Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Book on Your Bedside Table
(not to mention the
cat at your feet)
When you went to bed last night
Before you switched off the light
And pillow-settled your sleepy head -
What were the last five words you read?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the
Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
That
Which was Mandatory is Now Forbidden
Let no images
Be hung with
Caesar’s trophies
-Flavius in Julius Caesar I.i.73-74
Now hidden are the statues of
Cesar Chavez
His name, his fame, once
celebrated everywhere
Were furtively cleansed in the
dark of night
Lest any of his works live after
him
He is closeted now in the
basement of some museum
Playing poker with Abraham
Lincoln and Columbus
While Mother Theresa and Winston
Churchill
Exchange Shakespearean bon
mots
The famous of the past are
irrelevant, you see
Because
No one is as perfect as you and
me
(Takeaway –
from year to year I understand less and less)
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
If We Have to Evacuate Tonight
If we have to evacuate tonight
Take to the roads in fear of an enemy
Take to the shelter in fear of bombs
What book would you stuff into your jump-bag?
(Along with your Tylenol,
toothbrush, and cat)
The Oxford Book of English Verse for me -
Tho’ I would miss Mary Oliver and Pasternak
Hammarskjold, Li Bai, Cavafy, and Cohen
Akhmatova and vain Yevtushenko
(What book for you
among your socks and thoughts?)
But all of us with our own cultures’ poets
In some new land beyond faraway hills
We will plant our verse and grow bright daffodils
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Scorn not the Haiku
Scorn not the Haiku
In simplicity - complex
Basho teaches us
We are Basho’s friends
Leaping into that old pond
The sound of laughter
Cf:
“The Old Pond,” Basho
“Scorn not the Sonnet,” Wordsworth
This is a variant on an old poem and so possibly a re-post
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
War Metaphor Guy
Does keyboard-war-guy truly mean that he
Will shoulder rifle, pack, and spares, and range
On blistered, bleeding feet into dead hell,
Obedient to an ill-considered oath
That calls upon his soul to deny itself?
How noble is his war -- upon the screen.
Does he intend to suffer sin-stained years
Of deprivation, lowest-bidder tins
Of surplus slime stored since some previous war,
Of murky water gassed with chemicals,
Of gasping, breathless, sodden, rotting heat?
How easy is his war -- upon the screen.
So does he really want a poor man’s soul
Ripped screaming, sh*tting, bleeding from his life,
Intestines flyblown in the devil’s sun?
Will he be satisfied with an eyeless corpse
Bloat-floating down another Vam Co Tay?
How glorious is his war -- upon the screen.
Now, keyboard war guy, march away, away
And how God wills, dispose the video games.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Arnold Raced Out the Door
“The typewriter is holy…”
-Allen Ginsberg
As the opening credits appeared each week
Jessica Fletcher typed on her old machine
“Arnold raced out the door” - but we don’t suppose
That we will ever learn who Arnold was
And why he was racing out a door
(Angela, we miss you!)
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's
Journal of Life, Literature and Love
He Simply Won’t Do
Second of all, his name is Markwayne
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
