Dragged nails across thin snow, clawing for dirt,
leaving trails like staff lines.
Dead leaves landing like notes;
A song of anguish.

Knowledge only takes you so far;
Authenticity reveals your complexity,
Humility accepts your vulnerability,
Surrendering accepts the hand of the one
that is all things: knowledgeable, authentic, humble,
and submitted to the ultimate power in the universe.

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

                                      The Church Garage Sale

                  (Although the garage sale is in the parish hall
                                   because there is no garage)


A garage sale is a rebuke to us all -
The metaphysical finger having writ
Turns now from that lost Babylonian wall
And points as if to scribe in us this bit:

Why did you buy these masses of junk at all?

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

                    President Musk and His Five Bullet Points

I was a federal employee in Viet-Nam
(More than five bullets and mortar bombs)
No one in Washington demanded I document my day
Or offered to send me home early with eight months’ pay

Pretty amazing grace
Lived in a amazing place
A palace of luxury
Ostentatious abound
Always up and never down,
Pure and innocent
Whiter than snow
Always bubbly
With a loving glow,
An angel so beautiful
So heavenly divine
Even darkness bowed
And shined.
Then one day
We thought it would be fun
We played Russian roulette
And I think I won.