Lawrence Hall
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Lawrence Hall
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!
Lawrence Hall
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 - just make it 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!
