Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Laughing Altar Girl
A Sunday in Ordinary Time
On the Altar merry laughter
Is a gift forever after
(Even Miz Busy smiled)
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
The Laughing Altar Girl - couplet
Friday, September 18, 2026
In a Garbage Can in DaNang, There Lived a Hobbit - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
In a Garbage Can in DaNang, There
Lived a Hobbit
“Take up and read!”
-St. Augustine of
North Africa, Chapter XII, Confessions
Quonset huts in rows across the dunes
Smelling of diesel: hot white sands, hot
white air
Bulldozers clanking along barbed-wire
fencing
Dragonish coils against desperate scrub
ARVN guards in mirror-lensed gas-station
shades
In watchtowers writhing in the summer
sun
Scanning the huts, each its own tiger
cage
Sandbags, heat and sand, metal bunks, heat,
sand
A lidless garbage can of civilization’s
leavings
And atop some rags and soda cans a book
I stopped. I looked. I took. I read:
“…one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when
there was less noise and more green…”
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Where Do Our Dreams Go? - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Where Do Our Dreams Go?
We wake up every morning, still adrift
From night and dreams and fog and hazy dawn
Unless we work the night shift down at the plant
For then we rise to the evening news
When we wake up where do our pale dreams go?
Maybe the first flush makes them disappear
Maybe daylight fades them into non-being
Or they’re put out with the dog for the dawn patrol
And never allowed back in
It’s really okay
if nightmares go away -
I just wish the happy dreams would stay
Artificial Intelligence on the Assembly Line - couplet
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Artificial Intelligence on the
Assembly Line
Artificial
intelligence can no more displace poetry
Than the
Model T Ford can displace the dance
Three Times in the Heart - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Three Times in the Heart
It’s on the InterGossip so it must be true
Some years ago a poet shot himself
A Young poet shot himself in the heart
Three times
Three times
Three times
He shot himself in the heart three times
And the county coroner agreed that it was so
Three times
Three times
Three times
The county coroner did not say if he shot himself
In the back, in the back, in the back-back
Three times
Three times
Three times
Well, hey, what do I know; I wasn’t there
But it’s on the InterGossip; it must be true
Negative Capability and Stuff - poem
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Negative
Capability and Stuff
For Nat Lipstadt
Exactly inexactly that sheet of paper
A blank sheet of paper rich in its blankness
Because there is nothing there and so
The possibilities of being are without limits
Except for that 8.5 x 11” thing
Which the writer is free to repudiate
And see beyond it a spectrum of beauty and truth
Which is not there except in seeing it so
Letting go too can make imaginings new
(But still, my very dear friends, the rent is due!)
A Cruel Tease - a poor attempt at Haiku
Lawrence Hall
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Cruel Tease
The wind turned, leaves flew
But then stillness, more summer heat -
Where are you, autumn?
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