(In memory of Norris Hickey 1935-2014)

Love of family and fly-fishing: twin tributaries flowed
into your heart like a braided river.
Paradoxically, a sociable man who preferred to be alone
on some braided river,
basking in the peace of the wilderness,
hearing only birdsong and the gentle whirr of the fly line,
its nylon whipping to where you hoped the fish would rise.
Patience comes easily in peaceful surroundings,
unlike waiting for the blessing of grandchildren.
Eventually rewarded with five blessings.
You always said what a lucky man you were.
I’m glad your luck held because you would weep to see
your precious braided rivers drying up down here,
****** dry by the farmers’ greed for white gold
and the threatened tarāpunga (Black-billed gulls)
getting their nests crushed by callous four-wheel drives.
It would be enough to make your big, generous heart burst.

© Andrew M. Bell

There goes the alarm again.
The misanthropic crusader goes into shock,
I calm it down; comfort is mania.
Stare despondently into the void.

A chorus rises,
Violence, people trapped in time shout through metal,
A voice cries, confined, bounces from hall to wall,
I am not sure I woke up at all.

Some higher functioning brain activities
Get bored in their entropic state-
Trade places with whimsy,
Because that is what they do when they lose interest in their task,

As I have lost interest in my task,
And look for more chin music-
To raise a symphony within me.
To make one day look different to the last.

It's been awhile myself
seems I only write
to look busy at work
I have forgotten how
to communicate
always looking for
le mot juste
to tell myself
it's okay.

Nature with its numberless powers
Can twist or turn, bend or devour.
And those who won't resist the wind,
Will grow the bearing trees within.

"Dripping water hollows out the stone" -
Ovid says with his baritone, -
"Not through force, but through persistence"
Know nothing we about existence.

So small in wast titanic world,
Great powers, people think behold.
Imprudent brains, stop tossing into nature
Your greedy power's ruinations.

For Nature won't be still and silent,
Will sweep your nation's floor with violence.
Just stop pretending you live here alone
And Nature might just leave us on our own.

Mabey it was just the days
that seemed prolonged

My mind that resurrects the dead
To the reaches far beyond  

Fatigued i let myself wander
Fulling false emotions blurred by imagination

Confined in my prior self
Till Im a tyrant to my own degradation

The bittersweet animosity of false hope
Like watering a blossom in hopes of a willow

My self-pity only absent in my dreams
had i wished they where nightmares not long ago

Strangled with fists and stains my pillow bears quotes i suffocate through

That quote
Go to bed
He’s not thinking about you

The mirror on the wall may as well **** me,
What stares back is not at all what I wanted to be.
My head’s not held high,
My wings of hope are stripped, and I’ll no longer fly.

They rolled me in bubble wrap and locked me in this box.
Foxes- yet they call themselves cops.
They stamped the box and labeled me “FRAGILE”.
Ripped me of my dignity and cursed me all this while.

It’s just feeding with the wolves-
The lambs come and they devour them whole.
FRAGILE- their little bones break.
I didn’t see it before, but now I think I’m awake.

So as it goes, they stack the boxes against the wall.
Shut away from reality in a little room at the end of the hall.
The wolves feed with foxes, they prey on the lambs.
And though the fox might not ****, there’s enough blood on his hands.

File away the papers, and they’ll deem it so,
As long as they’re quiet, than no one shall know.
Toss out the keys so the cries go unheard,
After all, there’s no reason to ***** the rest of the herd.

A lamb corrupted grows to a sheep,
Stripped of her wool, she no longer sleeps.

If you speak for her cause,
You already know that all hope is lost.
You’ve seen it before, or taken a blow to the head
Or something much worse and you wish you were dead.