Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
After the Drought: Living Water
Sweet rain greens the grass
Like baptism or mikvah
Making the world new
Thursday, August 27, 2026
After the Drought: Living Water - a modest attempt at Haiku
Today Lake America, Tomorrow the World! - intemperate political poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Today Lake America, Tomorrow the World!
The USS Trump has departed the Straits of America
And is sailing across the South Trump America Sea
Enroute to ThaiTrumpland, His fifty-fifth state
For a Trumptorious port call at Trumpkok
From thence across the Trump America Ocean
The bigliest Trump ship the world has ever seen
Helmed by General Admiral Trump, Our Trump
Who declares victory over loser Canada
And awards each sailor and Marine
The Golden Order of the Reflecting Pool
Good for discounts at the catering truck
Thank you for your attention to this matter
I Hadn't Realized How Young We Are - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
I Hadn’t Realized How Young We Are
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
-Mary Oliver,
"Sometimes"
I hadn’t
realized how young we are
As through
this field we stroll, your hand in mine
But love
has seen us safely through this far
With hearts
in time with each other, with eyes that shine
We were
young once, and how wonderful to be
Still
young in the promises we made
And in our
long togetherness thus free
To love as
one in this moonlit summer glade
As through
this field we stroll, beneath the evening star
I realize
how wonderfully young we are
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
"Just One More Thing..." - for Peter Falk
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
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, will range wide and far -
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)