Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Headless America
In the eye-blurry morning this subhead I read:
HEADLESS AMERICA
But I blinked and thinked and winked and re-read:
HEADLINES AMERICA
The first reading was more accurate, someone said
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Latest News on the President’s Snuff Film
The president’s snuff film has been stopped
Much to the annoyance of the red-capped mob
Who enjoy watching humans being shredded or chopped
But who need to remember in merry December:
That public executions are ICE’s job
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Lurking at the Early
Voting Site
Years later, some will say this never happened
Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
A Texas Emergency Management SUV
Parked at the poll at the Baptist Church
There’s no one in it, that White Maria
In government white, it just sort of lurks
You’ve been listening to rumors, comrade
No, no, there is no typhus in Moscow
Did Grendel leave it while waiting for night?
It just sort of lurks, in government white
This isn’t Spain; this is England, you know
And, citizen, there is no typhus in Moscow
Free-floating allusions
for our illusions:
The Gulag Archipelago
Doctor Zhivago
Beowulf
A Man for All Seasons
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night
Once upon a time I found an arrowhead
At the roots of an oak that no longer stands
And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –
Man versus nature or man versus man
Once upon a time I found a minie’-ball
At the roots of that oak that no longer stands
And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn -
Man versus nature or man versus man
Once upon a time I found dentures
At the base of the old water well out front
And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –
Man versus plug tobacco or plug tobacco versus man
Do you hear their soft footfalls at night?
Paws and claws and feet from before linear time
Between the poles and along the latitudes
That no one had yet written or thought
Do they stand outside your window and listen
Listen for your breathing, and wish they could talk
Could talk with you about this holy earth
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
For the Sullen Goof Wearing a Revolver
in the Supermarket
(Texas is an
oaf-and-carry state)
Does the big,
bad broccoli scare you, punkin’?
Is the
canned spinach laughing at you again?
A big iron
on your hip
Is just
A big iron
on your lip
And
someone’s going to have it away from you
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Why is the Priest Yelling at Me?
I cannot tell you of the gospel today
My attention span was at its bottom
The priest chose to yell instead of say
And thus most reverently
I bowed my head over Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
When You Were a
Little Child with a Crayon
When first your hand, your little hand, picked up
A crayon, a brush, a pencil, a marker, a pen
And with your hand, your little hand, your pen
You flung your thoughts onto a paper pad
(Or onto your parents’ freshly painted walls)
You introduced your words into the world
You introduced yourself, your words, your soul
And Eden was happy again, with your poems
Running barefoot among the singing trees
(Perhaps God smiled and asked)
Whose are these hands, these little hands
Making fresh new words for my young and growing world?
