Darwinianism Stalks the Suburbs - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Darwinianism Stalks the Suburbs

 

God giveth the earth the good green grass to grow

An unceasing samsara of life and death

Catalogues of life in their millions of forms

Work out their mandalas of being in that sea

 

Winds weave waving forests of tender blades

Chlorophyll makes magic from water and light

The apex predator is the lowly bacterium

Humbling at last great glorious carnivores

 

And there the eternal cycles of seed and sower

Are shredded on Saturdays by a suburban lawn mower

A Child Asked me a Reasonable Question about God - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Child Asked me a Reasonable Question about God

 

A child -

 

She asked of me

One day, you see

A question wise

For one her size

 

It wasn’t odd:

“I believe in God

But then does He

Believe in me?

Because They are Young - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Because They are Young

 

For Those Who Have Lost Children

 

The good die young, our blessed children, our hope

Fresh to this world they wanted so much to explore

They wanted to explore everything – earth, air

Words, water, sky, ideas, music, art, love

 

All the joys of being; all Creation is their stupa

And they fly the eternal pradakshina

In fulfillment, enlightenment, and joy

Infinitely far, and yet still close to us

 

We are less because they have gone ahead

Along the happy pilgrimage of faith

But they are more, and they celebrate us too:

They love us and wait for us along the Way

 

The good die young, and because they are so good

We must strive to be worthy of them

Where is Herod's Father? - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Where is Herod’s Father?

 

…lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children,

and would not be comforted, because they are not.

-Saint Matthew 2:16-18

The Herod of today squats alone in his room

Alone, devoid of parenting or purpose

Feverishly feeling sorry for himself

His only friend is his Precious, his glowing screen

 

(And where is his father?)

 

He scribbles screaming screeds and manifestos

And draws cool pictures of army guns ‘n’ stuff

Mommy lets him do whatever he wants

Maybe another weapon will calm him down

 

(But where is his father?)

 

He counts the children in the village school

He draws a floor plan of the village church

He clutches his he-man tough guy army gear

He sends his sulkings through the GossipNet

 

(Oh, where is his father?)

 

A naked AR fantasy hangs on his wall

He takes him down, he wants to fondle him

He feels, he doesn’t think, he feels, he feels –

Maybe Moloch wasn’t such a bad guy after all

 

(Now where is Herod’s father?)

An Hour in Which Nothing Much Happened - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

An Hour in Which Nothing Much Happened

 

 

The country talked quiet;

one human voice could drown it out…

 

Lonesome Dove, p. 26

 

 

No real mission; I just wanted a walk

Along the road, with work gloves and loppers in hand

Through the wavery heat on a late-summer day

To clear some windfall blocking much of the lane

 

Butterflies danced among bright yellow flowers

Mourning doves murmured in the underbrush

Wrens and buntings and sparrows up in the pines

A little snake wriggled for cover and shade

 

Their beauty and silence – those were their talk

No real mission; I just wanted a walk

The Government Religion in Texas - poem (a bit strident, but so is Ken Paxton's commandment)

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Eleventh Commandment Falls Upon Us

From the State Religion in Austin

 

 “Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by S.B. 10 and display the Ten Commandments.”

-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

25 August 2025

 

“It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion…”

-Texas Declaration of Independence

2 March 1836

 

Our attorney general elects himself God

And imposes upon us his government church 

To rule us, perhaps, by a religion squad

Subjecting us all to seizure and search

 

For under his high-tech inquisition

One’s conscience must obey his moods and rages

This Torquemada on his punitive mission

He’ll ponder our punishment – maybe the cages?

 

Our attorney general elects himself God

And Texans famous for freedom submit to his rod

Ode to a Monitor Lizard - rhyming doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Ode to a Monitor Lizard

 

I saw a picture of a monitor lizard

Its skin is scaley and its tongue is scissored

I’d back away from that wrinkly old wizard -

I don’t want to be ground up in its gizzard!

Making Peace with Apple ICloud - poem (of a sort)

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Making Peace with Apple ICloud

 

(Off. Click)

"I Pray You, Remember the Porter" - a poem about a sort-of retirement

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

“I Pray You, Remember the Porter”

 

-Macbeth II.ii.20-21

 

When I was a young husband and father

I served: on the parish council, taught CCD

Chaperoned bake sales, CYO, and youth trips

Eucharistic minister, lector, and greeter

          (No one else could hand out a leaflet with such grace,                          such elegance, such panache!)

 

But with age, and one by one, I let them go

This morning I asked to be recused at last

From thirty years on the lector duty list

“God’s benison go with you…”

 

As lector

I lost confidence in sorting out the new ways of doing things

Of being where I’m supposed to be

And moving when I’m supposed to do so

And moving where I’m supposed to do so

Carrying the lectionary without dropping it

Mounting the Altar steps without tripping

Standing in one place for more than a few minutes

Seeing the words clearly (why is the print so small?)

Wreathing the verbs without thripping over my thongue

 

But I’m still a greeter – I can open the door

‘Tis my appointed skill level, but ‘tis one

As Macduff did not say

No leaflets, though; that stuff’s now on the InterGossip

 

I smile and open the door, admire babies, help with coats

Show visitors the way to the euphemism

Tell the kids how tall they’ve grown

(You’re a senior!? Why, I remember when…)

 

And it’s okay.

 

I am blessed with honor, love, and troops of friends

          (as Macbeth could not say)

 

Honor, love, and troops of friends

 

All good.

 

Deo gratias

When Alliteration and Peter Piper Go Bad - Nonsense

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

When Alliteration Goes Bad

 

Peter

Piper

Picked a

Peck of

Pickled

Hamsters

To a True Believer: When I.C.E. Runs Out of Immigrants - quatrain

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

To a True Believer: When I.C.E. Runs out of Immigrants

 

Many genuine Bolsheviks who were arrested at that time utterly refused to believe that this had happened with (Stalin’s) knowledge, still less on his personal instructions.

 

-Yevtushenko, A Precocious Autobiography, p. 17

 

When your steel sleeping shelf is next to mine

Three or four racks high under lock and key

You will cry out again in your petulant whine:

“But I voted for him!

This was not supposed to happen to ME!”

"I Pray You, Remember the Porter" - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

“I Pray You, Remember the Porter”

 

-Macbeth II.ii.20-21

 

When I was a young husband and father

I served: on the parish council, taught CCD

Chaperoned bake sales, CYO, and youth trips

Eucharistic minister, lector, and greeter

          (No one else could hand out a leaflet with such grace, such elegance, such panache)

 

But with age, and one by one, I let them go

This morning I asked to be recused at last

From thirty years on the lector duty list

“God’s benison go with you…”

 

As lector

I lost confidence in sorting out the new ways of doing things

Of being where I’m supposed to be

And moving when I’m supposed to do so

And moving where I’m supposed to do so

Carrying the lectionary without dropping it

Mounting the Altar steps without tripping

Standing in one place for more than a few minutes

Seeing the words clearly (why is the print so small?)

Wreathing the verbs without thripping over my thongue

 

But I’m still a greeter – I can open the door

‘Tis my appointed skill level, but ‘tis one

As Macduff did not say

No leaflets, though; that stuff’s now on the InterGossip

 

I smile and open the door, admire babies, help with coats

Show visitors the way to the euphemism

Tell the kids how tall they’ve grown

(You’re a senior!? Why, I remember when…)

 

And it’s okay.

 

I am blessed with honour, love, and troops of friends

          (as Macbeth could not say)

 

Honour, love, and troops of friends

 

All good.

 

Deo gratias

America Inspires the Free World - couplet

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

America Inspires the Free World

 

Americans are a people who, when threatened by a tyrant

Watch TV to applaud someone for cooking an omelet

An Exercise in Alliteration Cut Short by the August Heat - quatrain

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

An Exercise in Alliteration Cut Short by the August Heat

 

Even summer seems weary with summer:

Withering weeds wish woefully for winter

High heat hangs heavily upon the heath

While garden groundlings gasp across the grass

Resettlement to the East on Kristi's Personal Prisoner Airline - poem

 Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

“Resettlement to the East”

 

Kristi Noem is pushing for ICE to buy and operate a fleet of deportation planes, sources say

 

Drain the swamp for a better America

On Qatari Boeings detailed in gold

With interiors by Hugo Boss

Because cattle cars are so last century

Dust Devils on a Sunday Morning in August - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Dust Devils on a Sunday Morning in August

 

The Road to Emmaus is asphalt now

Instead of dust devils spinning in the heat

The stench of curious chemicals flow

In shimmerings among the hovering oaks

 

Above the crisping-brown fields circling vultures

Seem focused on me – do they sense a decaying soul?

My great-grandfather drove a wagon to church

I have air-conditioning, and Chopin on the radio

 

The Road to Emmaus is asphalt now

But you still might meet a Stranger along the way

A Bronze Plaque Commemorating the Trump-Putin Summit at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Br

 A Bronze Plaque Commemorating the Trump-Putin Summit

at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson

 

On this spot on the 15^th of August 2025

 

Nothing happened

The Shroud of Turin is True Again Today! Or Maybe Not! - rhyming doggerel having a little fun with the U. K. DAILY MAIL

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Shroud of Turin is True Again Today! Or Maybe Not!

 

The ghost of Amelia Earhart speaks

 

The U.K. Daily Mail examined the Shroud of Turin

And found Amelia Earhart wrapped up inside:

“Hey! This is my shroud for private buryin’!

So don’t just stand there, all goofy and bug-eyed!”

 

“You keep changing the place where you found my plane

And yesterday you said the Shroud of Turin is bogus

Today you say it’s real – you babble in vain

The ghost of me wishes you would find a focus”

 

The U.K. Daily Mail found Amelia Earhart’s plane –

Tomorrow they’ll be sure to lose it again

Our Little Universities - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Our Little Universities

 

From an idea by Nivek

 

Many books are little universities

Complete with faculties and study halls

Grassy lawns on which to argue ideas

Syllabi written from your heart and mind

 

Laboratories of the mind for distilling wisdom

A concert hall of happy voices in song

“Pomes All Sizes” spoken from the heart

And maybe a Rain Tree on your walk to class

 

The Brothers Karamazov as a prayer book

300 Tang Poems with the wisdom of China

The Oxford Book of English Verse, edited by Q

          (Not THAT Q!)

Doctor Zhivago in squabbling translations

 

And some have spoken most eloquently

for Goodnight Moon

And now what university of yours helps sing

the world in tune?

Let’s All Meet in Cicely - sonnet

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Let’s All Meet in Cicely

 

 

From an idea flown all the way from Thailand

 

 

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow

You can find me sitting outside The Brick

At peace as the gentle autumn breezes blow

Having put aside my hiking stick

 

Fleischmann joins us on that old wooden bench

Chris-in-the-Morning stops by for a beer

Hollings gives Shelly a husbandly pinch

She takes his broom and with it smacks his rear

 

Maurice and Maggie, Ruth-Anne, Marilyn, and Ed

Drop in with stories of love and life and history

And news brought in by plane and road and sled

To this Brigadoon of happy mystery

 

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow

And share in its peace before we go