Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Window on the Century
Pasternak is said to have raised a window
On a sunny winter day to ask
“Children, what century is it outside?”
A logical question
Saturday, December 6, 2025
A Window on the Century - poem
Restricted Area - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Restricted Area
No public or media access
Cameras and recording devices prohibited without prior
authorization
Whoever our government orders beaten or shot is not our
business
God bless America
The Voices are Talking about Nat - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Voices are Talking about Nat
The Voices slither
about like Lady Macbeth
Claiming arcane
knowledge of life and death
Hissing subtly with
their smoky breath
Their business
manager is a dude named Seth
(Seth
attends art school at night and says his instructors don’t understand his depth
of existential being-ness and, like, stuff.)
They (The Voices,
not Seth) visit me nightly when I’m asleep
Approaching me in
crouch and crawl and creep
Desiring to drag my
soul down into the deep
Piling my vanities onto
a vermiculous heap
(The
Voices took my evening class at Cinder Block Community College and slouched sullenly
in the back wearing their Grateful Dead baseball caps on the few occasions they
bothered to show up. They filed a complaint against me for dropping them.)
They usually lurk in my right parietal
So, shhhhh! - they’re rather anti-societal
(They’re all The Office fans
and are looking for affordable housing in Scranton if you know someone with a
deal.)
Plato's Alligator of the Cave - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Plato’s Alligator of the Cave
The real reason Plato missed Socrates’
execution
Plato, in a moment
famously historical
In that scary cave
had a philosophical hunch
He took an alligator
for allegorical
The alligator, alas,
took him for lunch
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
'Flu Jabs at the Supermarket with Rotisserie Chicken and Anaphylactic Shock - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
‘Flu Jabs at the Supermarket
To the supermarket
with a shopping list:
1 Brookshire
Brothers rotisserie chicken
1 bag of Purina dog
chow
2 pints of Coffee Mate
for this low, low price
A half-gallon of No
Pulp Florida’s Natural
A Farmer’s Cooperative
Since 1933
100% Premium Orange
Juice from Concentrate
Owned by Florida
Farmers
And a ‘flu jab. Not
by Florida farmers
Next week my nurse
practitioner has a special on butter
Which will be, as
always, country farm fresh
Monday, December 1, 2025
League Tables for the Lovelorn - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
League Tables for the Lovelorn
V: Give her up, old man; she’s out of your league.
R: Impossible; I never joined a league.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to Emmaus - poem about long sermons
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to
Emmaus
This is
a warm Sunday in November
But we
still watch for I.C.E. in the parking lot
And for
a cold front promised but not delivered
Through
the almanacs and weather distorts
Just now
the celebrant, too, seems to be stalled
Chocked
up at Luke 18 with his mutter running
The same
illustrations repeated over and over
Like
that same old cactus in a Road Runner short
Dear
Lord
I pray
for your priest while he is rebuking sin -
Please
help him bring his homily to an end!
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