Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
About NO KINGS DAY
“The King’s under the law, for it’s the law that makes him a King.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
Thus we need not worry about such a thing
As our proud president wanting to be a king
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Ruby-Throated Grand Scheme of Things
The
last hummingbird of the season, perhaps,
A tail-end
Charlie, this mid-October pilgrim
Stopping
a moment at the dollar-store feeder
On El
Camino Real to Mexico
To what
king will this royal messenger report?
His
legions of the air and summer flowers
Are gathering
in from all over the Americas
To winter
in mysterious valleys and hidden fields
L’envoi:
We
can’t know where your long journey will end
But
God speed you as you fly with the wind, little friend
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
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!
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.
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?)
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!
