Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Stand-To for Night
Patrol
The
Americans were said to believe that the Communists are on the defensive…
-New
York Times, 11 January 1970
I keep seeing a boat’s black silhouette
Upon the red water, against the red sky
And the black-death tree-line along the shore
A dark, decaying scene, and I don’t know why
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
There is More Than One Book
A civilization writes and reads its books
As poetry, pictures, prose, and glorious song
Of war and work and love and peaceful fields
Scholarship and courage and a people’s arts
But when unhappy men with an unhappy god
Maintain that their one book is all we’ll need
In submission to build an empire of death
The threat is clear: their god doesn’t want us
Reading and writing are civilization
From the very beginning of Creation
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
52 Hebrew Words
Max gave me a book: 52 Hebrew Words
For Christmas
Appreciate the irony that isn’t there –
If Judaism isn’t real, then neither are we
Words in Hebrew seem to be topped as flames
As Light - the light as truth, the light for truth
As flame for sacrifice, as flame for peace
As Torah unrolled, all Creation unrolled
Everything begins with a word, the Word
Today we will begin with Shema – Hear
With gratitude
52 Hebrew Words. Dave Adamson. Christian Art Gifts:
Bloomington
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
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?
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
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
