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

                  Who is the Third Murderer in Macbeth?


                         But who did bid thee join with us?

                                        -Macbeth III.iii.1


Two murderers are hired; a third one joins
The false lady, perhaps, or the tempter himself
As light and love both thicken near the rooky wood
“But who did bid thee join…?” Maybe we did

We have drooped and drowsed through civilization
Scorning the sacred texts of our several faiths
Approaching the Altar as a drive-through concession
The Body of Christ and maybe an order of fries

Who is the Third Murderer?
                                                        Rabbi, is it I?

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

                     Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?

A medical professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was reading
                                                 Poetry, I replied
Poetry of suffering in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians who were there

She asked:

Did civilians write poetry back in th’ day?

I changed the topic to my blood pressure



Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004

This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered. There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices / my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find beauty among the horror

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

                           A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life

Optometrist 17 March 0845 Netgear DirecTV Viasat Verizon Spectrum Xumo? Xuumo? Carlos 1775 1812 PSA Eliot Cohen BRING PLANTS UNDER COVER computer paper brekker c Max 0800 Tuesday find quote from Doctor Zhivago When is Gonculator Day? Intek 10.5 “Did civilians write poetry back in the day?” Subaru password username amazon apple Christus patient portal HUMMINGBIRDS! Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund visitation Sat 5-7 funeral Sun 2 1030 St. Elizabeth’s Refresh+ or Lumify water co-op board meeting Kirk Santiago de Compostella breakfast singles orange juice cheese creamer cat food detergent pods taco shells 0900 dentist Epiphany prison at 1700 cancel DirecTV cancel Viasat Mary Oliver OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE Q EDITION LONESOME DOVE as DIGENES AKRITAS life is the meaning of what? Jaw-dropping breaking silence breaking cover breaking bombshells shocking bombshells the shell of a bomb the Alien and Sedition Acts and Frodo

Nazis wear ball caps

The building has left Elvis

Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                            Reality Will See You Now

I am a student of medical waiting rooms
The same Motel 6 paintings and decor
Receptionists giggling behind rippled glass
About weekends and boyfriends and inadequate husbands

Patients waiting as patiently as Russians
Tattoos and ball-caps lined up in plastic-chairs
Clutching bills and lab reports in nervous hands
Or greasy year-old copies of Reader’s Digest

Or bending over their MePhones in a servile bow -
“Mr. Hall? The doctor will see you now…”

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

                                       Thinking of You at Dawn

You are a poem, a song, a hymn at dawn
You are not like a poem, a song, a hymn
You are

You are great joy, romance, a sacred dance
You are not like great joy, romance, a dance
You are

You are the reality dreams want to be
And so you are not an ephemeral dream
You are

You are

You are

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

                 Who Now Will Read Paradise Lost With Us?

                        In Memory of Robert Fluornoy Conn
                          Attorney, scholar, eccentric, friend


                     With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
                     Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
                     Sing heavenly muse…

                                         Paradise Lost I.4-6


A Methodist, a Catholic, and an Anglican
Did not walk into a bar – they brought their own Scotch

“I don’t do funerals anymore”
He said to me a few weeks ago
Creaky and old in the late winter cold -
He can’t get out of this one today

We read Milton together when we were young
A year of Thursday nights with whisky and pipes
In Tod’s old office away from some women
Who disapproved of tobacco, books, and thought

Now far along Bilbo’s road they both have gone
And we are left in company with good stout friends

But still somehow

Alone

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

                       The Supreme Warfighter in His Play Clothes


          The Congress shall have the Power…To declare War,
          grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make
          Rules for Captures on Land and Water…

                          -The Constitution, Article I, Section 8


He took a few minutes from his game of golf
To order an unsanctioned bombing run
Wearing a ballcap autographed by himself
and from himself and to himself, amen

He wore a golly-gee jet-pilot headset
Maybe someone gave him a button to push
With authentic boom-boom lights and sounds
He’s the world’s champion bomber pilot! Wheeee!

What our Congress was doing, we cannot tell
While Our Supreme Warfighter blew the Constitution
         All to (Score!)