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…
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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
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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…
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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…
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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
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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…
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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
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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
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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
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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
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By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … An old belt buckle in the back of a shelf / Greening brass on a belt now much too short / Maybe the same one I wore on the Vam Co Tay / Scattered thoughts shift to Thomas; I don’t know why
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By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall … I learned that my watch was praising me / For somehow managing to stand on my feet…
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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…
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A garden is a Department of Metaphysics
Promethean fire and shadows in a cave of light
By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall
Laurence “Mack in Texas” Hall (G) Teenagers opened the doors for me at MassWhich used to be my job, but they stepped upAnd in stepping up they are replacing meWhich is good – I miss my youth but delight in theirs A boy and a girl giggled and whisperedIn a language I don’t know except […]
Read MoreBy Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him” -Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons With just a telephone, a clipboard, and a stutter He was a happy band of some of our best friends: May we with him At last approach that […]
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By Joshua David Ling (Rated PG) Read more of this story here. 32: Sleight Of Hand The last time we left Cyrus Jones,She was given a proposition over the phone.That strange Mr. H had a mission for Cy,A mission that required a local spy. And so she went to a traveling carnival,Uncle Andy’s by name […]
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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
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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?
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LogoSophia Magazine 