Dispatches for the Colonial Office

My Brother Lost His Wife

Which sounds as if he misplaced her, like car keys

But she has gone away, as must we all

Into those far-beyond mysteries beyond our poor knowing

And leaving us vacuums and vacancies

And he is sorting out bills to be paid

Her nursing license which will not be renewed

The bits and bobs to be given to the children

Daily remembances in all the little things

His days are mysteries

Filling in the great emptiness in his life

and all the small ones

Sunday, February 8, 2026

A Boyhood Friend Goes to the River - memorial poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

A Boyhood Friend Goes to the River

My soul has grown deep like the rivers

-Langston Hughes

His son visited him in hospital every day

The father told the son, “I need to go to the river”

And so they left the hospital; they sat on the bank

They watched the river, they talked to the waters

They listened to the waters and the winds

One more lesson from the river, the eternal flow

The growing-up river, the teaching river

The river, their father-and-son river

One day, in silence, his spirit slipped away

And crossed over the river forever

Saturday, February 7, 2026

A Funeral is a Dress Rehearsal - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

A Funeral is a Dress Rehearsal

“He looks so natural...”

Even among family, you feel alone

Because attendance at a funeral

Is a dress rehearsal for your own

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

The Galaxy's Guide to the Hitchhiker - poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

The Galaxy’s Guide to the Hitchhiker

A very, very, very, very weak attempt at the Thai Khlong Suparb form

An idea suggested by Emily Johnson

On a topic suggested by an idea from Bulletcookie (sic)

Gratitude to Douglas Adams will be found

locked in a filing cabinet in a disused room in the basement

We are all hitchhikers of the spirit

Thumbing a ride to the moon and stars

And we fall for a pause on Mars

On our tide of discovery

And then swing an orbit around

An errant earthling satellite

Sweetly sing to its blinking light

While riding along on a comet

Do the stars have a guide to us?

We study our home galaxy

But does our galaxy study you and me?

We are all hitchhikers of the spirit!

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Some Clinical Notes on Anaesthesia and, Like, StuffZZZZ - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Some Clinical Notes on Anaesthesia and, Like, StuffZZZZ

A chair in the waiting room

A chair in a consulting room

A chair in a room where they rearrange your body parts

A blood pressure cuff that chuffs and puffs every few minutes

(And can you say, “sphygmomanometer?”)

(I thought not)

Clamps on your wrists

(Is the prisoner ready, chaplain?)

Steel trays of shiny steel things for cutting and drilling and clamping

A quest for veins. Not that vein. No, this vein. No, where’d it go…

Ouch

Let there be blood

Are you comfortable?

You’re going to start feeling sleepy

Grey floating boxes and conversations among them as they move about in an unreality which for the non-time-being are the / a reality and they’re nice enough little boxes but why are they grey and there is no fear and there is no pain but there is no control only grey floating boxes speaking to each other

Another chair in another room – how…?

And those are your post-procedure instructions…are you ready to go…?

I want a cup of coffee

Nothing hot until tomorrow

Sunday, February 1, 2026

The University of Granddaddy - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

The University of Granddaddy

Class meets on the wooden steps of the old back porch

Syllabus:

Talking. Listening. Whittling on a length of cedar

Please bring: a Schrade-Walden Old Timer pocketknife

Pale Shadows and seasons - poem

Lawrence Hall

A re-write and re-post of an older poem:

Pale Shadows and Seasons

Pale shadows and seasons and leaves drift by

The slanting sun of February falls

With merciless mortality upon

Our weak attempts to prepare for spring

The leaves we mulch today mulch us tomorrow

The roses we prune in anticipation of June

Await the night when we are pruned for them

While the wolf pack keens beneath the ancient moon

No, It Wasn't the Medications - poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

No, It Wasn't the Medications

Last night my friend and mentor was dreamed to me

He was himself again, and so was I

Among Spenserian fields and forests and friends

In a summer world all warm and green

In a time of waiting rooms and surgeries

Slow days of headaches and painful awkwardness

Appointments, lab reports, diagnoses

He came as a comfort, a vision of what will be

We did meet again, and we did smile

And so, just so, we all will meet again

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Maybe Winter is Tired - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Maybe Winter is Tired

And taking a break for a few sunny days

Icicles have dripped and dropped away to earth

Merry breezes breathe away dawn’s drifting haze

A warm front soon after the new year’s birth

But even now the north drops down in greys

The shifting wind blows dark, decaying leaves

Away to prep for tomorrow’s icy glaze

As the wilding weather bobs and weaves

The paling sun drops coldly in the west -

False spring in its own turn now takes a rest

This is the Church House, This is the Steeple - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

This is the Church House, This is the Steeple

This is the church house

This is the steeple

Open the doors

And see all the…rioters, ICE, podcasters, snoops, gossips, busybodies, stirrers, activists, influencers, selfie-istas, agitators, provocateurs, disruptors, boors, instigators, trespassers, hecklers, hooligans, gorms, dips, loonies, stooges, vandals, protestors, patsies, and puppets

(One hopes they left a few coins in the poor box)

Friday, January 30, 2026

"A Republic, Madam, If You Can Keep It" - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

How Many People Didn’t Vote in the 2024 Election? | National News | U.S. News

“A Republic, Madam, if You Can Keep It”

-attributed to Ben Frankling and many others

Americans, please take time for reflection -

While watching the rioting we might take note

That in the last presidential election

35% of the people did not bother to vote

Where We Grew Up is not Where We Are - against ICE

Lawrence Hall

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

Where We Grew Up is not Where We Are

Our fathers strong, home from Europe and the Pacific

Worked confidently at building a peaceful America

Lean, weathered, war-weary men in chambray shirts

Who sweated to make their crops and cattle grow

But the feed store shut up shop in the 60s

The gas station pushes eight-liners and vapes

The old picture show where John Wayne rode

Is now a missionary Christian fellowship or something

The drugstore with the best comic books burned long ago

Once-busy sidewalks are mostly weeds and grass

Our favorite rocker on the A.M. radio

Has long since been Forest Lawned in bronze

Our fathers are buried, and on the palantir

A man in an SS coat orders us to report each other

Antibiotic-Go-'Round - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

Antibiotic-Go-‘Round

The dermatologist cut away part of my ear

Truth!

The maxillo-facial surgeon cut out my impacted

Tooth!

They negotiate now which antibiotic to use

To void the chances of infection or bruise

“Gentlemen,” I say,

“Weigh each certainty against a doubt

But both the original ear and tooth are out!”

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Hecho en China - poem

Lawrence Hall

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