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

        The Problem with the Vertical Morality of our Staatskirche

The problem with vertical morality
Is that it falls straight down like a headsman’s axe
And we live beneath its arc of vengefulness

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

               Reading POPUP the U. K. ADVERT Daily Mail

Today the president ADVERT screamed POPUP
The King is in hospital POPUP with ADVERT
While three naked ladies ADVERT POPUP
Attacked POPUP ADVERT POPUP SHUT UP

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

                                 Sidewalk Table at Pouline’s

V: Monsieur…

R:                     Oui?

V:                              Your life has no meaning

Please let it have no meaning somewhere else

R: But my coffee, my croissant…

V:                                                    Oui, you have paid

And have left the perfect tip. The afternoon

Is slow and there are certainly plenty of tables

Your appearance and demeanor are parfait but…”

R: Oui?

V:             You have sat here ten minutes into the time

At which you commenced to appear desperate.

R: But how?

V: If you must ask then you are desperate
You have not been accepted into the mysteries
And never can be. You have been caught out
Please dispose of your Mont Blanc pen

Your embossed note cards, your important papers,
And your leather portfolio crafted in understated elegance,
And go deliver groceries or wash cars.

R: Does it really show?

V: It’s as if you
Were taking a selfie
At Shakespeare & Co

R: Then all is existential despair

V: Oui, former monsieur

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

                                   Tell Me About Your Day

The evening air is cool – let’s sit outside in the dusk
Tell me about your day, your work, your friends
I like your friends; they write such lovely verse -
Nothing as nearly good as yours, of course!

The evening air is cool

I enjoyed breakfast with my brother, our weekly outing
We talked of our children and our hopes for them
Later I worked at chores in the garden and house
And read new lines from my favourite poet

The evening air is cool

I so enjoy talking with you – do I talk too much?
Too little? Just right? You are such fun to listen to!

And the evening air is just right

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

                           Lady Macbeth and a Luna Moth

A luna moth is elegant in her green
Like Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
Beautiful and yet somehow sinister
Those wing’ed eyes – they seem to look at us

Eyes

That measure you for a dagger or a cup
She clings to a lichened brick wall at night
Wings pulsing against that wall, waiting, waiting…
Suddenly wild flutterings as she flees into the dark!

Exit, pursued by a cat

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

                                           Your Heart as a Tabernacle

                                     From an idea by Blue Sapphire

The heart is a tabernacle upon the Altar
Within it reposes our hopes and dreams
We open it as sacrament, as sacrifice
A gift that in the end is given back to us

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

         Jesus and a Reference to Fowler’s Modern English Usage

                          “But who do you say that I am?”

“Whom!” boomed a voice from the back of the room

And St. Peter asked of him

“A community college graduate, I presume?”