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


                 A Shepherd’s Path from the Mountain of La Salette

            For a good and kindly priest who is being transferred
                              after forty years of faithful service


                   The old order changeth, yielding place to new

                                -Tennyson, Idylls of the King


We don’t know if the cart drivers have stopped swearing
Or if the potato crops are doing well this year
Or if the rocks have indeed become wheat
Or if everyone prays an Ave each day

We don’t know if the Field of Coin still flourishes
Or if the people of Corps faithfully attend Mass
Or if barefoot boys and girls still herd sheep
Or if they listen, as did Melanie and Maximin

But we do know that Our Lady of La Salette
To care for us through our pilgrimage in time
In a land far from that holy mountain
Has blessed us with Her most faithful missionary

Through the ordinal cycles of seasons and feasts
He served the Table in the Name of the Lord
He baptized us, taught us, confirmed us, confessed us
Married us, anointed us, and buried our dead

Through blessed years and tears and nights and days –
But now to the Will of God
We surrender him with thanks and prayers and praise


                         And God fulfils Himself in many ways

                                                   -Tennyson

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

                                                Surgery in Three Parts


                                                 1 - Fear for Tomorrow

I don’t know what will happen to her tomorrow -
The anaesthesia and the surgical trauma
Invading all those organs compromised
Compromised by age and failing health

There’s a contract coffee bar in the lobby main
One could savour a coffee and a croissant
While waiting for a messenger of life or death
Does anyone know where the chapel is?

A marriage should not end in ICU
In the echoing chants of “Code Blue…Code Blue…”

                                          2 - Fear for Today

Morning is filled with possibilities
But today…
Morning is fraught with possibilities

                                           3 – Deo Gratias

The surgeon and the RN visit me
In a cold-as-a-morgue fluorescent-lit room
With their masks loose about their necks
To report that all went well

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

                             This is my Stacking Swivel


                  We were speaking of historic stacking swivels,
                  and Shelley thought there might be poem in it


This is my stacking swivel. There are many like it
But this one is mine; that recruit training moment
When I was issued my G.I. stacking swivel
I felt like Sergeant Rock, over the top

My stacking swivel makes me feel like a man
This American stacking swivel of instant death
A chilled-steel weapon of liberating power
Striking fear into the enemies of freedom

Look upon my stacking swivel, ye mighty!
And despair!

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

                               The I.T. Department Goes Wild

We are subject to the whims of every I.T. blighter
But never have we heard
That Hemingway was locked out of his own typewriter

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

                                             To the I.C.E. Gangs


          In the dock…slumped in their seats fidgeting nervously…
          They seemed to be a drab assortment of mediocrities. It
           seemed difficult to grasp that such men…had wielded such
           monstrous power…

   -William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 1142


When this is over, we will not come for you -
But good and faithful servants of our laws
With warrants, in uniform, in marked cars
Not hiding behind masks –
                                                      they will come for you

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

                       The Imperial WE Decreed a Cease-Fire


          "We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most
          wonderful people…!  We all say so, and so it must be true."

                        -The Bandar-Log in The Jungle Book


The press, the congress, the people - they all must cower
A cringing staff to serve as disposable tools
All the appearances and appliances of power
In the hands of vain, acrimonious fools

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

                    I Gave my Friend a Poem for Her Birthday

I gave my friend a poem for her birthday
“It’s not as much fun as an electric train,” she said,
“But it’s pretty good.”