Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

This is not Who We Are

(or maybe it is)

This is not who we are we need to come together as one when you get home just hug your children we’re better than this our thoughts and prayers are with you one victim is too many we’re [someplace] proud from an abundance of caution active shooter situation enough is enough We. Will. Find. You. no more excuses WHEN? unspeakable we know many of you are grieving our community this senseless crime this is not a reflection of who we are this type of behavior will not be tolerated

Saturday, June 6, 2026

Power Outage with Dog - poem

Lawrence Hall

mhall46184@aol.com

Power Outage with Dog

With spasms and flickers the power failed at dusk

All whirrings and buzzings sputtered into silence

While rain clawed at the windows, demanding admittance

A battle-lantern centered a puddle of light

My little doggie shivered in my lap

Through flaring lightning and seismic thunder-blasts

Wanting to disappear into my arms

Wanting a world free of thunderstorms

A world free of storms – in the darkness I muse -

That’s my hope too when I read the news

Gradations of War - couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Gradations of War

Why does he say an all-out war?

Is there somehow a some-in war?

Typewriter, Telephone, Dictionary, Thesaurus - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Typewriter, Telephone, Dictionary, Thesaurus

The typewriter is holy

(okay, Ginsberg got that right, at least)

Over the years a series of corded telephones

Stood to their duty next to an Underwood

That’s now stowed away in a closet somewhere

The dictionary and thesaurus are retired

Over the years a series of wordy battles

Have been fought over this Polonian plain:

Thesis and antithesis to synthesis

Theses, structures and sources, papers and poems

Over the years

A little glowing machine now centers my desk

But verse and prose, and you and I, are forever

There's an Old Sheriff in Town - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

There’s an Old Sheriff in Town

In Technicolor!

This evening I ordered the twenty-first century to shut up

And caught the time machine to dusty Diablo

A corrupt city government, an outlaw gang

And soft-spoken Audie Murphy to set things right:

You’re new in town, aren’t you?

I came to find out who did the killing

Somebody’s running off our herd!

He’s out for revenge and headed straight for Boot Hill.

If I was smart, I’d shoot you right now.

You still got a deputy named O’Mara around here?

That's the trouble. He kissed me good night... and I liked it

You trying to make yourself a reputation?

Maybe you're turning into a human being

I don’t hand out tin stars as licenses for murder

He only stole one horse, didn’t he?

You go through those swinging doors and you’ll be dead

I’ll take good care of him, doctor

You going to be hanging around Diablo for a while?

You going to be hanging around Diablo for a while?

Yep – all Saturday afternoon, with popcorn and a soda

Lines from Ride Clear of Diablo, Universal International, 1954

Monday, June 1, 2026

A Summer of Blueberries, a Summer of War - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

SUMMER OF WAR
IRAN THREATENS NEW STRIKES ON ISRAEL
CEASEFIRE COLLAPSES
OIL SURGES

A Summer of Blueberries, a Summer of War

-Drudge

This morning’s news is all about the wars

For oceans and oil, and oceans of oil

For the ideological souls of men

For a tyrant screaming through a midnight screen

Our morning is all about the blueberries

Fresh dewy little globes among the leaves

Magic treats for children, fairies, and elves

Or for a dream-lover with flashing dark eyes

Blueberries fresh and new, colored sky-blue -

I picked a basket of them just for

you!

Sunday, May 31, 2026

It Doesn't Matter if You Write a Good Poem - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

It Doesn’t Matter if You Write a Good Poem

A poet’s autobiography is his poetry

-Yevtushenko

It doesn’t matter if you write a good poem Today

But only that you write a poem Now

The poem to follow will be better Tomorrow

Or maybe not -

But it will BE Forever

Delaney Hall in New Jersey is not my Cousin - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Delaney Hall in New Jersey is not my Cousin

…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

-Amendment IV

From a few miles away, The Lady with the Lamp

Shines her light of freedom upon a concentration camp

Thank you for your attention to this matter

Saturday, May 30, 2026

Grace and a Wheelchair - poem

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Grace and a Wheelchair

At the coffee shop

I found myself kneeling, as if in church

Crawling behind some empty tables in search

Of an electrical outlet for my new friend Grace

Whose mother wheeled her in for a space

And Grace needed electricity for her little screen

Where a red cow played in a pasture green

“Will this outlet do?” “Oh, it’s too far away”

So good folk formed a committee today:

“If we move this table back, and shift this chair…”

Family together – it’s right and fair

Thus Grace was enthroned, the queen of our hearts

Her subjects had all played their several parts

Grace has no filters, no volume control

But, oh! What a happy, blessed soul!

And I returned to my coffee as if everything had happened

Thursday, May 28, 2026

It Looks Like You are Using an Ad Blocker - couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

It Looks Like You are Using an Ad Blocker

V: It looks like you are using an ad blocker

R: Yes, yes, I am – how clever of you to notice!

Upon Being Invited to a Zoom Meeting about Japanese Poetry - Senryu

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Upon Being Invited to a Zoom Meeting about Japanese Poetry

As Basho Did Not Say

Soft winds do not zoom

The sky silently shares dreams

But not on glass screens

The Bishop of Rome and an A. I. Tower of Babel - rhyming couplet

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

The Bishop of Rome and an A.I. Tower of Babel

Artificial intelligent is not where life is at -

So everybody smoke, smoke, smoke that ziggurat!

An Excerpt from Kubla Don - as Coleridge did not say

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

An Excerpt from Kubla Don

As Coleridge Did Not Say

On sacred land did Kubla Don

A tatty wrestling ring decree

Where bit-coins, his sacred lucre, ran

From taxes and seizures measureless to man

Down to a soulless sea

So eighteen acres of historic ground

With guards and guns were barb-wired round

And there were gift shops bright with ringing tills,

Where blossomed many trinkets (not for free)

Crushing the last few bits of greenery…

Thank you for your attention to this matter

Monday, May 25, 2026

A Skull and a Missing Boundary Marker - poem for Memorial Day

Lawrence Hall

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love