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

                    ****** Sunbathing in the Garden of Literature

In the end everyone having been abusive
And babbling endlessly about it all
Dies

Lawrence Hall 2d
A Shepherd's Path from La Salette
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                 A Shepherd’s Path from the Mountain of La Salette

            For a good and kindly priest who is being transferred
                              after forty years of faithful service


                   The old order changeth, yielding place to new

                                -Tennyson, Idylls of the King


We don’t know if the cart drivers have stopped swearing
Or if the potato crops are doing well this year
Or if the rocks have indeed become wheat
Or if everyone prays an Ave each day

We don’t know if the Field of Coin still flourishes
Or if the people of Corps faithfully attend Mass
Or if barefoot boys and girls still herd sheep
Or if they listen, as did Melanie and Maximin

But we do know that Our Lady of La Salette
To care for us through our pilgrimage in time
In a land far from that holy mountain
Has blessed us with Her most faithful missionary

Through the ordinal cycles of seasons and feasts
He served the Table in the Name of the Lord
He baptized us, taught us, confirmed us, confessed us
Married us, anointed us, and buried our dead

Through blessed years and tears and nights and days –
But now to the Will of God
We surrender him with thanks and prayers and praise


                         And God fulfils Himself in many ways

                                                   -Tennyson

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

                              Contents of the Live Man’s Pockets

       Cf. “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets,” Jack Finney, 1956

A little book of poetry for waiting rooms
A MePhone because everybody carries one
A little Rosary that never leaves its vinyl case
For prayers that never leave the bearer’s lips

A pocket notebook and a gel-point pen
For those great ideas that will change the world
A pocket knife, without which a man is not dressed
A ring of keys for locking people out
            Or in?

And next to my poor heart a pocket square -
Though once upon a time I carried your picture there

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

           Beached Beauties, Summer Tomatoes, and Midday Cicadas


                                   Where are the songs of Spring?

                                                        ­-Keats


The tomatoes are split and discolored in the heat
Like bathing beauties who have beached too long
And, gathering up the past, totter home at dusk
Surprised to be all burnt and wrinkled with age

The sun of April who was a ***** lover
Caressing and warming their soft young skin
Is now a middle-aged man baring his chest
And seeking love in other vegetable beds

The cicadas of noon mourn in the withering heat
In remembrance of spring, youthful and sweet

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


                 A Shepherd’s Path from the Mountain of La Salette

            For a good and kindly priest who is being transferred
                              after forty years of faithful service


                   The old order changeth, yielding place to new

                                -Tennyson, Idylls of the King


We don’t know if the cart drivers have stopped swearing
Or if the potato crops are doing well this year
Or if the rocks have indeed become wheat
Or if everyone prays an Ave each day

We don’t know if the Field of Coin still flourishes
Or if the people of Corps faithfully attend Mass
Or if barefoot boys and girls still herd sheep
Or if they listen, as did Melanie and Maximin

But we do know that Our Lady of La Salette
To care for us through our pilgrimage in time
In a land far from that holy mountain
Has blessed us with Her most faithful missionary

Through the ordinal cycles of seasons and feasts
He served the Table in the Name of the Lord
He baptized us, taught us, confirmed us, confessed us
Married us, anointed us, and buried our dead

Through blessed years and tears and nights and days –
But now to the Will of God
We surrender him with thanks and prayers and praise


                         And God fulfils Himself in many ways

                                                   -Tennyson

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

                                                Surgery in Three Parts


                                                 1 - Fear for Tomorrow

I don’t know what will happen to her tomorrow -
The anaesthesia and the surgical trauma
Invading all those organs compromised
Compromised by age and failing health

There’s a contract coffee bar in the lobby main
One could savour a coffee and a croissant
While waiting for a messenger of life or death
Does anyone know where the chapel is?

A marriage should not end in ICU
In the echoing chants of “Code Blue…Code Blue…”

                                          2 - Fear for Today

Morning is filled with possibilities
But today…
Morning is fraught with possibilities

                                           3 – Deo Gratias

The surgeon and the RN visit me
In a cold-as-a-morgue fluorescent-lit room
With their masks loose about their necks
To report that all went well

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

                             This is my Stacking Swivel


                  We were speaking of historic stacking swivels,
                  and Shelley thought there might be poem in it


This is my stacking swivel. There are many like it
But this one is mine; that recruit training moment
When I was issued my G.I. stacking swivel
I felt like Sergeant Rock, over the top

My stacking swivel makes me feel like a man
This American stacking swivel of instant death
A chilled-steel weapon of liberating power
Striking fear into the enemies of freedom

Look upon my stacking swivel, ye mighty!
And despair!