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”
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!)
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
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Typewriter Maps the Battlefield of the Mind
Everyone
who survived began a book
In
basements, cheap apartments, or rented rooms
Underwoods
clattering in anger, in rage
For
corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay
Coffee
cups, beer rings, stolen motel ashtrays
Cigarette
smoke wreath around the keys
While
muses watched from the crumbling plaster wall
Maybe
a crucifix, maybe Miss March
Cheap
typing paper from the corner store
A
sandwich falling apart along with life
A
last assault through a paragraph
Before
rushing to the bus stop for the night shift
“Y’all
wasn’t in a real war,” the old men said
But
the memories and the typewriter keys
Still bled
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Critical Topic in Jewish-Catholic Interfaith Dialogue
When eating hot dogs made with Hebrew National franks
Do we say grace with “Toda”
“Grates”
or
“Thanks?”
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Cute Little Biological Markers
For
our Emily
Who
set a thoughtful challenge
To
define the term
The
lives of our frogs
Biological
markers
Tell
us of toxins
If frogs
have clean air
And
fresh clean water and bugs
We
will have clean frogs
Healthy
little frogs
To
celebrate our health too
They
give us great joy!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“They Knew What They Signed Up For”
That cruel dismissal is from some keyboard commando
Who memorized every line from Patton
But never volunteered for anything himself
Except for a two-layered two-fer at McDonald’s
