Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
You’ve Read Your Last
Free Article
Yes, I have.
(Click. Delete.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
You've Read Your Last Free Article - not exactly a poem
Monday, August 11, 2025
Leave It To Beaver - The Shakespearean I.C.E. Episode - pastiche and doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Leave it to Beaver – The Shakespearean I.C.E. Episode
Dramatis Personae:
Ward, a husband and father
Wally, Ward’s teenaged son
June, Ward’s wife, accomplishing hussefery in a dress and pearls
Beaver, Ward and June’s younger son
Ward:
Wally, I knowest thou hath merry plans for the morrow
But I must tell thee, to thy woe and sorrow
That thou’rt to stay home, and mow the lawn
Wally:
Oh, golly, gee, seest thou my face turn wan?
Beloved father, I cannot with thy orders comport
For I cannot find my comradely passport
Nor, in addition to that paperwork dearth,
Yea, verily, my certificate of birth!
Without which workers are subject to arrest
By I.C.E., as the news and warnings attest
June:
‘Tis true – I.C.E. feareth every gangbanger and yob
But they will imprison some kid at his job
And Superman might get thee; I.C.E. hired him today
That is his new truth, justice, and th’American way
Beaver:
Gee, Wally, if thou’rt carried to Alcatraz
Can I have thy room?
Voice Off:
We needeth no stinkin’ warrants!
Exeunt omnes, pursued by Dogberries with guns
Sunday, August 10, 2025
Disturbances in Church - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Disturbances in Church
The more I am
disturbed by liturgical novelties
The less I am
disturbed by God
The less I am
disturbed by liturgical novelties
The more I am
disturbed by God
All of which
is logical, not odd
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Stopping by Literary Interpretations on a Snowy Evening - shallow rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Stopping by Literary Interpretations on a Snowy Evening
From an idea by a friend in Thailand
Whose Deconstructionist Narrative this is I think I know
Their (because we mustn’t say “her” or “his”)
New Criticism is on their podcast, though
They will not see me applying Phenomenology here
To help fill up their woods with Neo-Post-Colonialist blow
My little solar car must think it other-gendered
To pause while I Conceptualize without a Starbuck’s near
Between Foucault and Derrida here
Next to the Sapir-Whorf Theory, and without a beer
They give their location transponder a Derrida shake
To demand a formal apology for this cultural mistake
The only other sound’s the Existential creep
Of Masonic Catholic Nazi Zionism on the take
Judgmental stereotypes are flying, shallow and cheap
But I have an Inner Reality to keep
And an Intertextual Analysis of Post-Structuralism to steep
And an Aesthetic Objectification of Dialectics to steep
Friday, August 8, 2025
As You Sometimes Remind Me - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
As You Sometimes Remind Me
One day I'll suddenly
recall:
The sun exists!
-Pasternak, “About
These Poems”1
When the
world focuses on a sheet of paper
In a little
room where hopes have come to die
The pen can’t
write out a prescription for life
Or limn the
remedies for a fallen world
We begin our
days as did Pasternak
A cup of tea against
the fear, the fear
Unsure of the
conflicting daily edicts
The babblings
about ballrooms, tariffs, and arrests
Pasternak
opened a window to light and fair
And to the
children playing in the snow he cried,
“My dears, what
century is it outside?”
1Translations vary
Thursday, July 31, 2025
I Am Spartacus! (Okay, Maybe Not) - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
I Am Spartacus! (Okay,
Maybe Not)
I am not Spartacus!
I don’t wanna die!
No, really, let’s discuss
The death of some other guy!
A Variation on the Privacy Tour - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Variation on the Privacy Tour
We Ask
Everyone to Respect Our Family’s Privacy
Except for
the Go Fund Me everyone will see
And the
reception at the Something Hall, date and time
And the Go
Fund Me everyone will see
And the
visitation, date and time
And the Go
Fund Me everyone will see
And the
services at Our Lady of Something, date and time
And the Go
Fund Me everyone will see
And the
interment at Something Cemetery, date and time
And the Go
Fund Me everyone will see
And the
scholarship fundraiser
And the Go
Fund Me everyone will see
The Strange Adventure of Tarzan, the Epsteinian Files, and The Burn-Bags of Opar - perfectly awful doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Strange Adventure
of Tarzan, the Epsteinian Files,
and The Burn-Bags of
Opar
I am not at liberty to lay before the inquiring minds of an
objective public the manner in which the curious document and chilling testimony
below came into my possession except that this was through the offices of a mysterious
midnight visitor on business from Porlock with a wooden leg and an ivory eye of
curious and antique design – or was that an ivory leg and a wooden eye? – and I
must assure the reader that it was the visitor from Porlock who made do with a
tapping ivory eye and a sightless wooden leg or sightless eye and tapping artificial
leg, not the pleasant village of Porlock, because English villages are
possessed of streets and lanes, not eyes and legs, on a stormy night at the
time of the equinoctial gales when ships put to sea knowing that they (the
crews, not the ships) must place their lives into the hands of our merciful and
loving God who knoweth all things and disposeth all things and so now pray take
a seat and light your pipe while I set my spectacles aright and read to you
this strange narrative entrusted to my discretion and, like, stuff:
The Strange Adventure
of Tarzan, The Epsteinian Files,
and The Burn-Bags of Opar
In search of The Lost Epsteinian Files
Tarzan slipped into a city ruinous and far
And in a secret tunnel that ran for miles
Stumbled onto The Burn-Bags of Opar
Queen Kristi of Opar, long in love with Tarzan
Sacrificed to her gods a dog and a goat
Then in an armored golf cart chased him as far as she can
(Okay, then, you
try to rhyme “Tarzan”)
To the edge of the Alligator Alcatraz moat
Tarzan, exhausted, thought he was a doomer
Kristi was sharpening her sacrificial knife
(or loading
her thirty-thirty; the records are unclear)
But she was death-whispered by Laura Loomer
Thus saving the burn-bags and our hero’s life
And The Epsteinian Files? The mystery no longer abodes -
The scripts for Gilligan’s Island, the lost episodes
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
"Just One More Thing" - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
“Just One More Thing”
His shabby raincoat
His rumply old suit and tie
His “Just one more thing…”
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Minefield and Altar - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Minefield and Altar
Approaching the Truth should be simple enough
But you can expect to lose a lot of pals
The maps you were given are unreliable
Because the chain of command keeps changing them
No matter what choices you make in the bush
Someone in authority will tell you you’re wrong
If you show initiative you will be wrong
If you follow orders you will still be wrong
If you survive you will be too late for chow
And the leaders steal your medals anyhow
A Point-and-Won't-Shoot Camera - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Point-and-Won’t-Shoot Camera
The concept of the point-and-shoot camera obtains
But a Me-‘Phone camera doesn’t see it that way
I stopped to watch a bug-grazing bird
Who approached me as if she wanted to visit
I took out my Me-‘Phone for a photograph
And it didn’t recognize my handsome face
And I had to tap a four-digit code
And the bird grew suspicious and flew away
O Egret, in your beautiful brown and white -
I truly understand your need for flight
Monday, July 28, 2025
High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
High-Pressure Dome in a Coffee Cup
Blue light - an illusion of comfort at dawn
The streaky windows frame a winter day
Illusions and delusions lying to us
For this is July, when hopes wither and die
The sun’s tentacles ripple across the fields
One of them slithers to your window and leers
Mocking the fantasies of your air-conditioned sleep
Beckoning you outside: come and be fried
The sun’s hot streakings, mortals seeking, they roam
As summer’s slithering death: a high-pressure dome
Sunday, July 27, 2025
A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing Civilization
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Three-Character-Group Code for Advancing
Civilization
Learn. To. Dostoyevsky.
Saturday, July 26, 2025
They. Learned. To. Code. - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
They. Learned. To. Code.
14-year-old boy identified as victim in University of New Mexico dorm shooting
I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform, justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.
-John Milton, “Of Education,” 1644
Learn. To. Code. is the fashionable chant
Staccato’d in every callow response
Make. America. Great. through cliché’ and cant
To force a lath-and-plaster renaissance
The Great Conversation of books and thoughts
The Great Dialectic of civilization
Are now toys, guns, and video games, all for nought
Ferality within a generation
Within a generation, within a blink
They. Learned. To. Code.
They did not learn to think
Friday, July 25, 2025
The Apex Predator - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The
Apex Predator
They…
Have watched me rise from the darkness of war
Dripping with my enemies’ blood
-Beowulf,
trans. Raffel, lines 151-153
The apex predator feeds upon the flesh
Of those who wanted desperately to
live
To hew and chew and gnaw and digest
and mesh
With those who died with no desire
to forgive
The apex predator feeds while
others starve
The sentient flee from him in grievous
fear
But he always wins, his victims then
to carve
In bloody fields and haunted forests
drear
War ends violently in drang und
sturm
And the apex predator is obviously
The
Worm
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time - a poem about the guy who bit the head off the bat
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
We Ask Everyone to Respect Our Family Privacy at This Time
“Our family privacy” – people keep saying that
A friend came over and mowed my rankling lawn
Because finding a lawnmower mechanic these days
Is like searching for a unicorn in a shopping mall
Their family privacy – I’m blessed with friends
But lawnmower mechanics seem to be extinct
The temp today was 98 at noon
Nobody chants “Learn. To. Code.” anymore
Their family privacy – chicken pot pies
Are on sale at Brookshire’s for 88 cents
I’ll mail all those bills this afternoon
That’s a really nice shirt you’re wearing today
Their family privacy – a middle-aged woman
Sheds tears upon an altar of VHS tapes
In privacy
Tuesday, July 22, 2025
A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body - yes, a 5-7-5 unworthy of a senryu
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A 5-7-5 About Listening to Your Body
I listen to my body
All day, all night (Mary Ann)
If I eat too much
Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar - rhyming doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Piso Mojado Sounds Somewhat Vulgar
Piso mojado en Tejas y Colorado
Does not exactly trip from my English tongue
Cuidado that floor in El Dorado
For piso sounds slippily close to dung!
Monday, July 21, 2025
Loose Vowels - not really a poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Loose Vowels
A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes
Y – why?
(Asking for a dipthong)
The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The New Pastor Threatens the Congregation with Guitars
Our new pastor has visions, dreams beyond the stars
At Mass last week he informally presented
This suggestion: a choir. And guitars
But peace will still obtain, tho’ that twanging jars -
Guitars in church are why ear plugs were invented
Sunday, July 20, 2025
Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Betrayed With a Kiss-Cam
And the sunlight clasps
the earth
And the moonbeams kiss
the sea:
What is all this sweet
work worth
If thou kiss not me?
-Shelly, “Love’s Philosophy”
A kiss is just a kiss, as
Dooley Wilson sang
In a Casablanca that never
was
A kiss to give one’s life a
bit of tang
A kiss to set a lonely heart
abuzz
But great unwashed mobs stacked
in their masses
Close-looped in a failed sub-culture
of dust
Metal in their noses and tattoos
on their asses
Can never find truth without
a trace of trust
For love can never depend
upon
The vigilante cruelty of a
jumbo-tron
Tech company Astronomer launches investigation into
'kiss cam' moment at Coldplay concert - ABC News
The Crown of Rachel - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Crown of Rachel
From an idea inspired by Nat Lipstadt while we discussing something else
A dream about our teacher Akiva of Yavna
When the Romans took a respite from murdering us:
In our youth we approached a little house
Though we were tired from following the goats all day
Akiva was tired from tending his beans
And from Jacob-wrestling with great ideas
But he smiled and asked what he could do
Do for us little children bubbling with questions
“I am inventing the synagogue,” he might have said
“What is a synagogue? A new kind of Temple?”
“It is a machine for learning, a temple of the mind
A school, an altar upon we sacrifice our ignorance”
“But the Romans won’t let us sacrifice anything”
“Sometimes” said Akiva wryly, “they sacrifice us
But in the synagogue we will have a little light
Light and Torah and learning, always learning”
“We want to learn.”
“Oh? And what do you want to learn?” he asked of us
“We want to learn.”
He smiled and sat us at a table under his vines
“I learned to read when I was forty,” he said
As he took out a tablet and a stylus
One of us said, “I can’t imagine being that old!”
Our teacher smiled, smoothed the day from the wax
And instructed us to attend to the Word
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
That is what he said, not what he wrote in the wax
Akiva prayed, he prayed for us, and wrote
And in the wax the letters formed as fire
As gold and fire:
“Bereshit Bara Elohim…”
Friday, July 18, 2025
A Cure for the Common Scold - doggerel (thinking of some of the cast in the Harry Potter films)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Cure for the Common Scold
For
___________________________
With wisdom, age,
and experience a man
Comes to
appreciate that most useful tool
and the
entertainment value as part of the plan
In the sadly-neglected
ducking stool
1970 - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
1970
When I came home I was asked
by a boyhood friend
“I haven’t seen you lately;
where have you been?”
I’m still wondering about
that
Death Falls Apart in White - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
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”
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Highway Patrol - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
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
Monday, July 14, 2025
Hallowed be Thy App - poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Will CBS Now Broadcast from Fox Studios? poem
Lawrence Hall
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
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Texas Children Die; Texas Authorities Babble - takeout from a press conference on 5 July 2025
Lawrence Hall
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
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