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Lawrence Hall Apr 2017
All Change at Zima Junction

For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if she were a committee
And asks you what are you doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

“I went, and I am still going.”1


1Yevtuskenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Lawrence Hall Jan 2018
All Change at Zima Junction

For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if she were a committee
And asks you what are you doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

“I went, and I am still going.”1


1Yevtuskenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962
An Apology

I have never visited Russia.  I can’t read or speak Russian. Everything in this series is as authentically Russian as a liter of ***** bottled in, oh, Baytown, Texas.  Still, I hope you enjoy this dream-pilgrimage.

I never meant to write poems about Russia, but then I never meant to read Russian literature. The United States Navy was parsimonious in its pay to enlisted men in the 1960s, so the base library and the San Diego Public Library were my free entertainment (as was riding up and down the glass elevator at the Hotel El Cortez, and walking the city and Balboa Park with shipmates), and in illo tempore I happened upon a Modern Library edition of Chekhov’s short stories.

Although Tolkien, McKuen, and other English-language authors have always been my favorites (or favourites), I also found that Russian authors (in translation, of course) also have so much to teach the young and reassure the old. Despite seventy years of horror under Communism, Russia never lost the Faith and never lost her love for literature, literature that shapes chaos into meaning.  In so many ways Russia is a witness to the world.

The first book I bought upon returning home from Viet-Nam was the Penguin Modern European Poets paperback edition of Yevtushenko: Selected Poems.  That 75-cent paperback from a bookstall in the airport in San Francisco is beside me on the desk as I write.

At this point the convention is to write that Yevtushenko changed my life forever, gave me an epiphany, and blah, blah, blah.  He didn’t.  If one’s life changes every time one reads a new author or hears a remarkable speaker or sees a great film, then was there a life to begin with?

But Yevtushenko, Solzhenitsyn, Ahkmatova, Pasternak, Chekhov, and others came to be life-long friends.  And since one writes about friends, I wrote about them too, and one day realized, as P.G. Wodehouse would say, that there might be a book in it.
Lawrence Hall May 2019
This is a re-post of "All Change at Zima Junction."  This morning I turned in my keys after some forty years of herding cattle (metaphorically), seventeen of them with this institution.  I am unemployed for the first time since I was five or so and was set to toddling out to the chicken yard every evening to gather the eggs in an old Easter basket.  My mother said that the rooster often chased me and made me cry, but I don’t remember that.

And now - what adventure does Aslan have next for me?

The first book I bought upon returning home from Viet-Nam was the Penguin Modern European Poets paperback edition of Yevtushenko: Selected Poems.  That 75-cent paperback from an airport bookstall in San Francisco is beside me on the desk as I write.

                                     All Change at Zima Junction

                            For Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1932-2017

Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction
Changes lives; nineteen becomes twenty-one
With hardly a pause for twenty and then
Everyone asks you questions you can’t answer

And then they say you’ve changed, and ignore you
The small-town brief-case politician still
Enthroned as if he were a committee -
He asks you what you are doing back here

And then you go away, on a different train:
Everyone changes trains at Zima Junction

                           “I went, and I am still going.”1

1Yevtushenko: Selected Poems. Penguin,1962
Your ‘umble scrivener’s site is:
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com.
It’s not at all reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.

Lawrence Hall’s vanity publications are available on amazon.com as Kindle and on bits of dead tree:  The Road to Magdalena, Paleo-Hippies at Work and Play, Lady with a Dead Turtle, Don’t Forget Your Shoes and Grapes, Coffee and a Dead Alligator to Go, and Dispatches from the Colonial Office.
Thomas Burge Mar 13
You're sad
Yet happy?
You're the sun
And the night
No light can escape
But you shine so bright
You're trapped in a loop
And still on the right track
Though one step forward
Is one step back
From our understanding
What we believe to be true
No colour in the world could ever describe YOU
So be the in-between hue
Be Zima Blue
Rsebd Jul 2018
I may not remember everything that you ever told me,
but I do remember the important things.
Don’t lie, cheat, or steal, don’t ever be afraid to stand up for yourself,
and don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t.

I remember when I was kid I would get upset because I was the last one to be picked up from basketball practice,
I was so embarrassed because it would happen every time.
I didn’t realize it was because you were working to provide a life for us.
Thank you.
Do you remember when we moved to Kentucky?
You were so excited about your new job,
I still have that newspaper clipping from the interview that you did.
It’s in my box of things that I never want to forget,
I’ve had it since I was in the sixth grade.

Remember when I started to high-school?
I gave you hell right off the bat.
Smoking cigarettes, getting suspended, letting my grades drop.
But you never lost faith in me.
You were the only one.

I remember seeing you drink Zima as a kid.
I remember that time I fell off of my bike into a cactus,
you spent hours picking the spines out of my skin.
It hurt so badly but you told me that everything would be okay, and I believed you because you made it so.
I remember when you first got cancer, it was spring and I was three weeks shy of 16. You told me on April Fool’s Day.
My heart knotted when I learned that it wasn’t a joke.
Shortly after you left your job and things got rough
but I’ll be ****** if you didn’t make a way.

Phenomenal woman.

I remember when I came home from the Marine Corps. recruitment office, you cried because that’s not want you wanted for me.
Lucky for you I have a tattoo on my neck and wasn’t able to enlist.
I remember when you kissed me on my forehead and hugged me after that girl broke my heart.

I remember when your cancer came back,
this time in a different spot.
I don’t remember hearing you complain about it one single time.
Around that time your eldest grandson was born and you told us that was your reason to fight.
That boy loves his Gigi.
I remember the Christmas after that, you were so sad that you didn’t get us big gifts, but having you there with us was the only gift we needed.

I remember when you beat cancer for the second time, I made you a cake and hand decorated it,
it looked like **** but you loved it anyway.

I remember your smile.
I remember you being my support system when everyone else questioned my life choices.
I remember how much you loved me.

I remember when your cancer came back, the doctors here at home said they had already done everything they could for you.
They told you to accept your fate.
But you kept fighting.
I remember taking trips to Philly with you,
you were getting treatment there and I was to go with you because I was your primary caretaker, I even withdrew from school
I knew that taking care of you was the only thing that mattered.
Remember when I was a kid, and I was hospitalized with the chicken pox?
You were my safe place and you never left my side,
that’s what I intended to be for you.
I remember your final days, family and friends came from distant lands to say I love you one last time.
I remember the last thing you said to me.
I’m going to keep my promise. My heart of gold will never tarnish.

I remember the high-pitched laugh that would come out when something really tickled you.
I remember your spirit.
I remember that time you had one too many apple martinis, you never drank again after that.
I remember how mad you got because I kept getting tattoos.
I remember how happy it made you to call me your son.
I remember you demanding me to come over every time I got a haircut, simply because you wanted to see.
I remember always having you in my corner.

I remember you.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
it the new year, and only into February have i finally returned to my modus operandi... which was? well... it was the pre-Christmas period in the supermarket, and 1 litre bottles of whiskey were on offer, marked down from £19 to £15^, so it was usually that, a bottle of coke, and a bottle of beer and walking home straight away... perching myself on the windowsill, watching youtube channels of uninspired people talking about being inspired... it was never going to work... i was bound to experience a writer's block... but as of today... it's back to my original "strategy"... (a) drinking expensive alcohol can be depressing, well, it actually is depressing... i don't mean drinking cocktails in some urban hot-spot... by expensive i mean something akin to Jim or Jack... that's expensive... in comparison to high commissioner, it is expensive... so having said that: it's the effect of alcohol in relation to the effect of alcohol in other people: that has to become expensive... a van gogh moment... say: writing a poem or "poem" (depending on the levels of your pedantry). (b) the modus operandi... going to a Sri Lankan offlice... buying three canned beers, a 70cl bottle of whiskey... and going for a walk with the beers... head clearing... and yes: rain or shine, winter or summer... out there... looking into suburban houses, with some people asleep, others still watching television... men at their roadworks posts... taxi drivers returning home... in general the motorway insomnia... it's good to return to my seemingly lost and forgotten ways.

^the most annoying thing about buying a computer in Poland for a mere £100 is that the keyboard isn't what it "should" be... i have no £ within shift+3... and the ditto marks are not at shift+2, but at ****+@... so yes, i have to copy+paste it from the public space of... the internet - and this is where computers become equivalent to a piano... sure, there's the black and white keys... by black i mean shift+.

it can begin with as little as,
well... it will quiete a lot to begin with...
bilingualism
       is more complex than stating
your polymath ability to learn
    7 languages... evidenly one is superior
to the other, in that bilingualism
can be regarded as something akin
to digging trenches...
     what i mean is that
psychiatric terms can be poetic,
   for example schizoid (split) phren (mind)
         is brimming with metaphors...
Brautigan, Burroughs, Bukowski...
      all of them were labelled as such...
i can't quiet understand it as anything
other than a metaphor,
     but in cases of genuine ordeal
with the symptoms, it's anything but that.
the American linguistic notation:
      [oz-moh-sis, os-]....
the British linguistic tradition:
                                 /ɒzˈməʊsɪs; ɒs-/ -
and this is my linguistic notation:
     \ o(h)-ßmo(h)-sis / -
    by the way... most denote the (h)
                        as '... i.e. o'-
   frankly... i like to laugh and sigh...
because?
                   well, it's what happens when
you originate with a language that has
diacritical marks, and inherit a language
where diacritical marks are completely absent...
   i and j do not really count...
   even though it's evident that i begins as ι...
   so it's there: foreced almost... with a diacritical
marking...
   oh yeah: i forgot to mention the word...
osmosis* -
                       hardly anyone says that word
with the first s being soft...
       hence what english did to the world
and globalised it, so unto english the world must
give an answer, and given that english
is a language written without clear,
educational distinctions, a blank canvas
in terms of diacritical markings...
   i guess we can start to see how we can write
english, once again, with a "world view"
incorporating as many deviant examples as possible...
   a bit like bird-watching, or what darwinism
is in reverse, as ****-centric and beyond this:
nothing... so that's a german example having
a say in this example...
            and it really begun simple...
   and this is how the slavs differ...
    žiž      (well, given the ι already has a mark)
        that ι already has a mark,
southern slavs differ from northen slavs
in that they couldn't mingle the too together...
  so-half a caron on the zzzz / snooze (ź)...
      or how lazily we call it sleep, or snoring...
imagine all that effort into the onomatopoeia
of a woof! or a meow! and indeed:
probably the wise choice to call it zzzzz and sleep...
and leave the snoring to the harp
   (snoring in Polish? hrapanie...
the verb? hrapać)...
              the southern slavs will not spot this,
and if that's the case that žiž could be written
by a Yugol... it wouldn't be written by a Pole...
             and given that ž = ź
it just shows you that the southern Slavs's excess
is a complete disrespect / automaton stance
            concerning i...
  the Russians are Greco-Slavs... don't know...
  if they were introduced to the Latin alphabet first
they wouldn't be a competing super-power
  with their pseudo-Grecian alphabet (Cyrillic) -
   and thank god... no good, no evil...
     it would be a bit too much...
        like th
     at question is usually asked:
why do bad things happen to good people?
well... why do good things happen to bad people?
back to ž = ź
   and there's Hegel... castrated with his i = i / i am i...
well, i can see that...
          plain and simple... no wonder Marxism came
from Hegel... dumber than a hammer...
  and the subsequent nailing in of nails into coffins...

no. 1
(evil bladder, evil bladder! hence the interludes...
but hey! it's a collage)

... and this promenade in the night and rain,
really has a kabbalistic beginning,
well... kabbalistic meaning: you've really become
ridiculous with your numerology -
numerology is the lazy way to upkeep mysticism...
  i can't see it as anything more than indolence...
i begun this meditation
with two letters...              z           &             ι
and that later gave me the variations
                         the Libra is heavier on the z side
i know, but that's for now...
i.e.
                                               ι
                                                     (i)
                              &

               z
(ž    
            ß     ź)

that's how it looks right now, it's good that
i didn't mention ż so far....
so unto the examples...
      a southern slav will write ži... (ž= ź)
but a northern slav will not...
    e.g. ziemia (earth)
         ziemniak (potato)
   ziarno (grain)
    zima (winter)...
             and only in this particular combination...
(this has to be more interesting than numerology,
i.e. not substituting letters for numbers
   i.e. 1 = a, j, s, / 2 = b, k, t / 3 = c, l, u
ergo 3,848 = hello using something called
a decimal base 10 arithmetic... i don't know)...
     as other diacritical acute insertions
    also prove to be the case, respecting
the enforced diacritical mark above the ι,
esp. when there's a squeeze...
    ściema (faking it)
                 nagość (nakedness)...
  this is language slowed down from its
supposed everyday quick usage...
               i'm looking for a word when
the squeezed snooze (ź) appears as it does...
       http://tinyurl.com/zvur8qb
well.. może = maybe (Goran)
   write morze = maybe, and you get
the orthographic nazis onto you...
                 it's an aesthetic that has transcended
aesthetic in that it has become as rigid
as a rubric, or a "universal" appreciation of
                  Michelangelo rather than a Damien Hirst
shark in a plastic aquarium...
     and given it's a diacritical mark on
the last possible alphabetical letter: how
hard if not now to find a suitable word?
       it's really hard to find a ź example
once you realise that z+i are so coupled...
   you only realise at first the alpha-
                  / beginning of conjuring an example
that doesn't really arrive...
       such is the ź example given that z+i are
so entwined...
                   i could easily write the caron z
   and the roman enforced diacritical marking over
iota easily... ži...
                           but i can't... the Pandora is
hovering above my head, and i can't think of
a word with ź in it... given that i'm only thinking
of an alpha- / beginning the word with a zi
                       that's equivalent to ź
should no i be present within such close proximity...
       zakon (monestary)
                 zagoń (round-up,
                           the pronoun is self-evident...
        contained within the word, and it's gender-neutral,
   and if the pronoun is not the bothersome bit...
then it's the latter instructions of: those sheep...
    aport! / fetch... you can say that word (zagoń)
in your sleep, and you wouldn't need to be in a place
where there are sheep, or sheep that need to be rounded-up).

interlude no. 2 - no comment.

      well...
  it's no mere accident that when i go on
this little walks with beer that i find the odd thing
lying on the pavement...
  today? a rain-soaked joanna cannon
book, the trouble with goats and sheep...
and yes, i finally found a Polish word that provides
an example of ź...
      before the enforced diacritical ι
                              the acute above the z disappears...
given zielony (green)...
              but after the enfroced diacritical mark
over i... acute symbol has a tendency to appear
like a necessitated after-tea mint...
     e.g. kraszewski's god's wrath, page 158
(ludowa swpółdzielnia widawniczna edition, 1973 a.d.)...
znaleźli - they found...
      zło - evil...
                  źli- evil ones...
                          and it is such a rarity to find!
  a bit like a narcissus flower in a field of wheat!
     or a jasmine concentrated to a perfume...
             whiffing about its airs against the tennis with
the wind...

i wish they might call this:
    against the cantos' fascination with the chinese
ideogram...
or... thanks for using emoticons...
   language had to retaliate against the :) and :(
                    hieroglymphs of the digital pyramid...

interlude no. 3 - still no comment

also known as the Libra and the pivot

                                               ι
                                                     (i)
                              Δ

               z
(ž    
            ß     ź)
  
   and yes _____________ the sea-saw...
humanism can really compete with the science,
if it get its act together...

    and since the Greeks already adopted
adding diacritical marks to their beautiful alphabet...
i wonder how θ will fare
   when i write the word thought (θought),
and subsequently write the word:
   weather....       oh **** on me! it's an acute θ!
that magically turns into a V!
   weaver...
                 and saying that: only one consonant
made it to a vowel status of a grapheme æ / œ...
first to come was ß... the grapheme of s and z...
   a bit of chemistry goes a long way... chiral
as a pair of siamese twins, those two are
(you can put on a cockney accent saying that
sentence, yes, you can, i say so)....
  well... it's complicated because you're not german
and german to you is like quasi-Zulu...
ß looks like β (beta)... but it's a grapheme...
an sz that never actually meet... or entwine
like a and e might in æ...
   which makes it very difficult to follow...
just like the grapheme i wish to invent for
       TH  
                         namely that it's akin to  PH...
φilosoφy.... θou(gh)t....
                        g(h)ost...
                 ­                                look how pretty
it looks though: the ****'s F doing here?
     this an **** or a a ******* or a happily
married couple, or what?
    Φ and Θ.... almost looks like a keyhole
with a key lodged in it, and then turned...
horizontal in... reaction of unlocking the lock
mediatory with Θ and then back out into Φ...
             i.e. Φ + I = Θ = Φ + I + ...an open door...

interlude no. 4: this Russian chic at uni really
loved the doors... we watched a movie together
about them... with val kilmer playing
the dead man key role...
  is that door enough for you honey?
                       you got the шock and ßakes?

and if i mention hekhalot rabatai?
or the talmud, or the sefer yetzirah,
                              the bahir and the zohar?
twelth century and thirteenth century rabbis...
      will i also hear of the two Adams
of Eden, the (alpeh) fffא and the (ayin) fff
                    alpeh is a tame ******, feminine,
the mystery is not in the siamese H
   of the tetragrammaton, but in the aleph and the ayin...
    clearly i can't write ayin down without
semite d'uh on the digital canvas...
           writin left to right doesn't do much
justice... unless i write ye י‎,                                                            
f­ff.
ffff   fff        ע                  י‎
...pfי‎                         ­                  י...
there... you should really look at
the behaviour of ayin in the digital form,
the ****** wont't budge! you have to tell him
of the yodh to get off his *** and
make way for a pregnant lady...
        and since this is the 21st century...
i'd like to say: i'd like to write
a pentagrammaton.... yep...
a pentragrammaton... the ayin is gay,
and alpeh is a heterosexual...
     but the pentragrammaton now concentrates
on vav - or a vw beetle... v = w = ł...
       that's the moment you realise
that western linguistic mentioned o' not as
o(h) but as ' = yod...
         bad move... it's no silent (y)...
obviously this can exist in a non-pentragrammatorn
relation...
                            עואי­
Back road red dirt
Sipping Zima with the jolly ranchers
Hanging with the guys
The girls just too much drama

Having to be carried in
Only 17
Momma shaking her head
Waste basket and a hair tie for me

Growing up small town
Cruising the drag
Drinking at the tin barn
Watching fights turn into love
Memories were made
The ones that'll never fade

Had my first boyfriend
From the rival town
We were the talk of everyone
Twenty years later
Giving it another go round

Had my first kiss
Parked by the y
Being carried in again
Momma just shaking her head

Cruising the red dirt
Mesa's all around
No guardrails to protect
When my heart was broken and down

These are the memories
Ones that'll never fade
Hitting that red dirt
Even to this day
Lawrence Hall Jul 2024
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Macbeth, Doctor Zhivago, Captain Call, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Allen Ginsberg, and Rod McKuen Visit the Dentist but Have to Wait for Beowulf's Root Canal

         In gratitude for all the wonderful dentists, hygienists, and
                       technicians who keep us chewing!


                                  Macbeth Visits the Dentist

Is this a drill which I see before me
The whirring drill outstretched to my teeth
O happiest gas! Come let me clutch thee!
Before my body I throw my dental shield


                            Dr. Zhivago Visits the Dentist

Poor dental hygiene is for crowds of mediocrities
Only individuals seek dentistry
And they shun those who tolerate bad teeth
How many things in the world deserve our loyalty?

A dentist whose papers are in order


                            Captain Call Visits the Dentist

Call saw that the dentist was looking at him
The nitrous oxide drained out of him
Leaving him feeling tired
“I hate a bad tooth. I won’t tolerate it.”


                 Yevgeny Yevtushenko Visits the Dentist

For a tooth to come out
Some of the pain must be devoted to Stalin
Soviet dentistry demanded happy endings
I knew I could floss and brush better than Mayakovsky
Bella’s teeth were second only to those of Akhmatova
Only I could make Babi Yar all about me and my teeth
When I saw a dentist in Zima Junction
I saw the truth of the Revolution in her little mirror


                     Allen Ginsberg Visits the Dentist

I saw the best teeth of my generation destroyed by sugared sodas and a failure to brush and floss

dragging themselves through the medical complex at dawn looking for a fix

thinning-hair old hipsters burning for relief from aching jaws at the healing hands of dedicated professionals among their shining instruments

dedicated professionals who did not drop out of the University of Arkansas and never saw Mohammedan angels among the rooftops


                                   Rod McKuen Visits the Dentist

I am like a molar; I have chewed alone
Gnawed a hundred hamburgers
Never found a bone
Still and all I’m toothy
Reason is you see
Once in a while along the way
Dentists have been good to me.
Dentistry and literature!
Lawrence Hall May 2017
All Settings on Auto-Destruct

“a man enthroned as if it were a committee”
-Yevtushenko, from “Zima Junction”

Senator Pelosi has her head blessed
By the loving hands of The Dalai Lama
And Comey’s looking for a brand-new gig
Maybe as Cassandra’s Mrs. Blossom

J. Edgar’s iron men are said to be in tears
Special investigators rub their tentacles
In delicious anticipation of
A feast of scandals and expense accounts

     “Well, doctor, what have we got?”
     *“A republic, if you can keep it.”
Lawrence Hall Feb 2018
You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1

Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands

And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of a Russian spring

1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”
Lawrence Hall Oct 2017
You Russian Poets

You Russian poets must write your lines in blood
For often that is all that is left to you
By invaders, revolutionaries, and
“The briefcase politician in his jeep” 1

Perhaps every Russian is a Pushkin
In frost and heat, in every deprivation
Plowing in the face of the enemy
Building civilization with frozen hands

And always shaping noble tetrameters
Into an eternal song of Russian spring



1 Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”
Lawrence Hall Oct 2023
Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                        Will There be Coffee after the Crucifixion?

                    Everything’s going to be discovered
                    And understood in the course of time,
                    Only we have to go on thinking

                                    -Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

Not all are crucified, but all are wounded
We bring our gifts to the Altar; they fall apart
In secretly clinging to them for ourselves
Our claims to be defined by an era
But rotting corpses in a tangled wood
The celebrant elevates the Host
We lift unfocused eyes in grave pretense
Inattentive at the Wedding of worlds

The Mass is the central Act in Creation -
Not all are crucified, but all are wounded
A meditation (and this is ironic) on being inattentive during the liturgy.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­    The Glowing Page

Once upon a time, when I was young
In wonder I opened the pages of Stanyan Street
And heard those sometimes artless verses speak to me
Through pages golden with the California sun

Once upon a time, when I was young
I received a message from Zima Junction
It was somewhat confusing in translation
In Viet-Nam the reception wasn’t very clear

It helps to understand that poetry never speaks
For the briefcase politician in his Jeep
Lawrence Hall Jan 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                Happy Roman New Year - Join me for a Cuppa


                                   I went, and I am still going.

                                       -Yevgeny Yevtushenko
                                             “Zima Junction”


The dogs and I are out on our morning patrol
Greeting the new day, new month, and new year
Greeting the sun as he sings through woods
His song of Creation, Creation-fresh

I have fed the animals, lit the fire
Made coffee to enjoy at my old desk
With Edmondson, Wells, and their pal Shakespeare
And John Senior with his awfully thinky words

Fresh coffee, fresh words for me and for you –
Join me, won’t you, for a merry cup of brew!



I have no connection with the authors or publishers; I simply recommend them to you:

Edmondson, Paul and Wells. All the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020

Senior, John. Pale Horse, Easy Rider. Lawrence, Kansas, Shakespeherian Rag Press, 1992
A poem is itself.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2020
A Loss of Vision

                      As we grow older we grow honester,
                      that's something.

                             -Yevtushenko, “Zima Junction”

I drove a friend to his ophthalmologist
When I walked him into the office
He could perceive only light and shadow
After we left, some four hours later

He could read the fine print on his McDonald's coffee cup

Miracle. Laser surgery. Miracle.

The McDonald's was our third place to try
For coffee; the first two chains were empty and wrecked
Lake Charles is still a mess after hurricane-curses
This summer, with wreckage everywhere, street signs gone

Houses blasted and empty, shops blasted and empty
Work crews along some streets, silence along others

Dear Leader never bothered to notice
The new Dear Leader won't bother to notice
They send our children overseas to bomb people
And build them new infrastructure and then

Bomb everything again

We are trying to be good Americans
Our golf-course presidents and
Keyboard-kommando generalissimos
And feeble Merovingian Congress

Fist-bump each other

Only my friend has his vision again
A poem is itself.
Lawrence Hall Nov 2022
23h
The Glowing Page
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­    The Glowing Page

Once upon a time, when I was young
In wonder I opened the pages of Stanyan Street
And heard those sometimes artless verses speak to me
Through pages golden with the California sun

Once upon a time, when I was young
I received a message from Zima Junction
It was somewhat confusing in translation
In Viet-Nam the reception wasn’t very clear

It helps to understand that poetry never speaks
For the briefcase politician in his Jeep

Written by
Lawrence Hall
Lawrence Hall Nov 2022
2d
The Glowing Page
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­    The Glowing Page

Once upon a time, when I was young
In wonder I opened the pages of Stanyan Street
And heard those sometimes artless verses speak to me
Through pages golden with the California sun

Once upon a time, when I was young
I received a message from Zima Junction
It was somewhat confusing in translation
In Viet-Nam the reception wasn’t very clear

It helps to understand that poetry never speaks
For the briefcase politician in his Jeep
Stjepan Jun 25
PROLJEĆE
Večernje šetnje uz more
zaljubljeni parovi vole.
Sunce polako zalazi
zrakama more pomazi.
Zima nam odlazi
proljeće nam dolazi.
Naranče su procvjetale
opojno su zamirisale.
Đirani su procvali
balkone su uljepšali.
Kamelije su procvjetale
na ljubav su podsjetile.
Proljeće svako biće budi
nek živi ljubav
poslušajmo svoja srca
moji dragi ljudi.
Stjepan Orlić
Stjepan Jun 25
KARTOLINA IZ DALMACIJE  
              BURA
Bura puše,
na trogirskoj rivi nima nijedne duše
opustile sve su gradske kale
njišu se amo-tamo maslinove grane.
Na moru nijednog broda nima
judi čekaju da stane bura
i da dođe kraju još jedna zima.
Stjepan Orlić

— The End —