Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter - a poem based on the painting

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter

 

For all Daughters and Their Fathers

 

Monsieur is dressed for a quiet evening at home

As is his daughter in her cozy white wrap

Leaning dutifully upon his shoulder as he predicts

With globe and maps the empires of her mind

 

The empires of her mind which she will rule

With subtle wit and work instead of war

With armies of thought and beauty and art and truth

To conquer chaos and set the world aright

 

This guardian of goodness in a little girl’s guise

(But inwardly, I think, she’s rolling her eyes)

 

 

“The Geography Lesson,” Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1812, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Each Kiss is a Distraction - a poor attempt at a senryu

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Each Kiss is a Distraction

 

While we weren’t watching

They might have declared war on Canada

We’d better check around

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…

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!