Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“What Has it Got in its Pocketses?”
-Gollum in The Hobbit
A little British Army pocketknife
(Without which a gentleman is not
fully dressed)
A pen
A little
notebook
Oh, and a volume of Keats
What about you?
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Bright Light Free Will Four Square Full Gospel Missionary Temple of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Lamb the Reverend Doctor Master Bishop Billy Bob Hairdo and His Worshipful Lady Apostle Tyffanye a-Brangin’ Messages
…interrupted my peaceful Saturday morning
To brang me Messages
“The evil one rules this world!” proclaimed the Reverend Doctor Master Bishop
“That’s impossible,” I replied, “I know the Evil One;
I used to date her”
The Reverence Doctor Master Bishop
side-eyed His Worshipful Lady Apostle
Amen
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
They Came Home Long Enough to Take Mama’s Car Keys
In fading Kodachrome, in girlish glee
She poses with her birthday Volkswagen Bug
Rockin’ a shirtwaist dress and saddle shoes
Her spirits as high as her bouffant hairdo
From Elvis to the Beatles and beyond
And then a series of suburban Fords
And then the children left home – sometimes they ‘phone
And then her husband died; still, there was a Ford
The 1950s are leaving the building
In confusion, in fading Kodachrome
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Our Lives Whispered in the Wind
It’s not at all original to say
(we’ve heard it on the wind)
That wild geese in their far-flung flying vees
Are like autumn leaves, like years, winging away
Away, whispered away on an autumn breeze
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Certain Ancestor
Yes, sir,
When God made him
God broke the mold
Angrily
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
An Appeal to Old Men Who Wear Knee-Shortsies in Public
From one old man to another
Oh, yeah; the chicks will dig your hairy cankles
Your desperate desire for youth and cool
Your wrinkly stick legs from your thighs to your ankles
Please
Pappy, put your pants on you look a right fool
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Don’t Bring Your Humans When You Visit
Really.
Don’t bring your humans when you visit
Yes, I
love humans, and I know that your humans are special
But when they
burble “pupsies,” “cutest-wutest,” and “most-preciousist”
I want to
rip their lungs out and devour them
(says a chihuahua)
A dog
would never say “kissie-wissie num-num”
And not be
driven forever from the pack
And as for
babbling “wouldn’t hurt a fly”
Just how incredibly
stupid is that!
And a dog
would never, ever **** on the floor
Except
when thoughtless humans don’t open the door
Dogs don’t
lock humans in cages to die
Of
starvation and loneliness and thirst
And dogs
don’t drag their humans into other humans’ dens
Without
any preparation, and turn them loose
Uninvited,
unwanted, frightened and confused
To make a chaos
of other humans’ daily routines
When
humans force dogs into an unfamiliar cave
It’s not
the dogs who should learn to behave!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
She’s a Dear Old Thing
She’s a dear old thing
A widow-woman, aged, gentle, and frail
She bats her china-doll blue eyes in helplessness
And others, in pity, see to her needs
Her subtle whispers slice a marriage apart
She’s a dear old thing
The sympathetic mechanic tends her car for nothing
The minister’s family has her over for dinner
The neighbor mows her lawn at least once a week
Her subtle whispers get a young man fired
She’s a dear old thing
The local physician is easy on her bill
The highway patrol lets her off with a caution
Friends drive her to her Sunday school class
Her subtle whispers send a young woman to suicide
She’s a dear old thing
Beware, beware the subtle serpent’s sting
The taut rope’s swing, the pale night-walker’s cling
And her, because
She’s a dear old thing
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Don’t Bring Your Dogs When You Visit
V: Really.
Don’t bring your dogs when you visit
Yes, I
love dogs, and I know that your dogs are special -
R: My
pupsies are the cutest-wutest-most-preciousist
Doggies in
the whole while world give mummy
A
kissie-wissie num-num – oh, did Sissy growl at you?
She never
growls at anyone she wouldn’t hurt a fly
You must
have done something to provoke her
Could the
dogs play in your back yard; they love cats
I hope you
don’t mind that we didn’t call beforehand
We just
happened to be in the neighborhood and the dogs
Needed a
break after their long trip and oh!
Prissie
left you a present; isn’t she just the sweetest!
Oh, sorry
about that broken vase; you know
We keep
our house doggie-proof; your furniture
Just isn’t
steady I could find you a new vase
At the
dollar store – your grandmother’s? Really?
I wouldn’t
worry about the cats; they’ll come back
I think
they enjoy being chased; it’s a game to them
Sissie’s sneezing;
I think it’s your musty house
Dogs have
delicate noses, you know
Oh, how
cute – Prissie has just caught a cat!
Don’t you
like dogs? I just don’t understand that
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Haunting in the Persian Gulf
V: We need to withdraw from Indo-China
R: We did; that was over fifty years ago
V: Yes, but we need to get out of Indo-China
R: I don’t get your point
(The 19th century spelling of Indo-China
is on purpose – to the point, one might say.)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
I
Think Somehow I Can Live with That
An oak tree
as La Belle Dame Sans Merci?
I had an errand upon the ground,
and sat
When I was finished I considered tired
leaves
On skeletal branches reaching for –
me?
I thought somehow I could live with
that
And roots extending for water and
food
Like tentacles reaching out to me
Probably in hunger, but maybe in
love
I thought somehow I could live with
that
Getting down to the ground is easy
enough
Getting up is getting more
difficult with age
And someday I will not be getting off the ground
at all
I think somehow I can live with
that
For years ago I planted this tree in
this ground
Maybe I will rest under it awhile
I think somehow I can live with
that
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Laughing Stock
Pray you let us not be laughing‑stocks to other men’s humors
The Merry Wives of Windsor, III.i.87
But why do you say “laughing stock?”
What, in context, is a stock?
Is it a being capable of laughter?
How does a stock laugh?
Does it chuckle or chortle or bray?
Or is stock a thing people laugh at?
Are the stock’s feelings hurt?
Hey, everyone, look at the stock!
Did you ever see such a sad stock?
Be careful:
Someday a stock might take your place
At the cool kids’ table
And laugh at you
For writing “laughing stock”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Sheriff’s Office on Sunday Night
Now
The old week has ended; the new will begin tomorrow
Sunday night is the peaceful intermission
A bridge between worlds which can be its own
In Cinemascope and Technicolor
1878
The sheriff’s office is the color of dust
Crumbling adobe with a wooden porch
A kerosene lantern beside the door
A wanted poster or two tacked to the wall
Inside, a cluttered desk centers the room
A rack of Winchesters centers a wall
Through a window the desert sunlight angles in
Like a geometry problem set in Arizona
A ring of keys hang from a wooden peg
Surprisingly close to the iron-grated cells
Some chairs, law books, a deck of playing cards
A fire-blackened coffee pot that nobody ever cleans
1958
All is silent for a few minutes more
Howard Hawks has not yet taken his throne
The electricians and the sound technicians
Script girls and assistants, are still at the food truck
Now
On this side of the portal I cowboy up
With a glass of tea, popcorn in a bowl
My little dog dozing cozily in my lap
Chasing rabbits, not outlaws, in her dreams
Maybe this time the evil land baron
And his band of disposable desperadoes
Will bust his crooked brother out of jail
But I don’t think so
The old week has ended; the new will begin tomorrow
For now, me and the sheriff’s got business
