Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Gradations of War

Why does he say an all-out war?

Is there somehow a some-in war?

Typewriter, Telephone, Dictionary, Thesaurus - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Typewriter, Telephone, Dictionary, Thesaurus

The typewriter is holy

(okay, Ginsberg got that right, at least)

Over the years a series of corded telephones

Stood to their duty next to an Underwood

That’s now stowed away in a closet somewhere

The dictionary and thesaurus are retired

Over the years a series of wordy battles

Have been fought over this Polonian plain:

Thesis and antithesis to synthesis

Theses, structures and sources, papers and poems

Over the years

A little glowing machine now centers my desk

But verse and prose, and you and I, are forever

There's an Old Sheriff in Town - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

There’s an Old Sheriff in Town

In Technicolor!

This evening I ordered the twenty-first century to shut up

And caught the time machine to dusty Diablo

A corrupt city government, an outlaw gang

And soft-spoken Audie Murphy to set things right:

You’re new in town, aren’t you?

I came to find out who did the killing

Somebody’s running off our herd!

He’s out for revenge and headed straight for Boot Hill.

If I was smart, I’d shoot you right now.

You still got a deputy named O’Mara around here?

That's the trouble. He kissed me good night... and I liked it

You trying to make yourself a reputation?

Maybe you're turning into a human being

I don’t hand out tin stars as licenses for murder

He only stole one horse, didn’t he?

You go through those swinging doors and you’ll be dead

I’ll take good care of him, doctor

You going to be hanging around Diablo for a while?

You going to be hanging around Diablo for a while?

Yep – all Saturday afternoon, with popcorn and a soda

Lines from Ride Clear of Diablo, Universal International, 1954

Monday, June 1, 2026

A Summer of Blueberries, a Summer of War - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

SUMMER OF WAR
IRAN THREATENS NEW STRIKES ON ISRAEL
CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES
OIL SURGES

A Summer of Blueberries, a Summer of War

-Drudge

This morning’s news is all about the wars

For oceans and oil, and oceans of oil

For the ideological souls of men

For a tyrant screaming through a midnight screen

Our morning is all about the blueberries

Fresh dewy little globes among the leaves

Magic treats for children, fairies, and elves

Or for a dream-lover with flashing dark eyes

Blueberries fresh and new, colored sky-blue -

I picked a basket of them just for

you!

Sunday, May 31, 2026

It Doesn't Matter if You Write a Good Poem - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

It Doesn’t Matter if You Write a Good Poem

A poet’s autobiography is his poetry

-Yevtushenko

It doesn’t matter if you write a good poem Today

But only that you write a poem Now

The poem to follow will be better Tomorrow

Or maybe not -

But it will BE Forever

Delaney Hall in New Jersey is not my Cousin - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

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