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

                                       Death Falls Apart in White

Snow does not fall in July, and yet there is white
White falling like snowflakes or flower petals
White scatterings across the summer lawn
Ghostly among the leafy sheltering oaks

The hawks are back

An egret about her business of bugs and snakes
Sudden violence high up in the gentle air
Flesh and life claw-ripped, torn, and devoured
Unheard below, only feathers falling as death

The hawks are back

This artificial paradise of feeders and seeders
And flower-bordered lawn is a scape of death
From which the gentle rabbits, birds, and squirrels
Withdraw in silent fear

The hawks are back

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

                   The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias in San Diego


                            Shelley always makes one think
             (often about how to pronounce his middle name)


I met a tout along a darkening street
Who said – “two trunkless legs of neon dance
There, upon that wall, on neon feet
An electromechanical contrivance to prance

In remnants, but wiggling hips and pouty lips
Tell that the artisan well caught the lust
Of lonely sailors as a pretty girl strips -
In time those young men and the dancer will be dust

These letters appear, written in cold fire:
I am the Queen of Club Ozymandias
Look upon me with your hot desire
Look upon me, and imagine us…

Tomorrow all will be leveled

A housing estate will arise, a planner’s scar
Nothing will remain of laughter and drinks
Of sailors flinging their pay upon the bar
For a dancing girl now silent as the Sphinx”

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

                                               I Have the Epstein Files

I carry the Epstein files in my pocket
A paperback edition from City Lights
You said you were going to hitchhike to Big Sur
With a dude named Gautama. I have the files

I thought you’d like to know

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

                                             Highway Patrol

An episode of Highway Patrol appears -
(With Broderick Crawford it should be widescreen)
Iron-jawed Bill Boyette as his sergeant
Today’s show features a passenger train

A man in a coat and tie, smoking a cigarette
Stops his DeSoto at a telephone booth
Wildly high fins (the DeSoto, not the telephone booth)
Inserts a dime and, turning a dial, he places a call

And Grandpa takes some time to explain
          All of this to his grandchild
The telephone, the tie, the passenger train

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

Highway Patrol

An episode of Highway Patrol appears -
(With Broderick Crawford it should be widescreen)
Iron-jawed Bill Boyette as his sergeant
Today’s show features a passenger train

A man in a coat and tie, smoking a cigarette
Stops his DeSoto at a telephone booth
Wildly high fins (the DeSoto, not the telephone booth)
Inserts a dime and, turning a dial, he places a call

And Grandpa takes some time to explain
          All of this to his grandchild
The telephone, the tie, the passenger train

(I was not able to format the alternating lines.)


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

                               Allegro – The Girl at the Piano


                                              Cf. Antoni Ditlef


An inexpensive lithograph from long ago

                    (Can you tell me what it’s worth?)

A beautiful girl in a red evening gown

             (But what’s it worth?)

In a picture of aspiration, of hope

             (Yeah, but is there any money in it?)

That our daughters will live accomplished lives

                     (I seen one on the internet for a thousand dollars)

And not as tatted Shelobs schlubbing on a couch

             (I need the money for a motorcycle)

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

                                          Hallowed be Thy App

               “…that unmistakable English church-going pace…
               holding, bound in black lamb-skin and white celluloid,
               the liturgies of a half dozen conflicting sects…”

                                -Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

One sees a Bible only occasionally
Even more rarely a Sunday missal
Which, with coat and tie and the mantilla
Are relics of a courtlier, more dignified time

The faithful now carry the scriptures as apps
The rosary the same (maybe next to Candy Crush)
An electronic conscience funded by an investment firm
And available at a low introductory price

A talking box - it must be Godly and true
And just as eternal as the Apple II