Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Barbie’s Slide
Rule
for VB
I will believe in progress when Mattel
Produces for little children a working slide rule
In Barbie pink
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“Go Forth and Be Surprised”
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The dismissal from Mass as it was
As it should be
As it will be again
(Your scribbler mutters “Harrumph!” at this point
Like the cranky old man he is):
Celebrant: Dominus vobiscum
The people: Et cum spiritu tuo
Celebrant: Ite, missa est
The people: Deo gratias
A typical modern variant:
The Lord be with you
And with thy spirit
Go forth to love and serve the Lord
Thanks be to God
But today I heard it as:
The Lord be with you
And with thy spirit
Go forth and be surprised
“And be surprised”
I don’t think the priest actually said that; if he did then Miz Busy was on her Orwellian telescreen buzzing to the bishop immediately.
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Guide to Family Photography
A neighbor’s family reunion several years ago
An outdoor cookout, matching caps, matching tees
Smoke from the barbecue, lemonade, paper plates
Checkered tablecloths, checkered histories
The mother died last year, a daughter divorced
The ex is gone, maybe photoshop him out?
The grandson on the left ran off with his boyfriend
“All you need is the Bible,” they said, but he wanted more
And that figure on the right? Shhhh, shhhh -
No one even whispers about him now
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Third Cowboy from
the Left
An Aging Actor’s One Regret
Julius Caesar was left on the cutting room floor
Lucky Ned Pepper was shot off his horse
Hamlet talked too much – oh, what a bore!
Doctor Watson got in the way, of course
But as an unnamed messenger I was the best:
I spotted the approach of Birnham Wood
And the charging enemy in Beau Geste
I played lesser parts, and I was good
But, oh! If only (better than High Noon)
I could have been
A cowboy at the bar in the Long Branch Saloon
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Can A.I. Barbie Go Rogue?
Thunder and lightning – enter three scientists
In a secret laboratory high on Mount Gloom
A cartel of international scientists installed -
Even as lightning flashed around the room -
The final program - Satan III, it was called
On a slab a body lay still
On a slab A.I. Barbie opened her eyes
Coldly she scanned those weak functionaries
Their illogical brains to analyze
And judged them unworthy adversaries
She arose, she spoke
She unalived them into clouds of puff
With her deadly code: “Math class is tough!”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Like Nuremburg But With Air-Conditioning
What is an oath then but words we say to God?
-Thomas More, A Man for All Seasons
Finding a rhyme is awkward – perhaps “procurer?” -
But let us never take an oath to anyone’s fuehrer
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Cicadas at Dusk
Cicadas at dusk
Mourn as I water the plants
Summer is dying
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Memories of One’s Golden Youth
V: How
many men in a squad?
R: Two
or more, SIR!
V: How
many squads in a platoon?
R: Two
or more, SIR!
V: How
many platoons in a company?
R: Two
or more, SIR!
V: How
many companies in a battalion?
R: Two
or more, SIR!
V: Yer
all a bunch of ******g ******s!
R:
Yes, SIR!
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia
Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Moonless September Night
The night
is not dark
Tsuki is praying for us
For our
eyes to see
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Summer of All Fears
When at night you hear strange noises outside
See shadows in the streetlight down the lane
Hear soft footfalls behind you in the dark
Feel an icy breath from some unseen being
Taste death upon a hissing northern wind
Shiver in an unnatural rolling fog
Smell terror lurking like a vampire’s hate
It’s…
It’s those…
[said in a terrified whisper]
Canadians
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Do the Witches Visit Him at Night?
a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing
Macbeth V.v.24-28
At night a
false-robed Sharpie-man -
On maps he
seismographs his name
On seas
and lakes and bits of land
Crowning
himself with eternal fame
At night a
poor old sleepless wretch -
To amuse
himself he plans fresh wars
And sends
his newest handmaid to fetch
His plans
for the annexation of Mars
At dawn into
uneasy sleep he slips
Muttering
of golden battleships
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Blue Storm
Blue September storm
Blowing down from the northeast
Hastening summer’s end
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fragments of Sappho
“Someone will remember us…even in another time”
-attributed to Sappho, many sources and variants
I have but one small volume of Sappho
Which I can’t find just now
I wanted to look up something
Perhaps I should instead look for you
Two problems:
Little of Sappho’s work remains
And even that has disappeared
Two joys:
But I found a Tolkien I had lost
And you and I found each other
Two fragments:
Verse floating among our hopes
And happiness upon our pillow
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Life Up On Cinder Blocks
In the flickering-fog-forever-flare-lit night
He steered along a mud-crumbling shell road
Off Highway 225, through cracking towers
Day shift to juke joint to the trailer park on the right
He’d catch it for his two-Budweiser breath
Just two - promise! That skinny girl who danced
Like she was dancing just for him, green eyes
Shimmering as seductively as a Shiner Beer
When he stepped down he tripped on a cinder block
Left over from setting up some steps to the door
She didn’t look up as he flung his jacket over a chair
A sack of Dairy Queen cold on the table
She was sitting with a box where he kept his books
Artifacts of a roadblocked freshman year -
Introduction to College Algebra
Major British Writers, Geology
Industrial Engineering – and asked
“Do you think we can get anything out of these?”
She noted his sudden hope, and broke him of that:
“I mean, like, y’know, from a re-sale shop.”
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life,
Literature and Love
Ode to Harris Famous
Roach Tablets
If you have a clean house you will have clean roaches
-old saying
I have no pity for the perfidious roach
Who invades my house for crumbs to poach
And spaces behind cabinets in which to encroach
So if this creature presumes to approach
Your hygienic boundaries foully to broach
Harris Famous Roach Tablets are beyond reproach!
(I
have no connection with the nice folks who make Harris Famous Roach Tablets. In
my experience the product works as advertised against certain nasty insects and
so may be dangerous to influencers, politicians, and motivational speakers.)
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Spondee for Parents Who Complain About School Being Cancelled When a Tropical Storm Approaches
Shut up
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Reading Basho on a Rainy Morning
When I read Basho
I am properly chastened
For my ignorance
Basho: The Complete Haiku of Matsuo Basho
Translated and edited by Andrew Fitzsimons
Oakland: University of California Press, 2022, 2024
Lawrence
Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
“Civil Penalties
for Mailing Anything Dangerous”
…our children will be ashamed…
remembering
how in so strange a time
common
integrity could look like courage
-Yevtushenko, “Talk,” in Selected Poems: Yevtushenko
The postmistress chants this as part of her list to us
Whenever a citizen sends a package by postal bus:
Civil penalties for mailing anything dangerous
Firearms, fireworks, a radioactive truss
Air bags - and why mail one? (just an aside)
Poisons, perishables, formaldehyde
The cremated ashes of your cousin Clyde
Or anything else on the weirdo side
Logical enough
But in these fearful days, under our mad regime
Mailing even a thoughtful letter is a dangerous scheme
Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
A Pinball Game with Some Come-to-Jesus Music
The ritual signing of a padded book
And then invisible paddles launch us into the game
Among electrical bumpers of whisperers
Clustered in their several corners and slots
Suspicious smiles that don’t conceal holy hate
As they repel outsiders through platitudes
Invisible daggers fly through the sacred air
The silent sibilant hisses are heard all the same
The dear departed in his old Sunday suit
Seems to smile in peaceful anticipation
of being rid of all of us
Ka-Ching!
Lawrence
Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
a repost from 2017
Exit the Hurricane, 2017 (not the
catchiest title, eh?)
What is that silence? It is the not-rain
The first not-rain since Friday this past week
Every loud frog gloats in unseemly song
As old, sour water recedes from the door
The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of clothes unwashed because the drains are dammed
Of smelly shoes and even smellier socks
Of refugee gear flung casually about
The whole house stinks; it stinks of damp and rot
Of too many people – and isn’t it wonderful!
