Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Memorandum of Understanding
And a Contemplation
of the FIFA Peace Prize
The tiny hands of schoolchildren on fire
The tiny hands of schoolchildren sobbing for life
The old men on both sides claiming victory
Over
The ashes of schoolchildren at Shajareh Tayyebeh
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Great Riding Lawnmower Chase
A Song of My People
In the dust beside the highway
Wide ol’ Texas four-lane highway
Ran a fat man in his anger
In his white shorts, in his anger
To another man just like him
Mower-mounted on a lawn
On a John Deere painted green
But this was not a peaceful scene
Like angry Pillsbury Doughboys
Or like dropouts from a Sumo school
They grappled in the roadside dust
In fleshy fury (not in lust)
The mower-man finally thought it best
To steer his steed into the west
Across the highway, a running fight
Dodging traffic in the morning light
The foot-man circled, the mower-man turned
The shrieking brakes of a big truck burned
Combat resumed in the turning lane
Beeps and honks again and again
I never saw the end of this chase
Who won the day, who won the race
Of if by the beginning of the next day’s dawn
Someone had finished mowing that lawn
In this I played with the Longfellow / Hiawatha meter, which is far more appropriate for serious long poetry, not a short frivolity. Longfellow sent me a note from the beyond advising me not to do this again.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the
Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine
– A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Mister, Are You Saved?
She patrolled the sidewalk and yelled at pedestrians:
“You sinners! You’re all a bunch of HELL-ions!”
I couldn’t escape her, so I smiled and waved
“Mister!” she yelled, “Do you think you’re saved!”
“No,” I replied (might as well be specific)
“Oh,” she said, “Then you’re a Catholic.”
I still have her tract, somewhere around here loose
Assuring me
that the
Rosary
is
actually Satan’s noose
May God bless and protect street evangelists;
as for Hegseth and his Reichskirche, well, they can go (bless)
themselves.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Primrose-Cat and the Circle of Lunch
Primrose is afraid of bluejays, and wisely so
She enjoys dining on the occasional cardinal, though!
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Letters of Transit
Thanks to an idea
from Omni and friends,
“Humphrey Bogart
Blues,” Hello Poetry
There are always distracting macguffins in life:
A missing cufflink, Chekhov’s rifle, Tintern Abbey
An anonymous message torn in half
Letters of transit signed by General Weygand
But better are the letters of transit she writes:
Coded soul-maps in her sighs
Secret signals in her eyes
Her dreams revealed as this surprise -
The only
true letter of transit is
Her love
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Three-Part Educational Case Study
1.
I noted that he was ambidextrous
“You can’t call me that; I’m straight!
I’m gonna tell my daddy what you said!”
II.
At graduation he asked me to help him with his tie
A manly handshake; we wished each other well
He disappeared among the cheap plastic gowns
III.
Before he was thirty he died of a heart attack
Lawrence
Hall
A Celebration of Freedom and Our Flag –
Gramps’ Champs
“’Cause the flag
still stands for freedom”
-Lee Greenwood
Will the Flag Day bloodfest hosted by Gramps
In the name of freedom, with MMA champs
Be broadcast to America’s
concentration
camps?
Lawrence Hall
mhal46184@aol.com
The Boy Who Wasn’t There
He was tall and dark, dramatically handsome
I was a little bit afraid of him
In my skinny little freshman way
High school seniors are the coolest of the cool
And then he wasn’t there except as whispers
Whisper whisper whisper cancer whisper whisper
Algebra whisper pep rally whisper
Occasional whispers around an empty desk
One day
He returned to school on two crutches and one foot
He was tall and pale, ethereally handsome
And after that, like a wraith he disappeared
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Drum-Song of the Cicada
The
cry of the cicada
Gives us no
sign
That
presently it will die
- Basho
Cicadas are living drums singing the summer
Self-rattling so fast that the beats become a buzz
A whining buzz that intensifies the midday heat
Through thin-throbbing tympanic hypnotism
Rising and falling, the leaf-borne chorus
In defiance shrills against the peace
The blessed peace of leaves and lawn and sky
That properly belongs to summer days
Even so, summer days, all summer long
Are not complete without the cicada’s song
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Response to Nat Lipstadt’s “We are Transitory”
“Time goes by – or do we?”
- from Camelot / The Once and Future King
Your poem is forever
You are forever
This waiting room of a world (C. S. Lewis) – maybe not
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
You’re the Best!
and love
with hope
our friends
lift up
When we
Then we are doing our proper job today
And knowing you, I am happy to say
You do even better, each bles’sed day
You’re the best
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Love Must Be Held for Questioning
He felt pity for those…whose love is bounded by the frontier of a nation.
-“The Spiritual Power of Matter”, Teilhard de Chardin
Bombers cross borders
Easily enough, but love?
Held for questioning
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
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
There’s an Old Sheriff in Town
In Technicolor!
This evening I ordered the twenty-first century to shut up
And caught the time machine to dusty Diablo
A corrupt city government, an outlaw gang
And soft-spoken Audie Murphy to set things right:
You’re new in
town, aren’t you?
I came to find
out who did the killing
Somebody’s running off our herd!
He’s out for revenge and headed straight for Boot Hill.
If I was smart, I’d shoot you right now.
You still got a deputy named O’Mara around here?
That's the
trouble. He kissed me good night... and I liked it
You trying to
make yourself a reputation?
Maybe you're
turning into a human being
I don’t hand out
tin stars as licenses for murder
He only stole
one horse, didn’t he?
You go through
those swinging doors and you’ll be dead
I’ll take good
care of him, doctor
You going to be
hanging around Diablo for a while?
You going to be hanging around
Diablo for a while?
Yep – all Saturday afternoon,
with popcorn and a soda
Lines from Ride Clear of Diablo, Universal
International, 1954
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Summer of Blueberries, a Summer of War
SUMMER OF WAR
IRAN THREATENS NEW STRIKES ON ISRAEL
CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES
OIL SURGES
-Drudge
This morning’s news is all about the wars
For oceans and oil, and oceans of oil
For the ideological souls of men
For a tyrant screaming through a midnight screen
Our morning is all about the blueberries
Fresh dewy little globes among the leaves
Magic treats for children, fairies, and elves
Or for a dream-lover with flashing dark eyes
Blueberries fresh and new, colored sky-blue -
I picked a basket of them just for
you!
