Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                          “You in the West…”

“You in the West don’t know what it’s like to be ruled by peasants.”


                                              Oh, yes, we do.


Cf. P. 138, Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan

With this Parthian shot at our kakistocracy I say good-bye for a week or so to you, dear fellow scribblers and scriveners and dreamers and artists and intellectuals (that is a fine, useful word) and lovers of freedom, for like Bilbo I’m off on an adventure!

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                                I am not God

About final judgement
Just give it a rest
God does salvation
We do our best

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                      An Unhappy O. Henry Ending

His picture is on the telescreen tonight
Stepping onto a twin-engine executive jet
Then posed in an easy-street seat in the back
Uniformed crew, someone to bring him a snack

The same smug grin he had when he dropped out of school
“I’m tired of this nowhere town,” he sneered
“I’m gonna go somewhere and get me a life;
I don’t need you or any of this mess”

And life is what he got, and a suit in orange
And a free ride home to his nowhere town

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                               Everyone Has Advice for Writers


      There is a man…hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on        
       brambles…

                                      -As You Like It, III.ii.377-380


Who is your target audience, they ask

A pair of clevers on the telescreen
Giving their audience suggestions for publication
Ideas for making it on the writing scene:
“Target audience” is their incantation

Who is your target audience?

Is your target moving or stationary?
A paper bullseye or something edible
An enemy, a thing, an adversary
A carnivore’s luncheon spreadable?

Who is your target audience?

But a reader is not a target
She is not the object of your life -
She is the subject of her own

Respect your reader

Respect

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                A Geriatric Motorcycle Gang Stops at Joe’s Eats

Grammies and Pappies in their backwards caps
Headbands, leathers, and chain regali-ay
Rolling thunder before their afternoon naps
Roughing up the pancakes at the breakfast buffet

Menacing any muffins in their steam-table raids
Yelling at the pancakes; they rattle the chef
They all seem to have forgotten their hearing aids:
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO YELL; I’M NOT DEAF!”

“NOW, HONEY, WHERE’S MY DIABETES KIT?!”
“THE BISCUITS AND MAPLE SYRUP? RIGHT OVER THERE!”
“HE SAID HE’S GOTTA GO AND TAKE A **!”
“HE’S MAKIN’ US LATE FOR TH’ RUMBLE, AND THAT AIN’T
           FAIR!”

The pack leader takes his gang back on the road
On a three-wheeler bike named Thunder Toad

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                         Two Pilgrims, Two Paths, One Path


                     “Where many paths and errands meet”

                                               -Tolkien


Perhaps we are seeking the same sacred grail -
If you find a poem in the cleft of a tree
Or hear a bird singing softly along the trail
Be assured – it’s only me

(is that a kitten I hear…?)

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                                Red Spider Lilies

                                                       For Max

                      Who Magicked Autumn in with the Spider Lilies

Red spider lilies – we were speaking of them
And why somehow they hadn’t yet appeared
To call the oak leaves down upon the lawn
To dance among their equinoctial blooms

Red spider lilies – suddenly they are here!
Perhaps they only waited to be invited
We spoke, and they arose, laughing at us
And waving happily in the afternoon breeze

Red spider lilies – now autumn has begun
In late September’s glowing tawny sun