Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

I Think Somehow I Can Live with That

An oak tree as La Belle Dame Sans Merci?

I had an errand upon the ground, and sat

When I was finished I considered tired leaves

On skeletal branches reaching for – me?

I thought somehow I could live with that

And roots extending for water and food

Like tentacles reaching out to me

Probably in hunger, but maybe in love

I thought somehow I could live with that

Getting down to the ground is easy enough

Getting up is getting more difficult with age

And someday I will not be getting off the ground

at all

I think somehow I can live with that

For years ago I planted this tree in this ground

Maybe I will rest under it awhile

I think somehow I can live with that

Laughing Stock - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Laughing Stock

Pray you let us not be laughing‑stocks to other men’s humors

The Merry Wives of Windsor, III.i.87

But why do you say “laughing stock?”

What, in context, is a stock?

Is it a being capable of laughter?

How does a stock laugh?

Does it chuckle or chortle or bray?

Or is stock a thing people laugh at?

Are the stock’s feelings hurt?

Hey, everyone, look at the stock!

Did you ever see such a sad stock?

Be careful:

Someday a stock might take your place

At the cool kids’ table

And laugh at you

For writing “laughing stock”

The Sheriff's Office on Sunday Night - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Sheriff’s Office on Sunday Night

Now

The old week has ended; the new will begin tomorrow

Sunday night is the peaceful intermission

A bridge between worlds which can be its own

In Cinemascope and Technicolor

1878

The sheriff’s office is the color of dust

Crumbling adobe with a wooden porch

A kerosene lantern beside the door

A wanted poster or two tacked to the wall

Inside, a cluttered desk centers the room

A rack of Winchesters centers a wall

Through a window the desert sunlight angles in

Like a geometry problem set in Arizona

A ring of keys hang from a wooden peg

Surprisingly close to the iron-grated cells

Some chairs, law books, a deck of playing cards

A fire-blackened coffee pot that nobody ever cleans

1958

All is silent for a few minutes more

Howard Hawks has not yet taken his throne

The electricians and the sound technicians

Script girls and assistants, are still at the food truck

Now

On this side of the portal I cowboy up

With a glass of tea, popcorn in a bowl

My little dog dozing cozily in my lap

Chasing rabbits, not outlaws, in her dreams

Maybe this time the evil land baron

And his band of disposable desperadoes

Will bust his crooked brother out of jail

But I don’t think so

The old week has ended; the new will begin tomorrow

For now, me and the sheriff’s got business

Sunday, October 25, 2026

A Saucy Old Pirate at Joe's Cafe' - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

A Saucy Old Pirate at Joe’s Cafe

A jovial man stumped into Breakfast Joe’s

His jeans and chambray shirt were clean but worn

He bore the look of a man who knew his way

Aboard a drilling rig or a fishing boat

He visited every table, including mine

And like a saucy pirate carried away

A bottle from here and a bottle from there

Until upon his own table he had stowed

In order serviceable, as Milton might say:

Tabasco

Tony Cachere’s

The Original Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce

Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce (“from the recipe of

a Nobleman in the county”)

Crystal Hot Sauce

Frank’s RedHot

A-1

He then called out to waitress Tiffany:

“Now tell the cook he can begin my eggs!”

And when she had brought him his breakfast chow

Enough to feed Lafitte, and Governor Claibourne too

He measured his sauces with an invisible cup

Then ate all those eggs, yes, he ate ‘em all up

And as he took his second pot of coffee

He seemed satisfied with his voyage’s takings

I asked him what that was all about

He smiled and waved his arms wide open, and laughed

“I’m a Cajun!”

Nuit de Cristal - poem about Paris

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature, and Love

Nuit de Cristal

It’s possible to appreciate the beauty of a shard of glass without

knowing what the window looked like before it was smashed…

-Matti Friedman, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

Her libraries are closed against book-burners

Museums wrecked out by enemies of art

Music has been silenced by the bullhorns’ roars

Communion is now a looted Hershey bar

Poets must hide their verse from the ignorant

Who scream for education even as they burn their schools

Defile synagogues and loot little shops

And steal purses, not books or microscopes

Even so

Paris, civilization’s brightest light

Will live despite lies, fires, and broken glass

Qu'est-ce que «Krystallnacht» en français?

Friday, October 23, 2026

Swabbing Out the Head - poem about recruit training

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Swabbing Out the Head

When I was a lad swabbing out the head

Windexing the mirrors, cleaning the s******s

Occasionally standing to attention to squeak

“Sir, yes, sir; my first general order is, sir…!

When I was a lad in concrete Camp Nimitz

Marching for freedom back behind barbed wire

1903 Springfield, manual of arms

“Yer all cockroaches; drop and gimme ten!”

When I was a lad, guarding a clothesline ‘til dawn

I didn’t know that I was a

Warfighter

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Headless America - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love