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

                          With Connections He Could Have Been
                              a Member of the President's Cabinet

“No.”
My first, my only word to him was “no”
He had shuffled to the table, shaking and shuffling
Aquiver with the sickening spasms of drugs
He turned, he slammed a table, he shuffled away

“No.”
The waitress watched at the window ‘til he was gone
“He used to come in and ask for breakfast,” she said.
“We gave him breakfast for cleaning the parking lot
But then he started stealing stuff from the back”

“No.”
He might have been Jesus. But I don’t think so
More men walk the roads. The waitress sports tattoos

When you fly high
The fall is hard

I bite a green guard
as the invisible nurse sings

to my hand full of spices,
& I'm ejected into a sea:

slow as hadal whale fall
I snow into plural black

that teems with grim promise:
someday I'll return here

without a nurse's silk road
escape route in my vein.

I wake to an ulcerous world,
my cotton gown no shield at all

against the dark aquarium
of dense sleep that I now know

slouches with thickened shapes
that devour dreaming eyes.

Why are we made
to suffer and cry
when so much beauty
surrounds us- to die

when we’re in
the spring of life
when all the flowers
are dancing by our side?

  Our love is still so nascent
  waiting to bloom- to deny?
  We are yet to share the best
   ere the dusk hours draw nigh-

    to music I turn
    for consolation - there I fly
    where tears don’t appear
   and pain and suffering never pass by.

Feel my words
among the flowers
the floating clouds
the moaning of ripples

I've no name
for the road I travel
myself I've forgotten
in not knowing, I revel

Let's immerse ourselves in this moment here and now.
For we don't know when this time may be over.
Let's feel it all and let go of our doubt.
Life is too short and our thoughts too loud.

Sometimes it's worth it to dive deeply into
Whatever shows for you today,
Take all you can, this moment is unique to you,
The harder you think the farther it may be away.