Tuesday 26 July 2016

Tuesday Poem: "The Gift (for Thomas and Ryan)" by Andrew M. Bell




When we are cosmic dust
blowing through the universe
and memories of us fade
like colours in a Polaroid
you can pick up your guitar and know
your parents gave you a gift
no one could take away

NOTE: The poet would like to acknowledge The Press in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday 19 July 2016

Tuesday Poem: "Ransom Note" by Andrew M. Bell



Leave five billion dollars in
hard-earned taxpayer money
by the ruins of the Cathedral.
Do this or your city dies.
P.S. Don't even think of going
to the authorities.
We are the authorities.

NOTE: The poet wishes to acknowledge the anthology, Leaving the Red Zone: poems from the Canterbury earthquakes, edited by James Norcliffe and Joanna Preston and published by Clerestory Press, February 2016, in which this poem first appeared.

Tuesday 12 July 2016

Tuesday Poem: "Poem On My Father's Birthday" by Andrew M. Bell


Photographer Unknown (Lost in the mists of Time)

On the train to Haifa
I think about my father
in wartime Palestine,
a different time, a different name
but the same place.

His memories of oranges and beaches
and warm, Mediterranean swimming
are the times he chose to rescue
from the six years when the world
was drowning in its own blood.

The weather is blue and grey
but the sun shines
like my father’s medals
on his blue-grey air force uniform
that entranced me as a child.

As the helicopter gunships prowl over Mount Carmel,
speeding north to Lebanon,
I wonder what times I will choose to rescue
from a land built out of longing,
but paid for in blood.