Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Lurking at the Early Voting Site

Years later, some will say this never happened

Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

A Texas Emergency Management SUV

Parked at the poll at the Baptist Church

There’s no one in it, that White Maria

In government white, it just sort of lurks

You’ve been listening to rumors, comrade

No, no, there is no typhus in Moscow

Did Grendel leave it while waiting for night?

It just sort of lurks, in government white

This isn’t Spain; this is England, you know

And, citizen, there is no typhus in Moscow

Free-floating allusions for our illusions:

The Gulag Archipelago

Doctor Zhivago

Beowulf

A Man for All Seasons

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night

Once upon a time I found an arrowhead

At the roots of an oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus nature or man versus man

Once upon a time I found a minie’-ball

At the roots of that oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn -

Man versus nature or man versus man

Once upon a time I found dentures

At the base of the old water well out front

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus plug tobacco or plug tobacco versus man

Do you hear their soft footfalls at night?

Paws and claws and feet from before linear time

Between the poles and along the latitudes

That no one had yet written or thought

Do they stand outside your window and listen

Listen for your breathing, and wish they could talk

Could talk with you about this holy earth

For the Sullen Goof Wearing a Revolver in the Supermarket - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

For the Sullen Goof Wearing a Revolver in the Supermarket

(Texas is an oaf-and-carry state)

Does the big, bad broccoli scare you, punkin’?

Is the canned spinach laughing at you again?

A big iron on your hip

Is just

A big iron on your lip

And someone’s going to have it away from you

Sunday, October 18, 2026

Why is the Priest Yelling at Me? - not dogma but doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

Why is the Priest Yelling at Me?

I cannot tell you of the gospel today

My attention span was at its bottom

The priest chose to yell instead of say

And thus most reverently

I bowed my head over Keats’ “Ode to Autumn”

Saturday, October 17, 2026

When You Were a Little Child with a Crayon - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

When You Were a Little Child with a Crayon

When first your hand, your little hand, picked up

A crayon, a brush, a pencil, a marker, a pen

And with your hand, your little hand, your pen

You flung your thoughts onto a paper pad

(Or onto your parents’ freshly painted walls)

You introduced your words into the world

You introduced yourself, your words, your soul

And Eden was happy again, with your poems

Running barefoot among the singing trees

(Perhaps God smiled and asked)

Whose are these hands, these little hands

Making fresh new words for my young and growing world?

Fang, Wild Dog of the North - doggerel, with a real dog

Lawrence Hall

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

Fang, Wild Dog of the North

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse

Whiles night’s black agents to their prey do rouse

Macbeth III.ii.58-59

When at night the ravenous timberwolves sing

Terrifying each lesser living thing

And the great horned owl is on the wing

Even brave men to their prayers do cling

My carnivorous dachshund is ready to spring

Her blood-lust stirred by the microwave’s ping!

(Stand back, everyone! No sudden moves…!)

Thursday, October 15, 2026

The Goddess and the Chainsaw - poem

Lawrence Hall

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