"dispatches" poems
May we live in and see interesting times, the old saying goes
another offers that when the mind is blind, the eyes cannot see
for me my days are interesting and the laughter readily and often comes
for the grapes of wrath brings forth mirth filled grapes on grapevine tendrils
As lemmings and sheep enact bellyaching absurdities, as the ridiculous does
Veracity on sojourn and falsehood in residence with doors firmly closed
Hamlet re-enacts hapless role, with Red Robin Hood and vigilantes to a tee
eager audiences, participatory scenes in towns and cities, leaving empty homes
come all and vent your spleen and satiate your prejudices without paying a fee
This land belongs to us, it is our birthright and we will send Hamlet to the catacombs
Nothing is private anymore, rights and freedom nailed, anywhere we roam
Ophelia not only went to Italy, she went to Hull, Turnpike Lane and even Essex
but a joke here, if all these were good, why did she come to me, you simple gnomes
perchance unlike you common goons, she knows distinction has no comparison to thee
Your vacuous hate filled mind cannot see that difference in a Prince, that regally looms
Act two, dim, fooled actors in their Beggars Opera, screaming, 'we oppose' with glee
so called republicans, laughable in their ardent favor, ignorant of their lobotomy botches
we will do Hamlet's head in, totally unaware theirs been done in, for the brains of fleas
in a civilisation, our conscious and stable populace, roots for vigilante and mob rule, yeah
for a man of distinction is a threat reminding you of your insignificance and lack of tomes
Come friends, lets see how the home of Democracy, hounds a citizen for us all and we
lets know that Robin Hood is alive and taxing, and 'Windrush' is still active in dispatches
indigenous people power, meets criminal gang stalking, meets racism and we all drink tea
and in true cowardly fashion, its all done by insidious, indictable, nefarious, malcontents and psychopathic crazies
It is our proud duty that we should all ruin Hamlet, for mediocrity has no distinction for aspiration et excellence
Copyright LaurenceA. JUNE 2018.All rights reserved.
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 8:00 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Child Asked me a Reasonable Question about God
A child -
She asked of me
One day, you see
A question wise
For one her size
It wasn’t odd:
“I believe in God
But then does He
Believe in me?
Sep 5, 2025
Sep 5, 2025 at 11:58 AM UTC
Sometimes they are all Up the Down Staircase:
Please use the computer we never gave you
Respond to the directive we never sent
And send again the grades you sent last month
You have thirty students in your night class
The adjunct next to you has only six
Well, no, you don’t get any more pay than him
I mean “than he”
We’re miffed that you even asked about that
Your roof is leaking only because it’s raining
And you’re overdue for your pervert training
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 3:49 PM UTC
Emergent and forming I feel a storm is imploring that soon without any warning you beg to cross a line
Every time, nothing is sacred but sacramental complacence is marked as roles of the shameless
Mean to skip a line another time? Is this too rough and obtuse for a cutie like you to boost the power line?
Number 9, completion is power and stricken chords every hour proceed to timeline devour those daily entities
I do decree that opposition to me is free and withered beatings to meetings, detours and dealings
understanding demands of variable plans is held by the hand that feeds the depleted need
I see it from every angle, the tangle, the multishifted frame though it dangles, I can't be stuck in my own head when
I see the reflections of me in the treasure it jangles, brings into focus where my head fell to float in the
moments set to wrangle, pull it in, dwell upon the good and discard where it hampers new fangled notions like
truth effusions of love and devotion are swallowed up in the daily ocean of noise traffic, the more verbose,
Graphic dispatches matches blasted disasters dashed and rash past distractions amass magic attacks balanced
Secular motion entwined with metaphysical potions, divided what is your quotient? It doesn't add up in this
moment.
Interpersonal, intergalactic, universal assertions disturbed by verbage of outrance
Message mismanaged mischief mallaeble mayhem managed maganamously mallicous mannered when I
would proclaim them. Members materialized meriting masturbatory movements and monetized
malappropriation I have no patience nor pathos for indiscriminant egos demonstrating a tangent as canon and
paralyzing progressions toward psychic visions of heaven, eyes as the cosmos, and pressures upended.
I'll cope with associations disastrous and tainted, but keep in my visage all that scratches my lenses
I know far too much to be content with the situation, but far too little to shatter falsehood's intitiation
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:53 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Let’s Carapace Ourselves
For William Gipson
William alluded to the dry bones of grammar
And I wondered why no one ever alludes
To the dry exoskeleton of anything -
Equal justice for all carapaces!
Sep 19, 2025
Sep 19, 2025 at 8:21 PM UTC
After he died
Without warning,
I planted a tree
Announcing
Just as suddenly
The Serviceberry
To the others
In the garden
Each bud of a branch
welcomed by the fresh earth
And dormant bulbs yet to burst
The Aspen as role model
Hastily, deeply
she was added
As quickly as he left
In pursuit of
Recouping buoyancy after starving for oxygen.
Consoling under her generous shade
Begging for silence of sufferings and
deep sorrows
Three years have passed
Has it been that long
There they are,
our memories,
in the control room
That cling, stab like a blade
Taking over the clock
A contagion of disorder
That eats away
like acid
Explicitly unwanted
Clarity of that night
Frozen in time,
like the winter
it happened.
Time ended without warning
Deaths metronome gave birth.
Uneven disbursement
Over one thousand days
Since
Asking why,
Why?
Why!
Prone and exhausted.
Drowned in tears that forged
A lake of salt
Why then
Do we not float?
What's holding us up?
And another thing,
Where does the wind
Go when its gone?
It dispatches
without warning
Whirling in circles,
Catching conditions
Why am I
not so
shaken then?
The Serviceberry has yet
To bare fruit in its
Short life to fifty
Holding steady,
Enduring the rooting road
In the pragmatic ground
Surrounded by leaves from seasons
As messengers of compassion, companionship
At the foot of her trunk
An offering
Once again in winter, here we are
Sleeping until the sun
Bleeds more time
Why does three years
Feel so heavy and capricious
As if it were just yesterday
Will the depth of sorrow remain
After she blooms and feeds
The hungry birds,
Over 35 species,
Who love her nectar
Caring for the offspring
Obscure, neglected and hungry
Giving back, keeping the healed
From further storms of
Sudden causes
As he did for his flock
Harbored in what the doctor
Ordered.
Tender
Loving
Care
Will heartache be replaced
By forgiveness?
Like the passing bus
That descends the hill
Into a valley of green hearts
Picking up new passengers
Loving another
Forgetting the importance
Of yesterdays bus ticket that
Flew out the window
Arriving without intention
To its destination
Neutralizing the anger
That came without warning
Glancing out the window
Towards tomorrow
As the birds songs
Are sung
Dec 28, 2023
Dec 28, 2023 at 2:16 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
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*
Apr 8, 2025
Apr 8, 2025 at 8:54 AM UTC
There is a certain birdsong I keep trying to capture
I hear it from outside my bedroom windows
It is mesmerizing that I pause
In silence
As if holding my breath will imprint the waves
And commit them to my ocean of memory
Akin to the sound of twinkling
One that escapes from the mouth of babes
As they swing and slide
Glide from treetop to treetop
Glee
I have never seen the source
But I picture it as the accompaniment
Strokes of soprano notes ascending
While branches sway with the gentle amihan
Teeter-tottering, rays of light playing hide-and-seek
It is
Exhilaration
An aria of falling
But never of fear
There is always a safe place to land
A song of trust
The peaks and troughs are golden lilies
Dotting the field of frequencies
Rising above dispatches of uncertainty
The orchestra of engine rumbles fade
This concerto is for the tranquil
This, this is the song of my heart taking flight
In a waltz with the metronome of your love
Sparkling
I try my best to capture this birdsong because it encapsulates best our journey
Giddy but peaceful
Giddy AND peaceful
It is the ballad I am trying to write but to no avail
Nature has registered our love
No mixtape, nor playlist, nor digital recording, nor lyric can impeccably transcribe it
A wordless duet
The Universe sings, all we have to do is listen
And dance to our music
Crescendo, adagio, rest
Always a soft landing
Jan 19, 2021
Jan 19, 2021 at 11:12 AM UTC
it rains
where scattered white mists
applaud the silhouette
of a sharp and pointed moon
whose coagulant light
dispatches an infinite
population of ghosts
to haunt upon the mind
with tangential interests
are reluctant incarnations
of an intolerable vocabulary
with incoherent signs
these ragged images
free float before the eyes
create a straight line
upon a lime green colored wall
whose ghostly contour of shape
has no reason to be there
then it rains in horizontal free fall
from the ceiling to the floor
where these apparitions collide
in an empty sky of stars
creates a mysterious circumstance
that dictates mischievous epigraphs
where the leaves are black
it is whispered to young men
who reluctantly plant trees
whose shade they know
they will never sit in
it rains in this place
an angry and heavy rain
that sculpts the bones
and blinds the eyes
and the young men lie down
like rusted knives
in an antique drawer
without recognizing
this dredful portent of war
May 19, 2015
May 19, 2015 at 10:15 AM UTC
habituated within the confines of woe
accompanied yet felt lonesome,
the mere must sets forth tomorrow,
my memorandum is no hokum.
there was more than meets the eye,
but any has felt, not just I,
dispatches of melancholy comply,
for must I say goodbye
-- for now...
seek wholesome where it was borne,
restoration is the new.
nay mourn, nor fret, nor pout
and shall come back, subdue.
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 11:33 PM UTC
The cutis anserina raise cold upon your arm
The brain dispatches a foretelling chilling alarm
It is panic that has you in its grasp
I daresay your destiny
Though somewhat delayed come at last
You focus your frightened gaze rapidly from left to right
Wishing the sun break the dawn and begone this haunted night
Your inner voice speaks to you
Turn round if you dare
The hair slowly rises on your neck
The cautious self tells you to beware
Ring covered fingers icy run up your spine
Struggling to remain conscious
Your heart is pounding
Counting breaths you mark the time
Drenched in sweat you stumble headlong into the dark
Unaware an actor on the stage merely playing a part
Flee as far as you wish and swiftly as you can
There is no eluding the touch of fears hand
It is panic that has you in its grasp
The arms of fate
Clutch you to her stone breast and hold you fast
They call your name
You must bow to the gods
And breathe your last
All Rights Reserved @ Tammy M. Darby Nov. 25, 2017.
I
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 10:24 AM UTC
Hey mom,
I wish I could have stuck around
So you could have taught me
On how to be a better man,
Yet I ran
From the shadows
That grabbed onto my feet.
Momma you called it the past,
Yet I see it as my psychological jail sentence
For the mistakes ive made,
My ego was shattered
And dug deep into the roots
That twist along my body
Hey mom,
I wrote you this soft poem
To let you know
That I've never seen hunger
Like this ground
That dispatches of my skin,
This shollow resting ground
Is a lot smaller than my room.
I do not search for apologies or answers
To my last questions,
I found those blowing in the wind
Next to were my last breaths were sung
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 1:57 PM UTC
A sunrise that no one watches.
Unseen. Unappreciated. Neglected — it dispatches,
From the horizon, looking up at the sky,
Only to see the moon approaching by.
Jun 9, 2025
Jun 9, 2025 at 2:47 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
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
Mar 22, 2025
Mar 22, 2025 at 9:25 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I am not God
About final judgement
Just give it a rest
God does salvation
We do our best
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 2:44 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Moon is Setting in the West, And in the East...
Sun beam
Sun ray
First sun I see today
I wish I might
I wish I may
Have the wish I wish today
Cf. “Star Light, Star Bright,” a nursery rhyme of undetermined origin, dating to at least the 19th century.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 7:48 AM UTC
amazing when miracles
suddenly manifest
beach-birds rising and circling
high above the Audubon
mystery steeps in unfurled wings
we slow down
for a smile and a sigh
passing gracefully over
barely noticeable steps..
close and hollow..
ghost ***** ephemerally longing
for a moonbeam's generous hands
a universe dispatches
a casual touch
conflict, contrast..
each mating w/in its own species
the spirit is migratory..
eternal as we coexist naturally
lines are blurring
and separation becomes less apparent.
We are woven into the fabric
of the Universe.
we slow down
for a smile and a sigh
and you take my hand
And, yet, somehow
in transcendent moments
we are the miracles
Jan 4, 2016
Jan 4, 2016 at 2:53 AM UTC
The electric kettle grooves like a gavel bounce bouncing off the bench when the judge won the raffle
The sound waves baffle the mind as the refrigerator hums along to the microwaves song
A beep beepin’ melody as smoke’s creep creepin’ from the oven
And the blender is lovin’ the distraction
Keepin’ their eyes from the action
As he hatchets and dispassionately dispatches chickpeas left and right
No end to the violence in sight
Who cares about wrong from right
There will be hummus tonight
**** blender got his business done but now the fun begins as the stove channels the power of the sun to heat the pan and the plan is to fry the dough, those homemade doughnuts make the crowd go nuts but the sizzle of the grease unleashes the beast of the band, the main man, the rockstar, tattoo on his arm, rugged charm, protects you from harm, my man the fire alarm.
The fire truck sirens join the orchestration and soon the scene of devastation muffles into a hum, but umm, the night’s still young and we could still go, you know, I’m pretty loco for them Doritos and I may be burnt and poor but Taco Bell is open ’til 4.
Aug 15, 2018
Aug 15, 2018 at 8:01 AM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“I am Going to Call for a Major Investigation…”
-Our Red Queen on Truth [sic] Social
In Wonderland a new oppressive conjuration -
His name is Major Investigation
Sent at our screaming queen’s instigation
To drag us all down to her police station
Beginning with Kamala, Oprah, and Bono
For somewhat disapproving of him – oh, no!
The Major will punish their laissez-majesto -
In the name of freedom their heads must go!
(But of course the irony in all this biz
Is that their heads are even larger than his)
May 19, 2025
May 19, 2025 at 9:26 AM UTC
i was romanticising her genitalia like oysters,
i know the boys in school thought
of fish first, but the same boys didn’t go
to brothels and seen prostitutes oil up;
come to think of it, given the above facts
i’m going to romanticise her genitalia with leeches
from now on - and in reverse? as for me?
well plenty of skyscrapers... boring...
comparing her’s to leeches fits the strategy;
and once, and once a boy of sixteen could
buy a ***** mag in a shop in Ypres without
the female shop owner looking at him like some pervert.
Ypres? yeah, school trip, visiting world war one trenches,
enjoying the atmosphere running in them like a
crazy dispatches boy trying to **** some chlorine on the sly,
which i think is the scary bit, but don’t worry,
we had female troopers with us, so we could shoot and ****
and not worry about the infidelity of our girls back home
to some shady ‘enry ‘hinaski.
but from what else i can remember, six of us broke off
from the rest and decided to go to a brothel,
but being schoolboys we didn’t have enough money
or were simply not convincing material for a free one with
the belgian beauties -
i had to wait a few more years before i had enough dough
but then it was with a ukrainian beauty in poland
after i realised that the university i attended was a nunnery.
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Do Dreams Fade Away at Dawn? Or Do We?
Do dreams beyond the dreamer dream
The imagined lands from deepest night
In which we live and seem to love -
Do they exist at morning’s light?
Feb 1, 2025
Feb 1, 2025 at 8:54 AM UTC
but fear is eager to feed the one, while love knows only of feeding the many, so why is jealousy the ugly twin of love, when fear dispatches questions with audacity to disclaim an antonym partner; for with fear feeding the one, there's love feeding the many: as is due the parenting of the twins jealousy and audacity, jealousy synonymous with love became the crucifix; for it is fear that guides the feeding of the one, and allows love the harvest of feeding the many.
when you see it,
the great red dragon
and the beast from the sea painting
by william blake (i'm still searching for
that prized maxim of):
there are more stars than the grains
of sand on the beaches of all of earth -
well... looks like a pretty vacant void to me
where content with the blue but not content
with the darkness faking the number of stars
citing many stars in the wilderness of australia...
and you wonder at my addiction
to ******* videos and admiration
of ******* beauty and the contentment
of female eyes and my own predicament
of an acne-riddled phallus... well, that
makes two monks and glass eyes of dolls reflecting me,
why the only beauty implanted in me
was worth a pristine skin,
and you might consider standing naked
next to me - but of course the juicy parts
of the story would make me a serial killer -
rather than loving animals above humans,
but then loving animals above humans
made me more dehumanising -
not ready to write a vegan manifesto;
thank god i didn't shackle up with her
until she got bored and bore my children
and the law of the land told me to pay
alimony.
Mar 10, 2016
Mar 10, 2016 at 7:50 PM UTC
my mother and father cower under the kitchen table and my brothers are dead. my father has clammed up since asking me to tell him something he can take to his grave. this last week I’ve mastered placing my ear on the table in such a way I hear what I am supposed to do. impossible things that are no longer terrible. dispatches from a simpler region. for example, hack your roommate’s youtube account. also, poison the non-pregnant. my baby sister laughs with me when I say some of these aloud. she believes the table is possessed by the devil’s ghost. her beliefs are clear and specific. the ghost thinks itself the actual devil, and will need a good amount of therapy.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 1:07 PM UTC
Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
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!
Feb 16, 2025
Feb 16, 2025 at 6:30 PM UTC