Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“Just One More
Thing…”
For Peter Falk
Of Happy Memory
A well-chewed cigar
A seven-years’ rumpled coat
A fine-tailored heart
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
"Just One More Thing..." - for Peter Falk
Monday, August 24, 2026
The U.S.S. Doris Miller - a Tall Ship for a Tall man
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The U.S.S. Doris
Miller – a Tall Ship for a Tall Man
"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer
her by"
-John Masefield, “Sea Fever
Iron and Steel
For now she is only numbered heaps of steel
Laid out in structure-order at Newport News
Muscled into being through thought and power
Strong craftsmen of the builders’ brotherhood
CVN 81
The lifts, the links, the wirings, the welds, the works
Plans, bolts, tools, heat, sweat, pain, maybe some blood
A touch of salty language for motivation
And then someday
“God bless this ship and all who sail in her”
The Soul of a Ship
The Doris Miller will sail, that brave tall ship -
And Doris Miller himself will be her star
An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief - intemporate political doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap
-Kipling
Americans are a couch-bound people who
Applaud a souffle being fluffed on t.v.
And argue the fine points of Chef So-and-So’s roux
While their sailors and Marines go hungry
across the sea
Sunday, August 23, 2026
"I Don't Know What's Going on in There!" - poem
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“I Don’t Know
What’s Going on in There!”
“Oh, you have made me very angry, very angry indeed!”
-Marvin the Martian in a Bugs Bunny cartoon
The convention would be to say he stormed out of church
But in his time of life he can’t storm at all
Except maybe like Marvin the Martian
(If Martians suffer arthritis and age) while I held the
door for him
(No, not for a Martian, for a creaky, cranky old earthling)
“You saw me come in! I came to Mass! Now I’m going out!
I don’t know what’s going on in there! It’s all a mess!
And I don’t have to put up with it! I’ll watch Mass on
t.v.!”
I never learned what was going on in there
Divine services are like that – what do we really know?
But he, and I, and you – we just do our best
Friday, August 21, 2026
Music for Biology Class - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Music for Biology Class
According to the curriculum code
This week we are in dissection mode
Each waving a tiny knife and prick and goad
Let us now sing “Song of the Open Toad”
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Hot Scrambled Verse Comin' Right Up! - poem (of sorts)
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Hot Scrambled
Verse Comin’ Right Up!
Too hot to read
Too hot to write
Too hot to think coherently
Too hot to sort an iamb from an iambnot
(Gasp!)
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
When I Was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
When I was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur
There are not going to be many more dinosaurs
-C. S. Lewis, “De Descriptione Temporum,” 1955
When I was a child I saw a dinosaur
A dinosaur at the end of the lane
Rearing its head high above the pasture gate
It might want to eat little boys, I feared
So I held really still, and closed my eyes
And closed my eyes, so tightly closed my eyes
And closed my eyes, and then…opened my eyes –
The dinosaur (it didn’t roar) was still there!
When I was a child I saw a dinosaur
A real-life little-boy-hungry carnivore!
I wish I could see it again
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