Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Prancing Chainsaw Dude
Prancing
chainsaw dude
Humiliates
all of us
But we obey
him
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Prancing Chainsaw Dude - senryu
The Seven Seeing-Stones - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Seven Seeing-Stones
Good Tolkien writes of spring far better than we
With layered allusions to Celtic and Nordic myths
His Fairy Folk sing clearly in rainbow rhymes
Among the crocuses abloom ‘round ancient trees
My crocuses bloom ‘round a shaggy lawn
With garden furniture in need of paint
And morning coffee in a Tupperware cup
To serve as a greeting to the rising sun
Friend Tolkien writes of spring for you and me
And through his Seven Seeing-Stones – we see!
Saturday, March 1, 2025
Scriptual Textual Analysis Applied to Act II of Macbeth - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Scriptural Textual Analysis Applied to Act II of Macbeth
The Book of Steve Jobs 43:13-16
“Oh, no, Mr. Hall!
It’s right here in the
Bible!” she exclaimed
Standing up suddenly from her
desk
Eagerly waving her MePhone
aloft
And then she paused
Appeared to be slightly embarrassed
Laughed
Took a selfie
And laughed some more
As did we all
Happiness
Friday, February 21, 2025
You Were Dancing Up the Lane - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
You Were Dancing Up the Lane
In an old lawn chair I sat and dozed
And felt amber dusk sealing the day
Though I was weary and my eyes were half-closed
I heard you – you, whistling a romantic lay
You were skipping barefoot up the lane
Your skirt all a-dance for your heart’s desire
O Lady-Queen of our happy demesne
With flowers for me, your most devoted squire
I awoke, I blinked – I was all alone -
The sun had set on us, many years gone
But I saw you dancing up the lane…
Thursday, February 20, 2025
The Church Garage Sale - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
The Church Garage Sale
(Although the garage sale is in the
parish hall because there is no garage)
A garage sale is a rebuke to
us all -
The metaphysical finger
having writ
Turns now from that lost Babylonian
wall
And points at us as if to scribe
this bit:
Why did you buy these masses of junk at all?
Candy-Colored Canes in the Waiting Room - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Candy-Colored Canes in the Waiting Room
In the waiting room: rows of colored canes
Aluminum canes for the weak of breath and gait
For us who suffer from imbalance and pains -
We also swerve who only sit and wait
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
I Believe in Love, NOW STAY AWAY - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
I Believe in Love, NOW STAY AWAY
In the tiny coffee shop all the
tables were full
A man kept his table to
himself
And would not acknowledge
anyone
Defensive behind his
deep-thoughts book
The rest of us shared our
tables and space
Exchanging greetings, pleasantries,
and thanks
Passing the cream and
sweeteners and napkins around
All
Except for that one poor sullen
man
On the cover was a drawing of
a Christian dove -
His book was entitled I
Believe in Love
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Graveside Service on a Blustery Day - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Graveside Service on a Blustery Day
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new”
Tennyson, Idylls of the King
The widower assisted to his place
Mourners in unaccustomed dresses and suits
A bible, leaflets fluttering in the wind
And gangly teens unsure what they should do
February clouds roiling and boiling
Even the officiant’s words are blown away
Prayers lifted into silence by the wind
They may have fallen by the gravediggers’ tractor
Or were blown through the leaning chain-link fence
Into the deeply darkening Grendel-woods
But still – in back –
a boy and a girl shyly touch hands
The Problems with Self-Publishing - poem
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Problems with Self-Publishing
The problems
with self-publishing are self-publishers:
“Everyone
just loves my book; tell me what you think
It’s about my
cousin who was a Navy SEAL
And then
became a millionaire and then a priest
“He saved the
nation from nuclear warfare
In a mission
so classified that we can’t talk about it
(But he told me
all about it, of course)
And then he
saved souls and counseled with popes
“My book is
inspired by the Holy Spirit
So read it
tonight and tell me what you think”
Has All the Gold Been Stolen from Fort Knox? - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Has All the Gold Been Stolen from Fort Knox?
Elon Musk encouraged to crack open Fort Knox and audit the gold reserves
-New York Post, 16 February 2025
President Musk will now make an audit
Of the gold in Fort Knox, down to the dime
But all he will find (he may have already caught it)
Is the missing TP from the covid time!
Go Ask Your Father - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Go Ask Your Father
“Go ask your father.”
“Go ask your mother.”
“She said to ask you.”
“Go ask her anyway.”
“Go ask your father again.”
“He said to ask you.”
“Well I told you to ask him.”
“It’s your mother’s decision.”
“He says it’s your decision.”
“It’s okay with me if it’s
okay with your mother.”
“It’s okay with me if it’s
okay with your father.”
That was always
soooooooooooooooo annoying.
I wish I could be that
annoyed again.
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Portrait of monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter - a poem based on the painting
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Portrait of Monsieur Gaudry and His Daughter
For all Daughters and Their Fathers
Monsieur is dressed for a quiet evening at home
As is his daughter in her cozy white wrap
Leaning dutifully upon his shoulder as he predicts
With globe and maps the empires of her mind
The empires of her mind which she will rule
With subtle wit and work instead of war
With armies of thought and beauty and art and truth
To conquer chaos and set the world aright
This guardian of goodness in a little girl’s guise
(But inwardly, I think, she’s rolling her eyes)
“The Geography Lesson,” Louis-Leopold Boilly, 1812, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Each Kiss is a Distraction - a poor attempt at a senryu
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Each Kiss is a Distraction
While we weren’t watching
They might have declared war
on Canada
We’d better check around
Watching the Rain Without You - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
Watching the Rain Without You
The rain is incomplete
without you
If you were here we could sit
on the couch
I’d put a Frank Sinatra on
the machine
So he and the rain could sing
to us
But especially to you
The rain is incomplete
without you
If you were here we could lie
on the floor
As I read the funny papers to
you
And do you like good ol’
Charlie Brown?
But of course you do
The rain is incomplete
without you
It misses you almost as much
as I
Almost
Groovin' on Graveyards - a poem about the night shift
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Graveyard Shift
At two in the morning everything is old
The hours, the work, the fluorescent lights
The air, the night, flickering computer screens
Even the freshly-made coffee in the break room
At two in the morning everything is old
The way the new guy snuffles his dripping nose
The cleaning lady’s mop bucket and its rattling roll
The snoopervisor’s totally fake good cheer
At two in the morning everything is old
“You’ll love the fellowship on graveyards,” I was told
A Penny Saved is a Worthless Zinc Disk Gathering Dust in a Drawer - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches
for the Colonial Office
A Penny Saved is a Worthless Zinc Disc Gathering Dust
in a Drawer
“Feed the birds, tuppounds a bag…”
-as Mary Poppins did not sing
It seems that our last penny
has been spent
We will miss the fakey copper
glint
Our other pot-metal coinage
should take the hint:
We do not have a stable
governMINT
My Shakespearean Girl - sonnet
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
My Shakespearean Girl
I woke in
sadness that the dream had passed
But joyed
that the vision had come at all
To comfort me
with happy memories cast
Into my sleep
through moonlight on the wall
Through
moonlight on the wall, through starlit sky
That long-ago
world in our golden youth
When she
danced as lightly as a butterfly
Through
sunlit fields where all was truth
Through
sunlit fields on her little bare feet
As gracefully
as a leaping summer fawn
Or rhyme and
meter when in verse they meet
In that magic
hour whence breathes the dawn
In that magic
hour we were once more
So very close
to that opening door…
Saturday, February 8, 2025
A Dachshund Dreaming of Rabbit for Supper - DOGgerel
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!
Pirates to Starboard - a poem about childhood
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!
Little Thoughts of God - poem
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
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