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

                                   Haircut Appointment with Connie

The year’s at the spring,
And day ’s at the morn;
0400 with thunderstorms
The fields are dew-pearl'd;
Scotty-the-cop makes his traffic busts
And Connie her usual fuss
God ’s in His heaven—
All ’s right with the world!

                                -as Robert Browning did not say

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

                                      Spectrum Cable 4

                                       For 1 May 2025

Spectrum is usually more dead than alive –
O! For a newspaper at the foot of the drive!

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

                                 Springtime’s Laughing Rhymes

A Merry Little Breeze, an allergen sneeze
Happy little children among the bees

The always fresh challenge to rhyme with moon
Perhaps noon? Spoon? Croon? Loon? Swoon? Bare feet?

Bare feet?

Bare feet! How neat! A grassy-tickly treat!

And Mama calls out, “Now where are your shoes?”

“Oh, we left them in church on the back-row pews!”

“Just wait ‘til I tell your father that news!”

(Giggling)

“And where are your socks?”
“Inside with the clocks!”

“That makes no sense!”
“Gimme three pence!”

A Merry Little Breeze, an allergen sneeze
And beneath the trees a little world at ease




[Merry Little Breezes – cf. Thornton W. Burgess’ Mother West Wind stories]

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