Lawrence Hall

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

The U.S.S. Doris Miller – a Tall Ship for a Tall Man

"And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by"

-John Masefield, “Sea Fever

Iron and Steel

For now she is only numbered heaps of steel

Laid out in structure-order at Newport News

Muscled into being through thought and power

Strong craftsmen of the builders’ brotherhood

CVN 81

The lifts, the links, the wirings, the welds, the works

Plans, bolts, tools, heat, sweat, pain, maybe some blood

A touch of salty language for motivation

And then someday

“God bless this ship and all who sail in her”

The Soul of a Ship

The Doris Miller will sail, that brave tall ship -

And Doris Miller himself will be her star

An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief - intemperate political doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

An Idyll of the Decorator-in-Chief

Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep

Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap

-Kipling

Americans are a couch-bound people who

Applaud a souffle being fluffed on t.v.

And argue the fine points of Chef So-and-So’s roux

While their sailors and Marines go hungry

across the sea

Sunday, August 23, 2026

"I Don't Know What's Going on in There!" - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

“I Don’t Know What’s Going on in There!”

“Oh, you have made me very angry, very angry indeed!”

-Marvin the Martian in a Bugs Bunny cartoon

The convention would be to say he stormed out of church

But in his time of life he can’t storm at all

Except maybe like Marvin the Martian

(If Martians suffer arthritis and age) while I held the door for him

(No, not for a Martian, for a creaky, cranky old earthling)

“You saw me come in! I came to Mass! Now I’m going out!

I don’t know what’s going on in there! It’s all a mess!

And I don’t have to put up with it! I’ll watch Mass on t.v.!”

I never learned what was going on in there

Divine services are like that – what do we really know?

But he, and I, and you – we just do our best

Friday, August 21, 2026

Music for Biology Class - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

Music for Biology Class

for Miss Rose Althea Holmes

of happy memory

According to the curriculum code

This week we are in dissection mode

Each waving a tiny knife and prick and goad

Let us now sing “Song of the Open Toad”

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Hot Scrambled Verse Comin' Right Up! - poem (of a sort)

Lawrence Hall

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

Hot Scrambled Verse Comin’ Right Up!

Too hot to read

Too hot to write

Too hot to think coherently

Too hot to sort an iamb from an iambnot

(Gasp!)

Wednesday, August 19, 2026

When I Was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

When I was a Child I Saw a Dinosaur

There are not going to be many more dinosaurs

-C. S. Lewis, “De Descriptione Temporum,” 1955

When I was a child I saw a dinosaur

A dinosaur at the end of the lane

Rearing its head high above the pasture gate

It might want to eat little boys, I feared

So I held really still, and closed my eyes

And closed my eyes, so tightly closed my eyes

And closed my eyes, and then…opened my eyes –

The dinosaur (it didn’t roar) was still there!

When I was a child I saw a dinosaur

A real-life little-boy-hungry carnivore!

I wish I could see it again

A Typewriter Maps the Battlefield of the Mind - poem

Lawrence Hall

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

A Typewriter Maps the Battlefield of the Mind

Everyone who survived began a book

In basements, cheap apartments, or rented rooms

Underwoods clattering in anger, in rage

For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

Coffee cups, beer rings, stolen motel ashtrays

Cigarette smoke wreath around the keys

While muses watched from the crumbling plaster wall

Maybe a crucifix, maybe Miss March

Cheap typing paper from the corner store

A sandwich falling apart along with life

A last assault through a paragraph

Before rushing to the bus stop for the night shift

“Y’all wasn’t in a real war,” the old men said

But the memories and the typewriter keys

Still bled

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

A Critical Topic in Jewish-Catholic Interfaith Dialogue - doggerel

Lawrence Hall

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

A Critical Topic in Jewish-Catholic Interfaith Dialogue

When eating hot dogs made with Hebrew National franks

Do we say grace with “Toda”

“Grates”

“Thanks?”

Monday, August 17, 2026

Cute Little Biological Markers - poor attempts at Senryu

Lawrence Hall

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

Cute Little Biological Markers

For our Emily

Who set a thoughtful challenge

To define the term

The lives of our frogs

Biological markers

Tell us of toxins

If frogs have clean air

And fresh clean water and bugs

We will have clean frogs

Healthy little frogs

To celebrate our health too

They give us great joy!

"They Knew What They Signed Up For" - poem

Lawrence Hall

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