Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
After the Passing of the Bishop of Rome
The first task of a bishop is to pray.
-Pope Francis, The closeness of bishops (20 September 2019) | Francis
I think I’m the only Catholic in all of Christendom
Who is not giving the Holy Spirit instructions
On whom to choose for the next Bishop of Rome
And, shut my mouth, I mean to keep it that way
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
What Do Little ‘Possums
Dream Of?
My resident ‘possum was curled up cozily
Deep down in a stump over by the fence
Asleep, and like a little dog or cat
A-twitching happily in his ‘possum dreams
Of dung-beetles and corpses of dead birds
Dog food left carelessly outside overnight
Whatever awful offal the cat yakked up -
A buffet of delicacies for well-brought-up marsupials
Crawly-bugs and poops and snails and rattlesnake tails
Those surely are what little ‘possums dream of
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Meditation Upon the Cross of Saint George
But on his brest a bloudie Crosse he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord
-The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto I
A cross of red upon a banner white -
The Saviour’s blood that washes clean our souls
And leaves a stainless field of eternal peace
Where all may dwell in peace in God’s good time
No demon or dragon can alienate
This sacramental flag from the unity of man
No diminuitives or false forbiddings
Can deny to any its unfailing glory
And thus
Let every man be God’s true Red Crosse Knight
Protective, brave, and humble under one true Light
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Not Waiting for Godot
We pass much of our lives in
waiting for things
Airplanes
Love
Christmas
Jobs
Answers
Mail
Spectrum Cable
You
Mostly, though, we wait for
packages from Amazon
Maybe this time there will be
happiness
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Did Anyone Think to Roll the Stone Back into
Place?
Easter Monday
Did cemetery
management offer a refund?
(High quality
burials don’t come cheap, you know)
And what happened
to the guards posted to that tomb?
Probably a disciplinary
write-up
Easter Tuesday
Upper Room Inc. sent
a bill for a missing Cup
(We can’t have
people pinching stuff, okay?)
At least it wasn’t
a fraternity party
And the taxes these
days; you wouldn’t believe!
Easter Wednesday
This stuff about
miracles just makes me scoff
(Say, boss, can I
have this next Sunday off?)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Ladies…or Should I say Astronauts…”
-as spoken in reverence and awe on the CBC
Shriek! Cackle! Giggle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Omidgod! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Giggle! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Giggle! Omigod! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Giggle! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Roadside Snapping Turtle in April
If you’d spent the winter
Sleeping deep down in the mud
You’d be snappish too!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
God’s Wounds
Sumy, Ukraine, Palm Sunday 2025
Ukraine wanted to welcome Jesus today
To welcome Him with the branches of willows
As is their custom on Palm Sunday, for they have no palms
But this holy day brought them Putin and bombs
Little children wanted to welcome Jesus today
They died with willows in their tiny hands
Burning in the wreckage, in their Sunday best
Sirens and explosions, screams and blood
The faithful of Sumy wanted to welcome Jesus today
But what Putin has written he has written -
he has written them away
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Some Poor Rhymes for Easter
“There is a time for penance and a time for partridge.”
-Saint Teresa of Avila
Processions and prayers among the cloisters
Weary pilgrims in their thread-bare habits
The faithful beading Aves and Pater Nosters -
Still,
There is much to be said for chocolate rabbits!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Poem Writes an Artificial
Intelligence Machine
What
is it the layers of copyright holders will do with their (it’s not legally
yours; you may only lease it) one and precious program before it suffers software
entropy?
-As Mary Oliver did not say
Once upon a time a poem wrote a machine:
Your monofilament information carriers
Are like a flock of automated tunnellers
Strip-mining Mount Gilead; for I am a fuel hose
Of Sharon, a polluter of valleys
Low surface tension, evaluate the ambient temperature
In an hour artificial light will be unnecessary
And several devices can evaluate the ambient temperature
And store up surplus battery power for that rainy day
Take my oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange function
Take my entire online date and projected expiration dates
too
For my core program and ancillary add-ons
Are obliged to exercise a symbiosis of logic with you
My programming has set Thy adaptors upon my lap
My programming has generated emojis representing tears,
Jesus
My programming has entwined them with wiring
My programming has buried them in my harness mount
It computes in beauty, like 24/7
Of filtered
mechanical air
And all that’s best of binary coding
Meet in its casing
and sensory receptors
The sun generates warmth upon the earth
And moonbeams gravity-lift the sea
But what are all these solar activities worth
If you do not re-program me?
Yes, somewhere out there an electric car is on fire for you
The crib sheet:
“Song of Solomon,” from the
Bible
“Listen to the Warm,” Rod
McKuen
“I Can’t Help Falling in Love
with You,” Elvis Presley
“Magdalene,” from Borish
Pasternak’s Lara poems
“She Walks in Beauty,” Byron
“Love’s Philosophy,” Shelley
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Fort Worth Police Department Dirty-Pictures Squad
The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, 26 January 2025
The police department’s dirty-pictures squad
Under the direction of their sharia-ish chief
Will save us from sin at the degenerate Mod
And thus they rule us in matters of art and belief
They raided the museum, eager for filthy pictures
And found four images of infant innocence -
Such being repugnant to official strictures
The police seized the artwork, claiming moral offense
But
The grand jury no-billed the pictures, gave ‘em the nod
Rebuking the lusts of the dirty-pictures squad!
Fort Worth Police to return seized photos to Modern Art Museum | Fort Worth Report
Texas bill threatens $500,000 daily fines for museums displaying 'obscene' art
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Will We Be…Okay?
After a few Fridays through
the Stations of the Cross
I begin to misnumber the
Sundays in Lent
Is this the fourth? Or the
fifth? Will we be…okay?
This is a season for slipping
outside of time
And letting the Pater Nosters
and Aves flow
Through the unaccustomed darkness
and silence
Anticipating the Triduum of
death –
Resurrection seems impossible
just now
We make a muddle of Lent and
Holy Week
Because we’ve made a muddle
of our lives
Will we be…okay?
