Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Little New Year’s Magic for You
A far
frosty field
Full
fit for a fairies’ dance
‘Neath
the New Year’s moon
Thursday, January 1, 2026
A Little New Year's Magic - poem
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Cuddled up with Cold Medicine and a Warm Dachshund - poem
Lawrence Hall & Nyquil ™
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Cuddled up with Cold Medicine and a Warm Dachshund
A January lawn is a desert of desiccated leaves
Winter winds driving them as desolate dunes
Shoaling against the oaks who gave them life
Then in the autumn watched them fall to their deaths
Croakery crows almost seem to splash among them
Searching out seeds and corn and kitchen scraps
In beak to nose confrontations with squirrels
Darwinians struggling upon the sleeping earth
A January lawn is a desert of desiccated leaves
As winter winds batter my window eaves
Addendum:
(Each line is framed with a cough or a sneeze
And fever one minute followed by a freeze
And a wheeze!)
Meditation upon a Starlit Northern Sea - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Meditation upon a
Starlit Northern Sea
The sea is black, the sky is midnight blue
The crowning moon and her cold, pendant stars
Call color to fall upon the shoreline sand and snow
And too upon a silent Dreamer who stands
A silent Dreamer privileged to view this scene
Who stands upon this mysterious Arctic shore
To place for us our hopes beneath the stars
And yield them to the mysteries of the night
The sea is black, the sky is midnight blue
And the silent Dreamer is who else but…?
Sunday, December 28, 2025
If This Were Your Real Life You Would Have Been Given Better Instructions - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
If This Were Your Real Life
You Would Have Been Given Better Instructions
This is only a test -
if this were your real life you would have been given better instructions
-seen on a bumper sticker
I took my cough to a plastic plaque
My wheezing and sneezing and headache too
My unaccountably rigidy back
And sputum that reeked like a witches’ brew
I waved the little cotton probe all through
My nostrils where the wicked virus lurked
And then I thoughtfully dropped five drops unto
A window in the plaque, and, lo! It worked!
I don’t have the covid and I don’t have the ‘flu
So why do I feel so blown-out blue!
(N.B. I take my medical advice from my brilliant nurse practitioner, not from the InterGossip nor from Robert Kennedy.)
Not Herod's Household Cavalry This Time - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Not Herod’s Household Cavalry This time
The Holy Innocents
Not Herod’s household cavalry this time
His personal SS with their spears and swords
From screaming children ripping their sacred lives
And flinging the tiny fragments into the dust
Now Herod sends his tailored representatives
With silky-soft, serpentine promises
Would you like a dress as nice as this?
For only an hour or two of easy work
Softly now
Don’t worry; your parents will never know -
Because they will never choose to know
Sneeze Across Texas - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Sneeze Across Texas
(widespread respiratory infections in
Texas during Christmas 2025)
I would almost rather gnaw off an arm than endure what
passes for contemporary country music. By the Grace of God we will always have
the authentic work of Ernest Tubb. One of his best is “Waltz Across Texas.”
When we cough
together under Texas skies
It’s rather a
nightmare that has come true
And when you look at
me, with those red, rheumy eyes
I could sneeze
across Texas with you
Sneeze across Texas
with you and our virus
Sneeze across Texas
with you
Like a medical movie
ending but with no one to admire us
I could sneeze
across Texas with you
My rhinorrhea
just won’t be gone
The moment that you come in view
And with our soggy hankies we could wheeze on and on
I could sneeze across Texas with you
Sneeze
across Texas with you in my arms
Cough across Texas with you
Like a bad novel ending I'm semi-comatose in your charms
And I could sneeze across Texas with you
NB: “Waltz Across Texas” is the property of its
several authors, musicians, and copyright holders. Respect.
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Aeolian Wisdom - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Aeolian Wisdom
When I was taking my ‘versity courses
‘Twas my obsession to cite my sources
To assume without knowing was an academic sin
But now that I am old
I learn much wisdom from the westering wind
Sunday, December 14, 2025
The Back of the Wardrobe - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Back of the Wardrobe
If you invite me to
your house one day
And if in a spare
room you have a wardrobe
Then will you let me
open it? I pray
And reach far in,
and touch and tap and probe
Old coats, old shoes,
old dreams, your MeeMaw’s old hats
Someone’s uniform
from a long-ago war
Boxes of Christmas ornaments
stacked on some mats
Some surprisingly cold
mothballs rolling on the floor
Because your
wardrobe might be an Advent itself
With Narnia on the
other side
Eight Lamps to Give Us Light - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Eight Lamps to Give Us Light
For the Martyrs of Bondi Beach
Hanukkah, 5786
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
-Isaiah 9:5
The Temple in Jerusalem cannot be destroyed -
For all the bloody-booted conquerors
Who swagger and clatter and rattle over the Stair
Defile and burn and pillage only their own souls
Wherever a candle is lit, the Temple is there
Wherever the yad touches a davar, the Temple is there
Wherever Truth is honored, the Temple is there
Wherever children sing, the Temple is there
Temple and Torah, poet and prayer
Poetry, prayer, eight lamps, and love, and care –
the Temple is there
Friday, December 12, 2025
The Hate in Orwell's 1984 was only Two Minutes - poem, sort of...
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Hate in Orwell’s 1984 was only Two Minutes
Progressive, Progressivist,
Culture warrior
Boomer, GenX, GenZ, Millennial
Liberal, Conservative,
Neo-con
RadTrad, Fascist, Neo-Fascist
Socialist, Neo-Socialist,
Marxist
Communist, Trotskyite,
Colonialist
Neo-colonialist, Imperialist,
Neo-imperialist
Occupier, Bourgeois,
Petite bourgeois
Libertarian, MAGA, Capitalist
Nazi, Neo-Nazi,
Invader
Zionist, Settler, Sexist,
Neo-sexist
Denier, Neo-denier,
Reactionary
GenY, GenY-inian,
Neo-GenY-inian
Social Parasite,
Sheeple, Feminazi
Limousine liberal,
Champagne Socialist
Counterrevolutionary,
RINO
Low-information
voter, Elitist
Republicrat,
Democrap, MAGA-tista
Social justice
warrior, Garbage people
Low-IQ voter, racist,
Leftist
Cracker and Queer,
and maybe Cracker-Queer
People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian
Neo-People-Who-Don’t-Look-Like-Me-inian
All sorts of names we
scream at each other
Abjectly obeying our
Dear Leaders’ trends
So quick to condemn
each sister and brother
But maybe we all
could just try to be…friends?
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Anthony's Pilgrimage in Nunavut - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Anthony’s Pilgrimage In Nunavut
“What went ye into the desert to see?”
-Saint Matthew II
What went ye among the Innu to see?
To see
To hear
To smell
To taste
To touch
Sedna and Qailertetang have given you fish
They have fed you. And now you must sit and learn
What went ye into the waters to see?
From the ice and the rocks the waters flow
Rippling in the light to delight the eye
The dancing, shimmering visions from Ignirtoq
What went ye among the whispering rocks to hear?
The Angakkuq of earth, water, and air
Whose teachings and songs the people memorise
The liturgies of good and ancient ways
What went ye into the waters to smell?
Healing vapours from the dawn of Creation
From Taimmani until now, forever
For The People, and for the stranger too
What went you into the deep North to taste?
There is truth in salmon, and salt in the air
You can taste the stories on the shifting winds -
(And on Sunday there’s lunch after Mass)
What went ye along the falling streams to touch?
If you touch the earth, the ice, the sea
You touch the Unipkaaqs, you touch their truths
And you will be healed by the touch of those truths
Malina passes, Aningan rises - tonight
The eternal dances of the spheres to light
This land of Nunavut, this realm in white
Be healed, and know that all is made aright
Sit
Sit before the fire
Sit in silence and learn from Nunavut
See
Hear
Smell
Taste
Touch
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
A Right Turn in Viet-Nam - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Right Turn in Viet-Nam
And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
Forever and forever farewell…
If we do meet again, why we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.
Julius
Caesar V.i.125-129
This is not a metaphor for anything
Only a memory of driving an ambulance
A clapped-out relic of the Second World War
On a street on the Tien Sha Peninsula
1969
For a left turn the driver extends his left hand
And waves
It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point
For a right turn the driver extends his right hand
And waves
It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point
If there’s a passenger, he extends his right hand
And waves
It’s okay to wave back, but that’s not the point
If there are two passengers, the one most to the right…
But you get the point
It’s okay to wave back – that’s the point
A Dodge ambulance, a Vietnamese Army Jeep, and a Renault
Meet at an intersection – and somehow miss each other
And I miss Viet-Nam.
If we do meet again…
Sunday, December 7, 2025
Cats Creep in on Measurable Meter - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Cats Creep in on Measurable Meter
Having Coffee with Carl Sandburg
Little cats do not creep as the sleepy fog creeps
But rather in a so-soft measurable meter -
Besides, the fog does not wear little bells
Or an electronic tracker to beep its creep
In the foggy hours of the untimed night
Dear cat pads silently across my face
And mews her gentle let-me-out song
To join the sacred mysteries on misty fields
At dawn I ask her what strange worlds she has spanned -
She sweetly purrs to me, “you wouldn’t understand”
Saturday, December 6, 2025
A Window on the Century - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Window on the Century
Pasternak is said to have raised a window
On a sunny winter day to ask
“Children, what century is it outside?”
A logical question
Restricted Area - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Restricted Area
No public or media access
Cameras and recording devices prohibited without prior authorization
Whoever our government orders beaten or shot is not our business
God bless America
The Voices are Talking about Nat - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
The Voices are Talking about Nat
The Voices slither about like Lady Macbeth
Claiming arcane knowledge of life and death
Hissing subtly with their smoky breath
Their business manager is a dude named Seth
(Seth attends art school at night and says his instructors don’t understand his depth of existential being-ness and, like, stuff.)
They (The Voices, not Seth) visit me nightly when I’m asleep
Approaching me in crouch and crawl and creep
Desiring to drag my soul down into the deep
Piling my vanities onto a vermiculous heap
(The Voices took my evening class at Cinder Block Community College and slouched sullenly in the back wearing their Grateful Dead baseball caps on the few occasions they bothered to show up. They filed a complaint against me for dropping them.)
They usually lurk in my right parietal
So, shhhhh! - they’re rather anti-societal
(They’re all The Office fans and are looking for affordable housing in Scranton if you know someone with a deal.)
Plato's Alligator of the Cave - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
Plato’s Alligator of the Cave
The real reason Plato missed Socrates’
execution
Plato, in a moment
famously historical
In that scary cave
had a philosophical hunch
He took an alligator
for allegorical
The alligator, alas,
took him for lunch
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
'Flu Jab at the Supermarket with Rotisserie Chicken and Anaphylactic Shock - poem
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
‘Flu Jabs at the Supermarket
To the supermarket with a shopping list:
1 Brookshire Brothers rotisserie chicken
1 bag of Purina dog chow
2 pints of Coffee Mate for this low, low price
A half-gallon of No Pulp Florida’s Natural
A Farmer’s Cooperative Since 1933
100% Premium Orange Juice from Concentrate
Owned by Florida Farmers
And a ‘flu jab. Not by Florida farmers
Next week my nurse practitioner has a special on butter
Which will be, as always, country farm fresh
Monday, December 1, 2025
League Tables for the Lovelorn - doggerel
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
League Tables for the Lovelorn
V: Give her up, old
man; she’s out of your league.
R: Impossible; I
never joined a league.
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to Emmaus - a poem about long sermons
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
A Homily Idling in Neutral Just off the Four-Lane to Emmaus
This is a warm Sunday in November
But we still watch for I.C.E. in the parking lot
And for a cold front promised but not delivered
Through the almanacs and weather distorts
Just now the celebrant, too, seems to be stalled
Chocked up at Luke 18 with his mutter running
The same illustrations repeated over and over
Like that same old cactus in a Road Runner short
Dear Lord
I pray for your priest while he is rebuking sin -
Please help him bring his homily to an end!
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