If This Were Your Real Life Your Would Have Been Given Better Instructions - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

If This Were Your Real Life 

You Would Have Been Given Better Instructions

 

 

This is only a test -

if this were your real life you would have been given better instructions

 

-seen on a bumper sticker

 

 

I took my cough to a plastic plaque

My wheezing and sneezing and headache too

My unaccountably rigidy back

And sputum that reeked like a witches’ brew

 

I waved the little cotton probe all through

My nostrils where the wicked virus lurked

And then I thoughtfully dropped five drops unto

A window in the plaque, and, lo! It worked!

 

I don’t have the covid and I don’t have the ‘flu

So why do I feel so blown-out blue!

(N.B. I take my medical advice from my brilliant nurse practitioner, not from the InterGossip nor from Robert Kennedy.)

Not Herod's Household Calvary This Time - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Not Herod’s Household Cavalry This time

 

 

The Holy Innocents

 

 

Not Herod’s household cavalry this time

His personal SS with their spears and swords

From screaming children ripping their sacred lives

And flinging the tiny fragments into the dust

 

Now Herod sends his tailored representatives

With silky-soft, serpentine promises

Would you like a dress as nice as this?

For only an hour or two of easy work

 

Softly now

 

Don’t worry; your parents will never know -

Because they will never choose to know

Sneeze Across Texas - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Sneeze Across Texas

 

 

(widespread respiratory infections in Texas during Christmas 2025)

 

I would almost rather gnaw off an arm than endure what passes for contemporary country music. By the Grace of God we will always have the authentic work of Ernest Tubb. One of his best is “Waltz Across Texas.”

 

 

When we cough together under Texas skies

It’s rather a nightmare that has come true

And when you look at me, with those red, rheumy eyes

I could sneeze across Texas with you

 

Sneeze across Texas with you and our virus

Sneeze across Texas with you

Like a medical movie ending but with no one to admire us

I could sneeze across Texas with you

 

My rhinorrhea just won’t be gone
The moment that you come in view
And with our soggy hankies we could wheeze on and on
I could sneeze across Texas with you

 

Sneeze across Texas with you in my arms
Cough across Texas with you
Like a bad novel ending I'm semi-comatose in your charms
And I could sneeze across Texas with you

 

 

NB: “Waltz Across Texas” is the property of its several authors, musicians, and copyright holders. Respect.

Aeolian Wisdom - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Aeolian Wisdom

 

When I was taking my ‘versity courses

‘Twas my obsession to cite my sources

To assume without knowing was an academic sin

But now that I am old

I learn much wisdom from the westering wind

The Back of the Wardrobe - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Back of the Wardrobe

 

If you invite me to your house one day

And if in a spare room you have a wardrobe

Then will you let me open it? I pray

And reach far in, and touch and tap and probe

 

Old coats, old shoes, old dreams, your MeeMaw’s old hats

Someone’s uniform from a long-ago war

Boxes of Christmas ornaments stacked on some mats

Some surprisingly cold mothballs rolling on the floor

 

Because your wardrobe might be an Advent itself

With Narnia on the other side

Eight Lamps to Give Us Light - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Eight Lamps to Give Us Light

 

For the Martyrs of Bondi Beach

 

Hanukkah, 5786

 

 

For all the boots of the tramping warriors
    and all the garments rolled in blood
    shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

 

-Isaiah 9:5

 

 

The Temple in Jerusalem cannot be destroyed -

For all the bloody-booted conquerors

Who swagger and clatter and rattle over the Stair

Defile and burn and pillage only their own souls

 

Wherever a candle is lit, the Temple is there

Wherever the yad touches a davar, the Temple is there

Wherever Truth is honored, the Temple is there

Wherever children sing, the Temple is there

 

Temple and Torah, poet and prayer

Poetry, prayer, eight lamps, and love, and care – 

                                           the Temple is there

The Hate in Orwell’s 1984 was only Two Minutes - poem, sort of

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Hate in Orwell’s 1984 was only Two Minutes

 

Progressive, Progressivist, Culture warrior

Boomer, GenX, GenZ, Millennial

Liberal, Conservative, Neo-con

RadTrad, Fascist, Neo-Fascist

Socialist, Neo-Socialist, Marxist

Communist, Trotskyite, Colonialist

Neo-colonialist, Imperialist, Neo-imperialist

Occupier, Bourgeois, Petite bourgeois

Libertarian, MAGA, Capitalist

Nazi, Neo-Nazi, Invader

Zionist, Settler, Sexist, Neo-sexist

Denier, Neo-denier, Reactionary

GenY, GenY-inian, Neo-GenY-inian

Social Parasite, Sheeple, Feminazi

Limousine liberal, Champagne Socialist

Counterrevolutionary, RINO

Low-information voter, Elitist

Republicrat, Democrap, MAGA-tista

Social justice warrior, Garbage people

Low-IQ voter, racist, Leftist

Cracker and Queer, and maybe Cracker-Queer

People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian

Neo-People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian

 

All sorts of names we scream at each other

Abjectly obeying our Dear Leaders’ trends

So quick to condemn each sister and brother

But maybe we all could just try to be…friends?