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?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fang, Wild Dog of the North
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse
Whiles night’s black agents to their prey do rouse
Macbeth III.ii.58-59
When at night the ravenous timberwolves sing
Terrifying each lesser living thing
And the great horned owl is on the wing
Even brave men to their prayers do cling
My carnivorous dachshund is ready to spring
Her blood-lust stirred by the microwave’s ping!
(Stand back, everyone! No sudden moves…!)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Goddess and the Chainsaw
“Do
not human spirits look out at you from every leaf and stem?”
-Firs,
the loyal old servant who has been dismissed
Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard
Chekhov
wrote his farewell to a cherry orchard
And I speak
a valedictory to my apple trees
Sweet Anna
apples who gave good service for years
Apples and
love for family, neighbors, and friends
We were
all young, the apple trees and I
I petted
them with pruning and pesticide
And sat
under them on hot summer days
As they
sang in the soft, susurrant breeze
The
goddess Pomona approved our endeavors
And breathed
upon us blessings and bees and birds
To swarm
us with the ancient loves of Latium
When
youths and maidens embraced beneath the leaves
The last
tree died this summer
I had to
chainsaw the remembered joys
and Pomona is no longer here
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
An Elderly Woman Screaming Obscenities into her MePhone
in the Parking Lot of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital
“Where the **** are you!? Did you sneak away!?”
Might serve as an existential question
Addressed to a patient saint, to God
To the silent spheres of Creation
“What is this ****!? Did you ****ing leave me here!?”
We’ve all asked that question: in a lonely bed
On a blood-sodden gurney in an emergency room
In the screaming-burning-gunfire streets
With the courage and compassion which befits a man
I slipped around her rage, and avoided her eyes
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“The Man with the
Spanish Helmet” on the Barracks Wall
Hospital Corps Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,
ca. January 1970
A barracks wall is a studio wall:
Miss April, smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin
Miss October, tall (in need of a shawl)
Miss January, thin, an aethereal djinn
But among these beauties (grandmothers now)
A Spanish helmet and a stern old man
A white-haired don still strong in chin and brow
Like yours, his eyes for truth and wisdom scan
So then who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?
Why, the Dreamer with the Spanish Helmet is
you
Variant ending:
“The Man with the Spanish Helmet” on a Barracks Wall
Hospital Corps
Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,
ca. January 1970
A barracks
wall is a studio wall:
Miss April,
smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin
Miss
October, tall (in need of a shawl)
Miss
January, thin, an aethereal djinn
But among
these beauties (grandmothers now)
A Spanish helmet
and a stern old man
A
white-haired don still strong in chin and brow
Like yours,
his eyes for truth and wisdom scan
So then
who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?
And why is
he looking not at me but at
you?
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Do ICE Agents
Teach Sunday School?
A furore monstrorum glaciei libera nos Domine
Now I lay me down to sleep
But in the night the ICEmen creep
I cannot sleep; I’m still awake -
I fear the ICEmen will come and take…
