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

           The Shroud of Turin is True Again Today! Or Maybe Not!

                         The ghost of Amelia Earhart speaks

The U.K. Daily Mail examined the Shroud of Turin
And found Amelia Earhart wrapped up inside:
“Hey! This is my shroud for private buryin’!
So don’t just stand there, all goofy and bug-eyed!”

“You keep changing the place where you found my plane
And yesterday you said the Shroud of Turin is bogus
Today you say it’s real – you babble in vain
The ghost of me wishes you would find a focus”

The U.K. Daily Mail found Amelia Earhart’s plane –
Tomorrow they’ll be sure to lose it again

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

      A Bronze Plaque Commemorating the Trump-Putin Summit
                         at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson
                                            Anchorage, Alaska


                    On this spot on the 15th of August 2025

                                    Nothing happened

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

                                           Our Little Universities

                                          From an idea by Nivek

Many books are little universities
Complete with faculties and study halls
Grassy lawns on which to argue ideas
Syllabi written from your heart and mind

Laboratories of the mind for distilling wisdom
A concert hall of happy voices in song
“Pomes All Sizes” spoken from the heart
And maybe a Rain Tree on your walk to class

The Brothers Karamazov as a prayer book
300 Tang Poems with the wisdom of China
The Oxford Book of English Verse, edited by Q
                    (Not THAT Q!)
Doctor Zhivago in squabbling translations

And some have spoken most eloquently
                                                         for Goodnight Moon
And now what university of yours helps sing
                                                         your world in tune?

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

                                    Let’s All Meet in Cicely

                      From a dream that sailed from Thailand

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
You can find me sitting outside The Brick
At peace as the gentle autumn breezes blow
Having put aside my hiking stick

Fleischmann joins us on that old wooden bench
Chris-in-the-Morning stops by for a beer
Hollings gives Shelly a husbandly pinch
She takes his broom and with it smacks his rear

Maurice and Maggie, Ruth-Anne, Marilyn, and Ed
Drop in with stories of love and life and history
And news brought in by plane and road and sled
To this Brigadoon of happy mystery

Let’s all meet in Cicely before the snow
And share in its peace before we go

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

                               You’ve Read Your Last Free Article

Yes, I have.

(Click. Delete.)

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

                                           Lenin in Petrograd


               They're at it again! I wish they'd decide once and for all
                which gang of hooligans constitutes the government of
                this country!

                          -Uncle Alex reacting to fighting in the streets
                                         in Doctor Zhivago (1965)


More men in masks, and wearing scruffy clothes
Roaming the streets and waving rifles about
And which side they are on, nobody knows
Our capital is now all fear and doubt

Some demand my papers, and others my life
Some challenge my accent and exam my skin
Some threaten with a gun and others a knife
And some an unmarked car to throw me in

“Here, sir, the people govern,” Alexander Hamilton said -
No longer, alas; the people’s laws are dead

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

             Leave it to ****** – The Shakespearean I.C.E. Episode

                                         Dramatis Personae:

Ward, a husband and father

Wally, Ward’s teenaged son

June, Ward’s wife, accomplishing hussefery in a dress and pearls

******, Ward and June’s younger son


Ward:

Wally, I knowest thou hath merry plans for the morrow
But I must tell thee, to thy woe and sorrow
That thou’rt to stay home, and mow the lawn

Wally:

Oh, golly, gee, seest thou my face turn wan?
Beloved father, I cannot with thy orders comport
For I cannot find my comradely passport
Nor, in addition to that paperwork dearth,
Yea, verily, my certificate of birth!
Without which workers are subject to arrest
By I.C.E., as the news and warnings attest

June:

‘Tis true – I.C.E. feareth every gangbanger and yob
But they will imprison some kid at his job
And Superman might get thee; I.C.E. hired him today
That is their new truth, justice, and th'American way

******:

Gee, Wally, if thou’rt carried to Alcatraz
Can I have thy room?

Voice Off:                            

                                                      We needeth no stinkin’ warrants!

Exeunt omnes, pursued by Dogberries with guns