Thursday, February 13, 2025

Watching the Rain Without You - poem

 Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Watching the Rain Without You

 

The rain is incomplete without you

If you were here we could sit on the couch

I’d put a Frank Sinatra on the machine

So he and the rain could sing to us

 

But especially to you

 

The rain is incomplete without you

If you were here we could lie on the floor

As I read the funny papers to you

And do you like good ol’ Charlie Brown?

 

But of course you do

 

The rain is incomplete without you

It misses you almost as much as I

 

Almost


Groovin' on Graveyards - a poem about the night shift

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Graveyard Shift

 

At two in the morning everything is old

The hours, the work, the fluorescent lights

The air, the night, flickering computer screens

Even the freshly-made coffee in the break room

 

At two in the morning everything is old

The way the new guy snuffles his dripping nose

The cleaning lady’s mop bucket and its rattling roll

The snoopervisor’s totally fake good cheer

 

At two in the morning everything is old

“You’ll love the fellowship on graveyards,” I was told

A Penny Saved is a Worthless Zinc Disc Gathering Dust in a Drawer - doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Penny Saved is a Worthless Zinc Disc Gathering Dust in a Drawer

 

 

“Feed the birds, tuppounds a bag…”

 

-as Mary Poppins did not sing

 

 

It seems that our last penny has been spent

We will miss the fakey copper glint

Our other pot-metal coinage should take the hint:

We do not have a stable governMINT

My Shakespearean Girl - sonnet

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

My Shakespearean Girl

 

I woke in sadness that the dream had passed

But joyed that the vision had come at all             

To comfort me with happy memories cast

Into my sleep through moonlight on the wall

 

Through moonlight on the wall, through starlit sky

That long-ago world in our golden youth

When she danced as lightly as a butterfly

Through sunlit fields where all was truth

 

Through sunlit fields on her little bare feet

As gracefully as a leaping summer fawn

Or rhyme and meter when in verse they meet

In that magic hour whence breathes the dawn

 

In that magic hour we were once more

So very close to that opening door…

Saturday, February 8, 2025

A Dachshund Dreaming of Rabbit for Supper - DOGgerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Dachshund Dreaming of Rabbit for Supper

 

My little Luna-Dog has a bad habit

Of chasing after her back-yard rabbit

 

But still let not your mind be troubled or fraught

With fear for that rabbit who is never caught!

Pirates to Starboard! - a poem about childhood

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Pirates to Starboard next to the Dairy Cows!

 

My neighbors’ field is low; it tends to flood

Their children sail their kayak as pirates bold

And laugh and splash upon the sloshy mud

Swallows and Amazons in search of gold

 

Most comfortable with our feet propped up

We old folks sit upon the porch all dry

Each an admiral with his coffee cup

And let the heavy monsoon pass us by

 

We too were pirates in our dreaming youth

We wish we still were – and that’s the truth!

Little Thoughts of God - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

Little Thoughts of God

 

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.

 

-Papa Benedict, 24 April 2005

 

 

Our children play with little toy trucks and trains

Comb Barbie’s hair and then arrange Ken’s tie

They get fussed at for pulling the puppy’s tail

They cuddle up with kittens and Winnie-the-Pooh

 

Our children create worlds with construction paper

Discover Narnia in a new box of crayons

They get fussed at for writing on the wall

They squirm in church; they tickle Daddy’s beard

 

Our children love their chapter books (and us!)

“Is this a picture of a pirate ship?”

They get fussed at for asking soooooo many questions

“Daddy, will you read us a story now?”

 

Dear Lord –

 

Let our children grow up and make us proud

 

Dear Lord –

 

Let our children grow up

 


In 2022 firearms accounted for 30% of deaths in children 1 to 17

 

-Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health

Annual Firearm Violence Data | Center for Gun Violence Solutions

That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting - doggerel

   Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com Dispatches for the Colonial Office   That Old Loudmouth at Every Meeting   You know him well, that untuc...