Monday, January 19, 2026

Is There a "Board of Peace" for Minnesota? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Is There a “Board of Peace” for Minnesota?

 

The president is mobilizing federal soldiers;

The governor, his state’s national guard

Sister and brother to war with each other

While citizens are scarred with bullet and shard

 

The chief of police makes stirring speeches

The several mobs lock lies into their ‘phones

ICE-men pull guns while a bullhorn screeches

Possibly next they will send up the drones

 

“We’re better than this,” some official will say –

More smoke to befoul Minnesota today

My Friends and Okra - rhyming couplet

 Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

 

My Friends and Okra

 

Give my share to the cats, the sea-bass, and the seal!

 

I have a dear friend who loves her okra

But those rubbery things just make me choke-ra!

Evil is Afraid of You - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Evil is Afraid of You

 

That in the world which is evil despises you

Mostly because you never give up
Evil sends you hopeless dreams and despair

And leaves your pillow stained with sour tears

 

That in the world which is evil despises you

Because in the morning you wake up strong

Greet the new day with your own songs of hope

And work at your purposes with joyful intent

 

That in the world which is evil despises you

Because it can never be you

The Doomsday Clock and Watch Collection - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

The Doomsday Clock and Watch Collection

 

Since 1947 the image of a doomsday clock

Has haunted our dreams and possibilities

First nuclear war, then global cooling

Then global warming, and now A EYE

 

If we continue to date and time our doom

Let’s have it as an app, or a clever watch

Strapping the end of time to our wrists

Or entombed in an Orwellian telescreen

 

The Doomsday Clock has been frozen for eighty years -

Let’s wear as a fashion our existential fears

Poetry is an Uncommon God - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Poetry is an Uncommon Good

 

Thanks to Nat and Friends

 

Poetry is a common good

Like dreams and water and earth and air

What graces might bless us if we would

Be grateful for each as an answered prayer

Friday, January 9, 2026

Texas A & M University and Mickey Mouse's Dog - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

 

Texas A & M University and Mickey Mouse’s Dog

 

 

                    Private Joe Gomez: “What you readin'?”

 

                    Private Marion Hotchkiss: “Plato.”

 

                    Joe: “You mean they wrote a whole big book about Mickey Mouse's dog?”

 

-Leon Uris, Battle Cry

 

 

Texas A & M has banished wise Plato

(Some colonel is shaking in his aiguilette)

Shoved philosophy out through the old North Gate-O

(Asking questions scares the admin soviet)

 

We mustn’t teach thinking on the Texas plains

Or read the books that our ancestors wrote

That kept us free from cruel tyrants’ chains -

No Plato, now, and maybe soon no vote

 

A university no more; that how it looks -

Their homecoming bonfire now is for burning books

 

 

NB: In the long-ago A & M rightly dropped my lazy (self) for skipping class.  I wasn’t allowed to skip class in Viet-Nam, and that was a sterner lesson.

 

Texas A&M deems Plato unnecessary for approved thought

 

Texas A&M blocks readings on gender ideology in philosophy class: 'Plato has been censored'

 

Texas A&M flags parts of Plato readings as violations of new anti-gender theory policy

 

Texas A&M Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato Because of Gender Rules - The New York Times

 

Texas A&M Forbids A Plato Reading In An Intro Philosophy Course

Crawfish are not in the Bible - rhyming couplete

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

 

Crawfish are not in the Bible

 

 

                     …spawned in that slime

Conceived by a pair of those monsters

Born of Cain

 

-From Beowulf in Burton Raffel’s fine translation

 

 

Eating crawfish is seasonally lawful

But I tell you true, they’re simply offal!

A Red Card? - poem

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