Monday, June 15, 2026

The Boy Who Wasn't There - poem

 Lawrence Hall

mhal46184@aol.com


The Boy Who Wasn’t There

 

He was tall and dark, dramatically handsome

I was a little bit afraid of him

In my skinny little freshman way

High school seniors are the coolest of the cool

 

And then he wasn’t there except as whispers

Whisper whisper whisper cancer whisper whisper

Algebra whisper pep rally whisper

Occasional whispers around an empty desk

 

One day

 

He returned to school on two crutches and one foot

He was tall and pale, ethereally handsome

 

And after that, like a wraith he disappeared

Sunday, June 14, 2026

The Drum-Song of the Cicada - 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 Drum-Song of the Cicada

 

 

The cry of the cicada
Gives us no sign
That presently it will die

 

- Basho

 

 

Cicadas are living drums singing the summer

Self-rattling so fast that the beats become a buzz

A whining buzz that intensifies the midday heat

Through thin-throbbing tympanic hypnotism

 

Rising and falling, the leaf-borne chorus

In defiance shrills against the peace

The blessed peace of leaves and lawn and sky

That properly belongs to summer days

 

Even so, summer days, all summer long

Are not complete without the cicada’s song

Saturday, June 13, 2026

A Response to Nat Lipstadt's "We are Transitory" - 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

 

A Response to Nat Lipstadt’s “We are Transitory”

 

 

“Time goes by – or do we?”

 

- from Camelot / The Once and Future King

 

 

Your poem is forever

You are forever

This waiting room of a world (C. S. Lewis) – maybe not

Friday, June 12, 2026

You're the Best! - 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

 

You’re the Best!

 

 

                                                                    and love

                                                   with hope

                                our friends

                   lift up

When we

 

Then we are doing our proper job today

 

And knowing you, I am happy to say

You do even better, each bles’sed day

 

You’re the best

Wednesday, June 10, 2026

Love Must Be Held for Questioning - Senryu

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Love Must Be Held for Questioning

  

He felt pity for those…whose love is bounded by the frontier of a nation. 

-“The Spiritual Power of Matter”, Teilhard de Chardin


Bombers cross borders

Easily enough, but love?

Held for questioning

Batter Our Hearts - 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

 

Batter Our Hearts

 

“Batter my heart, three-person’d God,” said Donne

And we’ve all of us agreed with that

So now, God

                             You can stop battering

Really. Stop it. It’s gone on long enough.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Technology is a Two-Edged Carrot Grater - rhyming doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Technology is a Two-Edged Carrot Grater

 

A Meditation upon Computer Updates

 

After an update:

 

I cannot delete intrusions that should go away

I cannot save that knowledge which should stay

I cannot find the files that went astray

While codes and access are changing every day

 

People I don’t even know want me to pay

For services and tweaks they want me to play

My work-rhythm will go much faster, they say

Or else they’ll block my already-slow pathway

 

An update is litter on the information highway

A metaphorical carrot grater of existential decay

A Memorandum of Understanding for Dead Children - short poem

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