You buried me
Half the world away
And a lifetime ago

Yet you find me
In your every daydream
In every foreign touch
In every what if...

Almost...
But never quite

I asked God for the truth .

And he said "You will know the truth , and the truth will set you free."

But he didn't tell me it would make me sad .

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                           Just Another Smug Football Recusant

Last night at dusk I admired the brightening stars
And before going inside put the gate on the latch
While saying goodnight to the Moon, Jupiter, and Mars
(Someone said something about a football match?)

Higgeldy piggeldy snort
the pig ran away with the pork

nothing could stoppit
not even a rocket

and
the bacon
flew over
the fork.

In the hushed hours before dawn,
When the world holds its breath,
A silent echo lingers,
Reverberating through the stillness.

Whispers of forgotten dreams
Intertwine with the shadows,
Dancing in the corners of memory,
Unseen, but felt deep within.

Time suspends its relentless march,
Pausing to listen,
To the unspoken truths,
In the quiet spaces of existence.

Silent echoes of laughter,
Of sorrow, of love,
Resonate through the corridors of the heart,
Leaving imprints, invisible yet indelible.

In the solitude of night,
When the world is wrapped in silence,
The echo of a sigh,
Of a thought unvoiced, softly resounds.

It is in these moments,
Between the ticking of seconds,
That the soul finds its voice,
In the silent echo of its being.

A reflection of life’s essence,
Captured in the stillness,
An echo that speaks,
Without uttering a sound.

Silent, yet profound,
It spins a web of emotions,
In the spaces where words fall short,
An eternal echo in the void.

My name is Dave
I survived the plague
I did my best
I built a nest
Right on top of
Of Mount Everest.

My name is Rick
I survived the titanic
I did something daft
Ordered an taxi
And got the Kon tiki raft.

My name is Ronald
Survived Chernobyl
It was tricky
I pulled a sicky
I moon lighted
I was so delighted
I do not regret
I went to the ascot races
And had a bet.

My name is Stan
I survived the war
They call Vietnam
Ate my beans and
Stayed in the can
Lady
was with me
Anything goes
I got to know
Nursey Vietnam rose.

in the heart  
   of the earth  
where shadows weave  
      and whispers flutter  
like light on water—  
i stand  
   a solitary figure,  
yesterday’s weight  
   melting away,  
a cloak of memory  
   unraveling at the seams  

the sea sings  
   a lullaby of blue,  
secrets breathed to the wind,  
while grass—a tapestry  
   of green—  
bends low, cradling  
      truths,  
soft echoes of love  
   unspooled  

i gather remnants  
   of dreams,  
fragments like shells  
   on the shore,  
each a promise,  
   a sigh,  
caught in the web  
   of what might have been,  
lingering like haunting  
   melodies  

was it quiet surrender  
   that opened my chest  
      to the sky...
was it freedom,  
   unshackling  
the heart from chains  
   of desire,  
that led me  
   to this sacred silence...

and still, colors sway—  
   a riot of life,  
the world unfurling  
   in wild bloom,  
and i, a traveler,  
   grasping  
at threads of existence  

the grass bends,  
   humble witness,  
never breaking,  
   always yielding,  
teaching me the art  
   of resilience,  
the gentle dance  
   of endings,  
woven with new beginnings’  
   promise  

here, at the horizon  
   of my soul,  
i learn to embrace  
   the ebb and flow,  
to let go, to surrender—  
for in the quiet,  
   i find life’s pulse,  
and understand every farewell  
   is but a breath  
away from hello.