Brooding, intense, with furrowed brow
Jeremy surveys his audience
Forty years on, still belting out the songs
That made him famous
With a touch of resignation he goes on
The first is up-tempo
He’s there to do a job
Conjuring memories
He gives them what they want
Throws in some new ones
To keep himself interested
There’s always an encore
Then he’s off

It’s his annual tour
Work he must
Given the royalties that diminish
Thank God he’s still got the stuff
That voice so powerful, so recognizable
The fans are stalwart
They keep him alive
He sings for their pleasure
He’s a pro who does strive
To give them a thrill
He’s still got the drive

It’s his life
His mission
His raison d’etre
An artist he is
Doing his best

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

                    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

are fickle. They tickle
my mind. They're cornflower
blue. Running like a watercolor
in the rain, then connecting

together like links
on a chain. They bring me
back to strawberry fields
where life isn't real. And they

steal my hours picking
them like flowers for my dining
room table.  I bunch them
all together like a painting

of a sunset. And they collect,
a debt I haven't paid. They keep
growing. I'm living in the shade of
them. Sewn onto the edge,

my hem. Pebbles in my shoes I can’t
shake loose. I walk at night. Floorboards
creek and the moon speaks to turn
off the gaslight.

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

                   Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter

                           For all Daughters and Their Fathers

Monsieur is dressed for a quiet evening at home
As is his daughter in her cozy white wrap
Leaning dutifully upon his shoulder as he predicts
With globe and maps the empires of her mind

The empires of her mind which she will rule
With subtle wit and work instead of war
With armies of thought and beauty and art and truth
To conquer chaos and set the world aright

She's a guardian of goodness in a little girl’s guise
(But inwardly, I think, she’s rolling her eyes)




“The Geography Lesson,” Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1812, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

past the nose and
lips? Jump down
to my ******* and
hips? Marvel at

my long legs? Am I
a projection, like an image
on a movie screen lying
flat in ripped blue jeans? I'm a

matchbox cover, a work of
art with a striking surface,
a pin-up doll that can light
a furnace. But so small  

I get lost when you
toss me in your drawer
with notebooks, gadgets
and receipts from the store.

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

                       Has All the Gold Been Stolen from Fort Knox?

                     Elon Musk encouraged to crack open Fort Knox
                     and audit the gold reserves

                           -New York Post, 16 February 2025

President Musk will now make an audit
Of the gold in Fort Knox, down to the dime
But all he will find (he may have already caught it)
Is the missing TP from the covid time!

I watch the harbor through the falling snow
the sky and sea form one vast, gray tableau
the sun is nothing but a weak, background glow
the scene draws me, as if hypnotically.

Five mile’s lighthouse warnings go unvoiced
its strobes not lashing out, so what’s its point
it stands majestically but disappoints
replaced electronically

A tiny lobster boat makes its landward way
towards the inlet from the wider channel bay
a powdery blizzard is underway
which melts into the mirror sea.

Ospreys still hunt round the lobsterman's pride
snowflakes stain them as they soar and glide
other seabirds huddle side by side
shivering and crowing lividly.

Through the narrows the lonely boat steams
past icy Luddington Rock and East Breakwater's breech
its berths and moorings, within minutes reach
and sadly, it’s time for me to leave.
.
.
Songs for this:
Far Far Away (Charles Tone Mix) [feat. Brenda Boykin] by Tape Five
Nobody by Mitski

Republican Vice-Presidential nominee JD Vance’s comments on the catastrophe, that is Donald Trump:

In DMs, he wondered whether Trump, “Is America’s ******.” (2015)
“Fellow Christians, everyone is watching us when we apologize for this man. Lord help us.” (2016)
“Donald Trump is a moral disaster.” (2016)
After one meeting with Trump, Vance wrote “My god what an idiot.” (2016)
“What percentage of the American population has DonaldTrump sexually assaulted?” (JD Vance, 2016)
Vance tweeted: “Trump makes people I care about afraid. Immigrants, Muslims, etc. Because of this I find him reprehensible. (2016)
“I’m definitely not gonna vote for Trump because I think that he’s projecting very complex problems onto simple villains.” (2016)
“Trump’s a total fraud who doesn’t care if regular people call him reprehensible.” (2017)
“Trump’s cultural ******, just another opioid for Middle America.” (2017)

On Twitter (X) Vance liked tweets saying Trump committed “serial ****** assault.”
and called Trump “One of USA’s most hated, villainous, and ******* celebs.”
.
.
A song for this:
The End of the Innocence by Don Henley