Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Why My (Famous Name Brand) Watch is Like a Petulant Child

“I don’t WANNA get off the charger!”

“Are we at the charger yet?”

“I don’t WANNA tell time! I want my charger!”

“No! You can’t MAKE ME get off my charger!”

“You’re not the charger of me!”

“If you don’t let me on my charger now I’m going to call the police like on TV!”

“If you don’t put me on the charger I’m gonna tell Grandma!”

“Gimme the charger or I’ll tell Mom about you and that Timex!”

“I don’t feel like going to school today; I just want my charger!”

“Can we stop at the next charger? Huh? Huh? Huh? Pretty please? I just gotta charge again. I know I took a charge at home but I gotta charge again! Huh? Huh? Huh? Pretty please? I gotta charge RIGHT NOW!”

Another Curious Thing About Death - poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@ao.com

Another Curious Thing About Death

“A poet’s autobiography is his poetry”

-Yevtushenko, who took care to write his autobiography anyway

A curious thing about death – after you die

When you are the deceased, the dear departed

Your loved ones will burrow through your bits and bobs

And tell each other funny stories about you

Your childhood Peter Pan book, your pocketknife

Will be computer-searched for their market value

The rest – like your souvenir Buddha from Kamakura -

Will be tagged for a garage sale next Saturday

And that’s okay, for you, washed free of death and sin

Will be flying past that Second Star by then

Poetic You - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Poetic You

If a poet is under 18, is he a minor poet?

If a poet is in the army, is she a major poet?

If a poet is unmusical, is he an unsung poet?

If a poet is untruthful, is she a lyre?

If a poet is thin is she a narrow-tive poet?

If a poet is also a banker does he write oweds?

If a poet is in prison can she write free verse?

If a poet sneezes at funerals does he write allergies?

There are all sorts of poets, this is true

But the best sort of poet just might be you!

A Difference Between Situational Poverty and Generational Poverty in Rural Schools - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

A Difference Between Situational Poverty

and Generational Poverty in Rural Schools

Situational Poverty – “C’n I borry uh ink-pen?”

Generational Poverty – “GIMME uh ink-pen!”

Ladies and Gentlemen - The Beetles! - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Ladies and Gentlemen – The Beetles!

As in BEETLES! An acre of ‘em around the light

Struggling upside down throughout the night

Helpless, unable to turn themselves upright

And before the dawn, a possum’s delicious delight!

June bugs, June beetles, May beetles, scarab beetles, and other names. Opossums / ‘possums devour them when they are helpless on the ground or pavement. ‘Possums also devour snakes, dead animals, poop, and fleas. They are immune to snake bites, and kill fleas by attracting them and then eating them. ‘Possums are not pretty but they are most useful and should not be harmed.

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Sending Login Code - poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46194@aol.com

Sending Login Code

“Sending login code...” Sometimes. (Sometimes not)

A code appears. Sometimes. (Sometimes not)

A pattern of login codes on the MePhone screen

Sometimes they work. Sometimes. (Sometimes not)

Poems. Almost always interesting. (Sometimes not)

But I wrote to you. And you over there. (But not to the grouch)

But then a popup says I am not authorized

Although I was authorized when I began

Gas pumps authorize me. And the grocery store

Amazon. Sometimes this site. (Sometimes not)

So I authorize myself to think about all of you

And thank you for your verse when it arrives

Which it mostly does. Sometimes. (Sometimes not)

Sunday, April 12, 2026

Upon Finding the flattened, Desiccated Corpse of a Frog Under my Subaru - poem

Upon Finding the flattened, Desiccated Corpse of a Frog

Under my Subaru

Flat Frog Floogie

The silent carport

A frog croaks under a tire

Then silence resumes

Pinched from Basho’s famous pond poem

Music: “Flat Foot Floogie,” 1938

Tuesday, April 7, 2026

About the Book You Write - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

About the Book You Write

Introibo ad altare Dei

A book is as an altar upon which

Our imperfect dreams are transubstantiated

Through parallel orbital shifts where we

Together realize eternity

Ad Deum qui laetificat juvenetutem meam

A book is as a golden chalice of words

Blessing with silent words our sacrifice

Of self to eternal Truth and eternal Art

Wherein we all work out a needful part

Judica Me

A book –

But this one is yours, I believe

Monday, March 30, 2026

No Reichskirche Here - very short poem

Lawrence Hall

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

No Reichskirche Here

Direct us to the Peace that must endure

-Hugh Lofting, Victory for the Slain, p. 60 in the Walmer Poetry edition

The god of the Secretary for War is his god -

We do not concern ourselves with either of them

The Book on Your Bedside Table - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

The Book on Your Bedside Table

(not to mention the cat at your feet)

When you went to bed last night

Before you switched off the light

And pillow-settled your sleepy head -

What were the last five words you read?

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

That Which was Mandatory is Now Forbidden - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

That Which was Mandatory is Now Forbidden

Let no images

Be hung with Caesar’s trophies

-Flavius in Julius Caesar I.i.73-74

Now hidden are the statues of Cesar Chavez

His name, his fame, once celebrated everywhere

Were furtively cleansed in the dark of night

Lest any of his works live after him

He is closeted now in the basement of some museum

Playing poker with Abraham Lincoln and Columbus

While Mother Theresa and Winston Churchill

Exchange Shakespearean bon mots

The famous of the past are irrelevant, you see

Because

No one is as perfect as you and me

(Takeaway – from year to year I understand less and less)

If We Have to Evacuate Tonight - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

If We Have to Evacuate Tonight

If we have to evacuate tonight

Take to the roads in fear of an enemy

Take to the shelter in fear of bombs

What book would you stuff into your jump-bag?

(Along with your Tylenol, toothbrush, and cat)

The Oxford Book of English Verse for me -

Tho’ I would miss Mary Oliver and Pasternak

Hammarskjold, Li Bai, Cavafy, and Cohen

Akhmatova and vain Yevtushenko

(What book for you among your socks and thoughts?)

But all of us with our own cultures’ poets

In some new land beyond faraway hills

We will plant our verse and grow bright daffodils

Scorn not the Haiku (As Wordsworth did not Say) - two amateurish haikus

Lawrence Hall

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

Scorn not the Haiku

In simplicity - complex

Basho teaches us

We are Basho’s friends

Leaping into that old pond

The sound of laughter

Cf:

“The Old Pond,” Basho

“Scorn not the Sonnet,” Wordsworth

Monday, March 23, 2026

War Metaphor Guy - poem

This is a variant on an old poem and so possibly a re-post

Lawrence Hall

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

War Metaphor Guy

Does keyboard-war-guy truly mean that he

Will shoulder rifle, pack, and spares, and range

On blistered, bleeding feet into dead hell,

Obedient to an ill-considered oath

That calls upon his soul to deny itself?

How noble is his war -- upon the screen.

Does he intend to suffer sin-stained years

Of deprivation, lowest-bidder tins

Of surplus slime stored since some previous war,

Of murky water gassed with chemicals,

Of gasping, breathless, sodden, rotting heat?

How easy is his war -- upon the screen.

So does he really want a poor man’s soul

Ripped screaming, sh*tting, bleeding from his life,

Intestines flyblown in the devil’s sun?

Will he be satisfied with an eyeless corpse

Bloat-floating down another Vam Co Tay?

How glorious is his war -- upon the screen.

Now, keyboard war guy, march away, away

And how God wills, dispose the video games.

Sunday, March 22, 2026

Arnold Raced Out the Door - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Arnold Raced Out the Door

“The typewriter is holy…”

-Allen Ginsberg

As the opening credits appeared each week

Jessica Fletcher typed on her old machine

“Arnold raced out the door” - but we don’t suppose

That we will ever learn who Arnold was

And why he was racing out a door

(Angela, we miss you!)

He Simply Won't Do - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

He Simply Won’t Do

Second of all, his name is Markwayne

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

That Which was Mandatory is Now Forbidden - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

That Which was Mandatory is Now Forbidden

Let no images

Be hung with Caesar’s trophies

-Flavius in Julius Caesar I.i.73-74

Now hidden are the statues of Cesar Chavez

His name, his fame, once celebrated everywhere

Were furtively cleansed in the dark of night

Lest any of his works live after him

He is closeted now in the basement of some museum

Playing poker with Abraham Lincoln and Columbus

While Mother Theresa and Winston Churchill

Exchange Shakespearean bon mots

The famous of the past are irrelevant, you see

Because

No one is as perfect as you and me

(Takeaway – from year to year I understand less and less)

The First Casualty of War - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

The First Casualty of War

Is a 19-year-old PFC

Coloring Outside the Lines - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Coloring Outside the Lines

If everyone is coloring outside the lines

Except one child, who is defiantly following a grid

Among those crayon trees and tomato vines -

Who, then, is the most imaginative kid?

Thinking Outside the Box, Bag, or Other Sustainable Rain-Forest Ethically-Sourced Container - poem

Lawrence Hall

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