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

                        My Bestest Friend in the Whole First Grade


                                            For Rodney Joe Webb
                                               of happy memory


Our fathers’ farms were across the road from each other
We rode the big yaller feller to school
After the morning milking: Run! Run! We’ll be late!
And back again for the evening milking

We knew all sorts of stuff about battleships
And that Roy Rogers was better than Gene Autry
Chevy or Ford, and America could never be licked
Robin Hood and the biggest fish in the pond

The farms are long gone, and the fields of hay –
I went to his visitation today

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

                                                         ­   Merch

What, then, is merch? Tchotchkes and souvenirs?
Gift shop gimcrackery from a day at the beach
An airport tee on the way home from London
A Canadian flag stamped on a made-in-China cup?

No

Merch is now the livery of submission:
Politicians selling you your own souls
Entertainers fondling your credit cards
If you give them money they will be your friends

Don’t follow them; for you are good and true -
Wear, read, think, sing, and honor the nobility in you

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?”