Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Late January is a Time of Grey
I read a little in Billy Collins just now
Because Tolkien is in the other room
Along with the laundry and an unmade bed
Late January is a time of grey
I just want to sit with my coffee awhile
And then I’ll stow the laundry and make the bed
The dishwasher can remain silent until tomorrow
Late January is a time of grey
I was nibbled to death by ducks today
Because
Late January is a time of grey
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Third Sunday in
Extraordinary Time
Dear friends in Christ,
The divine liturgy will be delayed for a few minutes
While the new regime checks everyone’s papers
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Tiny Artists of the Night
Snowflakes by flashlight in the deepening dark
I left them to their night of proper tasks
They beamed down to the earth all over the park
And for the cold grey dawn they’ve made great masks
Plateaus of iridescent white to layer the lawn
Transcendent beauty in a transient medium
Still falling against the feeble all-day dawn
Little artists who form great truths from tedium
And then mysteriously they fly away
To shape the existentials some other day
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
The Dignity of the
Office
Whatever the incoming president fancies
(One hopes to speak without fear of libel)
Ageing (entertainers) in chancy pantsies
And will he take his oaf on a Village People Bible?
20 January 2025
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The White House Inaugural Banquet
and the Idle Dishwashing Machine
Henry II: Fork?
Becket: It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you dirtying your fingers.
Henry II: But then you dirty the fork.
Becket: Yes, but it's washable.
Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the point.
-Becket (1964)
The White House dishwashing machine is idle, kids
Our leaders grub with fingers for their food
Cardboarded burgers as greasy pyramids
On mahogany Queen Anne tables strewed
The sycophants kiss their effendi’s (ring)
And fall to feeding at his soigne trough
No waiters are needed to pour and pass
The diners chortle and chew and choke and cough
The White House dishwashing machine is idle, guys
(Dessert is Velveeta oozing over French fries)
Comment is Freed
From:samf@substack.com
To:mhall46184@aol.com
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
The Holy Bible as
a Base for a Potted Plant
On a little shelf in our local pharmacy
A somewhat tattered Bible has reposed for years
And on that Bible is positioned a potted plant
And above them on the wall a cowboy cartoon
The iconography is elusive to me
One seeks for meaning in an assemblage:
So why this thing in this place at this time?
Existentially speaking (as we said in the ‘60s)
Why?
A curious piece of iconography
On a little shelf in our local pharmacy
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Dag Hammarskjold Negotiates with Himself and with God
Cf. Auden’s introduction to Vagmarken
We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny
but what we put into it is ours.
Vagmarken (Markings), p. 55 in the 1965 Knopf edition
When you were a little child
If you attend a school named for Dag Hammarskjold
How long did it take you to learn to spell his name?
And you are now an adult
And blessed with Hammarskjold’s Vagmarken
How long did it take you to joy in his transcendent good?
