At home, in the sun, I watch
the news intently, I study the photos
the parabola of a mortar
like a shooting star
and the grey ruins after the impact

There are cameras everywhere
I shiver from everything
I do and don't want to know
but I wouldn't know anything
if I didn't know

I read of people
who woke up and
ran to a cellar
their children crying
in the pale morning light

The wounded crawl over debris
scramble past the charred cars
An ambulance drives away
Daily corpses, daily news
with survivors

with a dry mouth
speechless, pale in the sun
in which I follow the news
with my sharp eyes
my cool heart

Something's happening,

more and more people pass on --


what they do not know.

Larger worlds live in constant once,
upon this time in this bubble.
For a poet in Tanzania it is tomorrow already.

Tones of a thorough voice
Masculine or feminine, tender to a fault
And a whole leap of conscience, for to liberty we were...
The time of collecting notice of a shared decision, for a salt

Restitute, and wondering if gay can be?
The tale of lived hours, home to save a callous share
Of what is us, if thundering frustration, have to heed...
Will a certainty of poise, begin with destined options or a delinquent flare?

A voice through enough, is careful, to tell the chance...
Of cease and herald, my timidity is for better all
Them and sense to seem, the better of a falling man?
That has seen a wiser choice, the breadth of concern to any's call?

Truer to define a shout, than a whisper of curiosity...
Mind over mention, of matter's at hand, may and?
Have the courage to live in well and lent light, a virtuosity
That comes and goes like a lover, notice me in the sulk, of also ran...

Time immemorial, them given implicitly...
Finished thought's, that feed me for years...
Kissing questions sound enough, to live the life of reality...
And a brown-nosed television, with an excuse of purposes to suggest we're...

A magpie inspects

what is trusted, what is new --


around my new house.

Each day they invade
Headlines against my small mind
Stories of pure hate

Fire up your talk boxes
Life’s such a bore
Until we discover
Today’s Rage du Jour

Do we have to turn Red
if they’re feeling Blue?

Does screaming more loudly
make it any more true?

Is it fate we must hate if
They want to make it great?

Must our faces turn redder if
They want to build back better?

What if we hear different voices?
And what if they make different choices?

Do we choose to lash out
always feel justified
As our fears turn to rage
and we’re bloated with pride?

Who among us sees clearly?
Whose judgment is never astray?

What great one among us holds just the right viewpoints
to keep cyber pitchforks at bay?

He said sinless stoneholders
could fire away
Yet there’s rocks hurling
constantly every which way

Can’t we sew up our lips
and ***** up our our ears
and realize there’s much
we can learn from our peers?

It’s hard to see it through our spite
But life is rarely black or white

Whatever happened to nuance?
When did we lose the gray?
How did this digital mob get the power to police every last thing we say?

There’s a whole vibrant world in 4K
We’re all welcome to come out and play
Let’s not label them Other
When they’re truly our brother
Only Kindness can show us the way

People just believe

in the new, and they forget --


that it is ageing.

Radio news bulletin in the car
the last item read in those mellifluous tones
is about a seven-year-old boy
struck and killed by a car
in a poor suburb of Wellington.

The protocol around the legal and privacy issues
means it’s “no name, no pack drill”,
but he was someone,
someone’s son, grandson
perhaps even great-grandson.
He had probably had siblings,
definitely friends and playmates.

Somewhere in a house with
inadequate winter heating,
where the household income is
constantly under siege
and life never rises above a struggle,
there is a mother and a father
who bear this greatest grief.

 Andrew M. Bell

Evening news is where they begin with "Good evening."
And then they proceed to tell you why it isn't.