A Street Called Parallel

When I was a girl, in small-town America, /
There was a street called Parallel, /
Where we Protestants ran alongside the /
Catholics – an historical microcosm of /
Our ancestral nations.

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Heavenly Hosts

Angels of God, oh glorious host /
Protect those who need you most /
Guide and teach us ever this day /
And keep all of our temptations at bay.

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Another Christmas

We bring our gifts to Mary’s fair-born Child: /
A pen, a broom, a book, a welding rod, /
A wrench, a mop, some papers neatly filed – /
Our daily labors offered up to God /

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Packages, Packages, Packages…

A collection of poems by Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall (Rated G) A Cargo Cult Conversations are about packagesPackages considered, packages orderedPackages delivered and packages stolenPackages as the cosmic medium of exchange Conversations are about packagesPackages that give meaning to our livesPackages pinched by plundering porch piratesPackages snatched by maskers in masks What is it […]

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Thanksgiving Dinner

Don’t forget the napkins, set the plates so /
Upon the tablecloth with its delicate lace /
Silverware all in an orderly row /
And never, ever neglect to say grace

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Around the House

Washing Machine

There is music around the house today: /
The old refrigerator hums a tune from Frozen /
Handel might envy the washer’s Water Music /
And the off-center dryer waltzes Blue Danube

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When is a Man Ripe for Harvesting?

Sunflowers are easy enough – the petals turn brown /
And the base is yellow, or better yet /
When in the heat of summer birds and squirrels /
Present themselves in your garden as dinner guests

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The Solitude of Night

O the silence was loud, nay, blaring /
Whereupon every sound thereafter /
could only be likened to thunder /
Alack the torture of frozen time! /
and the ardent boredom of black night!

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Autumn in Texas

A rustic dilettante, all ready to flirt
In his old khakis and a chambray shirt
Old boots, old gloves, a mattock or rake to wield
A boulevardier of row crops in the field

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A Poetry Brawl at the Long Branch Saloon

Much of being is chaos; we try to shape it
Into meaning, not artificial constructs
But the meaning that is, already is
But tumbled through the weeds and brokenness

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A Saturday Morning In The Bookstore

Why are there now so many books of lists of ten things we must do before we die? Why not nine, or eleven? And why should pay someone for a list of experiences he says you and I must fulfill before we shuffle off what Shakespeare is pleased to call this mortal coil? Will my life be meaningless if I don’t jump out of an airplane over Scotland, see a famous statue in a Buddhist temple in Bangladesh, eat fried snake in Singapore, bicycle through Kenya, visit some snaky island off Honduras, or flush a certain Czarist toilet in St. Petersburg?

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Ireland

I’ve never seen the Emerald Isle
Nor walked where Patrick trod,
But I’ve heard tell of it’s great beauty
Formed special by the hand of God.

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Storm Heaven, if You Will

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall (Rated G) In the midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, he could find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige. -C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost Storm Heaven with your selfless prayers, if you willBut not your […]

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“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.

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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…

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