Thursday, October 2, 2025

Jesus and a Reference to Fowler's Modern English Usage - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Jesus and a Reference to Fowler’s Modern English Usage

 

“But who do you say that I am?”

 

“Whom!” boomed a voice from the back of the room

 

And St. Peter asked of him

 

“A community college graduate, I presume?”



(This is from an old joke by C. S. Lewis or in a book about him: "'Whom,' he said, for he had been to night school.")

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Monday, September 22, 2025

An Unhappy O. Henry Ending - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

An Unhappy O. Henry Ending

 

His picture is on the telescreen tonight

Stepping onto a twin-engine executive jet

Then posed in an easy-street seat in the back

Uniformed crew, someone to bring him a snack

 

The same smug grin he had when he dropped out of school

“I’m tired of this nowhere town,” he sneered

“I’m gonna go somewhere and get me a life;

I don’t need you or any of this mess”

 

And life is what he got, and a suit in orange

And a free ride home to his nowhere town

For my Mother's Funeral - couplet

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

For my Mother’s Funeral

 

For my mother’s funeral

I did not sell souvenir tees

Never Carry a Rifle - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Never Carry a Rifle

 

Never carry a rifle

For a man

Who never carried a rifle

The Leaker Demands Informers - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Leaker Demands Informers

 

Why do people inform on others—including neighbors, family members, co-workers, friends, lovers…in repressive societies?

 

-Informers: secrets, truths, and dignity | OUPblog

 

Franklin asked: what good shall I do today?

But the current regime demands that you betray -

Whom shall I report to the State today?

Everyone Has Advice for Writers - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Everyone Has Advice for Writers


There is a man…hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles…

-As You Like It, III.ii.377-380

 

Who is your target audience, they ask

 

A pair of clevers on the telescreen

Giving their audience suggestions for publication

Ideas for making it on the writing scene:

“Target audience” is their incantation

 

Who is your target audience?

 

Is your target moving or stationary?

A paper bullseye or something edible

An enemy, a thing, an adversary

A carnivore’s luncheon spreadable?

 

Who is your target audience?

 

But a reader is not a target

She is not the object of your life -

                                      She is the subject of her own

 

Respect your reader

 

Respect

Humans - They're What's for Dinner! - doggerel

  Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com Dispatches for the Colonial Office LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literatur...