Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I Am Spartacus! (Okay,
Maybe Not)
I am not Spartacus!
I don’t wanna die!
No, really, let’s discuss
The death of some other guy!
Thursday, July 31, 2025
I Am Spartacus! (Okay, Maybe Not) - doggerel
A Variation on the Privacy Tour - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Variation on the Privacy Tour
We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family’s Privacy
Except for the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the reception at the Something Hall, date and time
And the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the visitation, date and time
And the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the services at Our Lady of Something, date and time
And the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the interment at Something Cemetery, date and time
And the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the scholarship fundraiser
And the Go Fund Me everyone will see
The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, the Epsteinian Files, and The Burn-Bags of Opar - perfectly awful doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, the Epsteinian Files,
and The Burn-Bags of Opar
I am not at liberty to lay before the inquiring minds of an objective public the manner in which the curious document and chilling testimony below came into my possession except that this was through the offices of a mysterious midnight visitor on business from Porlock with a wooden leg and an ivory eye of curious and antique design – or was that an ivory leg and a wooden eye? – and I must assure the reader that it was the visitor from Porlock who made do with a tapping ivory eye and a sightless wooden leg or sightless eye and tapping artificial leg, not the pleasant village of Porlock, because English villages are possessed of streets and lanes, not eyes and legs, on a stormy night at the time of the equinoctial gales when ships put to sea knowing that they (the crews, not the ships) must place their lives into the hands of our merciful and loving God who knoweth all things and disposeth all things and so now pray take a seat and light your pipe while I set my spectacles aright and read to you this strange narrative entrusted to my discretion and, like, stuff:
The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, The Epsteinian Files,
and The Burn-Bags of Opar
In search of The Lost Epsteinian Files
Tarzan slipped into a city ruinous and far
And in a secret tunnel that ran for miles
Stumbled onto The Burn-Bags of Opar
Queen Kristi of Opar, long in love with Tarzan
Sacrificed to her gods a dog and a goat
Then in an armored golf cart chased him as far as she can
(Okay, then, you try to rhyme “Tarzan”)
To the edge of the Alligator Alcatraz moat
Tarzan, exhausted, thought he was a doomer
Kristi was sharpening her sacrificial knife
(or loading her thirty-thirty; the records are unclear)
But she was death-whispered by Laura Loomer
Thus saving the burn-bags and our hero’s life
And The Epsteinian Files? The mystery no longer abodes -
The scripts for Gilligan’s Island, the lost episodes
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
"Just One More Thing" - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Just One More Thing”
His shabby raincoat
His rumply old suit and tie
His “Just one more thing…”
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Minefield and Altar - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Minefield and Altar
Approaching the Truth should be simple enough
But you can expect to lose a lot of pals
The maps you were given are unreliable
Because the chain of command keeps changing them
No matter what choices you make in the bush
Someone in authority will tell you you’re wrong
If you show initiative you will be wrong
If you follow orders you will still be wrong
If you survive you will be too late for chow
And the leaders steal your medals anyhow
A Point-and-Won't-Shoot Camera - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Point-and-Won’t-Shoot Camera
The concept of the point-and-shoot camera obtains
But a Me-‘Phone camera doesn’t see it that way
I stopped to watch a bug-grazing bird
Who approached me as if she wanted to visit
I took out my Me-‘Phone for a photograph
And it didn’t recognize my handsome face
And I had to tap a four-digit code
And the bird grew suspicious and flew away
O Egret, in your beautiful brown and white -
I truly understand your need for flight
Monday, July 28, 2025
High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup - poem about summer heat
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup
Blue light - an illusion of
comfort at dawn
The streaky windows frame a
winter day
Illusions and delusions lying
to us
For this is July, when hopes
wither and die
The sun’s tentacles ripple
across the fields
One of them slithers to your
window and leers
Mocking the fantasies of your
air-conditioned sleep
Beckoning you outside: come
and be fried
The sun’s hot streakings,
mortals seeking, they roam
As summer’s slithering death:
a high-pressure dome
Sunday, July 27, 2025
A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing Civilization
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing Civilization
Learn. To. Dostoyevsky.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
They. Learned. To. Code. - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
They. Learned. To. Code.
14-year-old boy identified as victim
in University of New Mexico dorm shooting
I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform, justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace
and war.
-John
Milton, “Of Education,” 1644
Learn. To.
Code. is the fashionable chant
Staccato’d in
every callow response
Make. America.
Great. through cliché’ and cant
To force a lath-and-plaster
renaissance
The Great
Conversation of books and thoughts
The Great
Dialectic of civilization
Are now toys,
guns, and video games, all for nought
Ferality within
a generation
Within a
generation, within a blink
They.
Learned. To. Code.
They did
not learn to think
Friday, July 25, 2025
The Apex Predator - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Apex Predator
They…
Have watched me rise from the darkness of war
Dripping with my enemies’ blood
-Beowulf, trans. Raffel, lines 151-153
The apex predator feeds upon the flesh
Of those who wanted desperately to live
To hew and chew and gnaw and digest and mesh
With those who died with no desire to forgive
The apex predator feeds while others starve
The sentient flee from him in grievous fear
But he always wins, his victims then to carve
In bloody fields and haunted forests drear
War ends violently in drang und sturm
And the apex predator is obviously
The Worm
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time - poem about the guy who bit the head off a bat
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This
Time
“Our family privacy” – people
keep saying that
A friend came over and mowed
my rankling lawn
Because finding a lawnmower
mechanic these days
Is like searching for a
unicorn in a shopping mall
Their family privacy – I’m
blessed with friends
But lawnmower mechanics seem
to be extinct
The temp today was 98 at noon
Nobody chants “Learn. To.
Code.” anymore
Their family privacy – chicken
pot pies
Are on sale at Brookshire’s
for 88 cents
I’ll mail all those bills this
afternoon
That’s a really nice shirt
you’re wearing today
Their family privacy – a middle-aged
woman
Sheds tears upon an altar of
VHS tapes
In privacy
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body - yes, a 5-7-5, unworthy of a senryu
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body
I listen to my body
All day, all night (Mary Ann)
If I eat too much
Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar
Piso mojado en Tejas y
Colorado
Does not exactly trip from my
English tongue
Cuidado that floor in El
Dorado
For piso sounds slippily
close to dung!
Monday, July 21, 2025
Loose Vowels - not really a poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Loose Vowels
A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y – why?
(Asking for a dipthong)
The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The New Pastor Threatens the
Congregation with Guitars
Our new
pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars
At Mass last
week he informally presented
This
suggestion: a choir. And guitars
But peace
will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -
Guitars in
church are why ear plugs were invented
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
-Shelly, “Love’s Philosophy”
A kiss is just a kiss, as Dooley Wilson sang
In a Casablanca that never was
A kiss to give one’s life a bit of tang
A kiss to set a lonely heart abuzz
But great unwashed mobs stacked in their masses
Close-looped in a failed sub-culture of dust
Metal in their noses and tattoos on their asses
Can never find truth without a trace of trust
For love can never depend upon
The vigilante cruelty of a jumbo-tron
Tech company Astronomer launches investigation into 'kiss cam' moment at Coldplay concert - ABC News
The Crown of Rachel - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Crown of Rachel
From an idea inspired by Nat Lipstadt
while we discussing something else
A dream about our teacher Akiva
of Yavna
When the Romans took a
respite from murdering us:
In our youth we approached a
little house
Though we were tired from
following the goats all day
Akiva was tired from tending
his beans
And from Jacob-wrestling with
great ideas
But he smiled and asked what
he could do
Do for us little children bubbling
with questions
“I am inventing the
synagogue,” he might have said
“What is a synagogue? A new
kind of Temple?”
“It is a machine for
learning, a temple of the mind
A school, an altar upon we sacrifice
our ignorance”
“But the Romans won’t let us
sacrifice anything”
“Sometimes” said Akiva wryly,
“they sacrifice us
But in the synagogue we will
have a little light
Light and Torah and learning,
always learning”
“We want to learn.”
“Oh? And what do you want to
learn?” he asked of us
“We want to learn.”
He smiled and sat us at a
table under his vines
“I learned to read when I was
forty,” he said
As he took out a tablet and a
stylus
One of us said, “I can’t imagine
being that old!”
Our teacher smiled, smoothed the
day from the wax
And instructed us to attend
to the Word
“The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom”
That is what he said, not
what he wrote in the wax
Akiva prayed, he prayed for
us, and wrote
And in the wax the letters
formed as fire
As gold and fire:
“Bereshit Bara Elohim…”
Friday, July 18, 2025
A Cure for the Common Scold -doggerel (thinking of the cast of the Harry Potter films)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Cure for the Common Scold
For ___________________________
With wisdom, age, and experience a man
Comes to appreciate that most useful tool
and the entertainment value as part of the plan
In the sadly-neglected ducking stool
1970 - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
1970
When I came home I was asked
by a boyhood friend
“I haven’t seen you lately;
where have you been?”
I’m still wondering about
that
Death Falls Apart in White - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Death Falls Apart in White
Snow does not fall in July, and yet there is white
White falling like large snowflakes or small flower petals
White scatterings across the summer lawn
Ghostly among the leafy sheltering oaks
The hawks are back
An egret about her business of bugs and snakes
Sudden violence high up in the gentle air
Flesh and life claw-ripped, torn, and devoured
Unheard below, only feathers falling like snow
The hawks are back
This artificial paradise of feeders and seeders
And flower-bordered lawn is a scape of death
From which the gentle rabbits, birds, and squirrels
Withdraw in silent fear
The hawks are back
The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias in San Diego
Shelley always makes one think
(often about how to pronounce his middle name)
I met a tout along a darkening street
Who said – “two trunkless legs of neon dance
There, upon that wall, on neon feet
An electromechanical contrivance to prance
In remnants, but wiggling hips and pouty lips
Tell that the artisan well caught the lust
Of lonely sailors as a pretty girl strips -
In time those young men and the dancer will be dust
These letters appear, written in cold fire:
I am the Queen of Club Ozymandias
Look upon me with your hot desire
Look upon me, and imagine us…
Tomorrow all will be leveled
A housing estate will arise, a planner’s scar
Nothing will remain of laughter and drinks
Of sailors flinging their pay upon the bar
For a dancing girl now silent as the Sphinx”
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Highway Patrol - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Highway Patrol
An episode of Highway
Patrol appears -
(With Broderick Crawford it
should be widescreen)
Iron-jawed Bill Boyette as
his sergeant
Today’s show features a
passenger train
A man in a coat and tie,
smoking a cigarette
Stops his DeSoto at a
telephone booth
Wildly high fins (the DeSoto,
not the telephone booth)
Inserts a dime and, turning a
dial, he places a call
And Grandpa takes some time
to explain
To his grandchild
The telephone, the tie, the
passenger train
I Have the Epstein Files - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I Have the Epstein Files
I carry the Epstein files in my pocket
A paperback edition from City Lights
You said you were going to hitchhike to Big Sur
With a dude named Gautama. I have the files
I thought you’d like to know
Monday, July 14, 2025
Hallowed be Thy App - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Hallowed be Thy App
“…that unmistakable English church-going pace…holding, bound in
black lamb-skin and white celluloid, the liturgies of a half dozen conflicting
sects…”
-Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
One sees a Bible only occasionally
Even more rarely a Sunday missal
Which, with coat and tie and
the mantilla
Are relics of a courtlier,
more dignified time
The faithful now carry the
scriptures as apps
The rosary the same (maybe
next to Candy Crush)
An electronic conscience
funded by an investment firm
And available at a low introductory
price
A talking box - it must
be Godly and true
And just as eternal as the
Apple II
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios? - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios?
Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the Reich gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print…
-Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 245
CBS is now as obedient as Fox
Who would have imagined? Who woulda thunk?
Government agitprop on every Orwellian box -
Shoveling deep rund into our funk
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Texas Children Die; Texas Authorities Babble - takeaway from a press conference of 5 July 2025
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Texas Children Die; Texas Authorities Babble
The governor’s Press
Conference
In Which the Press
were Shut Down Pretty Quickly
I just can’t
say enough about our colleagues I just can’t say enough about we are Texans and
we come together as one as a family we come together community share
quintessential Texas we unite they could have fallen apart double-down
relentless when the job is completed 24/ 7 day and night Texans and Americans
everyone what I’m going to sign today every asset magnitude process
proclamation immediate and ongoing gratitude in advance to President Trump and
all his administration his love for Texas I want to thank Governor Abbott
absolutely devastating he loves Texas grieving beautiful children all the
resources of the federal government walking alongside each other community I’ve
visited with the president already he will honor that assets on the ground
crisis weather event alerted airframe Coasties Texas assets request customs and
border protection skill set resource Department of Homeland Security response
flying acronyms entities utilized FEMA standing at an enhanced level plugged in
engaged fulfil role amazing you are an example to the nation hearts are with
you and walking beside you fixed-wing aircraft airframe helicopters fixed-wing
helicopters efforts engaged talking to the president throughout the day
families folks number one priority is people process public infrastructure strong
you are an example responding helping neighbors hurting grieving God process
help prayers are with you President Trump and Melania are praying for you prayer
amazing multiple stage agencies partners my thanks to and to and request and
thank you for being here an important message I’ve been to a number of
disasters impressed with Governor Abbot’s leadership proud grateful for men and
women standing behind us here we are all reacquainted rejoined with their
family members it’s who your family is we come together as a family as Texas
this is who our family is we owe it to them the governor and his team will be
relentless family it means a lot we appreciate President Trump and you before I
was crazy enough to run for congress ha ha we came down here to blah blah it
hits home personally I can’t say enough about extraordinary I can’t say enough
I can’t say enough leadership this unfortunate circumstance reached out
responding Army corps support and other stuff teamwork collaboration far from
finished the job prayerful stuff we’re dealing with finger-pointing and
second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking circumstances I understand
that parents and media heroic efforts finish the job be with the people pray
I’m the only one at this table who lives on the Guadalupe River I barely got
home I ushered in a crew fifty-year lawyer I saw first-hand the body bags
helicopter ride nobody saw this coming arm in arm hand in hand process time now
for recovery toilsome task stay together and we’ll get this done thank you on
the behalf of as I look around the room I don’t see differences I see one team
working together our community one team those in peril those who are lost sees
this day prayer thank God my heart is broken we will not stop Madame Secretary
your federal team lifesaving we will our teams FEMA border patrol partners
Coast Guard work forward state personnel one last thing most common word prayer
prayers are answered in so many ways prayer might be the reason the water
stopped rising prayer does work your prayers have made a difference continued
prayers pray so much never imagined prayers matter we thank God almighty God
has blessed Texas…
(A few
reporters were then allowed to ask a few questions which were, at best,
answered only with vagaries and filler-language.)
Note of 8 July. Stephania Jiminez says it much better than I ever could:
KSAT anchor goes viral for 'speaking the truth' about Texas leaders
But, Hey, No King Here - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
But, Hey, No King
The most lawless ruler is a Man of the People
Posturing upon some whited balcony
His pouting lips frozen in a perpetual sneer
While his toadies cheer their bondage, and call it freedom
The semi-automatic rifle is their Bible
Barbed wire is their semi-automatic law
The Constitution is but the president’s whims
(Let us now pray
for his bowel movements today)
Congress and the Supreme Court with feet of clay
Await in fear, in disgrace, in moral decay
For a Murat to come and brush them away:
“Citizens, you are dismissed.”
If My Daughter Had Been Present at the Last Supper - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
If My Daughter Had Been Present at the Last Supper
And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and
blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This
is my body…”
-Saint Matthew 26:26-29, Douay-Rheims 1899 American
Edition via Bible Gateway
And my daughter said unto our Lord,
“Excuse me…excuse me, Sir, but is this matzoh fresh?
Did you check the expiration date?
Is it really kosher?
Is it from a fair-trade source?”
(Judas has left the
building.)
A Walk Between Worlds - poem about Alzheimer's
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Walk Between Worlds
Stage 2 Alzheimer’s
She walked into our house for lunch today
The puppy gamboled at her feet in welcome
And was treated to doggie-kisses and doggie-hugs
She loves the dog
She is no longer sure about us
Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains: poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains
The washing machine baptizes our busy days:
A shirt freshly stained with this morning’s coffee
Wrinkledy tees in grimy greens and greys
A child’s blue jeans all sticky with toffee
Dish towels we allowed to get old-food smelly
A nice dress sock on which the puppy peed
Blankies from the couch in front of the telly
The terry-cloth that toweled the shaving bleed
In the laundry room where all these wreckages convene
There to be made all fresh and bright and clean –
Let us give thanks for the washing machine!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)