Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Dawn Across the Planet
Soon you will be awake for breakfast and tea
A good cup of tea for beginning the day
As the waning Harvest Moon sails west
And you and the sun rise happily in the east
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Dawn Across the Planet - short poem
Forgive Me for not Writing Yesterday - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Forgive Me for not Writing Yesterday
I was reclined before a bin of farriers’ tools
Ironmongery smithied in shining steel
In a room shaded institutional green
Fluorescent lights, only one door
Gadgets clipped to me, needles poked into me
Surely soon would sound the voice of Number Two:
“Information. We want information.”
Thinking of pain, then poetry, then you
But having a dying tooth extracted
Does not lend itself to metre or rhyme!
She Thinks My Tractor's Schleppy - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
She Thinks My Tractor’s Schleppy
Anyone
who can hear “She thinks my tractor’s sexy”
With
a teary eye of sentimentality
For
a lost golden age of rural life
Da*ned
sure didn't grow up on a farm
Cf. Kenny Chesney, “She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy,” lyrics by Jim
Collins and Paul Overstreet.
Kind Hearts are More Than Coronets - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Kind Hearts are More Than Coronets”
Tennyson – “Lady Clare Vere de Vere”
But coronets will get you set
In better seats at Goodwood, you bet
(Doesn't everyone read Tennyson on Sunday afternoon?)
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Saint Vincent Ferrer and I Go Fishing in a Toilet Tank - weak doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Saint Vincent Ferrer and I Go Fishing in a
Toilet Tank
And the master-salesman asked of him
and me:
Is the flapper-valve, yea, verily,
two inches or three?
-not exactly according to Ultimate
Guide: Plumbing, Creative Homeowner, 2021
Toilet
bowls are fascinating to dogs and cats
Like
watering holes on the Serengeti plains
Their
cousins hunt among the desert flats
In
the seasons between sweet nourishing rains
Strange
noises in the dark…
But
when the water gushes both day and night
St.
Vincent and I must pray and think and work
To work
this ceramic water-hole aright
For
Luna and Pushkin to hunt and lurk
The
animals watch impatiently…
Our labors
at last are proven to be blest
As
water flows like a smooth anapest!
A Sidewalk Table at Pouline's - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Sidewalk Table at Pouline’s
V: Monsieur…
R: Oui?
V: Your life has no meaning
Please let it have no meaning somewhere else
R: But my coffee, my croissant…
V: Oui, you have paid
And have left the perfect tip. The afternoon
Is slow and there are certainly plenty of tables
Your appearance and demeanor are parfait but…”
R: Oui?
V: You have sat here ten minutes into the time
At which you commenced to appear desperate.
R: But how?
V: If you must ask then you are desperate
You have not been accepted into the mysteries
And never can be. You have been caught out
Please dispose of your Mont Blanc pen
Your embossed note cards, your important papers,
And your leather portfolio crafted in understated elegance,
And go deliver groceries or wash cars.
R: Does it really show?
V: It’s as if you
Were taking a selfie
At Shakespeare & Co
R: Then all is existential despair
V: Oui, former monsieur
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Tell Me About Your Day - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Tell Me About Your Day
The
evening air is cool – let’s sit outside in the dusk
Tell
me about your day, your work, your friends
I
like your friends; they write such lovely verse -
Nothing
as nearly good as yours, of course!
The
evening air is cool
I enjoyed
breakfast with my friends, our weekly outing
We
talked of our children and our hopes for them
Later
I worked at chores in the garden and house
And
read new lines from my favorite poet
The
evening air is cool
I so
enjoy talking with you – do I talk too much?
Too
little? Just right? You are such fun to listen to!
And
the evening air is just right
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