Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Swabbing Out the Head

When I was a lad swabbing out the head

Windexing the mirrors, cleaning the s******s

Occasionally standing to attention to squeak

“Sir, yes, sir; my first general order is, sir…!

When I was a lad in concrete Camp Nimitz

Marching for freedom back behind barbed wire

1903 Springfield, manual of arms

“Yer all cockroaches; drop and gimme ten!”

When I was a lad, guarding a clothesline ‘til dawn

I didn’t know that I was a

Warfighter

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Headless America - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Headless America

In the eye-blurry morning this subhead I read:

HEADLESS AMERICA

But I blinked and thinked and winked and re-read:

HEADLINES AMERICA

The first reading was more accurate, someone said

The Latest News on the President’s Snuff Film - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Latest News on the President’s Snuff Film

The president’s snuff film has been stopped

Much to the annoyance of the red-capped mob

Who enjoy watching humans being shredded or chopped

But who need to remember in merry December:

That public executions are ICE’s job

Lurking at the Early Voting Site - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Lurking at the Early Voting Site

Years later, some will say this never happened

Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

A Texas Emergency Management SUV

Parked at the poll at the Baptist Church

There’s no one in it, that White Maria

In government white, it just sort of lurks

You’ve been listening to rumors, comrade

No, no, there is no typhus in Moscow

Did Grendel leave it while waiting for night?

It just sort of lurks, in government white

This isn’t Spain; this is England, you know

And, citizen, there is no typhus in Moscow

Free-floating allusions for our illusions:

The Gulag Archipelago

Doctor Zhivago

Beowulf

A Man for All Seasons

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night

Once upon a time I found an arrowhead

At the roots of an oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus nature or man versus man

Once upon a time I found a minie’-ball

At the roots of that oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn -

Man versus nature or man versus man

Once upon a time I found dentures

At the base of the old water well out front

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus plug tobacco or plug tobacco versus man

Do you hear their soft footfalls at night?

Paws and claws and feet from before linear time

Between the poles and along the latitudes

That no one had yet written or thought

Do they stand outside your window and listen

Listen for your breathing, and wish they could talk

Could talk with you about this holy earth

For the Sullen Goof Wearing a Revolver in the Supermarket - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

For the Sullen Goof Wearing a Revolver in the Supermarket

(Texas is an oaf-and-carry state)

Does the big, bad broccoli scare you, punkin’?

Is the canned spinach laughing at you again?

A big iron on your hip

Is just

A big iron on your lip

And someone’s going to have it away from you

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Why is the Priest Yelling at Me? - not dogma but doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Why is the Priest Yelling at Me?

I cannot tell you of the gospel today

My attention span was at its bottom

The priest chose to yell instead of say

And thus most reverently

I bowed my head over Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”

Saturday, October 17, 2026

When You Were a Little Child with a Crayon - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

When You Were a Little Child with a Crayon

When first your hand, your little hand, picked up

A crayon, a brush, a pencil, a marker, a pen

And with your hand, your little hand, your pen

You flung your thoughts onto a paper pad

(Or onto your parents’ freshly painted walls)

You introduced your words into the world

You introduced yourself, your words, your soul

And Eden was happy again, with your poems

Running barefoot among the singing trees

(Perhaps God smiled and asked)

Whose are these hands, these little hands

Making fresh new words for my young and growing world?

Fang, Wild Dog of the North - doggerel, with a real dog

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Fang, Wild Dog of the North

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse

Whiles night’s black agents to their prey do rouse

Macbeth III.ii.58-59

When at night the ravenous timberwolves sing

Terrifying each lesser living thing

And the great horned owl is on the wing

Even brave men to their prayers do cling

My carnivorous dachshund is ready to spring

Her blood-lust stirred by the microwave’s ping!

(Stand back, everyone! No sudden moves…!)

Thursday, October 15, 2026

The Goddess and the Chainsaw - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Goddess and the Chainsaw

“Do not human spirits look out at you from every leaf and stem?”

-Firs, the loyal old servant who has been dismissed

Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard

Chekhov wrote his farewell to a cherry orchard

And I speak a valedictory to my apple trees

Sweet Anna apples who gave good service for years

Apples and love for family, neighbors, and friends

We were all young, the apple trees and I

I petted them with pruning and pesticide

And sat under them on hot summer days

As they sang in the soft, susurrant breeze

The goddess Pomona approved our endeavors

And breathed upon us blessings and bees and birds

To swarm us with the ancient loves of Latium

When youths and maidens embraced beneath the leaves

The last tree died this summer

I had to chainsaw the remembered joys

and Pomona is no longer here

Wednesday, October 14, 2026

An Elderly Woman Screaming Obscenities into her MePhone in the Parking Lot of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

An Elderly Woman Screaming Obscenities into her MePhone

in the Parking Lot of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital

“Where the **** are you!? Did you sneak away!?”

Might serve as an existential question

Addressed to a patient saint, to God

To the silent spheres of Creation

“What is this ****!? Did you ****ing leave me here!?”

We’ve all asked that question: in a lonely bed

On a blood-sodden gurney in an emergency room

In the screaming-burning-gunfire streets

With the courage and compassion which befits a man

I slipped around her rage, and avoided her eyes

Monday, October 12, 2026

"The Man with the Spanish Helmet" on the Barracks Wall - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

“The Man with the Spanish Helmet” on the Barracks Wall

Hospital Corps Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,

ca. January 1970

A barracks wall is a studio wall:

Miss April, smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin

Miss October, tall (in need of a shawl)

Miss January, thin, an aethereal djinn

But among these beauties (grandmothers now)

A Spanish helmet and a stern old man

A white-haired don still strong in chin and brow

Like yours, his eyes for truth and wisdom scan

So then who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?

Why, the Dreamer with the Spanish Helmet is

you

Variant ending:

“The Man with the Spanish Helmet” on a Barracks Wall

Hospital Corps Barracks, Naval Hospital San Diego,

ca. January 1970

A barracks wall is a studio wall:

Miss April, smokin’ hot sin on a dead bear’s skin

Miss October, tall (in need of a shawl)

Miss January, thin, an aethereal djinn

But among these beauties (grandmothers now)

A Spanish helmet and a stern old man

A white-haired don still strong in chin and brow

Like yours, his eyes for truth and wisdom scan

So then who wears that dreamer’s helmet? Who?

And why is he looking not at me but at

you?

Sunday, October 11, 2026

Do ICE Agents Teach Sunday School? - derivative doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Do ICE Agents Teach Sunday School?

A furore monstrorum glaciei libera nos Domine

Now I lay me down to sleep

But in the night the ICEmen creep

I cannot sleep; I’m still awake -

I fear the ICEmen will come and take…

Friday, October 9, 2026

We are All Pretty Much Exiles, You Know - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

We are All Pretty Much Exiles, You Know

We are all pretty much exiles, you know

We scribble verse to reconstruct our home

That half-remembered never-seen mystery

Within our hearts, sailing beyond the stars

Half-worlds threading from chewed-yellow-pencil leads

The sharpener says, “Now this may sting a little”

As cedar spirals down to the kitchen floor

Poor pairs of rhymes that never find each other

They’ve gone and closed the Main Street picture show

We are all pretty much exiles, you know

While Repairing a Widder-Woman's Door Locks - a poor senryu

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

While Repairing a Widder-Woman’s Door Locks

A widder-woman

Drove her car (crash!) into mine

She doesn’t know why

A Certain Ancestor - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

A Certain Ancestor

Yes, sir,

When God made him

God broke the mold

Most angrily

Hugo Boss Swastikas Have Been Replaced - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Hugo Boss Swastikas Have Been Replaced

And I am one silent cry

over the many thousands of the buried

-Yevtushenko, “Babiy Yar,” in Yevtushenko: Selected Poems

Trans. Milner-Gulland and Levi, Penguin, 1963

The Hugo Boss swastikas have been replaced

By another bit of cloth with squiggles

But the torches are the same

The fashionable lies are the same

Grilled Mongolian at the Barber Shop - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Grilled Mongolian at the Barber Shop

An Overdue Haircut from Miss Tasha

While I was being shorn of excess hair

V: “Make me look like a young Robert Redford, please”

R: “We don’t do miracles here, Mr. Hall”

A lady enthroned a few chairs over

Mentioned the menu at The Mongolian Grill

“What the h*** is this?” she quoted herself

I thought I might ask if the plat du jour

As served was a lightly grilled Mongolian

But Wednesday had already made that joke

About Girl Scout cookies and real Girl Scouts

So thoughts of topics carnivorous I let pass

And admired myself in Tasha’s looking-glass

An Execution for the Common Man - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

An Execution for the Common Man

I will not watch the coming execution

But when the regime comes for me –

I’ll catch that one

The Kid Who Won the Lottery - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Kid Who Won the Lottery

He always wanted to be an artist

In school he drew pictures of horses and trucks

In truth the same horse and the same truck too

On his book covers and his notebooks too

And on the margins of his papers and tests

He always wanted to be an artist

After graduation he worked around town

The Dairy Queen, and the Wal-Mart too

He swept the tire shop, and city hall too

His trailer-girl was pale with ketamine dreams

He always wanted to be an artist

The year he won the Louisiana lottery

They moved to Florida

he came home alone

He always wanted to be an artist

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened - poem

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened

Pasture gate at dusk

The last of the hay is gone

Stars await autumn

October’s mown fields are sweet

Mist upon the grass

My old dog paws at my jeans

Pasture gate at night

Sunday, October 4, 2026

The Secret of Dolly Parton's Angel Wings - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Secret of Dolly Parton’s Angel Wings

Some people give children transitory things

But Dolly still gives to children books as wings

Saturday, October 3, 2026

Among Fog-Shrouded Ruins - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Among Fog-Shrouded Ruins

And here we are as on a darkling plain

-Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

Wrapped in rags from The Creature Cantina

Their thin bare legs ending in chemical globs

They shuffled along with their hooded heads bowed

Deep-bent beneath Chaucerian pilgrims’ packs

Somewhat like roaming Jawas searching out scrap

But with deep-socketed eyes fixed on palantiri

Tiny Orwellian telescreens that guide

And guard them from the disturbance of thoughts

Sometimes Morlockian mechanical horns

Call them into pods of weakling Eloi

Obedient sacrifices rattling their chains

As the ogre-guarded dungeon they near

The lead Eloi approached in fear, his eyes all rheumy and red -

“Ah! you’re here for the chess club,” a welcoming Morlock said

The Poets Speak of American Elections - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love