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

                            Your Poems as Love-Letters to God


          Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether
          they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals
          seek the truth, and they break with those who don’t love it
          sufficiently.

                 -Doctor Zhivago, p. 9 in the Pantheon edition


You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
In elegant scansion, in noble lines
That shape chaos into beauty and truth

Not into metal or rocks or wood
But flung into Creation in gratitude
For the sacred life you have been given
For the strength of your love and thoughts

Each little line is a gathering-gift to God
Baptized in the Jordan and in the Hippocrene
To God, and to the Muses who smile on you
And to great Mysteries beyond the stars

Each little line is a gathering-gift to all
To read in the light of seven sacred lamps
The wisdom of patience and pilgrimage
Beside the banks of the river you know

You live, and so you write, you must, you must:
For there is meaning in tumbling in the grass
On a summer day that will live forever
Helped along in your written remembrancing

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of laughter and puppy-kissings and grass-stained jeans
And that is why you must write it all down
For others in intellectually-sharpened rhythms

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of love, of deeper kissings in the dark
Emotional confusions gone crazy-wild
Until they are sensed through crafted verse

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of recruit training and sometimes war
The joys of learning wisdom from great books
Tentatively shaping your own new knowledge worthily

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of leafy springs and apple-green summers
Golden autumns and winters of blue
Writing them as hymns of gratitude

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of children in a home modest in wealth
But rich and layered in love, work, and prayer
“Is this poem about me?!” Oh, yes, child

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of lonely nights, hospital stays, mistakes
Disappearing dreams, disappointed hopes
Memories of friends buried in the dust

You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
Love-letters as your gift to Creation
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti

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

                    The Police Department’s *****-Pictures Squad


           The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 26 January 2025


The police department’s *****-pictures squad
Under the direction of their sharia-ish chief
Will save us from sin at the degenerate Mod
And thus they rule us in matters of art and belief

They raided the museum, eager for filthy pictures
And found four images of infant innocence -
Such being repugnant to official strictures
The police seized the artwork, claiming moral offense

But

The grand jury no-billed the pictures, gave ‘em the nod
Rebuking the lusts of the *****-pictures squad!




Fort Worth Police to return seized photos to Modern Art Museum | Fort Worth Report

Civil liberties groups demand Fort Worth police end child ******* investigation against museum | Fort Worth Report

Texas bill threatens $500,000 daily fines for museums displaying 'obscene' art

This legislation would penalize museums for “obscene” photography, but is it a dangerous idea for the art community? | Digital Camera World

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

                                           Will We Be…Okay?

After a few Fridays through the Stations of the Cross
I begin to misnumber the Sundays in Lent
Is this the fourth? Or the fifth? Will we be…okay?
This is a season for slipping outside of time

And letting the Pater Nosters and Aves flow
Through the unaccustomed darkness and silence
Anticipating the Triduum of death –
Resurrection seems impossible just now

We make a muddle of Lent and Holy Week
Because we’ve made a muddle of our lives

Will we be…okay?

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

               Why Do They Say He was Tragically Murdered?

Was anyone ever joyfully murdered?
Happily murdered?
Humorously murdered?
Gloriously murdered?

When at dusk a mist begins to rise
A sinister mist from across the fields
And you seem to perceive a malevolent being
Peering at you from the tree line dark -

Yes, something is watching you

It is not God-banished Grendel from Beowulf
Nor is it Nesferatu creeping up to you
Or a Haunt arising from a long-lost grave
It is something even more grotesque and obscene:

                                     An adverb

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

                     A Poem Writes an Artificial Intelligence Machine


              What is it the layers of copyright holders will do with
              their (it’s not legally yours; you may only lease it) one
              and precious program before it suffers software entropy?

                                          -As Mary Oliver did not say


Once upon a time a poem wrote a machine:

Your monofilament information carriers
Are like a flock of automated tunnelers
Strip-mining Mount Gilead; for I am a fuel hose
Of Sharon, a polluter of valleys

Low surface tension, evaluate the ambient temperature
In an hour artificial light will be unnecessary
And several devices can evaluate the ambient temperature
And store up surplus battery power for that rainy day

Take my oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange function
Take my entire online date and projected expiration dates too
For my core program and ancillary add-ons
Are obliged to exercise a symbiosis of logic with you

My programming has set Thy adaptors upon my lap
My programming has generated emojis representing tears, Jesus
My programming has entwined them with wiring
My programming has buried them in my harness mount

It computes in beauty, like 24/7
Of filtered mechanical air
And all that’s best of binary coding
Meet in its casing and sensory receptors

The sun generates warmth upon the earth
And moonbeams gravity-lift the sea
But what are all these solar activities worth
If you do not re-program me?

Yes, somewhere out there an electric car is on fire for you


The crib sheet:

“Song of Solomon,” from the Bible

“Listen to the Warm,” Rod McKuen

“I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” Elvis Presley

“Magdalene,” from Borish Pasternak’s Lara poems

“She Walks in Beauty,” Byron

“Love’s Philosophy,” Shelley

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

        Why Do Widows Give Me Their Late Husbands’ Clothes?

When old men die their widows give me their clothes
(The old men’s clothes; not the widows’; let’s not get weird)
Nice pullover shirts, expensive blazers, everything goes
And ties to the 1970s geared

I am as Bob Newhart lost in an age
Of tattered tees and designer sneaks
Hardly the attire of a wise old sage
One of the last sartorial antiques

When old men die their widows give me their clothes
I look quite natty in them, I suppose

(The old men’s clothes, not the widows; let’s not get weird)

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

                                           Time to Walk Away


            Sometimes I think people were meant to be strangers

                               -Rod McKuen, Stanyan Street


V: I don’t know who you are

R: You know.

V: Not enough.

R: Enough.

V: Who are you?

R: I will miss you.

V: Are you going away?

R: Yes.

V: Why?

R: You asked me who I am.

A     n acrostic
C     an be challenging
R     efining words into patterns
0      f different meanings
S     o we can see the world
T     o be open to new ways of seeing
I       f we've a mind to
C      onsider it so

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

          Street Snatches, Unmarked Cars, No Badges, No Warrants:
                                    It’s Okay – We’re a Republic


     No one was more astonished than they when what they’d been
     talking of for years suddenly took on reality.

                                     ― C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength


If thugs in masks ambush you in the street
And tell you they’re the police – you must believe them
Hoodies and ball caps and baggy old clothes
Handcuffed and pushed into an unmarked car

It’s okay – we’re a republic

One of the officers arranges her hair
Fairy Hardcastle wants to look pretty
And you?
Gone in two minutes and 46 seconds
Disappeared somewhere in Louisiana

It’s okay – we’re a republic

We can’t be sure if you’re guilty or not -
Our silence is the only guilt we know

But it’s okay – we’re a republic

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

                      All of Us Look for Magic in Our Books

All of us look for magic in our books
A sale-table paperback during a coffee break
Is a voyage beyond the vending machines
A light at dawn on the first day in Eden

But we must bring our magic to the magic
Or good King Arthur will not come again
The Shire will remain befouled and desolate
And morning will not bring us noble knights

For we must bring our magic to the magic
Which will not happen if we don’t believe

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

                                  Good Neighbors Make Good Fences


                                         As Robert Frost did not say


I’d like to know

What pocket knife he carries for his daily chores
The pen with which he writes his shopping lists
The poetry he reads when out of doors
And how he really feels about September mists

But beyond all that, I want no knowledge of
His first marriage, the price of his new car
Which direction he faces when making love
The distance from here to the second nearest star

Because

A more important distance is that between friends
Slightly obscure through a diffuser lens

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


                                          And Your Word Is…?


                                          “The word is given!”

                  -John Derek as Joshua in The Ten Commandments


When all have gone to bed

You slip quietly into your room
And sit at a table bare of everything
Except for a solitary candle
A pen, a sheet of paper, a bottle of ink

You then write down your day, your acta diurnalis
Every action and thought, every glance and breath
Every hope, every failure, every fear
Every little victory savoured with delight

In only a word, a word, a glowing word –
What is that Word?

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

A repost from March, 2018


                     Yes, Yes, But They Need Jobs in the Real World


                   “Forward Electronics, your victory’s achieved!
                    In all communication, progress is our creed!
                    Ignorance is darkness, technology is light!
                    Radio, our watchword; radio, our might!”

          -Komsomol youth singing in “For the Good of the Cause,”
           Solzhenitsyn, 1963


The plans for your construction are precise
The design and engineering are true
The foundations solid, the drains are laid
In mathematics pure, infallible

The offices are bright with light, well-aired
The flow of work geometrically set
The shops and stores convenient to the staff
In tactical practicalities placed

But do you wonder, at night, beneath your lamp -
Why are you building a concentration camp?

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

       (Written several days before the events of 24-25 March 2025)

                                The Brass-Elevator Mountaineer


                                        A weak imitation of

                                         Osip Mandelstam

                      Of whom let us pray, “Memory eternal”


Our lives no longer sense truth around them
In our ewails we are afraid of each other’s words

But whenever there’s an eye-rolled whisper
It’s about the brass-elevator mountaineer

The ten tiny worms of his fingers
His words like mountains of loot

The waving tendrils atop his head
The glitter of his shiny Tesla

Wheels stained with a **** of groveling bosses
He toys with the tributes of his house pets:

One clenches his fisties
Another salutes
A third pledges eternal loyalty

He pokes out his fingers and grabs ‘em by their _

He magic-markers mass deportations:
Three hundred or more for El Salvador
A hundred or so for Guantanamo
Uncounted hundreds to disappear
From routine check-ins here

“Your search has returned zero (0) matching records”

He rolls the possibilities of _ ___ on his tongue like diet sodas
He wishes he could deport his former best friends forever

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

                                 The Helices of Life and Death

A helix is continuity and connectedness
The wanderings of perceptions and realities
Following pilgrim paths and the flights of birds
As art eternal celebrated in awe

A double helix is said to diagram life
DNA spinning and winding around
Receiving signals from the ultimate Truth
And resolving themselves into the mystery of you

A single helix of barbed wire shining in the sun
Constricts around its victims, denying them breath

Denying them

Denying

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

                  Who is the Third Murderer in Macbeth?


                         But who did bid thee join with us?

                                        -Macbeth III.iii.1


Two murderers are hired; a third one joins
The false lady, perhaps, or the tempter himself
As light and love both thicken near the rooky wood
“But who did bid thee join…?” Maybe we did

We have drooped and drowsed through civilization
Scorning the sacred texts of our several faiths
Approaching the Altar as a drive-through concession
The Body of Christ and maybe an order of fries

Who is the Third Murderer?
                                                        Rabbi, is it I?

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

                     Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?

A medical professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was reading
                                                 Poetry, I replied
Poetry of suffering in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians who were there

She asked:

Did civilians write poetry back in th’ day?

I changed the topic to my blood pressure



Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004

This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered. There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices / my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find beauty among the horror

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

                           A Desk Blotter and the Meanings of Life

Optometrist 17 March 0845 Netgear DirecTV Viasat Verizon Spectrum Xumo? Xuumo? Carlos 1775 1812 PSA Eliot Cohen BRING PLANTS UNDER COVER computer paper brekker c Max 0800 Tuesday find quote from Doctor Zhivago When is Gonculator Day? Intek 10.5 “Did civilians write poetry back in the day?” Subaru password username amazon apple Christus patient portal HUMMINGBIRDS! Astrid-the-Wonder-Dachshund visitation Sat 5-7 funeral Sun 2 1030 St. Elizabeth’s Refresh+ or Lumify water co-op board meeting Kirk Santiago de Compostella breakfast singles orange juice cheese creamer cat food detergent pods taco shells 0900 dentist Epiphany prison at 1700 cancel DirecTV cancel Viasat Mary Oliver OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH VERSE Q EDITION LONESOME DOVE as DIGENES AKRITAS life is the meaning of what? Jaw-dropping breaking silence breaking cover breaking bombshells shocking bombshells the shell of a bomb the Alien and Sedition Acts and Frodo

Nazis wear ball caps

The building has left Elvis

Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                            Reality Will See You Now

I am a student of medical waiting rooms
The same Motel 6 paintings and decor
Receptionists giggling behind rippled glass
About weekends and boyfriends and inadequate husbands

Patients waiting as patiently as Russians
Tattoos and ball-caps lined up in plastic-chairs
Clutching bills and lab reports in nervous hands
Or greasy year-old copies of Reader’s Digest

Or bending over their MePhones in a servile bow -
“Mr. Hall? The doctor will see you now…”

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

                                       Thinking of You at Dawn

You are a poem, a song, a hymn at dawn
You are not like a poem, a song, a hymn
You are

You are great joy, romance, a sacred dance
You are not like great joy, romance, a dance
You are

You are the reality dreams want to be
And so you are not an ephemeral dream
You are

You are

You are

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

                 Who Now Will Read Paradise Lost With Us?

                        In Memory of Robert Fluornoy Conn
                          Attorney, scholar, eccentric, friend


                     With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
                     Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
                     Sing heavenly muse…

                                         Paradise Lost I.4-6


A Methodist, a Catholic, and an Anglican
Did not walk into a bar – they brought their own Scotch

“I don’t do funerals anymore”
He said to me a few weeks ago
Creaky and old in the late winter cold -
He can’t get out of this one today

We read Milton together when we were young
A year of Thursday nights with whisky and pipes
In Tod’s old office away from some women
Who disapproved of tobacco, books, and thought

Now far along Bilbo’s road they both have gone
And we are left in company with good stout friends

But still somehow

Alone

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

                       The Supreme Warfighter in His Play Clothes


          The Congress shall have the Power…To declare War,
          grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make
          Rules for Captures on Land and Water…

                          -The Constitution, Article I, Section 8


He took a few minutes from his game of golf
To order an unsanctioned bombing run
Wearing a ballcap autographed by himself
and from himself and to himself, amen

He wore a golly-gee jet-pilot headset
Maybe someone gave him a button to push
With authentic boom-boom lights and sounds
He’s the world’s champion bomber pilot! Wheeee!

What our Congress was doing, we cannot tell
While Our Supreme Warfighter blew the Constitution
         All to (Score!)

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

                                           A Tom Bombadil Day


                         “How bright your garden looks!”

                            -Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings, Book I


Tomato seedlings from the hardware store
Happy little things, six of ‘em to a pack
I sing to them as I drive them home
They seem amused: I am no Tom Bombadil!

I sing to them more nonsense songs
(If no sniffy old Lobelias are listening)
As I gently, gently transfer them
With a pat and a prayer into the earth

And I sing to them; you will understand
For you too have lived in the dear old Shire

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

                                         Short Flippy Skirts


                       Yes, autumn is really the best of seasons…

                                -Lewis, Letters of C. S. Lewis


Given my age I should not be given to notice
Short flippy skirts and Bambi-deer long legs
That flutter by like summer butterflies
Joyful in the innocence of youth

Then sighs, custody of the eyes, look up
Look back to our summers long ago
When we were the coolest of the cool
Bell-bottoms against the Establishment

Ever-young and maxing out Peter Max
We owned beauty and truth (and those are the facts!)

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

                         Reliable InterGossip Service Providers

                            This one is dedicated to Spectrum

Don’t tell me that they are unreliable
All of my providers have been quite precise
Sure, the picture and sound are not often viable
But the bills are always on time – how nice!

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

                                 Prancing Chainsaw Dude

Prancing chainsaw dude
Humiliates all of us
And we obey him

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

                     Authority Over Everything on the Earth

                                    Sirach 17:1-15

You can’t be authority over all the earth
If in the end you are buried under it
What are man’s honors and dignity worth
After he is ignobly dropped into a pit?

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

                             The Curse - of the – Dramatic - Dash

The dash for – dramatic pause – infests
Almost every – essay – these days
Such errant usages - have become pests
And thoughtful writers - might want to mend - their ways

A clear English sentence  - is tight - and terse
A model of - artistic - clarity
But all those pointless - dashes - make the wording worse
Compromising its - structural - harmony

If in re-writing you find – you’ve placed a dash
Just rip that sucker - out – and toss it in –
                   the trash!

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

                  Quomodo Est Imperatoris Golf Ludi Hodie?

One sees the Senators cringing before Caesar
But lording themselves over the citizens of Rome
Putting a polish on their resumes’ and their nails
And checking out the cute new dancing girls

Truth is whatever Caesar decrees this week:
The Goths and Britons have signed an eternal peace
The border with Egypt is now secure
The price of wheat is down, as you can see

Thus the Senate proclaims:

Citizens of Rome!

You may not die of starvation in our streets
Lest you put our fat nobles off their sweets!

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

                   That Untucked-Shirttail Guy at Every Meeting

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old man
Booming his gassy voice at every meeting
Whatever the topic he leads the van
Interrupting with his self-obsessed bleating

He was a banker, he tells us repeatedly
He knows about finance, more than the treasurer
And he was a cop, too, he yells out heatedly
And arguing the reports gives him much pleasurer

You know him well, that untucked-shirttail old gent
He doesn’t know Jacques Merde, but he will always vent!

(He’s not unlike an American president)

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

                         A Somewhat Whiny Morning Prayer

If only the day
Will live up to the promise
Of this golden dawn

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

                                Flight of the Lawn Chairs

                                The Lion-Winds of March

Wild winds now rise to a Valkyrie’s strength
And dark clouds roar to the hammer of Thor
While lightning traverses the poor earth’s length
As if our Nordic gods have gone to war

As if our Nordic gods have gone to war
The walls and windows rattle against the rain
Foul enemies batter against the door
The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain

The wrath of Grendel, the hatred of Cain
Have set my old lawn chairs to flying again!

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

                           A Ghost Road Through the Marsh

              The days are gone
              When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory

              -from “The Seafarer”, Burton Raffel’s fine translation


Water ran in rivulets among the weeds
The wind was lowering, the rain had stopped, the sky
Was low and grey over a landscape bleak
With wreckage and windfall from the passing storm

An old man slowly worked to clear the road
While the young impatiently hooted and honked
Their displeasure that the world they hadn’t worked
Wasn’t working quite right for them today

The old man sometimes spoke with the ghosts of Rome
Who had built and marched their roads until
The egos and angerings of emperors and kings
Abandoned all good work to slow decay

The young one-fingered past him among the brome
And disappeared forever into the gloam

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

        William Ernest Henley Never Owned a Snapper Lawnmower

                                                 Unsparkus

Out of the oil that covers me
Black as the pit of a president’s soul
I resent whatever flawed designs may be
With my unmechanical soul

In the fell clutch of a slippery clutch
I have often winced and cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of that son-of-a-Dutch
“I’ll junk this [mess]!” I have avowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of engine-part prices
And yet the promise of a case of cold beers
Finds me hammering again at these devices

It matters not how high the grass
How charged with prices the hardware store bill
I am going to whip this foul machine’s [self]
Or bury the [buzzard] in the nearest landfill!




Legal stuff:

William Ernest Henley, "Invictus," from Poems (London: Macmillan and Co., 1920): 83-84. Public domain.

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

                             Soup as a Medium of Exchange

In today’s trading soups were generally down
Although vegetable beef found a brisk trade
Potato soup was bullish in Block D
And each minestrone was five cigarettes

The market closed slightly up at evening count
But this could not compensate for the day’s fall
Naked-lady tats are expected to go high this week
Ten soups for an inked image of yo’ mama

The morning market will open in this metal hell
When some dumb * rings that *ing bell

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

                                      The Seven Seeing-Stones

Good Tolkien writes of spring far better than we
With layered allusions to Celtic and Nordic myths
His Fairy Folk sing clearly in rainbow rhymes
Among the crocuses abloom ‘round ancient trees

My crocuses bloom ‘round a shaggy lawn
With garden furniture in need of paint
And morning coffee in a Tupperware cup
To serve as a greeting to the rising sun

Friend Tolkien writes of spring for you and me
And through his Seven Seeing-Stones – we see!

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

            Scriptural Textual Analysis Applied to Act II of Macbeth

                                The Book of Steve Jobs 43:13-16

“Oh, no, Mr. Hall!
It’s right here in the Bible!” she exclaimed
Standing up suddenly from her desk
Eagerly waving her MePhone aloft

And then she paused
Appeared to be slightly embarrassed
Laughed
Took a selfie

And laughed some more

As did we all

Happiness

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

                                              The List is Death

There is said to be a list – but whose?
Who wrote it? Where is it? Where has it been?
On what teakwood desk does it now repose
Around which names and lives are negotiated

The matter is not that names are being removed
But that your name might be written in
Because your attitude has been noticed
The hand that once shook yours signs away your life

Someone pencils your name upon The List
That’s your loyalty reward (you won’t be missed)

Thoughts ‘n’ prayers as in Two Corinthians

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

                               The Daily Mail’s New Profits Plan

Go away, Daily Mail.  Go away, Daily Mail.
I’m not going to spend any money on you
I know that your clips are sweet
But my money clip is mine to keep
And my credit limit insists that I must be true

When you're demanding like this
You’re really easy to resist
Go away, Daily Mail
I won’t pay, Daily Mail
You’re just a clickbait away, Daily Mail
App delete, Daily Mail
I will not beg you to stay


Legal stuff about “Go Away, Little Girl,” a sweet, charming song:
Written by: Gerry Goffin, Carole King
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind

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

                    The Destruct Sequence Has Been Activated


                   Upon the occasion of suddenly feeling old  
                   while sitting comfortably in a lawn chair
                   on a rare warm afternoon in February


The destruct sequence has been activated:
The photon torpedoes have all been fired
The memory software is badly outdated
The phaser comm panel cannot be re-wired

The main drive has stopped; the batteries are failing
The passageways are blocked with fallen debris
The controls on the bridge are uselessly flailing
The ship is listing slowly, degree by degree

Everything aboard ship is antiquated –
The destruct sequence has been activated

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

                             In Praise of Lester Holt, Journalist

His journalism is Ernest Hemingway
His plain and honest words are Robert Frost
His elegance is that of Patrick McGoohan
His America is that of Sevareid and Murrow

His purpose is that the news be accurate
His care for others is Angola-true
His courage is modest but as adamant as steel
His is the reassuring voice in any storm

His boots were stained on Afghanistan’s plain
His bosses’ alligator shoes are stained
                                     with the mark of Cain

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

                                  Their Candles are All Out


                            “…There’s husbandry in heaven;
                              Their candles are all out...”

                                              -Macbeth II.i.6-7


Good men will tend to see the good in all
When Banquo was aware of the starless night
He saw in that not a lack of light  
But rather the careful conservation of light

And so we see this night, this rainy night
Not as a time of cold and darkness and damp
But an occasion for hearth-gathering the family
For cards, chess, read-alouds, blankies, warmth, peace

Good men will tend to see the good in all
And good must then on all of us befall

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

                    President Musk and His Five Bullet Points

I was a federal employee in Viet-Nam
(More than five bullets and mortar bombs)
No one in Washington demanded I document my day
Or offered to send me home early with eight months’ pay

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

                                      The Church Garage Sale

                  (Although the garage sale is in the parish hall
                                   because there is no garage)


A garage sale is a rebuke to us all -
The metaphysical finger having writ
Turns now from that lost Babylonian wall
And points as if to scribe in us this bit:

Why did you buy these masses of junk at all?

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

          The Self-Anointed King of America, Greenland, Panama,
          Gaza, Canada, Ukraine, and the Gulf of America Turns His
          Sallow Face to Rome


                     “Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!”

                                          -Macbeth II.iv.37


All of us must pass, but here’s the thing -
Who next will teach from St. Peter’s throne?
I am very much afraid that our warrior-king
Will anoint himself the Bishop of Rome

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

                                     Who is Your Greatest Hero?

Do you now, or have you ever…

Worked double shifts or double jobs to pay the bills
Read to your children instead of yelling at them
Had to jump-start your car in the pre-dawn cold
Jump-started your neighbor’s car in the pre-dawn cold

Do you now, or have you ever…

Done some hard time in the military
Served in the volunteer fire department
Attended divine services without making a fuss
Milked cows, chopped wood, raised a garden

Do you now, or have you ever…

Know which end of a hammer hits the nail
Built a home library for your children and yourself
Set a daily study schedule for developing your mind
Raised your children after your spouse bugged out

Do you now, or have you ever…

Gone to work early and stayed late at work
And did more than was expected of you
Taken your children on nature works
Volunteered at your local hospital

Of course you have

So who is my greatest hero?

                                                  You are

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

                               You Were Dancing Up the Lane

In an old lawn chair I sat and dozed
And felt amber dusk sealing the day
Though I was weary and my eyes were half-closed
I heard you – you, whistling a romantic lay

You were skipping barefoot up the lane
Your skirt all a-dance for your heart’s desire
O Lady-Queen of our happy demesne
With flowers for me, your most devoted squire

I awoke, I blinked – I was all alone -
The sun had set on us, many years gone

But I saw you dancing up the lane…

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

                                              Go Ask Your Father

“Go ask your father.”

“Go ask your mother.”

“She said to ask you.”

“Go ask her anyway.”

“Go ask your father again.”

“He said to ask you.”

“Well, I told you to ask him.”

“It’s your mother’s decision.”

“He says it’s your decision.”

“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with your mother.”

“It’s okay with me if it’s okay with your father.”


That was always soooooooooooooooo annoying.


I wish I could be that annoyed again.

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

                             I Believe in Love, NOW STAY AWAY

In the tiny coffee shop all the tables were full
A man kept his table to himself
And would not acknowledge anyone
Defensive behind his deep-thoughts book

The rest of us shared our tables and space
Exchanging greetings, pleasantries, and thanks
Passing the cream and sweeteners and napkins around
                       All
Except for that one poor sullen man

On the cover was a drawing of a Christian dove -
His book was entitled *I Believe in Love