Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
An Exercise in Alliteration Cut Short by the August Heat
Even summer seems weary with summer:
Withering weeds wish woefully for winter
High heat hangs heavily upon the heath
While garden groundlings gasp across the grass
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Resettlement to the
East”
Kristi Noem is pushing for ICE to buy and operate a fleet of
deportation planes, sources say
Drain
the swamp for a better America
On
Qatari Boeings detailed in gold
With
interiors by Hugo Boss
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Dust Devils on a Sunday Morning in August
The Road to Emmaus is asphalt now
Instead of dust devils spinning in the heat
The stench of curious chemicals flow
In shimmerings among the hovering oaks
Above the crisping-brown fields circling vultures
Seem focused on me – do they sense a decaying soul?
My great-grandfather drove a wagon to church
I have air-conditioning, and Chopin on the radio
The Road to Emmaus is asphalt now
But you still might meet a Stranger along the way
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Br
A Bronze Plaque
Commemorating the Trump-Putin Summit
at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson
On this spot on the
15th of August 2025
Nothing happened
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Shroud of Turin is True Again Today! Or Maybe Not!
The ghost of Amelia Earhart speaks
The U.K. Daily Mail examined the Shroud of Turin
And found Amelia Earhart wrapped up inside:
“Hey! This is my shroud for private buryin’!
So don’t just stand there, all goofy and bug-eyed!”
“You keep changing the place where you found my plane
And yesterday you said the Shroud of Turin is bogus
Today you say it’s real – you babble in vain
The ghost of me wishes you would find a focus”
The U.K. Daily Mail found Amelia Earhart’s plane –
Tomorrow they’ll be sure to lose it again
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Our Little Universities
From an idea by Nivek
Many books are little universities
Complete with faculties and study halls
Grassy lawns on which to argue ideas
Syllabi written from your heart and mind
Laboratories of the mind for distilling wisdom
A concert hall of happy voices in song
“Pomes All Sizes” spoken from the heart
And maybe a Rain Tree on your walk to class
The Brothers Karamazov as a prayer book
300 Tang Poems with the wisdom of China
The Oxford Book of English Verse, edited by Q
(Not THAT Q!)
Doctor Zhivago in squabbling translations
And some have spoken most eloquently
for Goodnight
Moon
And now what university of yours helps sing
the world in
tune?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Let’s All Meet in Cicely
From an idea flown all the way from Thailand
Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
You can find me sitting outside The Brick
At peace as the gentle autumn breezes blow
Having put aside my hiking stick
Fleischmann joins us on that old wooden bench
Chris-in-the-Morning stops by for a beer
Hollings gives Shelly a husbandly pinch
She takes his broom and with it smacks his rear
Maurice and Maggie, Ruth-Anne, Marilyn, and Ed
Drop in with stories of love and life and history
And news brought in by plane and road and sled
To this Brigadoon of happy mystery
Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
And share in its peace before we go
