Dispatches for the Colonial Office

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

Grilled Mongolian at the Barber Shop

An Overdue Haircut from Miss Tasha

While I was being shorn of excess hair

V: “Make me look like a young Robert Redford, please”

R: “We don’t do miracles here, Mr. Hall”

A lady enthroned a few chairs over

Mentioned the menu at The Mongolian Grill

“What the h*** is this?” she quoted herself

I thought I might ask if the plat du jour

As served was a lightly grilled Mongolian

But Wednesday had already made that joke

About Girl Scout cookies and real Girl Scouts

So thoughts of topics carnivorous I let pass

And admired myself in Tasha’s looking-glass

An Execution for the Common Man - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

An Execution for the Common Man

I will not watch the coming execution

But when the regime comes for me –

I’ll catch that one

The Kid Who Won the Lottery - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

The Kid Who Won the Lottery

He always wanted to be an artist

In school he drew pictures of horses and trucks

In truth the same horse and the same truck too

On his book covers and his notebooks too

And on the margins of his papers and tests

He always wanted to be an artist

After graduation he worked around town

The Dairy Queen, and the Wal-Mart too

He swept the tire shop, and city hall too

His trailer-girl was pale with ketamine dreams

He always wanted to be an artist

The year he won the Louisiana lottery

They moved to Florida

he came home alone

He always wanted to be an artist

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened - poem

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

An October Dusk After Everything Has Happened

Pasture gate at dusk

The last of the hay is gone

Stars await autumn

October’s mown fields are sweet

Mist upon the grass

My old dog paws at my jeans

Pasture gate at night

Sunday, October 4, 2026

The Secret of Dolly Parton's Angel Wings - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

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

The Secret of Dolly Parton’s Angel Wings

Some people give children transitory things

But Dolly still gives to children books as wings

Saturday, October 3, 2026

Among Fog-Shrouded Ruins - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

Among Fog-Shrouded Ruins

And here we are as on a darkling plain

-Matthew Arnold, “Dover Beach”

Wrapped in rags from The Creature Cantina

Their thin bare legs ending in chemical globs

They shuffled along with their hooded heads bowed

Deep-bent beneath Chaucerian pilgrims’ packs

Somewhat like roaming Jawas searching out scrap

But with deep-socketed eyes fixed on palantiri

Tiny Orwellian telescreens that guide

And guard them from the disturbance of thoughts

Sometimes Morlockian mechanical horns

Call them into pods of weakling Eloi

Obedient sacrifices rattling their chains

As the ogre-guarded dungeon they near

The lead Eloi approached in fear, his eyes all rheumy and red -

“Ah! you’re here for the chess club,” a welcoming Morlock said

The Poets Speak of American Elections - rhyming doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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