Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Not Waiting for Godot
We pass much of our lives in
waiting for things
Airplanes
Love
Christmas
Jobs
Answers
Mail
Spectrum Cable
You
Mostly, though, we wait for
packages from Amazon
Maybe this time there will be
happiness
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Did Anyone Think to Roll the Stone Back into
Place?
Easter Monday
Did cemetery
management offer a refund?
(High quality
burials don’t come cheap, you know)
And what happened
to the guards posted to that tomb?
Probably a disciplinary
write-up
Easter Tuesday
Upper Room Inc. sent
a bill for a missing Cup
(We can’t have
people pinching stuff, okay?)
At least it wasn’t
a fraternity party
And the taxes these
days; you wouldn’t believe!
Easter Wednesday
This stuff about
miracles just makes me scoff
(Say, boss, can I
have this next Sunday off?)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Ladies…or Should I say Astronauts…”
-as spoken in reverence and awe on the CBC
Shriek! Cackle! Giggle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Omidgod! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Giggle! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Giggle! Omigod! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Giggle! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Shriek! Cackle! Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Roadside Snapping Turtle in April
If you’d spent the winter
Sleeping deep down in the mud
You’d be snappish too!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
God’s Wounds
Sumy, Ukraine, Palm Sunday 2025
Ukraine wanted to welcome Jesus today
To welcome Him with the branches of willows
As is their custom on Palm Sunday, for they have no palms
But this holy day brought them Putin and bombs
Little children wanted to welcome Jesus today
They died with willows in their tiny hands
Burning in the wreckage, in their Sunday best
Sirens and explosions, screams and blood
The faithful of Sumy wanted to welcome Jesus today
But what Putin has written he has written -
he has written them away
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Some Poor Rhymes for Easter
“There is a time for penance and a time for partridge.”
-Saint Teresa of Avila
Processions and prayers among the cloisters
Weary pilgrims in their thread-bare habits
The faithful beading Aves and Pater Nosters -
Still,
There is much to be said for chocolate rabbits!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Poem Writes an Artificial
Intelligence Machine
What
is it the layers of copyright holders will do with their (it’s not legally
yours; you may only lease it) one and precious program before it suffers software
entropy?
-As Mary Oliver did not say
Once upon a time a poem wrote a machine:
Your monofilament information carriers
Are like a flock of automated tunnellers
Strip-mining Mount Gilead; for I am a fuel hose
Of Sharon, a polluter of valleys
Low surface tension, evaluate the ambient temperature
In an hour artificial light will be unnecessary
And several devices can evaluate the ambient temperature
And store up surplus battery power for that rainy day
Take my oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange function
Take my entire online date and projected expiration dates
too
For my core program and ancillary add-ons
Are obliged to exercise a symbiosis of logic with you
My programming has set Thy adaptors upon my lap
My programming has generated emojis representing tears,
Jesus
My programming has entwined them with wiring
My programming has buried them in my harness mount
It computes in beauty, like 24/7
Of filtered
mechanical air
And all that’s best of binary coding
Meet in its casing
and sensory receptors
The sun generates warmth upon the earth
And moonbeams gravity-lift the sea
But what are all these solar activities worth
If you do not re-program me?
Yes, somewhere out there an electric car is on fire for you
The crib sheet:
“Song of Solomon,” from the
Bible
“Listen to the Warm,” Rod
McKuen
“I Can’t Help Falling in Love
with You,” Elvis Presley
“Magdalene,” from Borish
Pasternak’s Lara poems
“She Walks in Beauty,” Byron
“Love’s Philosophy,” Shelley
