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

                                                 Reading the Room

I don’t know to read a room, but look –
I’m still pretty good at reading a book!

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

              Our First-Person-Plural God-Emperor Bible Salesman
                                       Orders a War for Us


                   “Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant”

        -many attributions; dates to at least the American Civil War


The imperial We have / has spoken:
First His parade, and now our young people’s war
And what do His commands betoken?
Maybe for Him a shiny Silver Star

For sending our young to die in glorious battle
Across the screen and over the top
Waving His joystick like a baby’s rattle
With diet soda by way of an air drop

He’ll order our children to face the foe
But be assured – no Trump will ever go

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

                                  A Certain Church Lady

Even in her sneers and whisperings she is loud
Her catalogue of resentments, unremitting
Orbit her accusatory tongue like a poisonous cloud
This mad Medusa forever hissing and spitting

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

   About That Full All-Out Full-Blown Hot Cold Shadow War Zone

Can a war ever be empty?
Can a war ever be some-in?
Can a war ever be some-out?
Can a war ever be partially-blown?
Can a war ever be a lukewarm war?
Can a war ever be an unshadow war?
Can a zone ever be anything but a war zone?
Can “digital content producers” ever learn to write without employing pointless adjectives and adverbs?

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

                                      International Chopsticks

Forgive me for any insensitive remarks
But do piano students in China practice “Forks?”

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

     Our Capitol Police – Keeping America Safe from 87-Year-Olds

                       No Unmarked Cars for Senior Citizens

At least when our police ‘cuff an elderly man
They stuff him into a well-marked van


14 June 20245 - our Stasi handcuffed an 87-year-old veteran today:

https://x.com/CarolinaLumetta/status/1933669206114898254/video/3

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

                                                      If I Were Brave


                                                         ­          Now, soldiers, march away.
                                  And how Thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!

                                    -Henry V, Iv.iii.131-132


If I were brave (and I am not)
And if I were in the Capital (and I am not)
I hope God would steel my heart (Henry V, IV.1.307)
To ask the soldiers to stop (I would probably look very silly)

I would not be the first to step in front of them
But if someone else were to lead
I would follow second
Wearing my old boonie hat

And speak to them of a bad man:

                                  “Now does he feel his title
          Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe
          Upon a dwarfish thief.”

                                     -Macbeth, V.ii.20-22

And ask them to march away. Please.