Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Where Do Our Dreams Go?

We wake up every morning, still adrift

From night and dreams and fog and hazy dawn

Unless we work the night shift down at the plant

For then we rise to the evening news

When we wake up where do our pale dreams go?

Maybe the first flush makes them disappear

Maybe daylight fades them into non-being

Or they’re put out with the dog for the dawn patrol

And never allowed back in

It’s really okay

if nightmares go away -

I just wish the happy dreams would stay

Artificial Intelligence on the Assembly Line - couplet

Lawrence Hall

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

Artificial Intelligence on the Assembly Line

Artificial intelligence can no more displace poetry

Than the Model T Ford can displace the dance

Three Times in the Heart - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Three Times in the Heart

It’s on the InterGossip so it must be true

Some years ago a poet shot himself

A Young poet shot himself in the heart

Three times

He shot himself in the heart three times

And the county coroner agreed that it was so

Three times

The county coroner did not say if he shot himself

In the back, in the back, in the back-back

Three times

Well, hey, what do I know; I wasn’t there

But it’s on the InterGossip; it must be true

Negative Capability and Stuff - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Negative Capability and Stuff

For Nat Lipstadt

Exactly inexactly that sheet of paper

A blank sheet of paper rich in its blankness

Because there is nothing there and so

The possibilities of being are without limits

Except for that 8.5 x 11” thing

Which the writer is free to repudiate

And see beyond it a spectrum of beauty and truth

Which is not there except in seeing it so

Letting go too can make imaginings new

(But still, my very dear friends, the rent is due!)

A Cruel Tease - a poor attempt at Haiku

Lawrence Hall

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

A Cruel Tease

The wind turned, leaves flew

But then stillness, more summer heat -

Where are you, autumn?

Fear and Anger Down at the Post Office - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Fear and Anger Down at the Post Office

I wouldn’t mind running errands in town

If there were a town, but there isn’t

Only isolated remnants among the ruins

The tin-barn tattoo joint, gas stations, a vape shop

Sometimes in the post office a drunk sleeps on the floor

Beneath the table with a cheap pen on a chain

You can be fined for stealing that federal pen

But double-tap-bombing other nations is cool

Outside the post office loom larger signs:

VEHICLES AND THEIR

CONTENTS ARE SUBJECT

TO INSPECTION WHEN

ENTERING, LEAVING, OR

WHILE PARKED WITHIN

THIS RESTRICTED AREA.

ENTERING INTO THIS AREA

CONSTITUTES CONSENT TO

THE INSPECTION.

(39 C.F.R. PART 232.1 (b)(2)

And

U.S. PROPERTY

TRESPASSING

In a patriotic red, white and blue color scheme

With super-high testosterone levels

Once upon a time visiting the post office

For letters and newspapers and Christmas stamps

Did not make a government fearful of its people

Or a people fearful of their government

The drunk snores peacefully

Third Cowboy from the Left - poem

Lawrence Hall

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