Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer
If only the day
Will live up to the promise
Of this golden dawn
Thursday, March 6, 2025
A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer - Senryu (maybe; people argue about senryu and haiku and cuckoo)
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Valkyrie Flight of the Lawn Chairs - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Flight of the Lawn Chairs
The Lion-Winds of March
Wild winds now rise to a Valkyrie’s strength
And dark clouds roar to the hammer of Thor
While lightning traverses the poor earth’s length
As if our Nordic gods have gone to war
As if our Nordic gods have gone to war
The walls and windows rattle against the rain
Foul enemies batter against the door
The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain
The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain
Have set my old lawn chairs to flying again!
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
A Ghost Road Through the Marsh - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Ghost Road Through the Marsh
The days are gone
When the kingdoms of
earth flourished in glory;
-“The Seafarer”, Burton Raffel translation
Water ran in rivulets among the weeds
The wind was lowering, the rain had stopped, the sky
Was low and grey over a landscape bleak
With wreckage and windfall from the passing storm
An old man slowly worked to clear the road
While the young impatiently hooted and honked
Their displeasure that the world they hadn’t worked
Wasn’t working quite right for them today
The old man sometimes spoke with the ghosts of Rome
Who had built and marched their roads until
The egos and angerings of emperors and kings
Abandoned all good work to slow decay
The young one-fingered past him among the brome
And disappeared forever into the gloam
Soups as a Medium of Exchange - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Soups as a Medium of Exchange
In today’s trading soups were generally down
Although vegetable beef found a brisk trade
Potato soup was bullish in Block D
And each minestrone was five cigarettes
The market closed slightly up at evening count
But this could not compensate for the day’s fall
Naked-lady tats are expected to go high this week
Ten soups for an inked image of yo’ mama
The morning market will open in this metal hell
When some dumb **** rings that ****ing bell
The List is Death - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
The List is Death
There is said to be a list –
but whose?
Who wrote it? Where is it?
Where has it been?
On what teakwood desk does it
now repose
Around which names and lives
are negotiated
The matter is not that names
are being removed
But that your name might be
written in
Because your attitude has
been noticed
The hand that once shook
yours signs away your life
Someone pencils your name
upon The List
That’s your loyalty reward (you
won’t be missed)
Thoughts ‘n’ prayers as in
Two Corinthians
Authority Over Everything on the Earth - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Authority Over Everything on the Earth
Sirach 17:1-15
You can’t be authority over
all the earth
If in the end you are buried
under it
What are man’s honors and dignity
worth
When man is nobly dropped
into a pit
Prancing Chainsaw Dude - senryu
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Prancing Chainsaw Dude
Prancing chainsaw dude
Humiliates all of us
But we obey him
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