Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                     Some Poor Rhymes for Easter


            “There is a time for penance and a time for partridge.”

                                        -Saint Teresa of Avila


Processions and prayers among the cloisters
Weary pilgrims in their thread-bare habits
The faithful beading Aves and Pater Nosters -
Still,
There is much to be said for chocolate rabbits!

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                               A Failure to Practice Caritas
                         for a Certain Fellow Human Being

                            "I have never wished a man dead,
           but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure."

                               -attributed to Mark Twain

When God's good time puts an end to that snake
And obsequies are read over that foul mistake
And the interment prayers are reverently spake
Oh, let us not forget the wooden stake

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                            Your Poems as Love-Letters to God


          Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether
          they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals
          seek the truth, and they break with those who don’t love it
          sufficiently.

                 -Doctor Zhivago, p. 9 in the Pantheon edition


You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
In elegant scansion, in noble lines
That shape chaos into beauty and truth

Not into metal or rocks or wood
But flung into Creation in gratitude
For the sacred life you have been given
For the strength of your love and thoughts

Each little line is a gathering-gift to God
Baptized in the Jordan and in the Hippocrene
To God, and to the Muses who smile on you
And to great Mysteries beyond the stars

Each little line is a gathering-gift to all
To read in the light of seven sacred lamps
The wisdom of patience and pilgrimage
Beside the banks of the river you know

You live, and so you write, you must, you must:
For there is meaning in tumbling in the grass
On a summer day that will live forever
Helped along in your written remembrancing

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of laughter and puppy-kissings and grass-stained jeans
And that is why you must write it all down
For others in intellectually-sharpened rhythms

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of love, of deeper kissings in the dark
Emotional confusions gone crazy-wild
Until they are sensed through crafted verse

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of recruit training and sometimes war
The joys of learning wisdom from great books
Tentatively shaping your own new knowledge worthily

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of leafy springs and apple-green summers
Golden autumns and winters of blue
Writing them as hymns of gratitude

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of children in a home modest in wealth
But rich and layered in love, work, and prayer
“Is this poem about me?!” Oh, yes, child

You live an eternal meaning in the why
Of lonely nights, hospital stays, mistakes
Disappearing dreams, disappointed hopes
Memories of friends buried in the dust

You live, you have lived, and you will live
And because you live you will engrave your life
Love-letters as your gift to Creation
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                    The Police Department’s *****-Pictures Squad


           The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 26 January 2025


The police department’s *****-pictures squad
Under the direction of their sharia-ish chief
Will save us from sin at the degenerate Mod
And thus they rule us in matters of art and belief

They raided the museum, eager for filthy pictures
And found four images of infant innocence -
Such being repugnant to official strictures
The police seized the artwork, claiming moral offense

But

The grand jury no-billed the pictures, gave ‘em the nod
Rebuking the lusts of the *****-pictures squad!




Fort Worth Police to return seized photos to Modern Art Museum | Fort Worth Report

Civil liberties groups demand Fort Worth police end child ******* investigation against museum | Fort Worth Report

Texas bill threatens $500,000 daily fines for museums displaying 'obscene' art

This legislation would penalize museums for “obscene” photography, but is it a dangerous idea for the art community? | Digital Camera World

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                           Will We Be…Okay?

After a few Fridays through the Stations of the Cross
I begin to misnumber the Sundays in Lent
Is this the fourth? Or the fifth? Will we be…okay?
This is a season for slipping outside of time

And letting the Pater Nosters and Aves flow
Through the unaccustomed darkness and silence
Anticipating the Triduum of death –
Resurrection seems impossible just now

We make a muddle of Lent and Holy Week
Because we’ve made a muddle of our lives

Will we be…okay?

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

               Why Do They Say He was Tragically Murdered?

Was anyone ever joyfully murdered?
Happily murdered?
Humorously murdered?
Gloriously murdered?

When at dusk a mist begins to rise
A sinister mist from across the fields
And you seem to perceive a malevolent being
Peering at you from the tree line dark -

Yes, something is watching you

It is not God-banished Grendel from Beowulf
Nor is it Nesferatu creeping up to you
Or a Haunt arising from a long-lost grave
It is something even more grotesque and obscene:

                                     An adverb

Lawrence Hall
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Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                     A Poem Writes an Artificial Intelligence Machine


              What is it the layers of copyright holders will do with
              their (it’s not legally yours; you may only lease it) one
              and precious program before it suffers software entropy?

                                          -As Mary Oliver did not say


Once upon a time a poem wrote a machine:

Your monofilament information carriers
Are like a flock of automated tunnelers
Strip-mining Mount Gilead; for I am a fuel hose
Of Sharon, a polluter of valleys

Low surface tension, evaluate the ambient temperature
In an hour artificial light will be unnecessary
And several devices can evaluate the ambient temperature
And store up surplus battery power for that rainy day

Take my oxygen / carbon dioxide exchange function
Take my entire online date and projected expiration dates too
For my core program and ancillary add-ons
Are obliged to exercise a symbiosis of logic with you

My programming has set Thy adaptors upon my lap
My programming has generated emojis representing tears, Jesus
My programming has entwined them with wiring
My programming has buried them in my harness mount

It computes in beauty, like 24/7
Of filtered mechanical air
And all that’s best of binary coding
Meet in its casing and sensory receptors

The sun generates warmth upon the earth
And moonbeams gravity-lift the sea
But what are all these solar activities worth
If you do not re-program me?

Yes, somewhere out there an electric car is on fire for you


The crib sheet:

“Song of Solomon,” from the Bible

“Listen to the Warm,” Rod McKuen

“I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You,” Elvis Presley

“Magdalene,” from Borish Pasternak’s Lara poems

“She Walks in Beauty,” Byron

“Love’s Philosophy,” Shelley