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

                      “WHAT IS THIS MAN DOING HERE!?”


           “We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny.
            But what we put into it is ours.”

                       -Dag Hammarskjold, Markings, p. 55


Major Hochstetter often bellows this question
Echoing Pharoah and Pilate, and Plato too
Your barber, an x-ray technician long ago
A couple of sack boys at the supermarket

What are any of us doing here?

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

     Strange Lights, Strange Sounds, and Would You Like a Coffee?

In hospital one encounters strange lights
Strange sounds, visions – What is this all about?
Radioisotopes floating around in one’s veins
Dizzies, buzzies, shortness of breath, coughs, sighs

Reality tilts on an axis that isn’t there
Illuminations flash by at unwarped speed
Grey slabs curiously marked maneuver awfully close
Why does machinery slide overhead?

And a kindly voice says, “It’s okay. You’re doing fine”
And then those most welcome words: “Would you like a coffee?”

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

                                   The Compensatory Manosphere

                                  For our cabinet-room commandos

They are loud with their manly talk of war
Scripted by John Wayne, chopped-salad cliches
Rat-tat-tatting like studio machine guns
On the Flanders’ fields of grade-school recess

They never heaved a buddy’s chopped remains
Into a dust-off barely touching the ground
Rotors screaming, wounded screaming, blood
Instead, they polish their torpedoes and CVs

“Signal ‘Charge!’”

Is their computer keyboard battle cry
Their wives listening in as young soldiers die

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

        The People’s Liberation Army Has No Veto Over Christmas


“The Halloween and Costume Association warned that tariffs are threatening to ‘wipe out Halloween and severely disrupt Christmas unless urgent action is taken.’"

                                          -Axios.com, 26 April 2025


God’s wisdom-speakers from the sunrise East
Mysterious messengers in free service to Truth
To Bethlehem, where the world is to be renewed
Come bearing gifts without the comrades’ permission

[The formatting was mangled in the transfer.]

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

                               "Your Changes Have Been Saved"

Noticed the passive voice
          the passive voice is to be noticed

You did not make changes changes were not made by you
        but changes were made

You did not save changes changes were not saved by you
         but changes were saved

If you were relevant you might have been consulted

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

                             After the Passing of the Bishop of Rome

                                The first task of a bishop is to pray.


                          -Pope Francis, The closeness of bishops
                                    (20 September 2019) | Francis


I think I’m the only Catholic in all of Christendom
Who is not giving the Holy Spirit instructions
On whom to choose for the next Bishop of Rome
And, shut my mouth, I mean to keep it that way

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

                                    Not Waiting for Godot

We pass much of our lives in waiting for things

Airplanes
Love
Christmas
Jobs
Answers
Mail
Spectrum Cable
You

Mostly, though, we wait for packages from Amazon
Maybe this time there will be happiness