofting than conversing with rabbits and squirrels – after all, everyone does that. In 1942 Lofting wrote his one adult work, Victory for the Slain.
Read MoreWeathering Plague-Time and Hurricanes
…But this year all your friends fit into cubes
On the computer screen at your kitchen table
And you hope your stupid brother won’t dance
Across the room in his Captain Marvel underwear…
LogoSophia Magazine 