Give a Man a Fish or a Bucket Truck
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day
Give a man a bucket truck and he’ll
Block
Every blind corner
Every rural road
Every lane
Every driveway
Every intersection
Every pasture access
Every field gate
In the county
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Manifest Destiny of
Cooking Shows
There are no national crises so desperate
Or times so burdened by uncertainty, despair, and fear
That the American people will not rouse themselves
To applaud some guy on TV cooking an omelet
And let the people cry, “WHOOO! WHOOO!”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Turning Over Parts of Poems with a Golden Shovel
A golden shovel poem well, okay, maybe
Or maybe it’s like digging up a friend
Rearranging his bits rearranging his bones
And exclaiming I have built a new body!
Maybe
A pile of bones there a pile of bones here
Another pile of bones a golden shovel
Ars per ars gizzards and gristle
The gravedigger wants his shovel back
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Her Delicate Wit and Charm
Her conversation and
her charming intellect
Delight not like champagne
in tingling sips
Bringing forth
knowledge, subtle and circumspect –
But rather like Lady Macbeth exercising her whips
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Going
to Concrete Floor Space Hungry
Our masters couched
in swollen luxury
Are flown in
government craft to their private pleasures
While American
workers wait in soup line misery
Or sleep on floors because
the planes never come
We are the abandoned
over whom they fly
Sending acronyms to
beat us and demand our papers
Those uberklasse
gauleiters of the sky -
More champagne,
please! Such Great Gatsby capers!
Some call them
morons, but they’re as smart as can be
It’s just that they
don’t give a (bitcoin) for the likes of you and me
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Proposed Coda to the Rite of Baptism
Priest, parents, and godparents say to the child after the blessing:
“This is your life, kid – it might sting a little.”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
She Sings to Us
Far away she sings
Lady Moon sings to
us both
Her soft, silver
songs
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Jordan and the Chao Praya
Rivers of healing
Upon which we send
our prayers
And hopes: Loy
Kathrong
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Sir Philip Sidney Moment
With a Rubbish Bin, but not a Red Rubbish Bin
After the passing of afternoon storms
A quiet moment of reflection at dusk
Our Lady Moon shone high above the trees
Sailing among the last sun-glowing clouds
I addressed the Moon as the goddess she is
Speaking of dreams, and asked her to pray for me
But suddenly she danced behind the mist
In playful teasing, or in stern disapproval
Perhaps one should not address our Lady Moon
While rolling household garbage to the end of the lane
Sir Philip Sidney, “Astrophel and Stella 31”
William Carlos Williams, “The Red Wheelbarrow”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Where are the Frogs of Spring?
-as John Keats never said
Ay,
where are they? This October is summer-sour
And
drowsy frogs are singing out for rain
Croakery-croaking
sadly by the hour
Invoking
God for a shower, but still in vain
The
grass is withered and sere, the ground is dust
Bees
gather ‘round each desiccated bloom
Seeking
nectar but finding only crust
For
their colony-hive on the cusp of doom
Where
are the rains of October, then –
And
the frosts? Ay, where are they? Where, and when?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
We Need to Talk
When a woman says, “we need to talk”
A man’s complexion pales; he begins to sweat
His spine of stern chilled steel becomes chilled mush
As he examines his conscience in anticipation of doom
Her talk will not be of puppies or cups of tea
Or how the flowers are bedded in for autumn
Of the curious news from the Bering Strait
Nor yet of ships or sealing wax or kings
Oh, no – “we need to talk” means that he will be silent
As she posts to the docket his most recent crimes
Line 8 – cf. Lewis, Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
How Many Languages of Happiness Do You Speak?
In how
many languages, then, do you
Sing
Sigh
Whisper
Breathe
Work
Love
Dream
Hope
Laugh
Comfort
And
sometimes chide
I
want to hear all of them from you
(Except
maybe the chide)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Oops - I Forgot to Attend the Revolution
From an idea by Scarlet
You haven’t yet received your check from George?
I would have thought that his Dark Web of Power
Would have been more efficient than that
But getting good spies is so difficult these days
Did I mention that he was by the house on Friday?
We sat on the lawn with drinks and cigars
Counting the autumn fireflies flickering at dusk
I guess his plan for world domination slipped his mind
As for me, I simply forgot to attend the Revolution -
I was distracted by the adorable new kittens
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Louvre Robbed in Broad Daylight”
-news item
One
wonders if there is any narrow daylight.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Classmate’s Noisy Little Sister
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways…”
-Tennyson, Idylls of the King
When she was a child
An assignment in one of her high school classes
Was to write to one of Our Brave Boys somewhere
Section 8 of Article I was being ignored
And she chose me, which made me feel special
Which is irrelevant; her funeral is tomorrow
Her son, a fine young man, cried as he hugged me
A father himself, a citizen of dignity and honor
For the moment a little boy who couldn’t find his mom
As her family assembled to pray her farewell
She did good
And so may you
And so may we all
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THE TRANSPARENT DESTRUCTION!
Macbeth
to the witches:
How now, you secret,
black, and midnight hags.
A deed
without a name.
-Macbeth IV.i.48-50
Bricks,
freedom, columns, windows that let in light, old trees that shaded the lawns, dignity,
decency, mercy, kindness, self-discipline, honor, precedents ancient and
modern, protections, chapters and verses, the majesty of the law, literature,
music, art, dining with utensils, logic, education, good taste – all must go DO
NOT TAKE PICTURES
Wreckers
guide steel treads
DO NOT TAKE PICTURES Over fragments of Amendment V
Trenchers
rip the
heart DO NOT TAKE PICTURES out
of Amendment IV
Excavators
heave Amendment XXII
DO NOT TAKE PICTURES
into garbage skips
Cranes
stack bits of Amendment VI against a chain link fence
DO NOT TAKE PICTURES
And at
dusk a fire, a big, beautiful fire, chantings and clenched fists while tokens
of the freedom to disagree, freedom from a government religion, freedom to
choose one’s own books, and freedom from fear rise as flame and fire and smoke,
and The People wave their made-in-China gift-shop bibles with the words of Our
Leader printed in red and sing along to the musical stylings of Horst Wessel.
BUT DO NOT TAKE PICTURES
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
You are the Poet and the Poem
You are the poem and the poet
Without you the sun could not rise
Bringing light for the flowers
And warmth to bless this happy land
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“There’s Husbandry in
Heaven”
“…There’s
husbandry in heaven;
Their
candles are all out...”
-Macbeth II.i.6-7
Good folk will tend to see the good in all -
When Banquo was aware of the starless night
He saw in that not a lack of light
But rather the careful conservation of light
And so we see this night, this rainy night
Not as a time of cold and darkness and damp
But an occasion for hearth-gathering the family
For cards, chess, read-alouds, blankies, warmth, peace
Good folk will tend to see the good in all
And good must then on all of us befall
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Who is My Favorite Hero?
Do you now, or have you ever…
Worked double shifts or double jobs to pay the bills
Read to your children instead of yelling at them
Had to jump-start your car in the pre-dawn cold
Jump-started your neighbor’s car in the pre-dawn cold
Do you now, or have you ever…
Done some hard time in the military
Served in the volunteer fire department
Attended divine services without making a fuss
Milked cows, chopped wood, raised a garden
Know which end of a hammer hits the nail
Built a home library for your children and yourself
Set a daily study schedule for developing your mind
Raised your children after your spouse bugged out
Do you now, or have you ever…
Gone to work zero-dark-early and stayed there late
And did more than was expected of you
Taken your children on nature works
Volunteered at your local hospital
Of course you have
So who is my favorite hero?
You are
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Stop Running
1 Kings 19
Stop searching. Hold still
Rest now under a broom tree
And He will find you
