Lawrence Hall
All of Us Look for Magic in Our Books
All of us look for magic in our books
A sale-table paperback during a coffee break
Is a voyage beyond the vending machines
A light at dawn on the first day in Eden
But we must bring our magic to the magic
Or good King Arthur will not come again
The Shire will remain befouled and desolate
And morning will not bring us noble knights
For we must bring our magic to the magic
Which will not happen if we don’t believe
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A
repost from March, 2018
Yes, Yes, But They Need Jobs in the Real
World
“Forward Electronics,
your victory’s achieved!
In all communication,
progress is our creed!
Ignorance is darkness,
technology is light!
Radio, our watchword;
radio, our might!”
-Komsomol youth singing
in “For the Good of the Cause,” Solzhenitsyn, 1963
The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible
The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed
But do you wonder, at night, beneath your lamp -
Why are you building a concentration camp?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Who is the Third Murderer in Macbeth?
But who did bid thee join with us?
-Macbeth III.iii.1
Two murderers are hired; a third one joins
The false lady, perhaps, or the tempter himself
As light and love both thicken near the rooky wood
“But who did bid thee join…?” Maybe we did
We have drooped and drowsed through civilization
Scorning the sacred texts of our several faiths
Approaching the Altar as a drive-through concession
The Body of Christ and maybe an order of fries
Who is the Third Murderer?
Rabbi, is it I?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial
Office
Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?
A medical
professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was
reading
Poetry,
I replied
Poetry of suffering
in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians
who were there
She asked:
Did civilians write
poetry back in th’ day?
I changed the topic
to my blood pressure
Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004
This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration
camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems
are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered.
There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices
/ my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose
voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find
beauty among the horror
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Tom Bombadil Day
“How bright your garden looks!”
-Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings, Book I
Tomato seedlings from the hardware store
Happy little things, six of ‘em to a pack
I sing to them as I drive them home
They seem amused: I am no Tom Bombadil!
I sing to them more nonsense songs
(If no sniffy old Lobelias are listening)
As I gently, gently transfer them
With a pat and a prayer into the earth
And I sing to them; you will understand
For you too have lived in the dear old Shire
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial
Office
Reality
Will See You Now
I am a student of medical waiting rooms
The same Motel 6 paintings and decor
Receptionists giggling behind rippled glass
About weekends and boyfriends and inadequate husbands
Patients waiting as patiently as Russians
Tattoos and ball-caps lined up in plastic-chairs
Clutching bills and lab reports in nervous hands
Or greasy, year-old copies of Reader’s Digest
Or bending over their MePhones in a servile bow -
“Mr. Hall? The doctor will see you now…”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial
Office
A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life
Optometrist
17 March 0845 Netgear DirecTV Viasat Verizon Spectrum Xumo? Xuumo? Carlos 1775
1812 PSA Eliot Cohen BRING PLANTS UNDER COVER computer paper brekker c Max 0800
Tuesday find quote from Doctor Zhivago When is Gonculator Day? Intek
10.5 “Did civilians write poetry back in the day?” Subaru password username
amazon apple Christus patient portal HUMMINGBIRDS! Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund
visitation Sat 5-7 funeral Sun 2 1030 St. Elizabeth’s Refresh+ or Lumify water
co-op board meeting Kirk Santiago de Compostella breakfast singles orange juice
cheese creamer cat food detergent pods taco shells 0900 dentist Epiphany prison
at 1700 cancel DirecTV cancel Viasat Mary Oliver OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE Q
EDITION LONESOME DOVE as DIGENES AKRITAS life is the meaning of what? Jaw-dropping
breaking silence breaking cover breaking bombshells shocking bombshells the shell
of a bomb the Alien and Sedition Acts and Frodo
Nazis
wear ball caps
The
building has left Elvis
