BY LAWRENCE HALL

Something That Will Stick to Your Ribs

When I was a boy I was told to eat balanced meals

“Something that’ll stick to your ribs,” they said

But I didn’t want anything sticking to my ribs

I still don’t

The Stone, the Shell, and the Lance

(See William Wordsworth, Prelude, Book V, line 70 and following)

Mathematics were always quarried stones to me

A chaos of integers, carries, and sums

Cascading down a dusty, crumbling slope

And piled up as a useless heap of rubble

But words, layered words, curving and dancing words

Are shimmering shells in stilly tidal pools

There waiting for my eyes, my thoughts, my speech

To play them, work them, hold them as chalices of truth

And the lance? The knight, he wields his wicked lance

Only to herd poor prisoners into algebra

Everyone is Now a Two-Dimensional Religious Image

News writers are dull, almost catatonic

Dispensing metaphors soporifically phonic

For in their world of the cliched and ironic

Every topic, every person is invariably

Iconic

Keyboard Combatants

“H*** hath no fury like a non-combatant” 

  • anonymous; dates as early as the American Civil War

Pitching war metaphors toward a people

Who don’t understand metaphors or war

Does not promote prudent self-government

Or peace

                 Only bullhorns and misspelt signs

The Ninth Commandment 2.0

It’s on the InterGossip; it must be true

Now let us see what people are saying about you!

Goofus and Gallant Revisited

(Thanks to The Atlantic Monthly)

I never paid attention to Goofus and Gallant

Because I sensed that I was being preached at

Only later in life do I appreciate their talent

Much better than the cat who sat on a mat

Havoc

What is havoc, and how does one wreak it?

Havoc is a condition or state of being

That apparently exists only to be wrought 

(There is no such word in English as “wreaked”) 

A wreak does not now obtain without a havoc

And there is no havoc without a wreak

Two Sovereign Remedies for Depression

Reading a few pages of Wodehouse at bedtime

Is like walking behind a dachshund at any time

Happiness

Wordle for Klingons

Let the captain win now; he is one of your betters—

Revenge is a dish best served with five letters