With half the world ablaze
And the other half under water
                 I gaze at a beautiful sunset
                 And wonder why I am so lucky.

With half of the world now starving
And the other half made newly homeless
                 I sit in my comfy two-story
                 And wonder why I should deserve it.

With half the world hating each other
And the other half crying for peace
                 I sit with my pen and blank paper
                 Hoping somehow to fix it with verse.

I’ll write for the fires to burn themselves out.
I’ll write for the floods to abate.
                I’ll write for the hungry a banquet.
                Write refugees a new home.

I must write an end to the hatred.
  I must write a way to find peace.
   I must write to solve all the problems
    That bleed endless ink to my pen.

It wants to compose lines of beauty
  Not pity for those so abused.
    It wants to paint scenes of agreement
      Outlining tallies of evil.

It wants to share themes that enrich us
  Written in Poetry’s creative blood.
    Will this moment arrive in my lifetime -
      My subscription to miracles sadly expired
                    ljm

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office


                                Point-and-Won’t-Shoot Camera

The concept of the point-and-shoot camera obtains
But a Me-‘Phone camera doesn’t see it that way
I stopped to watch a bug-grazing bird
Who approached me as if she wanted to visit

I took out my Me-‘Phone for a photograph
And it didn’t recognize my handsome face
And I had to tap a four-digit code
And the bird grew suspicious and flew away

O Egret, in your beautiful brown and white -
I truly understand your need for flight

She went to be bed with her makeup on  
Feeling like *****…..
Reflecting in her bathrobe…about the night before,
Hell you know she asked for it!
What will the neighbors think?
Still half asleep and hung over,
Her cheeks are still pink,
And he… was never there,
And never was before,
She turns off the monitor….just one hit more,
She washes her face,
Still smiling,
Nothing said…
Wipes off with a towel,  
And then goes back to bed.
BLCostello©2025

Like a ghost,
You are here,
When that sweet smoke appears,
Those haunting memories,
We were happy my dear,
No spirits….
Just memories….
My shadows of you…
Then I sober up…
And remember…..
It’s true…..
Yes, you do…..
YOU ****

BLCostello©2025

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                                       The Apex Predator


                    They…
                    Have watched me rise from the darkness of war
                    Dripping with my enemies’ blood

                            -Beowulf, trans. Raffel, lines 151-153


The apex predator feeds upon the flesh
Of those who wanted desperately to live
To hew and chew and gnaw and digest and mesh
With those who died with no desire to forgive

The apex predator feeds while others starve
The sentient flee from him in grievous fear
But he always wins, his victims then to carve
In ****** fields and haunted forests drear

War ends violently in drang und sturm
And the apex predator is obviously
                                                  ­ The Worm

I am my lust incarnate
full moon piercing howl
I am the rage of gods
as they breach their final hour

I am my burning envy
blackened from within
I am the slightest odds
of a life steered clear of sin

I am the barren hillside
a stairway to the grave
I am the preying madness
waiting, wanton and depraved

I am the ****** garden
ringing around the rose
I am the unheard pardon
of matters never broached

I am the pills I swallow
I am the victim's cost
I am the vacant hollow
I am all that I have lost

Lawrence Hall
[email protected]
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

               She Had *** with Her Brother Says The Daily Wail

She had *** with her brother says The Daily Wail
And was eaten in prison, there without bail
By vampires who live in deep tunnels beneath
A park bench situated in Hampstead Heath

Amelia Earhart’s plane has been found again
She was married to ******’s identical twin
And ******, you know, was secretly straight
Cruisin’ for chicks near the Brandenburg Gate

DNA proves that a Kennedy son
Lives under an alias in Area 51
And commutes to Stonehenge on a weekly basis
Transported by Martian hydroponic stasis

But back to the man who had *** with his sister
Did he use preferred pronouns whenever he kissed her?