Poem of the week: ENDANGERED by Andrew M. Bell | Phantom Billstickers

Poem of the week: ENDANGERED by Andrew M. Bell | Phantom Billstickers

Tuesday Poem: "Spring Comes Early to the Fridge"

Ice arcs through the air
like solid lightning.

The large bolts strike with a rumble

and clatter to rest

where they gleam with bravado

at the dispirited winter sun.

The small bolts explode

with a skittering hiss

and trickle down between the bricks,

prodigal drops returning to the watertable.

Cast out from its plastic host,

the ice bears grooved testimony to their symbiosis,

but this testimony concedes to the crafting thaw

a bevel smoother than a human hand could fashion.

Some ice lies clustered on the brick paving

like terra incognita wrought on a vellum map

by the feverish imagination of an Olde World explorer.

Some lies scattered among the purple and white alyssum

in imitation of a Tyrolean spring.

As a breeze releases

the olfactory history of myriad fridge dwellers,

a cloth rings over a wire tray

in a crude arpeggio which segues into

the basso profundo of the resurrection hum.

The cycle begins anew.

The poet wishes to acknowledge The Western Review (Western Australia) in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday Poem: "The Crucible"

Father, you are the blueprint of my soul,
And though I sense our parting drawing near,

The crucible of death will make us whole.

The day or hour is not ours to control

Yet even strangers read your passing here.

Father, you are the blueprint of my soul.

In paradise's fields I see a knoll

Where, shucked of flesh, we sport without a care,

The crucible of death will make us whole.

As age and weight make diamond from the coal,

So I am fashioned from your smile and tear,

Father, you are the blueprint of my soul.

I will not dread the shedding of my role,

A promise waits beyond the footlights' glare,

The crucible of death will make us whole.

So, father, do not fear to pay the toll,

I am the sun, your shadow I revere.

Father, you are the blueprint of my soul.

The crucible of death will make us whole.


The poet wishes to acknowledge the Naked Eye anthology (Western Australia) in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday Poem: "Lake Toba, 28 June 1993"

LAKE TOBA, 28 June 1993

The lake is smoothed jade after the rain

and only the commercial flotsam

of a lonely plastic Aqua bottle is adrift

on untrammelled waters.

A butterfly of the kind we usually see pinned and dead

drifts by

like me, enjoying the return of the sun,

“mata hari”, the eye of the sky

shining fiercely like Hanuman

from a leaden countenance.

Boys fool by my verandah view offering

to sell me a girl.

The travellers pass through like capsules,

pausing only to bleed money into outstretched palms.

TUESDAY POEM: "Four Tankas for Lake Monger" by Andrew M. Bell

FOUR TANKAS FOR LAKE MONGER

Man and boy laughing,

their kite dipping on the breeze.

In the silent house,

woman reads Sunday papers,

ear attuned to one car sound.

Midnight-blue swamphen,

first tracks in the dewy grass.

A mist hides the lake,

a spire rising from the mist,

bells tolling, no more silence.

Child cries, hurt in play,

mother comes to console her.

Old woman walks home,

tasting the salt of her tears.

No fire lit for her return.

Girl hangs upside down,

dark hair trailing in the sand.

Gulls dive on ducklings,

dropped from high on hard water,

their blood mingling with the lake.


The poet wishes to acknowledge the Naked Eye anthology (Western Australia) in whose pages this poem first appeared.

TUESDAY POEM: "Elegy Written Near the Mitchell Freeway" by Andrew M. Bell

ELEGY WRITTEN NEAR THE MITCHELL FREEWAY

The car horns toll the knell of parting day,

The toxic fumes creep slowly o’er the park,

The traffic homeward plods its weary way,

And leaves the world to joggers and the dark.

Now fades the shimmering lakescape on the sight,

And to the air the dusk its stillness brings,

Save where mosquitoes wheel in droning flight,

Ross River virus loaded in their stings;

Save that from yonder television tower

The besieged magnate to his “mates” complains

The A.B.T. has exercised its power,

Sent him packing without ill-gotten gains.

Beneath those tiled roofs, that mortgaged shade,

Where heaves the serf in many an exhausted heap,

Each of the dole queue mortally afraid,

Whose forefathers once rode upon the sheep.

The wheezy cough of beery-breathing morn,

They swallow Berocca for their straw-filled heads,

The clock’s shrill clarion, or their arguing spawn,

Once more shall rouse them from beloved beds.

For they no more have savings in their banks,

Both busy partners toil to meet their ends;

No children run to lisp their heartfelt thanks,

They clamour for Air Jordans like their friends.

Oft did their annual jaunt to Bali yield,

Their furrows smoothed by oily massage strokes;

How jocund were their Customs trolleys wheeled!

Their cases bowed by extra grog and smokes!

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,

Their media-fed dreams have learned to stray;

The Holy Grail of the Lotto life

Has taken free out of the word Freeway.

Ó Andrew M. Bell


POET'S NOTE: This poem was written in 1992 when I was living in Perth, Western Australia.
It is an affectionate parody which seeks to update Thomas Gray's famous poem, Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard, for the modern, urban environment that is the norm for many of today's readers.
    The A.B.T. referred to in the poem is the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal which, at the time, was trying to devolve some of the media power concentrated in the hands of only a few media barons.
     The poet wishes to acknowledge The West Australian newspaper in whose pages this poem first appeared.

TUESDAY POEM: "Goodbye Freo" by Andrew M. Bell

GOODBYE FREO

All day the sky had been an empty promise

then, crossing the park,

the rain came like a visitation,

the wind rousing the Norfolks

into a frenzy of flagellation.

Then it was gone,

leaving Freo freshwashed

and bathed in a quality of light

usually reserved for heaven.

Under the rail bridge

the river uncoiled through the freezeframed harbour

like an oiled anaconda

and the train skated over the scales of this reptilian mystery.

Out from Leighton, yachts and oil tankers

rode the dolphinslick sea.

A pale yelloworange band

cleaved the sea and sky

as the bluegrey roof of cloud slowly collapsed

under the weight of darkness.

Rottnest was a five o’clock shadow on the horizon.

Surfers bobbed like seals, rising

to snatch the last wave

of polished jade

from the encroaching night.

Ó Andrew M. Bell

The poet wishes to acknowledge The Press (Christchurch) in whose pages this poem was published.