Death Falls Apart in White - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Death Falls Apart in White

 

Snow does not fall in July, and yet there is white

White falling like large snowflakes or small flower petals

White scatterings across the summer lawn

Ghostly among the leafy sheltering oaks

 

The hawks are back

 

An egret about her business of bugs and snakes

Sudden violence high up in the gentle air

Flesh and life claw-ripped, torn, and devoured

Unheard below, only feathers falling like snow

 

The hawks are back

 

This artificial paradise of feeders and seeders

And flower-bordered lawn is a scape of death

From which the gentle rabbits, birds, and squirrels

Withdraw in silent fear

 

The hawks are back

The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Last Nights of Club Ozymandias in San Diego

 

 

Shelley always makes one think

(often about how to pronounce his middle name)

 

 

I met a tout along a darkening street

Who said – “two trunkless legs of neon dance

There, upon that wall, on neon feet

An electromechanical contrivance to prance

 

In remnants, but wiggling hips and pouty lips

Tell that the artisan well caught the lust

Of lonely sailors as a pretty girl strips -

In time those young men and the dancer will be dust

 

These letters appear, written in cold fire:

I am the Queen of Club Ozymandias

Look upon me with your hot desire

Look upon me, and imagine us…

 

Tomorrow all will be leveled

 

A housing estate will arise, a planner’s scar

Nothing will remain of laughter and drinks

Of sailors flinging their pay upon the bar

For a dancing girl now silent as the Sphinx”

Highway Patrol - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Highway Patrol

 

An episode of Highway Patrol appears -

(With Broderick Crawford it should be widescreen)

Iron-jawed Bill Boyette as his sergeant

Today’s show features a passenger train

 

A man in a coat and tie, smoking a cigarette

Stops his DeSoto at a telephone booth

Wildly high fins (the DeSoto, not the telephone booth)

Inserts a dime and, turning a dial, he places a call

 

And Grandpa takes some time to explain

To his grandchild

The telephone, the tie, the passenger train

I Have the Epstein Files - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

I Have the Epstein Files

 

I carry the Epstein files in my pocket

A paperback edition from City Lights

You said you were going to hitchhike to Big Sur

With a dude named Gautama. I have the files

 

I thought you’d like to know

Hallowed be Thy App - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Hallowed be Thy App

 

“…that unmistakable English church-going pace…holding, bound in black lamb-skin and white celluloid, the liturgies of a half dozen conflicting sects…”

 

-Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

 

One sees a Bible only occasionally

Even more rarely a Sunday missal

Which, with coat and tie and the mantilla

Are relics of a courtlier, more dignified time

 

The faithful now carry the scriptures as apps

The rosary the same (maybe next to Candy Crush)

An electronic conscience funded by an investment firm

And available at a low introductory price

 

A talking box - it must be Godly and true

And just as eternal as the Apple II

Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios? poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios?

 

 

Every morning the editors of the Berlin daily newspapers and the correspondents of those published elsewhere in the Reich gathered at the Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Goebbels or by one of his aides what news to print…

 

-Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 245

 

 

CBS is now as obedient as Fox

Who would have imagined? Who woulda thunk?

Government agitprop on every Orwellian box -

Shoveling deep rund into our funk

Texas Children Die; Texas Authorities Babble - takeout from a press conference on 5 July 2025

  Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Texas Children Die; Texas Authorities Babble

 

The governor’s Press Conference

In Which the Press were Shut Down Pretty Quickly

 

I just can’t say enough about our colleagues I just can’t say enough about we are Texans and we come together as one as a family we come together community share quintessential Texas we unite they could have fallen apart double-down relentless when the job is completed 24/ 7 day and night Texans and Americans everyone what I’m going to sign today every asset magnitude process proclamation immediate and ongoing gratitude in advance to President Trump and all his administration his love for Texas I want to thank Governor Abbott absolutely devastating he loves Texas grieving beautiful children all the resources of the federal government walking alongside each other community I’ve visited with the president already he will honor that assets on the ground crisis weather event alerted airframe coasties Texas assets request customs and border protection skill set resource Department of Homeland Security response flying acronyms entities utilized FEMA standing at an enhanced level plugged in engaged fulfil role amazing you are an example to the nation hearts are with you and walking beside you fixed-wing aircraft airframe helicopters fixed-wing helicopters efforts engaged talking to the president throughout the day families folks number one priority is people process public infrastructure strong you are an example responding helping neighbors hurting grieving God process help prayers are with you President Trump and Melania are praying for you prayer amazing multiple stage agencies partners my thanks to and to and request and thank you for being here an important message I’ve been to a number of disasters impressed with Governor Abbot’s leadership proud grateful for men and women standing behind us here we are all reacquainted rejoined with their family members it’s who your family is we come together as a family as Texas this is who our family is we owe it to them the governor and his team will be relentless family it means a lot we appreciate President Trump and you before I was crazy enough to run for congress ha ha we came down here to blah blah it hits home personally I can’t say enough about extraordinary I can’t say enough I can’t say enough leadership this unfortunate circumstance reached out responding Army corps support and other stuff teamwork collaboration far from finished the job prayerful stuff we’re dealing with finger-pointing and second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking circumstances I understand that parents and media heroic efforts finish the job be with the people pray I’m the only one at this table who lives on the Guadalupe River I barely got home I ushered in a crew fifty-year lawyer I saw first-hand the body bags helicopter ride nobody saw this coming arm in arm hand in hand process time now for recovery toilsome task stay together and we’ll get this done thank you on the behalf of as I look around the room I don’t see differences I see one team working together our community one team those in peril those who are lost sees this day prayer thank God my heart is broken we will not stop Madame Secretary your federal team life saving we will our teams FEMA border patrol partners Coast Guard work forward state personnel one last thing most common word prayer prayers are answered in so many ways prayer might be the reason the water stopped rising prayer does work your prayers have made a difference continued prayers pray so much never imagined prayers matter we thank God almighty God has blessed Texas…

 

(A few reporters were then allowed to ask a few questions which were, at best, answered only with vagaries and filler-language.)

Note of 8 July. Stephania Jiminez says it much better than I ever could:

KSAT anchor goes viral for 'speaking the truth' about Texas leaders

But, Hey, No King Here - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

But, Hey, No King

 

The most lawless ruler is a Man of the People

Posturing upon some whited balcony

His pouting lips frozen in a perpetual sneer

While his toadies cheer their bondage, and call it freedom

 

The semi-automatic rifle is their Bible

Barbed wire is their semi-automatic law

The Constitution is but the president’s whims

(Let us now pray

for his bowel movements today)

 

Congress and the Supreme Court with feet of clay

Await in fear, in disgrace, in moral decay

For a Murat to come and brush them away:

 

“Citizens, you are dismissed.”

If My Daughter Had Been Present at The Last Supper - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

If My Daughter Had Been Present at the Last Supper

 

And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body…”

 

-Saint Matthew 26:26-29, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition via Bible Gateway

 

And my daughter said unto our Lord,

“Excuse me…excuse me, Sir, but is this matzoh fresh?

Did you check the expiration date?

Is it really kosher?  Is it from a fair-trade source?”

 

 

(Judas has left the building.)

A Walk Between Worlds - poem about Alzheimer's

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

A Walk Between Worlds

 

Stage 2 Alzheimer’s

 

She walked into our house for lunch today

The puppy gamboled at her feet in welcome

And was treated to doggie-kisses and doggie-hugs

She loves the dog

She is no longer sure about us

Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains: poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Laundry Day - The Solemnity of All Stains

 

The washing machine baptizes our busy days:

A shirt freshly stained with this morning’s coffee

Wrinkledy tees in grimy greens and greys

A child’s blue jeans all sticky with toffee

 

Dish towels we allowed to get old-food smelly

A nice dress sock on which the puppy peed

Blankies from the couch in front of the telly

The terry-cloth that toweled the shaving bleed

 

In the laundry room where all these wreckages convene

There to be made all fresh and bright and clean –

 

Let us give thanks for the washing machine!

 

A Shepherd’s Path from the Mountain of La Salette

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

 

A Shepherd’s Path from the Mountain of La Salette

 

For Reverend Ron Foshage, M.S.

Our Lady’s Faithful Missionary

 

 

The old order changeth, yielding place to new

 

-Tennyson, Idylls of the King

 

 

We don’t know if the cart drivers have stopped swearing

Or if the potato crops are doing well this year

Or if the rocks have indeed become wheat

Or if everyone prays an Ave each day

 

We don’t know if the Field of Coin still flourishes

Or if the people of Corps faithfully attend Mass

Or if barefoot boys and girls still herd sheep

Or if they listen, as did Melanie and Maximin

 

But we do know that Our Lady of La Salette

To care for us through our pilgrimage in time

In a land far from that holy mountain

Has blessed us with Her most faithful missionary

 

Through the ordinal cycles of seasons and feasts

He served the Table in the Name of the Lord

He baptized us, taught us, confirmed us, confessed us

Married us, anointed us, and buried our dead

 

Through blessed years and tears and nights and days –

But now to the Will of God

We surrender him with thanks and prayers and praise

 

 

And God fulfils Himself in many ways

 

-Tennyson

Tomatoes and Midday Cicadas - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Tomatoes and Midday Cicadas

 

 

Where are the songs of Spring?

 

-Keats

 

 

The tomatoes are split and discolored in the heat

Like bathing beauties who have beached too long

And gathering up the past totter home at dusk

Surprised to be all burnt and wrinkled with age

 

The sun of April who was a lusty lover

Caressing and warming their soft young skin

Is now a middle-aged man baring his chest

And seeking love in other vegetable beds

 

The cicadas of noon mourn in the withering heat

In remembrance of spring, youthful and sweet

Surgery in Three Parts - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Surgery in Three Parts

 

 

1 - Fear for Tomorrow

 

I don’t know what will happen to her tomorrow -

The anaesthesia and the surgical trauma

Invading all those organs compromised

Compromised by age and failing health

 

There’s a contract coffee bar in the lobby main

One could savour a coffee and a croissant

While waiting for a messenger of life or death

Does anyone know where the chapel is?

 

A marriage should not end in ICU

In the echoing chants of “Code Blue…Code Blue…”

 

2 - Fear for Today

 

Morning is filled with possibilities

But today…

Morning is fraught with possibilities

 

3 – Deo Gratias

 

The surgeon and the RN visit me

In a cold-as-a-morgue fluorescent-lit room

With their masks loose about their necks

To report that all went well

 

Bombs on the First Sunday of Summer - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Bombs – All Sizes

 

-As Jack Kerouac did not say

 

 

If we are all going to be destroyed…let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

 

-C.S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age,” 1948

 

 

Bombs fall tonight, but then they fall every night

Conceived over single-malt, born of the generals

Suffering not at all as their electronics systems

Guide them in the ways the Bible salesman deems

 

Bombs fall tonight, on a nuclear facility, they say

We can only ask the ashes and winds

While in our triumphalist Ozymandian presumption

We fancy that bombs will never fall on us

 

Bombs fall tonight – and have we been doing

Sensible and human things?

Chopsticks International - Rhyming Couplet

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Chopsticks International

 

Forgive me for any insensitive remarks

But do piano students in China practice “Forks?”

Will He Borrow Augusto Pinochet's Old Uniform? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Will He Borrow Augusto Pinochet’s Old Uniform?

 

While reviewing his troops from his high platform

          Hup! Toop! Threep! Fourp!

Will Our Leader stand tall in uniform

          Right shoulder HARMS!

Glittery with medals and a shiny firearm

          Boom! Tiddy! Boom! Tiddy! Boom-Boom-Boom!

Swelling with pride in his goosestepping swarm

          Ta-ra-ra-BOOM-dee-ay!

Let Us Celebrate NO TYRANTS DAY - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Let Us Celebrate No Tyrants Day

 

 

“We have no king but Caesar!”

 

-A long-ago mob as written in St. John 19:15

 

 

Even the King of Kings is under the Law

And too, since Magna Carta, our earthly King -

From the people and their voices he can only draw

Such powers as their assemblies vote to bring

 

But may God protect us from a Common Man

Slithering to supremacy through serpentine speech

Emboldened by the power of cabal, club, and clan

Mobs chanting for their master, a soul-sucking leech

 

God gives us His grace in a King and Queen

Republics just give us the guillotine

Pushing the Envelope - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Pushing the Envelope

 

What envelope is being pushed?

From whom to whom – across the room?

And why should it be pushed at all?

Is the envelope an English A-1?

An American business-size?

A birthday check for someone to steal?

Pushing a broom, pushing a sale

Pushing a pen – some sense in those

But what is the purpose in pushing

An envelope?

                             And did you stamp it?

Blueberry Portal - poem

  

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Blueberry Portal

 

 

“In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices”

 

-C. S. Lewis, “Dymer”

 

 

In the drowsy, bee-sy afternoon

Picking blueberries in the white-sun heat

Voices. Conversation. But it’s only the bees

While the blueberries dance and spin and whirl

 

What do bees talk about? They don’t tell me

And I don’t need to know – but we’re all friends

And the dancing blueberries – they’re having fun

They welcome me into another world

 

The leaves write me little love-letters that say

How happy to have you home for an hour today!

They'll Be Kissing Someone Else's Boots Next Year - rhyming couplete

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

They’ll Be Kissing Someone Else’s Boots Next Year

 

I saw a cleaner landscape as I traveled today:

All the TRUMP flags have mysteriously gone away

Garish On-Your-Face In-Your-Face Makeup at Twenty Paces - a poem of sorts

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Garish On-Your-Face In-Your-Face Makeup at Twenty Paces

 

There are several forms of government:

 

Monarchy

Kakistocracy

Oligarchy

Autocracy

Democracy

Anarchy

 

But Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk have given us

A new form of government via online spat

We’re ruled by cheerleader moms who shriek and cuss

So what is the scholarly Greek word for that?

 

 

Hey, red-caps, don’t start all-capping “WE’RE A REPUBLIC”; there is no pure democracy and no pure republic, and in common usage they are synonymous. Don’t just chant stuff you hear on the InterGossip. Read an ordinary high school textbook on government (maybe not an Oklahoma adoption, though).

Pushkin the Poetic Cat - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Pushkin-Cat

 

Long, lean, and lanky, he slithers like a snake

With blue-grey fur; he makes the mousies quake

 

But I haven’t seen him in several days

He roams the woods and fields, he hunts, he strays

 

He’s proud and brave, my handsome Russian Blue -

Did he cross claws with a treacherous Chartreux?

 

Did they exchange hisses at just ten paces

Does his little corpse lie in wild snowy spaces?

 

I hope his life hasn’t ended like that

For I very much miss my dear little cat

Bishops Who Roar Like Lions - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

Bishops Who Roar Like Lions

 

Your Grace:

 

There have been bishops who have roared like lions

But your demeanor is that of a house pet

Please rise from your couch in Caesar’s triclinium

And return to the streets to serve God’s people

What Did He Say? - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

What Did He Say?

 

She sat on the porch with her big orange cat

All cuddled up happily in her lap

When we arrived to drive her to an appointment

In a large building in the center of town

 

 

The doctor said something about stage 2

 

 

She had little to say as we drove away

And when we left her at her home again

She sat on the porch with her big orange cat

All cuddled up happily in her lap

The New Poets of England and America - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The New Poets of England and America

 

 

Young poetry is the breath of parted lips.

 

-Robert Frost, introduction

The New Poets of England and America

 

 

They’re no longer new; they’re not even alive

Those post-war young voices of strength and hope

Working through the wastelands after men of destiny

Blitzed beauty with bullets, bombers, and barbed wire

 

Some of them soldiers, and war-weary all

They were worn out, but determined and young

Digging out the words they had hidden away

Cleaning them up for service to humanity

 

They were young; they were very much like you

Doing their duty as artists and poets must do

 

 

The New Poets of England and America

Ed. Donald Hall et al

Introduction by Robert Frost

New York: Meridian Books, 1957

The Texas Sanhedrin - doggerel

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

The Texas Sanhedrin

 

 

Sponsored by Sen. Phil King, a Republican from Weatherford, the bill requires every classroom to visibly display a poster [of The Ten Commandments] sized at least 16 by 20 inches. The poster can’t include any text other than the language laid out in the bill, and no other similar posters may be displayed.

-Ten Commandments in every classroom: Texas bill nearing law | The Texas Tribune

 

Our legislature suppresses the pilgrims’ way

They’ve established a government church; we must obey

And from its edicts free Texans dare not stray

(Though the lawmakers work on the Sabbath day!)

When Teachers Fold Their Leathery Wings and Sleep - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

When Teachers Fold Their Leathery Wings and Sleep

 

“This is the day the Lord hath made…”

 

When teachers fold their leathery wings and sleep

Hidden away in their bat-cave deep

In the darkness where foul things lurk and creep -

Only then may children freely laugh and leap

 

No more tiresome lessons about “lie” and “lay’

A child may lie in the glass or lay in the hay

Run out to the lawns and fields to play

And joy in the freedom of each summer day

 

The 20^th of June? A fallacious rule -

Summer begins on the last day of school!

I Miss Kosher Sam's - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

 

I Miss Kosher Sam’s

 

Wish I could remember what street it was on

It’s been so long ago, when Kosher Sam’s

Was my coffee shop, and I was young

One day I also ordered a slice of cake

 

The cheerful waitress asked me how it tasted

I suggested that maybe it was a little bit dry

She grabbed it up and rushed it to the kitchen

She and another waitress and The Sam Himself

 

They took clean forks and tasted and talked about it

They took more forks and tasted and talked again

And appeared to come to a mishpat at last

Sam brought to me what was left of the cake

 

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” he firmly ruled

I took and ate (tho’ it really was a little dry)

On an evil day I left San Diego

I wish I’d stopped to say goodbye to Kosher Sam’s