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

The fruit of
the Pacific madrone
tree may at
first entice you
with its fiery
scarlet skin.

But bite
into it and
you’ll taste
astringent, gristly pith—
with hard seeds
like discarded
children’s teeth.

You will know
that foolish feeling
that lurks within
the shadow between
sugary expectations
and bitter truth.

There was a thunderstorm
In London the night the coroner called.

I flew to California to make sense of it all.

You were afraid of the high dive just the year before.

Last night spread your wings,  stepped off the ledge to soar.

You played with rocks as a child and prayed to them as an adult.

The ring you wore for protection,  Sorry it didn’t work.

But you will be forever young the way you did predict

And I’ll be haunted by the imagery of how you left

I will spread the dust of you in the places where you found some peace.

The hardest will be our elephant shaped tree. Where we played in the creek.

You believed what the demons told you. But I know the truth.
You were loved and my heart is broken. I will grow old without you

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

                               The I.T. Department Goes Wild

We are subject to the whims of every I.T. blighter
But never have we heard
That Hemingway was locked out of his own typewriter

Do not stand
          By my grave, and weep.
     I am not there,
          I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
     Do not stand
          By my grave, and cry—
     I am not there,
          I did not die.
— Clare Harner, The Gypsy, December 1934