Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Batter
Our Hearts
“Batter my heart, three-person’d
God,” said Donne
And we’ve all of us agreed with that
So now, God
You
can stop battering
Really. Stop it. It’s gone on long
enough.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Technology is a Two-Edged Carrot Grater
A Meditation upon Computer Updates
After an update:
I cannot delete intrusions that should go away
I cannot save that knowledge which should stay
I cannot find the files that went astray
While codes and access are changing every day
People I don’t even know want me to pay
For services and tweaks they want me to play
My work-rhythm will go much faster, they say
Or else they’ll block my already-slow pathway
An update is litter on the information highway
A metaphorical carrot grater of existential decay
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
I Wandered Lonely as the Recent Site
Update
As Wordsworth did not
say
A daffodil is in itself a being
That dances by itself to the glory of God
Without the registery of a poet’s pen
Without the approval of passwords and codes
Two lovers are in themselves a being
Who dance each other to the glory of God
Without the registry of a poet’s pen
Without the approval of passwords and codes
All poets are in themselves a being
Without the approval of passwords and codes
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
This is not Who We Are
(or maybe it is)
This is not who we are we need to come together as one when you get home just hug your children we’re better than this our thoughts and prayers are with you one victim is too many we’re [someplace] proud from an abundance of caution active shooter situation enough is enough We. Will. Find. You. no more excuses WHEN? unspeakable we know many of you are grieving our community this senseless crime this is not a reflection of who we are this type of behavior will not be tolerated
Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
Power Outage with Dog
With spasms and flickers the power failed at dusk
All whirrings and buzzings sputtered into silence
While rain clawed at the windows, demanding admittance
A battle-lantern centered a puddle of light
My little doggie shivered in my lap
Through flaring lightning and seismic thunder-blasts
Wanting to disappear into my arms
Wanting a world free of thunderstorms
A world free of storms – in the darkness I muse -
That’s my hope too when I read the news
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Gradations of War
Why does he say an all-out war?
Is there somehow a some-in war?
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Typewriter, Telephone, Dictionary,
Thesaurus
The typewriter is
holy
(okay, Ginsberg got
that right, at least)
Over the years a series of corded telephones
Stood to their duty next to an Underwood
That’s now stowed away in a closet somewhere
The dictionary and thesaurus are retired
Over the years a series of wordy battles
Have been fought over this Polonian plain:
Thesis and antithesis to synthesis
Theses, structures and sources, papers and poems
Over the years
A little glowing machine now centers my desk
But verse and prose, and you and I, are forever
