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

                               “And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea”


               For A.V on the Happy Occasion of Her Graduation


I hope and believe that at Harvard still
In the springtime of their golden youth
Lovers sit upon the lawn’s green morning grass
Before class
                           and read Shelley to each other

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

                                               I Miss Kosher Sam’s

Wish I could remember what street it was on
It’s been so long ago, when Kosher Sam’s
Was my coffee shop, and I was young
One day I also ordered a slice of cake

The cheerful waitress asked me how it tasted
I suggested that maybe it was a little bit dry
She grabbed it up and rushed it to the kitchen
She and another waitress and The Sam Himself

They took clean forks and tasted and talked about it
They took more forks and tasted and talked again
And appeared to come to a mishpat at last
Sam brought to me what was left of the cake

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” he firmly ruled
I took and ate (tho’ it really was a little dry)
On an evil day I left San Diego
I wish I’d stopped to say goodbye to Kosher Sam’s

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

                          With Connections He Could Have Been
                              a Member of the President's Cabinet

“No.”
My first, my only word to him was “no”
He had shuffled to the table, shaking and shuffling
Aquiver with the sickening spasms of drugs
He turned, he slammed a table, he shuffled away

“No.”
The waitress watched at the window ‘til he was gone
“He used to come in and ask for breakfast,” she said.
“We gave him breakfast for cleaning the parking lot
But then he started stealing stuff from the back”

“No.”
He might have been Jesus. But I don’t think so
More men walk the roads. The waitress sports tattoos

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


           Take Cover! We’re Celebrating Intellectual Achievements!


                         “These papers expired three weeks ago.
                          You’ll have to come with us.”

            -a colonial police officer to a refugee in Casablanca


Graduates meet to celebrate the joys
Of scientific research, music, art
Literature, cinema, theology –
Veritas et scientia for all

On shaded lawns in academic gowns
They exchange Shakespearean bon mots
And toast the future and good fellowship
While forming up for the processional

In fashionable scholarly regalia:
Flak jackets in academic colours

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


             If the President of South Africa Were to Visit My Home


                               “The contingency is remote, sir.”

                                        -as Jeeves would say


If President Ramaphosa were to visit us at home

(I hope he would ask us to call him Cyril)
We would offer him cookies and coffee and tea
And the best chair in the living room
Does he like dachshunds and Wodehouse and Shakespeare?

If President Ramaphosa were to visit us at home

We would show each other pictures of our children
And brag about their accomplishments
I’d like for him to see my little garden
The cherry tomatoes aren’t quite ready, though

If President Ramaphosa were to visit us at home

(The bathroom is down the hall, second door to the right)
I would be pleased if he admired my small library
He might give us his favourite recipe
We’d give him a sack of blueberries fresh off the bush

When we wave President Ramaphosa good-bye
I hope he will remember us with fondness

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


                                           Died While Trying

                                  (prompted by an idea by Nagi)


                     “Every day you play with the light of the universe”

                                                 -Neruda

          
The glory of killing an old man already dying
Is heralded by the clinking of colorful medals
As a president is helped into his Mercedes
By white-gloved lieutenants wearing golden aiguilettes

The old man dying in his bed was a challenge to evil
Through the love-letters of freedom he wrote to the world
Ambassadors of hope that could not be recalled
Just as a subtle injection cannot be withdrawn

A flowering of ideas in verses freely exchanged
Crushed beneath boots polished by frightened houseboys

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

                                 Blueberries Ripening in Love

A blueberry bush
Clusters of little blue orbs
Maybe tomorrow?