Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Cure for the Common Scold
For ___________________________
With wisdom, age, and experience a man
Comes to appreciate that most useful tool
and the entertainment value as part of the plan
In the sadly-neglected ducking stool
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
1970
When I came home I was asked
by a boyhood friend
“I haven’t seen you lately;
where have you been?”
I’m still wondering about
that
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Death Falls Apart in White
Snow does not fall in July, and yet there is white
White falling like large snowflakes or small flower petals
White scatterings across the summer lawn
Ghostly among the leafy sheltering oaks
The hawks are back
An egret about her business of bugs and snakes
Sudden violence high up in the gentle air
Flesh and life claw-ripped, torn, and devoured
Unheard below, only feathers falling like snow
The hawks are back
This artificial paradise of feeders and seeders
And flower-bordered lawn is a scape of death
From which the gentle rabbits, birds, and squirrels
Withdraw in silent fear
The hawks are back
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias in San Diego
Shelley always makes one think
(often about how to pronounce his middle name)
I met a tout along a darkening street
Who said – “two trunkless legs of neon dance
There, upon that wall, on neon feet
An electromechanical contrivance to prance
In remnants, but wiggling hips and pouty lips
Tell that the artisan well caught the lust
Of lonely sailors as a pretty girl strips -
In time those young men and the dancer will be dust
These letters appear, written in cold fire:
I am the Queen of Club Ozymandias
Look upon me with your hot desire
Look upon me, and imagine us…
Tomorrow all will be leveled
A housing estate will arise, a planner’s scar
Nothing will remain of laughter and drinks
Of sailors flinging their pay upon the bar
For a dancing girl now silent as the Sphinx”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Highway Patrol
An episode of Highway
Patrol appears -
(With Broderick Crawford it
should be widescreen)
Iron-jawed Bill Boyette as
his sergeant
Today’s show features a
passenger train
A man in a coat and tie,
smoking a cigarette
Stops his DeSoto at a
telephone booth
Wildly high fins (the DeSoto,
not the telephone booth)
Inserts a dime and, turning a
dial, he places a call
And Grandpa takes some time
to explain
To his grandchild
The telephone, the tie, the
passenger train
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I Have the Epstein Files
I carry the Epstein files in my pocket
A paperback edition from City Lights
You said you were going to hitchhike to Big Sur
With a dude named Gautama. I have the files
I thought you’d like to know
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Hallowed be Thy App
“…that unmistakable English church-going pace…holding, bound in
black lamb-skin and white celluloid, the liturgies of a half dozen conflicting
sects…”
-Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
One sees a Bible only occasionally
Even more rarely a Sunday missal
Which, with coat and tie and
the mantilla
Are relics of a courtlier,
more dignified time
The faithful now carry the
scriptures as apps
The rosary the same (maybe
next to Candy Crush)
An electronic conscience
funded by an investment firm
And available at a low introductory
price
A talking box - it must
be Godly and true
And just as eternal as the
Apple II
