Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
He Took a Photograph
of an Unauthorized Number!
“Tear him to pieces; he is a conspirator!”
-First Plebeian, Julius Caesar III.iii.28
Can I avoid death threats if I simply say
I wish Mr. Trump would go away
To a luxurious golf course there to play
And peace on him may we safely pray
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Bring Me the Head of Peter Rabbit
My little dog has gotten into the habit
Of dining at dusk on delicious rabbit
Last night she blitzed past me as I opened the door
And left me a gift on the bedroom floor
I blinked when I saw at the foot of the bed
With its eyes still open – a poor rabbit’s head
Luna-Dog looked up and pawed at my knee
As if to ask, “Aren’t you proud of me?”
I reminded her gently (no need to fume)
That we take our meals in the dining room
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Ghosted
In the half-light before dawn I checked the mail
I don’t know why; maybe I was awaiting some truth
When shimmering on the MePhone’s sleep-obscured page
A message from a friend long dead appeared
He made a joke about the January moon
And mentioned a book he had begun to read
He asked about my slow progress through a book since misplace
And chided me for not keeping up with him
I want to find that book
Because on some happy morning beyond time
he will
ask me about it
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
My Bestest Friend in the Whole First Grade
For Rodney Joe Webb
of happy memory
Our fathers’ farms were across the road from each other
We rode the big yaller feller to school
After the morning milking: Run! Run! We’ll be late!
And back again for the evening milking
We knew all sorts of stuff about battleships
And that Roy Rogers was better than Gene Autry
Chevy or Ford, and America could never be licked
Robin Hood and the biggest fish in the pond
The farms are long gone, and the fields of hay –
I went to his visitation today
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Parlement of Foules and the Parliament of Fools
The
Parlement of Foules of whom old Chaucer wrote
Meet yearly
on the Feast of Valentine
In Venus’
temple to negotiate
The noble
rites of love and life and youth
The
Parliament of Birds on my front lawn
In their
several sub-species negotiate
Their seeds
and crusts with outraged squawks and shrieks
But in
the end manage to satisfy all
The Parliaments
of Birds are of order and rules
But humans
elect only Parliaments of Fools
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
After the Passing of the Bishop of Rome
The first task of a bishop is to pray.
-Pope Francis, The closeness of bishops (20 September 2019) | Francis
I think I’m the only Catholic in all of Christendom
Who is not giving the Holy Spirit instructions
On whom to choose for the next Bishop of Rome
And, shut my mouth, I mean to keep it that way
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
What Do Little ‘Possums
Dream Of?
My resident ‘possum was curled up cozily
Deep down in a stump over by the fence
Asleep, and like a little dog or cat
A-twitching happily in his ‘possum dreams
Of dung-beetles and corpses of dead birds
Dog food left carelessly outside overnight
Whatever awful offal the cat yakked up -
A buffet of delicacies for well-brought-up marsupials
Crawly-bugs and poops and snails and rattlesnake tails
Those surely are what little ‘possums dream of
