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

Dear Anonymous Friends,

You are too kind. Thank you for the honor!

-Y'r 'Umble Scrivener

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

                                        Disturbances in Church

The more I am disturbed by liturgical novelties
The less I am disturbed by God

The less I am disturbed by liturgical novelties
The more I am disturbed by God

All of which is logical, not odd

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

                                 The Season of Back-To-School

                When Americans seize books from their children
    and form charitable committees to give them backpacks instead

A great many people did not say the following:

Once you have read a backpack you care about, some part of it is always with you. – Louis L’Amour

These backpacks gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: you are not alone. -Roald Dahl

Good friends, good backpacks, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. ― Mark Twain

If there's a backpack that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it. ― Toni Morrison

“Classic” - a backpack which people praise and don't read. ― Mark Twain

When I have a little money, I buy backpacks; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes. ― Erasmus of Rotterdam

I cannot live without backpacks. ― Thomas Jefferson

If you have a garden and a backpack, you have everything you need. ― Cicero

No backpack is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond. ― C.S. Lewis

A backpack, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe. ― Madeleine L'Engle

And on the subject of burning backpacks: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain backpacks from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those backpacks.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries. ― Kurt Vonnegut

Do you ever read any of the backpacks you burn? ― Ray Bradbury

You don’t have to burn backpacks to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them – Ray Bradbury

Knowing I loved my backpacks, he furnish’d me
From mine own library with backpacks that
I prize above my dukedom – Prospero in The Tempest I.ii.166-168

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

                         As You Sometimes Gently Remind Me…


                                One day I'll suddenly recall:
                                The sun exists!

                           Pasternak, “About These Poems”1


When the world focuses on a sheet of paper
In a little room where hopes have come to die
The pen can’t write out a prescription for life
Or limn the remedies for a fallen world

We begin our days as did Pasternak
A cup of tea against the fear, the fear
Unsure of the conflicting daily edicts
The babblings about ballrooms, tariffs, and arrests

Pasternak opened a window to light and fair

And to the children playing in the snow he cried,
“My dears, what century is it outside?”


1Translations vary

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

                                     The World is Passing By


                      The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

             -Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”


Full moon at dusk, a walking stick, the lane
The neighborhood ‘possum on his supper hour
Bumbling and stumbling to see what the cats have left
Little frogs chanting their Vespers hymns in choir

The evening star as the sanctuary lamp
Advising us of the Presence in the rising mist
The ‘possum has not paused to give his thanks
So I will pause and give thanks in his place

Full moon at dusk, my walking stick, the lane
A fig for the world! This is what we gain

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

                                    In Anno Domini MMXXV
                    Pontius Pilate Asks Us a Serious Question

When Pilate asks us now, “Truth! What is that?”
He probably isn’t being sarcastic.

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

                        Il Laura Loomer Ha Sempre Ragione!

Be a real American – buy Chinese
A true Trump Bible or American Eagle Jeans
The holy Nihil Obstat is Chairman Xi’s
The genes of the jeans are whatever President Loomer means



American Eagle Jeans: Where Are They Manufactured? | ShunVogue

Trump's 'God Bless the USA' Bibles were printed in China, AP review finds | AP News

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

                                       Another Texas Runaway Scrape


                   Why, Richard, what does it profit a man if he gains the
                   whole world but loses his soul? But for Chicago!

          -As St. Thomas More does not say in Robert Bolt’s fine play


The Democratic representatives fled; what woe!
That the Republicans did not also go!






Texas Democratic legislators flee state to protest GOP's redistricting plan - CBS News

Texas Democrats flee to Illinois to block Trump-backed GOP redistricting plan - Chicago Sun-Times

Texas Democrats break quorum | FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth

Will Texas Democrats be arrested for leaving the state? Here's what we know | khou.com

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

                 The Widder-Woman Who Lives Down the Road

There’s a widder-woman who lives down the road
She used to work for a veterinarian
Whenever a stray tomcat comes to visit
She castrates it on her kitchen table

Sometimes she invites me over for supper

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

                                    A Visit to the (Euphemism)

             With Praise for The Sacred White Bowl of Our People

Several times each day the call of sanitation
Requires of each of us a digestive salutation
Within an appropriate private station
For needful purgation and evacuation

All of mankind, of every land and nation
Even Thracian, Haitian, Croation, Dalmatian
Must discreetly retire for a brief duration
To return to the earth a small donation

In this we must conclude, in explanation
From the indignity of the situation
With no exception, and no aberration
That Man is not the glory of God’s Creation

(All employees must wash their hands before returning to work)

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


                                Point-and-Won’t-Shoot Camera

The concept of the point-and-shoot camera obtains
But a Me-‘Phone camera doesn’t see it that way
I stopped to watch a bug-grazing bird
Who approached me as if she wanted to visit

I took out my Me-‘Phone for a photograph
And it didn’t recognize my handsome face
And I had to tap a four-digit code
And the bird grew suspicious and flew away

O Egret, in your beautiful brown and white -
I truly understand your need for flight

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

               The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, the Epsteinian Files,
                                  and The Burn-Bags of Opar

I am not at liberty to lay before the inquiring minds of an objective public the manner in which the curious document and chilling testimony below came into my possession except that this was through the offices of a mysterious midnight visitor on business from Porlock with a wooden leg and an ivory eye of curious and antique design – or was that an ivory leg and a wooden eye? – and I must assure the reader that it was the visitor from Porlock who made do with a tapping ivory eye and a sightless wooden leg or sightless eye and tapping artificial leg, not the pleasant village of Porlock, because English villages are possessed of streets and lanes, not eyes and legs, on a stormy night at the time of the equinoctial gales when ships put to sea knowing that they (the crews, not the ships) must place their lives into the hands of our merciful and loving God who knoweth all things and disposeth all things and so now pray take a seat and light your pipe while I set my spectacles aright and read to you this strange narrative entrusted to my discretion and, like, stuff:

             The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, The Epsteinian Files,
                                   and The Burn-Bags of Opar

In search of The Lost Epsteinian Files
Tarzan slipped into a city ruinous and far
And in a secret tunnel that ran for miles
Stumbled onto The Burn-Bags of Opar

Queen Kristi of Opar, long in love with Tarzan
Sacrificed to her gods a dog and a goat
Then in an armored golf cart chased him as far as she can
(Okay, then, you try to rhyme “Tarzan”)
To the edge of the Alligator Alcatraz moat

Tarzan, exhausted, thought he was a doomer
Kristi was sharpening her sacrificial knife
                   (or loading her thirty-thirty; the records are unclear)
But she was death-whispered by Laura Loomer
Thus saving the burn-bags and our hero’s life

And The Epsteinian Files?  The mystery no longer abodes -
The scripts for Gilligan’s Island, the lost episodes

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

                                          “Just One More Thing”

His shabby raincoat
His rumply old suit and tie
His “Just one more thing…”

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

                      Soldiers Dicing for Jesus’ Garments

1st Soldier: “Let’s roll the dice for Jesus’ coat and hat.”
2nd Soldier: “We don’t need dice; there’s an app for that.”

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

                           High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup

Blue light - an illusion of comfort at dawn
The streaky windows frame a winter day
Illusions and delusions lying to us
For this is July, when hopes wither and die

The sun’s tentacles ripple across the fields
One of them slithers to your window and leers
Mocking the fantasies of your air-conditioned sleep
Beckoning you outside: come and be fried

The sun’s hot streakings, mortals seeking, they roam
As summer’s slithering death: a high-pressure dome

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

         A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing Civilization


                                   Learn. To. Dostoyevsky.

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

                                       The Apex Predator


                    They…
                    Have watched me rise from the darkness of war
                    Dripping with my enemies’ blood

                            -Beowulf, trans. Raffel, lines 151-153


The apex predator feeds upon the flesh
Of those who wanted desperately to live
To hew and chew and gnaw and digest and mesh
With those who died with no desire to forgive

The apex predator feeds while others starve
The sentient flee from him in grievous fear
But he always wins, his victims then to carve
In ****** fields and haunted forests drear

War ends violently in drang und sturm
And the apex predator is obviously
                                                  ­ The Worm

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

               She Had *** with Her Brother Says The Daily Wail

She had *** with her brother says The Daily Wail
And was eaten in prison, there without bail
By vampires who live in deep tunnels beneath
A park bench situated in Hampstead Heath

Amelia Earhart’s plane has been found again
She was married to ******’s identical twin
And ******, you know, was secretly straight
Cruisin’ for chicks near the Brandenburg Gate

DNA proves that a Kennedy son
Lives under an alias in Area 51
And commutes to Stonehenge on a weekly basis
Transported by Martian hydroponic stasis

But back to the man who had *** with his sister
Did he use preferred pronouns whenever he kissed her?

Lawrence Hall 5h
Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat ******
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                           Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat ******

Piso mojado en Tejas y Colorado
Does not exactly trip from my English tongue
Cuidado that floor in El Dorado
For piso sounds slippily close to dung!

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

                           Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat ******

Piso mojado en Tejas y Colorado
Does not exactly trip from my English tongue
Cuidado that floor in El Dorado
For piso sounds slippily close to dung!

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
(note - some inappropriate and immature language)

                   The U. S. Army ***** Patrol is On the March!


      https://www.404media.co/pentagon-says-it-will-continuously-
      monitor-bathrooms-to-comply-with-anti-trans-order/

        “What did you do when you were in the Army, Daddy?”

      “Son, I was proud to spy on my fellow soldiers in the latrine.”


Kamerade Hegseth has issued a decree
All soldiers must be issued a G.I. wiener
Without which they have no permission to ***
In our Army all leaner and meaner

C’mon, boys, let’s wave our little flags!
Above and beyond the call of duty
In a morally pure ***** free of ****
Hegseth will inspect each manly *****

Each morning at reveille and wakeup
(After he admires his muscles and makeup)

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

    We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time

“Our family privacy” – they keep saying that
A friend came over and mowed my rankling lawn
Because finding a lawnmower mechanic these days
Is like searching for a unicorn in a shopping mall

Their family privacy – I’m blessed with friends
But lawnmower mechanics seem to be extinct
The temp today was 98 at noon
Nobody chants “Learn. To. Code.” anymore

Their family privacy – chicken *** pies
Are on sale at Brookshire’s for 88 cents
I’ll mail all those bills this afternoon
That’s a really nice shirt you’re wearing today

Their family privacy – a middle-aged woman
Sheds tears upon an altar of VHS tapes

In privacy

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

                                  Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam


                    And the sunlight clasps the earth
                    And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
                    What is all this sweet work worth
                                If thou kiss not me?

                          -Shelly, “Love’s Philosophy”


A kiss is just a kiss, as Dooley Wilson sang
In a Casablanca that never was
A kiss to give one’s life a bit of tang
A kiss to set a lonely heart abuzz

But great unwashed mobs stacked in their masses
Close-looped in a failed sub-culture of dust
Metal in their noses and tattoos on their *sses
Will never find truth without finding trust

For love can never depend upon
The vigilante cruelty of a jumbo-tron




Tech company Astronomer launches investigation into 'kiss cam' moment at Coldplay concert - ABC News

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

                                                Loose Vowels

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y – why?
(Asking for a dipthong)

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

                                        The Crown of Rachel


                        From an idea inspired by Nat Lipstadt
                          while we discussing something else


A dream about our teacher Akiva of Yavna
When the Romans took a respite from murdering us:
In our youth we approached a little house
Though we were tired from following the goats all day

Akiva was tired from tending his beans
And from Jacob-wrestling with great ideas
But he smiled and asked what he could do
Do for us little children bubbling with questions

“I am inventing the synagogue,” he might have said
“What is a synagogue? A new kind of Temple?”
“It is a machine for learning, a temple of the mind
A school, an altar upon we sacrifice our ignorance”

“But the Romans won’t let us sacrifice anything”
“Sometimes” said Akiva wryly, “they sacrifice us
But in the synagogue we will have a little light
Light and Torah and learning, always learning”

“We want to learn.”

“Oh? And what do you want to learn?” he asked of us

“We want to learn.”

He smiled and sat us at a table under his vines
“I learned to read when I was forty,” he said
As he took out a tablet and a stylus
One of us said, “I can’t imagine being that old!”

Our teacher smiled, smoothed the day from the wax
And instructed us to attend to the Word
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
That is what he said, not what he wrote in the wax

Akiva prayed, he prayed for us, and wrote
And in the wax the letters formed as fire
As gold and fire:

                                    “Bereshit Bara Elohim…”

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

                                       The Crown of Rachel


                        From an idea inspired by Nat Lipstadt
                           while we discussing something else


A dream about our teacher Akiva of Yavna
When the Romans took a respite from murdering us:
In our youth we approached a little house
Though we were tired from following the goats all day

Akiva was tired from tending his beans
And from Jacob-wrestling with great ideas
But he smiled and asked what he could do
Do for us little children bubbling with questions

“I am inventing the synagogue,” he might have said
“What is a synagogue? A new kind of Temple?”
“It is a machine for learning, a temple of the mind
A school, an altar upon we sacrifice our ignorance”

“But the Romans won’t let us sacrifice anything”
“Sometimes” said Akiva wryly, “they sacrifice us
But in the synagogue we will have a little light
Light and Torah and learning, always learning”

“We want to learn.”

“Oh? And what do you want to learn?” he asked of us

“We want to learn.”

He smiled and sat us at a table under his vines
“I learned to read when I was forty,” he said
As he took out a tablet and a stylus
One of us said, “I can’t imagine being that old!”

Our teacher smiled, smoothed the day from the wax
And instructed us to attend to the Word
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
That is what he said, not what he wrote in the wax

Akiva prayed, he prayed for us, and wrote,
And in the wax the letters formed as fire
As gold and fire:

                                         “Bereshit Bara Elohim…”

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

Lawrence Hall
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Lawrence Hall 5h
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

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

          The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars

Our new pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars
At Mass last week he informally presented
This suggestion: a choir. And guitars
But peace will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -
Guitars in church are why ear plugs were invented

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

        The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars

Our new pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars
At Mass last week he informally presented
This suggestion: a choir. And guitars
But peace will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -
Guitars in church are why ear plugs were invented

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

                                                        Icetrooper

Dear Icetrooper,

When you go home at night (perhaps to pray)

Does your daughter look up to you and say,

“Daddy -

How many crying children did you drag away

Away from their handcuffed moms and dads today?”

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

                             The Toenail Clippers of Damocles

He who would sit upon a throne of power
Reigning his people from the sovereign’s seat
Let him not neglect in a careless hour
To practice good hygiene upon his royal feet

For suspended above him by a horse’s hair
CLIPPERS, which through and under his toenails pass
Thus beneath that weapon hov’ring in the air
He is cautioned not to be a horse’s (posterior)

And so reposing upon his royal couch
Let not the king be heard to whimper “OUCH!”

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

                        Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains

The washing machine baptizes our busy days:
A shirt freshly stained with this morning’s coffee
Wrinkledy tees in grimy greens and greys
A child’s blue jeans all sticky with toffee

Dish towels we allowed to get old-food smelly
A nice dress sock on which the puppy peed
Blankies from the couch in front of the telly
The terry-cloth that toweled the shaving bleed

To the laundry room where all these wreckages convene
There to be made all fresh and bright and clean –
Thus
Let us give thanks for the washing machine!

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

                         A Gold-Tone Case for Business Cards

A gold-tone case for business cards that read
“(Something) Enterprises Unlimited”
An address that included the word “Suite”
Which was only a bedroom with a folding table

A telephone number that no longer exists
Which never rang a number that no one ever called
And a dead-end @aol.com
For a business that was only a dream

Buried in a suit from the 1980s
The Men’s Store at Sears – The Classic Collection

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


                    Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios?


          Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and    
          the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the *****
          gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr.
         Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print…

            -Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third *****, p. 245


CBS is now as obedient as Fox
Who would have imagined? Who woulda thunk?
Government agitprop on every Orwellian box -
Shoveling deep rund into our funk

Praise to Stephania Jiminez of KSAT in San Antonio; I said it first but she says it much, much better:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ksat-anchor-goes-viral-for-speaking-the-truth-about-texas-leaders­/ar-AA1Ibdj3


Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
5 July 2025

                     Texas Children Die; Texas Politicians Babble


                           The Governor’s Press Conference
            In Which the Press Were Shut Down Pretty Quickly
                              Guest Star: Ice Station Barbie


I just can’t say enough about our colleagues I just can’t say enough about we are Texans and we come together as one as a family we come together community share quintessential Texas I want to thank my we unite they could have fallen apart double-down relentless when the job is completed 24/ 7 day and night Texans and Americans everyone and I want to thank my what I’m going to sign today every asset magnitude process proclamation immediate and I just can’t say enough about ongoing gratitude in advance to President Trump and all his administration and I just can’t say enough his love for Texas I want to thank Governor Abbott absolutely devastating he loves Texas grieving beautiful children all the resources of the federal government walking alongside each other community I’ve visited with the president already he will honor that assets on the ground crisis weather event alerted airframe Coasties Texas assets request customs and border protection skill set resource Department of Homeland Security response flying acronyms entities utilized FEMA standing at an enhanced level plugged in engaged fulfil role amazing you are an example to the nation hearts are with you and walking beside you fixed-wing aircraft airframe helicopters fixed-wing helicopters efforts engaged talking to the president throughout the day families folks number one priority is people process public infrastructure strong you are an example responding helping neighbors hurting grieving God process help prayers are with you President Trump and Melania are praying for you prayer amazing multiple stage agencies partners my thanks to and to and request and thank you for being here an important message I’ve been to a number of disasters impressed with Governor Abbot’s leadership proud grateful for men and women standing behind us here we are all reacquainted rejoined with their family members it’s who your family is we come together as a family as Texas this is who our family is we owe it to them the governor and his team will be relentless family it means a lot we appreciate President Trump and you before I was crazy enough to run for congress ha ha we came down here to blah blah it hits home personally I can’t say enough about extraordinary I can’t say enough I can’t say enough leadership this unfortunate circumstance reached out responding Army corps support and other stuff teamwork collaboration far from finished the job prayerful stuff we’re dealing with finger-pointing and second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking circumstances I understand that parents and media heroic efforts finish the job be with the people pray I’m the only one at this table who lives on the Guadalupe River I barely got home I ushered in a crew fifty-year lawyer I saw first-hand the body bags helicopter ride nobody saw this coming arm in arm hand in hand process time now for recovery toilsome task we we we I I I me me me stay together and we’ll get this done thank you on the behalf of as I look around the room I don’t see differences I see one team working together our community one team those in peril those who are lost sees this day prayer thank God my heart is broken we will not stop Madame Secretary your federal team lifesaving we will our teams FEMA border patrol partners Coast Guard work forward state personnel one last thing most common word prayer prayers are answered in so many ways prayer might be the reason the water stopped rising prayer does work your prayers have made a difference continued prayers pray so much never imagined prayers matter we thank God almighty God has blessed Texas prayer…

(A few reporters were then allowed to ask a few questions which were answered mostly with vagaries and filler-language.)

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

                                      My Daughter at The Last Supper

And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body…”

          -Saint Matthew 26:26-29, Douay-Rheims 1899 American
           Edition via Bible Gateway

And my daughter said unto our Lord,
“Excuse me…excuse me, Sir, but is this matzoh fresh?
Did you check the expiration date?
Is it really kosher?  Is it from a fair-trade source?”

Amen or oymen?

Judas has left the building.

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

                                         She Walks Between Worlds

                                             Stage 2 Alzheimer’s

She walked into our house for lunch today
The puppy gamboled at her feet in welcome
And was treated to doggie-kisses and doggie-hugs
She loves the dog
                                    She is no longer sure about us

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

                                             But, Hey, No King

The most lawless ruler is a Man of the People
Posturing upon some whited balcony
His pouting lips frozen in a perpetual sneer
While his toadies cheer their *******, and call it freedom

The semi-automatic rifle is their Bible
Barbed wire is their semi-automatic law
The Constitution is but the president’s whims
          (Let us now pray
          for his bowel movements today)

Congress and the Supreme Court with feet of clay
Await in fear, in disgrace, in moral decay
For a Murat to come and brush them away:

                                  “Citizens, you are dismissed.”

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

       I Have Always Flown our Flag Proudly on Independence Day

Our flag must be protected from the dews and damps
And flown most proudly over our concentration camps

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

                    ****** Sunbathing in the Garden of Literature

In the end everyone having been abusive
And babbling endlessly about it all
Dies

Lawrence Hall 2d
A Shepherd's Path from La Salette
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

                              Contents of the Live Man’s Pockets

       Cf. “Contents of the Dead Man’s Pockets,” Jack Finney, 1956

A little book of poetry for waiting rooms
A MePhone because everybody carries one
A little Rosary that never leaves its vinyl case
For prayers that never leave the bearer’s lips

A pocket notebook and a gel-point pen
For those great ideas that will change the world
A pocket knife, without which a man is not dressed
A ring of keys for locking people out
            Or in?

And next to my poor heart a pocket square -
Though once upon a time I carried your picture there

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

           Beached Beauties, Summer Tomatoes, and Midday Cicadas


                                   Where are the songs of Spring?

                                                        ­-Keats


The tomatoes are split and discolored in the heat
Like bathing beauties who have beached too long
And, gathering up the past, totter home at dusk
Surprised to be all burnt and wrinkled with age

The sun of April who was a ***** lover
Caressing and warming their soft young skin
Is now a middle-aged man baring his chest
And seeking love in other vegetable beds

The cicadas of noon mourn in the withering heat
In remembrance of spring, youthful and sweet