Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Reading the Room
I don’t know to read a room, but look –
I’m still pretty good at reading a book
Friday, January 10, 2025
Reading the Room - doggerel
A Colonial Project - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Colonial Project
Am I a victim of
A Colonial Project
Am I a perpetrator of
A Colonial Project
Am I a victim of
A Colonial Project
Or is it
THE Colonial Project
And whose?
I think I’ll make a pot of tea
If that’s not too colonial for anyone
And would you like a cup?
Thursday, January 9, 2025
May Our Children Live Long Enough to Invade Greenland - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
May Our Children
Live Long Enough to Invade Greenland
Man arrested entering the Capitol with a machete and
three knives
-U. K. Daily Mail
No weapons in the Capitol; it’s a rule
The adults who work there must be safely bubbled
But when some pimply oaf brings a gun to school
No one in D.C. seems especially troubled
I am a Ptolemaic - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I am a Ptolemaic
There was a star danced, and under that I was born
-Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, II.i.349
This little world isn’t much, but it’s what we’ve got
Our Narnia, our Middle-Earth; it’s green
It’s green and blue and round, an almost-sphere
Fitted with all the ancient conveniences
Let the stars encircle us as a crown
And who will dare to say it is not so?
For we are commanded to grow this garden
By the light of the sun, and of faith and love
As Shakespeare might have said, this blessed plot -
This little world isn’t much, but it’s what we’ve got
"LA Fires Bring Art to a Halt" - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
“LA Fires Bring
Art to a Halt”
Hyperallergic: Sensitive to Art and
Its Discontents
No.
A fire brings nothing to a halt
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives -
A poet abandoning her car to flee for her life
Holds to her heart her notebooks in grocery-store bag
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
A trumpeter manages to save the mouthpiece at least
While carrying his child out to an ambulance
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
A sculptor’s eyes record a wall of windows
To be re-molded as life-filled windows of dreams
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
Firefighters wrestling a hose through smoke and heat
Are a choreograph of life against flaming death
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
An artist whose studio is now but smoke
Will stir ashes and water, and paint again
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
A little girl will write of her little dog
Her bestest pal whom she never saw again
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
In a shelter tonight an aging man
Will sing to himself the love songs of his youth
To the last respiration of the very last soul
And beyond: Art will live because Art lives
then patch
a
few words together and don’t try
to
make them elaborate, this isn’t
a
contest but the doorway
-Mary Oliver, “Praying”
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
“Now, Therefore, Write for Yourselves This Song” - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Now, Therefore, Write for Yourselves This Song”
-Deuteronomy 31:19 per Talmud at My Jewish Learning <community@mail.myjewishlearning.com>
“Nunc itaque scribite vobis canticum istud.”
-Douay-Rheims
What song will you write for the people of God?
Something from the Prophets or the Laws
A hymn for Mary, dancing in the spring
Or maybe praise for patient and protective Joseph
What song will you write for your own true love?
Gentle rhyming for the music of her gentle laugh
Iambics and meters her intellect to please
Birdsong sweet to limn her holiness
What song will you write for the world God made?
Matins for mist and mountain and flowered glade
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Epiphany Moved and Improved - The Magi Must Re-Schedule Their Arrival Time
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the
Colonial Office
Epiphany Moved and
Improved –
The Magi Must
Re-Schedule Their Arrival Time
Whatever committee decides these things
Has chosen to shift ancient feasts about
For the convenience of the modern world
In scheduling meetings and interviews
Magi following a smart watch in the sky
The ostler wants the stable cleared by ten
King Herod tapping massacres on an app
Plough Monday must be reset to Tuesday next
Whatever committee decides these things
Is stricken deaf when the sacring bell rings
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