Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Dachshund Dreaming of Rabbit for Supper
My little Luna-Dog has a bad habit
Of chasing after her back-yard rabbit
But still let not your mind be troubled or fraught
With fear for that rabbit who is never caught!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Pirates to Starboard next to the Dairy Cows!
My neighbors’ field is low;
it tends to flood
Their children sail their
kayak as pirates bold
And laugh and splash upon the
sloshy mud
Swallows and Amazons in
search of gold
Most comfortable with our
feet propped up
We old folks sit upon the
porch all dry
Each an admiral with his
coffee cup
And let the heavy monsoon pass
us by
We too were pirates in our dreaming
youth
We wish we still were – and
that’s the truth!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Little Thoughts of God
We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.
-Papa Benedict, 24 April 2005
Our children play with little toy trucks and trains
Comb Barbie’s hair and then arrange Ken’s tie
They get fussed at for pulling the puppy’s tail
They cuddle up with kittens and Winnie-the-Pooh
Our children create worlds with construction paper
Discover Narnia in a new box of crayons
They get fussed at for writing on the wall
They squirm in church; they tickle Daddy’s beard
Our children love their chapter books (and us!)
“Is this a picture of a pirate ship?”
They get fussed at for asking soooooo many questions
“Daddy, will you read us a story now?”
Dear Lord –
Let our children grow up and make us proud
Dear Lord –
Let our children grow up
In 2022 firearms accounted for 30% of deaths in children 1 to 17
-Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health
Annual Firearm Violence Data | Center for Gun Violence Solutions
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Exposition Kills Poetry
Most exposition is an
imposition
Like the supervisor who
shadows you
Babbling incessantly needless
admonition
Blocking your work so that nothing
gets through
Respect your verse, how it
dreams, how it flows
Your poetry is your will,
your work, your way
But if you have to explain it
in prose
Your verse is left with
nothing at all to say
Your poem is in itself your exhibition
Of art – so ditch the cluttery
exposition
So, like, you know, what I’m
saying here is don’t talk about your poetry because that’s talking about work
instead of getting it done and if you have to explain to the reader what your
poem means you’re not allowing the poem to be true to itself and so why attempt
the discipline of meter, rhyme, metaphor, simile, narrative flow, and the many
other elements of poesy if you’re just going to repeat in prose what the meter,
rhyme, metaphor, simile, narrative flow, and the many other elements of poesy should
be doing if you have crafted your work with artistry as well as imagination
because exposition implies that either you don’t respect your work and your
reader or that you have been deliberately obscure in your verse which in the
event is pointless because a poem is itself, it is supposed to communicate an
idea, a dream, a hope and not simply flounder about as a soup of disconnected
words in a sort of the king’s new clothes of deception which is patronizing and
not clever at all because if a reader who is reasonably well read and
understands an age-appropriate catalogue of literary, cultural, historical, and
artistic allusion to make connections then you have failed the reader and,
worse, failed your own attempts at poetic art.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Jim Croce and a Rainy Morning
When the plane went down that was the end
Of telephone operators and bottles of time
But the electronics are kind enough to send
Good memories of when coffee was a dime
You really could mess around with Jim
If you knew your way around a chord
And heard his lyrics as a workman’s hymn
That spoke of art offered to the Lord
He gave us good thoughts through his guitar’s strum -
And, yeah, a wild moustache to back away from!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Forming a Committee Around a Car That Wouldn’t Start
The engine wouldn’t turn
over; the electrics were dead
We stood around the open
hood, each scratching his head
1st Member:
“It appears to me it’s the
dead battery
There’s no indication of a
charge, you see”
2nd Member:
“I’m a college graduate, so I
am smarter
Obviously the problem is with
the starter”
3rd Member:
“There’s a smell in the
engine, something tannic
And I should know; I’m a
certified mechanic”
4th Member:
“I’m a knight of the road; I
drive a freighter
Just let me at that broken
alternator”
But none of our skilled efforts
came to pass
Because no one had bothered
to check
the gas
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Bright Green Wheelie-Bin
(Much Superior to a Red Wheelbarrow)
The wheelie-bin is pretty in its own way
Thick plastic moulded in ecological green
To be rumbly-dragged on garbage day
To the end of lane to grace our suburban scene
Very little depends upon the wheelie-bin:
Unpleasant household garbage on its rounds
The really useful stuff has been well dug in
The loam – potato peels and coffee grounds
But note ye well - this garden plot thickens
For we have sparrows and crows
but no white chickens
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
No More Pronouns, Then?
A version of Henry V, that,
yea, verily, will offend neither the rightistas nor the leftistas
Few, happy few, band of brothers;
For to-day that sheds blood with
Shall be brother; be ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think accursed were not here,
And hold manhoods cheap while speaks
That fought with upon Saint Crispin’s day
Or better yet:
Few, happy few, band of siblings;
For to-day that contributes bodily fluid with
Shall be sibling; be ne’er so vile,
This day shall equalise even more equally an
existing state of equality:
And persons in a subset of the United Rulerdom now
a-bed
Shall think mildly disapproved were not here,
And hold personhoods cheap and so in need of therapy
while speaks
That negotiated with upon the 25th of October
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Do Dreams Fade Away at Dawn? Or Do We?
Do dreams beyond the dreamer dream
The imagined lands from deepest night
In which we live and seem to love -
Do they exist at morning’s light?
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Constitution to Save It
-as an unnamed army major in Viet-Nam did not say
When old Rip Van Me wakes up each morning he finds
A world
unlike the one when his nap began -
Who are these
angry faces on great screens?
Why are there
cracks in the Capitol dome?
Arrests and
deportations, mobs with clench’ed fists
Grim armored vehicles
patrolling our city streets
A presidential
advisor hurling Nazi salutes
Personal
loyalty checks within our surveillance state
When old Rip
Van Me wakes up each morning he finds
A nation of
madmen who have lost their minds
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Happy Young Lives Rich with Promise
“I will go in to the Altar of God”
Ephemera among the searchlight beams:
A paperback novel, a Mickey Mouse doll
Purses and ‘phones, and in-flight magazines
Briefcases still securing important work
Ephemera among the searchlight beams:
A note about souvenirs for the kids back home
From the Folger and the aerospace museum
Ice skates in the bins, safely stowed away
But now
Now lost to us among the searchlight beams:
Happy young lives rich with promises and dreams
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Cancelling the
InterGossip Service
And how are you today I am so very glad to hear that thank
you sir you have paid today so we won’t be able to cancel the service until next
month I am so glad to hear that we need a mailing address so that we can send
you a box for the equipment thank you sir no a post office box won’t do I am
sorry sir you are breaking up yes sir let me read that back to you thank you
sir let me verify your account number that is correct and thank you I will need
your zip code will you repeat that thank you but our records show that your
service address is oh that is not it please tell me again thank you sir I will
read it back to you thank you sir you will have thirty days from the
twenty-seventh of next month to return the equipment in the box we will provide
to you at your mailing address and I have that mailing address so thank you sir
if you will wait two minutes while I access your file thank you sir and I will
need your mailing address oh I see I have that sir for the equipment return
thank you sir which will cost you $350 if it is not returned thank you sir and
now I must read you this list now if you have any questions if you will please
wait two minutes thank you sir and may I ask why you are discontinuing service
and are you moving sir if you will wait two minutes while I update your records
thank you sir and I have your mailing address and may I ask why you are
discontinuing service with us oh I am so sorry sir but did they tell you it is
fibre optic I understand sir before we go I want to advise you that because you
are a long-time customer we have a special offer thank you sir I am happy to
have helped you sir and I hope you have a good rest of the day
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Guarding Borders Against Criminals
In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits.
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
They began settling here a long time ago
At first they were welcome, but they developed a ‘tude
We need their charity - they tell us so!
But their intentions are obvious and crude
With insolence, edict, and a heavy political hand
They’ve come to save us from ourselves; that’s what they say
Here in our beloved Canada, our home and native land –
Oh, won’t the Americans just go away!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Corporal Who Would Never Be a Sergeant
He was a corporal who would never be a sergeant
In a Palmach squad that would never be recognized
By the Palmach or by the Haganah.
He was a rabbi of the rocks and rubble and roads
He would never be recognized as a rabbi
He loved a curly-haired girl who would never marry him
And was friends with a little feral dog
Who crept out to him from behind the ruins
There was blood that called to him from Poland
In Yiddish and Hebrew; he didn’t remember why
He was a luftmensch, but dependable in his way
A littleness never admitted to staff meetings
He did what he was told to do, and then ignored
He delivered messages and curious packages
To obscure points forbidden to him and his kind
And the dog was shot dead for someone’s sport
With an old British rifle he cleared strongpoints
So that the officers could add to their resumes’
And he was told by the cooks that he was too late
As they laughed and closed the door on him
Confusion and smoke, and fighting in the streets
Burning corpses and armored cars, wild screams
There was little of him after the RPG hit
And children scurried out to mutilate and steal
He was posted as missing, possibly a deserter
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Late January is a Time of Grey
I read a little in Billy
Collins just now
Because Tolkien is in the
other room
Along with the laundry and an
unmade bed
Late January is a time of
grey
I just want to sit with my
coffee awhile
And then I’ll stow the
laundry and make the bed
The dishwasher can remain
silent until tomorrow
Late
January is a time of grey
I was nibbled to death by
ducks today
Because
Late January is a time of
grey
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Third Sunday in Extraordinary Time
Dear friends in Christ,
The divine liturgy will be delayed for a few minutes
While the new regime checks everyone’s papers
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Tiny Artists of
the Night
Snowflakes by flashlight in the deepening dark
I left them to their night of proper tasks
They beamed down to the earth all over the park
And for the cold grey dawn they’ve made great masks
Plateaus of iridescent white to layer the lawn
Transcendent beauty in a transient medium
Still falling against the feeble all-day dawn
Little artists who form great truths from tedium
And then mysteriously they fly away
To shape the existentials some other day
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Dignity of the Office
Whatever the incoming president fancies
(One hopes to speak without fear of libel)
Ageing (entertainers) in chancy pantsies
And will he take his oaf on a Village People Bible?
20 January 2025
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
The White House Inaugural
Banquet
and the Idle
Dishwashing Machine
Henry
II: Fork?
Becket: It's for pronging meat and carrying it to the mouth. It saves you
dirtying your fingers.
Henry II: But then you dirty the fork.
Becket: Yes, but it's washable.
Henry II: So are your fingers. I don't see the
point.
-Becket
(1964)
The White House dishwashing machine is idle, kids
Our leaders grub with fingers for their food
Cardboarded burgers as greasy pyramids
On mahogany Queen Anne tables strewed
The sycophants kiss their effendi’s (ring)
And fall to feeding at his soigne trough
No waiters are needed to pour and pass
The diners chortle and chew and choke and cough
The White House dishwashing machine is idle, guys
(Dessert is Velveeta oozing over French fries)
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Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Holy Bible as a Base for a Potted Plant
On a little shelf in our local pharmacy
A somewhat tattered Bible has reposed for years
And on that Bible is positioned a potted plant
And above them on the wall a cowboy cartoon
The iconography is elusive to me
One seeks for meaning in an assemblage:
So why this thing in this place at this time?
Existentially speaking (as we said in the ‘60s)
Why?
A curious piece of iconography
On a little shelf in our local pharmacy
