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

                                     An Anteroom to Eternity?

                         (Nigdaw in Essex said it much better)

Waiting in the E.R.
More waiting in the E.R.
     The pain is back
Waiting in a corridor as people walk by
     and look at you
Waiting in another corridor, gasping hello to
     a curious, wide-eyed child
Someone gives you an injection
Waiting in yet another corridor
Pushed into a room
     "Oh, wait, it's not ready..."
Pushed back into a corridor
Wait…
The hours...the hours...


Note: my experience with health care professionals, from the nice young man who brings the meal trays to the great physicians, is uniformly wonderful and I am most grateful to them. The – THE – problem is the corporatism that now rules even nominally religious hospitals with the clawing, grasping hands and narrow minds of Scrooges. Administrators and stockholders will cut work hours and understaff units if only a poor dollar, rather than a poor human, is saved.

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

                                         Because They are Young

                               For Those Who Have Lost Children

The good die young, our blessed children, our hopes
Fresh to this world they wanted so much to explore
They wanted to explore everything – earth, air
Words, water, sky, ideas, music, art, love

All the joys of being; all Creation is their stupa
And they fly the eternal pradakshina
In fulfillment, enlightenment, and joy
Infinitely far, and yet still close to us

We are less because they have gone ahead
Along the happy pilgrimage of faith
But they are more, and they celebrate us too:
They love us and wait for us along the Way

The good die young, and because they are so good
We must strive to be worthy of them

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

                                      Where is Herod’s Father?

                 …lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning,
                 Rachel weeping for her children,
                 and would not be comforted,
                 because they are not.

                                   -Saint Matthew 2:16-18

The Herod of today squats alone in his room
Alone, devoid of parenting or purpose
Feverishly feeling sorry for himself
His only friend is his Precious, his glowing screen

(And where is his father?)

He scribbles screaming screeds and manifestos
And draws cool pictures of army guns ‘n’ stuff
Mommy lets him do whatever he wants
Maybe another weapon will calm him down

(But where is his father?)

He counts the children in the village school
He draws a floor plan of the village church
He clutches his he-man tough guy army gear
He sends his sulkings through the GossipNet

(Oh, where is his father?)

A naked AR fantasy hangs on his wall
He takes him down, he wants to ****** him
He feels, he doesn’t think, he feels, he feels –
Maybe Moloch wasn’t such a bad guy after all

(Now where is Herod’s father?)


Legal note: this is not an allusion to any specific instance of infanticide in this nation, but rather to the many causes of why in America hunting season on children is always open.

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

                    An Hour in Which Nothing Much Happened


                                 The country talked quiet;
                       one human voice could drown it out…

                                  Lonesome Dove, p. 26


No real mission; I just wanted a walk
Along the road, with work gloves and loppers in hand
Through the wavery heat on a late-summer day
To clear some windfall blocking much of the lane

Butterflies danced among bright yellow flowers
Mourning doves murmured in the underbrush
Wrens and buntings and sparrows up in the pines
A little snake wriggled for cover and shade

Their beauty and silence – those were their talk
No real mission; I just wanted a walk

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

                          An Eleventh Commandment Falls Upon Us
                            From the Government Religion in Austin


           “Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by  
            S.B. 10 and display the Ten Commandments.”

                           -Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton
                                           25 August 2025


          “It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according
           to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a
           national religion…”

                              -Texas Declaration of Independence
                                               2 March 1836


Our attorney general elects himself God
And imposes upon us his government church  
To rule us, perhaps, by a religion squad
Subjecting us all to seizure and search

For under his high-tech inquisition
One’s conscience must obey his moods and rages
This Torquemada on his punitive mission
He’ll ponder our punishment – maybe the cages?

Our attorney general elects himself God
And Texans famous for freedom submit to his rod

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

                                    Ode on a Monitor Lizard

I saw a picture of a monitor lizard
Its skin is scaley and its tongue is scissored
I’d back away from that wrinkly old wizard -
I don’t want to be ground up in its gizzard!

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

                                  “I Pray You, Remember the Porter”

                                               -Macbeth II.ii.20-21

When I was a young husband and father
I served: on the parish council, taught CCD
Chaperoned bake sales, CYO, and youth trips
Eucharistic minister, lector, and greeter
(No one else could hand out a leaflet with such grace, such  
        elegance, such panache!)

But with age, and one by one, I let them go
This morning I asked to be recused at last
From thirty years on the lector duty list
“God’s benison go with you…”

As lector
I lost confidence in sorting out the new ways of doing things
Of being where I’m supposed to be
And moving when I’m supposed to do so
And moving where I’m supposed to do so
Carrying the lectionary without dropping it
Mounting the Altar steps without tripping
Standing in one place for more than a few minutes
Seeing the words clearly (why is the print so small?)
Wreathing the werbs without thripping over my thongue

But I’m still a greeter – I can open the door
‘Tis my appointed skill level, but ‘tis one
As Macduff did not say
No leaflets, though; that stuff’s now on the InterGossip

I smile and open the door, admire babies, help with coats
Show visitors the way to the euphemism
Tell the kids how tall they’ve grown
(You’re a senior!? Why, I remember when…)

And it’s okay.

I am blessed with honor, love, and troops of friends
(as Macbeth could not say)

Honor, love, and troops of friends

All good.

Deo gratias