Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I am not God
About final judgement
Just give it a rest -
God does salvation
We do our best
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
I am not God - doggerel
Monday, September 22, 2025
An Unhappy O. Henry Ending - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
An Unhappy O. Henry Ending
His
picture is on the telescreen tonight
Stepping
onto a twin-engine executive jet
Then
posed in an easy-street seat in the back
Uniformed
crew, someone to bring him a snack
The
same smug grin he had when he dropped out of school
“I’m
tired of this nowhere town,” he sneered
“I’m
gonna go somewhere and get me a life;
I
don’t need you or any of this mess”
And
life is what he got, and a suit in orange
And
a free ride home to his nowhere town
For my Mother's Funeral - couplet
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
For my Mother’s Funeral
For my mother’s funeral
I did not sell souvenir tees
Never Carry a Rifle - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Never Carry a Rifle
Never carry a rifle
For a man
Who never carried a rifle
The Leaker Demands Informers - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Leaker Demands Informers
Why do people inform on others—including neighbors, family members, co-workers, friends, lovers…in repressive societies?
-Informers: secrets, truths, and dignity | OUPblog
Franklin asked: what good shall I do today?
But the current regime demands that you betray -
Whom shall I report to the State today?
Everyone Has Advice for Writers - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Everyone Has Advice for Writers
There is a man…hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles…
-As You Like It, III.ii.377-380
Who is your target audience, they ask
A pair of clevers on the telescreen
Giving their audience suggestions for publication
Ideas for making it on the writing scene:
“Target audience” is their incantation
Who is your target audience?
Is your target moving or stationary?
A paper bullseye or something edible
An enemy, a thing, an adversary
A carnivore’s luncheon spreadable?
Who is your target audience?
But a reader is not a target
She is not the object of your life -
She is the subject of her own
Respect your reader
Respect
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Red Spider Lilies in Autumn - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Red Spider Lilies
For Max
Who Magicked Autumn in with the
Spider Lilies
Red
spider lilies – we were speaking of them
And why
somehow they hadn’t yet appeared
To
call the oak leaves down upon the lawn
To
dance among their equinoctial blooms
Red
spider lilies – suddenly they are here!
Perhaps
they only waited to be invited
We
spoke, and they arose, laughing at us
And waving
happily in the afternoon breeze
Red
spider lilies – now autumn has begun
In
late September’s glowing tawny sun
Wednesday, September 17, 2025
The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer, poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer
A weak imitation of
Osip Mandelstam
For whom we pray, “Memory eternal”
Our lives no longer sense truth around them
In our ewails we are afraid of each other’s words
But whenever there’s an eye-rolled whisper
It’s about the brass-elevator mountaineer
The ten tiny worms of his fingers
His words like mountains of loot
The waving tendrils atop his head
The glitter of his shiny Tesla
Wheels stained with a scum of groveling bosses
He toys with the tributes of his house pets:
One clenches his fisties
Another salutes
A third pledges eternal loyalty
He pokes out his fingers and grabs ‘em by their _______
He magic-markers mass deportations:
Three hundred or more for El Salvador
A hundred or so for Guantanamo
Uncounted hundreds to disappear
From routine check-ins here
“Your search has returned zero (0) matching records”
He rolls the possibilities of ____ __________ on his tongue like diet
sodas
He wishes he could deport his former best friends forever
Our lives no longer sense truth around them
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
That To-Go Coffee Ain't Goin' - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Cup of Coffee Not to Go
APP
ORDERS ONLY
APP
ORDERS ONLY
APP
ORDERS ONLY
APP
ORDERS ONLY
APP
ORDERS ONLY
APP
ORDERS ONLY
OUT OF
ORDER
OUT OF
ORDER
DRIVE
THRU CLOSED TODAY
EXIT
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Grandmama's Methodist Bible - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Grandmama’s Methodist Bible
“For all find what they truly seek”
-Aslan in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle
The well-worn Bible my Methodist grandmother loved
Sunday school pictures of Jesus, brave and kind
Chaplains who suffered with us in Viet-Nam
Prison pastors who bring Light into the dark
The ministers and faithful in contested streets
The priest who blessed my mother as she died
Those sturdy Baptist friends who bless my days
The Glorious Mysteries in the Rosary of being
I love The Story in word and prayer and song -
But those who force a Reichskirche upon us
are wrong
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Darwinianism Stalks the Suburbs - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Darwinianism Stalks the Suburbs
God
giveth the earth the good green grass to grow
An
unceasing samsara of life and death
Catalogues
of life in their millions of forms
Work
out their mandalas of being in that sea
Winds
weave waving forests of tender blades
Chlorophyll
makes magic from water and light
The
apex predator is the lowly bacterium
Humbling
at last great glorious carnivores
And
there the eternal cycles of seed and sower
Are shredded
on Saturdays by a suburban lawn mower
Friday, September 5, 2025
A Child Asked me a Reasonable Question about God - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Child Asked me a Reasonable Question about God
A child -
She asked of me
One day, you see
A question wise
For one her size
It wasn’t odd:
“I believe in God
But then does He
Believe in me?
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