Best Beehives Poems
A hot and humid day floats merrily on the seas
As tiny bikinis amble in sandy footprints
And frolic in the motives of soft ocean breeze
Building sand-castle dreams with playful hints
Hazy hues occupy the environs of a blue sky
As pouring rains flood the tapestry on the arc
When hurriedly blue herons lift-up and fly
Escaping before the flash of a thunderous spark
In a floral garden tempt lavender intimations
Where nearing their beehives honeybees swarm
Skipping the ambiance of fiery red carnations
Subdued by sudden outburst of a fleeting storm
Above the horizon now rainbow colors sprout
Glorifying the moodiness of this season's reign--
Gloominess takes its place when sun opts out
As sunshine comes and goes, and so does the rain
The long day cedes to evening, buzzing in the park
And there by the sidewalks pink rose-blooms sway
Charmed by the bird songs in mating calls of lark
As sunset paints ruby tinges upon a golden display
May 12, 2019
HM: Your choice contest by Brian Strand
I find beauty in the unkempt places ~~
Sticky beehives with perfectly formed combs,
A child's playground sea of dirty faces,
An overgrown garden with ugly gnomes,
Sagging gables of long-deserted homes.
I look for more than people likely see ~~
Wondrous events occurring in past tense,
Places long untouched, lovely by degree,
Feelings of beauty lit from innocence,
Well-crafted stories hinging on suspense.
I long for beauty in the dour mundane ~~
Making the minus a clear positive,
Finding some loveliness in the profane,
To be learned in the raw provocative,
Turning low grades into superlative.
[LIFE]
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Written July 1, 2022
For "It's All About Three Q's" Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Constance La France
[15-10 syllable lines in 3 Stanzas checked by HMS
The ababb of the English Quintain with rhymes
checked with Rhyme Zone]
#16 on Poetry Soup's 100 Best New Poems List
August 24, 2022
#20 on Poetry Soup's 100 Best New Poems List
August 15, 2022
Frisky, gray squirrels scramble
Beneath a massive, old oak tree
Gathering the best acorns they see
Their fluffy tailed, lively damsels
Opossum wobble on short legs
From their laurel sheltered lairs
Toward the thickets where there’s
Vast bugs and spiders in their webs
Gentle, soft haired rabbits assemblage
Onward, seeking out grassy fortresses
Where they might discover tortoises
And additional special kinds of foliage
Black and white stripped skunks
Bob out toward their furry friends
Reassured they will make amends
So they will help them over tree stumps
Russet colored raccoons with charming features
Searching for their favorite pine tree expansion
Scrambling up through the long branches
To havens above all the other creatures
Big, black bear grumble through woods so eerie
Checking all around for beehives or cherries
Hoping to find a bit of honey or sweet berries
To munch on before the weather gets dreary
Tan and bronze deer clamber up cliffs that deliver
To the meadows where they’re stopping together
To chew long grass and weeds found whether
They make their trek toward the gently flowing river
Forests are thriving with these unique beings
All the different beasts living there from across
Pine, oak, birch, locust, laurel, fern and moss
God’s gifts to us who love this place so pleasing
"Novitiate"
Wading through
turgid mainstream
Novitiate makes her
way to the bottom rungs
of the Clean Team
Where dreams are
captured a.m. p.m. .
on the run with
weeping neutered minds
zero sublime
same old, same old
Asks herself,
“Where’s the substance?
Am I gormless too?”
rewards are Molasses,
Sugar Plums and
Glory, if that's you
It’s like dipping your spoon
in Alphabet Soup
re-arranging letters.
Shirley Temples with
no flaming
Bombe Alaska clue
pour the brandy,
light the flame.
Ignite something,
heart, mind or soul
covert intelligence
wonderful electric
minds pollinating
intellectual beehives,
"where's all the dripping
honey?"
Novitiate dreams
Go punch a hole in the sky
block all emotional rissoles
it’s not a question of
do or die
the Game is called
take-the-ride, at all times
avoid blood-sucking Vampires
Strict insects in an
ultra strict machine
watching their wings
flutter pretty, all beat
in time bang against
a silent wall
koutou three times
It aint about numbers baby
nor who’s who in the Zoo
it’s about writing your story
lock, stock and smoking barrel
keeping it true
Cover all mirrors
old is dead
born is new
Mornings rise with Sun
Fold your cards,
Hearts are trumps
Win-Win
what's done is done
time to de-robe and run, run, run
You're a novitiate skating
daily in your black
Nun's habit, it's way way
tragique, it's all a bit,
"La députée a raconté
une histoire très tragique",
find a new Boo.
Passports,
TRANSIT LOUNGE
Airport
Escape the Zoo.
Time to Do-the-Do
Novitiate throw
off your Black habit
Perfume
Rouge lipstick
New shoes
Yeah, put on your
Kavorka
New You
Double Deluxe Choc Chip
take the double cream
and cherry too.
Escaping the Zoo
True Romance.
OUR STORY
Me and You
(Lovejoy-Burton/2018 Jan)
"Temple of Love"/Johnny Hollow
https://youtu.be/p64wbdRBzjk
Slow motion memories.
Street lit like a movie set,
outside the dance hall.
Muffler-less cars,
full throttle, then eerily quiet.
Self willed machines idling along the street,
flooding the night; flashing eyeballs,
headlining teenage girls.
A sashaying crush; glancing, giggling,
disdainful in stinging beehives,
plastic jackets, high gloss paint and oily pants.
Cruising crass flash
false virility in high gloss paint.
James Dean on Sunset Strip.
Hands on the stick shift; giving themselves the gears.
skinny boys glancing in the mirror, where dice and kewpie dolls hang,
squinting at astigmatisms of Steve McQueen on hunk steroids.
Nervous to fingered combs slink through their hair,
checking out the rear end drive,
outside the dance hall on a Friday night.
A curly haired boy,
red faced brother of my best friend, never owned a car,
pushes forward in the street,
to talk with sister and friends.
Asked a girl for a kiss.
Too easily dismissed.
In the science lab; class dismissed.
Counters gleam grade A sterility.
Chemicals stare coldly from spotless beakers.
Put his mouth over the gas jet.
A curly haired boy,
going nowhere on a Friday afternoon.
Potato Mountain
I will arrive
an habitual escapee
from the rabbit warrens
of central planners
By ferreting north
in search of
breaks in the maze
rifts in the grid
I will follow
a stream beside
the climbing track
and yet higher
To a saddle below
the great ridge
southward along
eastern slopes
To a fine summit
of long vistas
and white gravel-skirts
exposed to sun
Exposed to eyes
sweeping round
the slow wide circle
of arcs in passage
Years to degree
degree to century
century to millennia
beyond human sight
And my own frail
footsteps in iron soil
blown to oblivion
by winds now shadowing
My identical track
passed beehives
thickets and copse
up the potato
To a summit
of concrete pylon
red dirt
and folk art
Where unknown infidels
posed the creative
issue of their
anonymous fancy
In the form
of starch-fat tubers
affixed with parasols
to shade them
And toothpicks to
give them arms
and bay leaves
to make them hair
Hats to render
them style
atop bald and oblong
pates of brown
Wings of sumac leaf
sleek and waxy
to impart mottled skins
flights of fancy
But they cannot fly
like chaparral birds
fitted to wind
and wildness
Unmoving the potatoes
await their fate
on a flat stage
above the world
Three days pass
their number reduced
in gathering erosions
and mathematical decline
Four days
the mule deer
has found them
yet still proud potatoes
Pass from deer
to lion to
slow beetles
upon the soil
And there the
once magnificent
and well-arrayed
vegetable host
Submits bravely to
mechanical escorts
in the brief free fall
to worlds below
Pooh, plush with his turned-up snout,
pleased; peeked out the wide window.
He prompt a mouth sigh, breathed out,
placid with life, holding his pillow.
Seized by magic of nature
and buzzing noise, means there's bees.
Out the door happy creature,
beehives beneath limbs and shade of trees.
Pooh and Cricket walk, a trail
laced in rainbow wildflowers.
A sniff they took, and a snail
slowly crawl out look for spring showers.
Fluttering butterfly lands
on Pooh's nose, twas so funny.
A bouquet and snail in hands,
towards home with jugs full of honey.
2/6/2022
Nursery Rhyme
Morning comes with downpour of dazzling dew
That sits on leaves of grass, petals of the flower
And with splendour and glory stains them anew.
Beauty of Eternal image shrinks into finite Hour.
The cruel ray of Sun quivers the grass, the leaves
And the dews suddenly vaporize and flutter away
Like the scattered flying bees of broken beehives.
The parting dew yields to dreary mechanical day.
Though nothing, nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower
Yet tomorrow Dew will return with the downpour
Of splendours and glories of the heavenly power.
Improved quality of food shall surely benefit man.
Quantity increases will feed the hungry and poor.
To the common man, at first, it sounds like the perfect plan.
Gene changed gorgeous fruits adorn the produce store.
Genetically changed super plants manipulate God’s world.
Seeming positive at first, scheming power at its worst --
Undermine the little man; devious research unfurled.
Appearing beneficial, redesign is by greed cursed.
Third world countries co-align as those in power hold their hands.
Their research advancements are supported from sea to seas.
Genetic exploration changes God designed croplands.
New producers thwart small farmers; they manipulate bees.
Homestead farmers feel the pain; sterile seeds do not grow plants.
Meanwhile the power hungry cannot quench greed’s growing thirst.
Generational practices work hard to keep their stance.
But into microscopic life new laws of order soon burst.
Lobbyists seek to stop homesteaders that grow their own crops.
Sterile seeds and dying bees are the super’s starting spot.
Rooftop beehives and small farm home-crops try to mend teardrops.
Changing God’s world is the backdrop to a shifting hilltop.
12/29/2018
FORM QUESTION: I know that this is written in quatrains, but there is a form for poems that try to influence reader's opinion ... or religion. What form is that? Does this poem fit in that form?
I recently visited an animal farm
Accompanied by my favorite school marm.
She said that the antics were fun to behold
Of creatures that acted outrageous and bold.
Well, I didn't believe her when first we arrived
'Cause all that I saw were empty beehives.
But then as our journey progressed up the path
What should I see but a pig in a bath.
But after an oink and a grunt and a squeal
I saw something yonder with yet more appeal.
There in the enclosure, as small as could be
A cute baby goat was looking at me.
I fed him some hay and patted his head
While Mother sat watching from her cozy bed.
But then he did something decidedly *****
By making some noises so eerie to hear.
He did it by using his mouth and his tongue
And also employing a throat and a lung.
He switched back and forth from the 1st to the 2nd
Attempting, you see, the white nanny to beckon.
The she-goat, however, was happy to stay
Right there where she so very languidly lay.
The baby persisted in making a razz
And then a "baa-baa", and all of that jazz.
No human could spit out a better Bronx Cheer,
No child cry "bottle" as to so endear.
I split my side laughing so hard at this act
It felt like a hernia, and that is a fact.
I've been back there often, but alas I have never
Been able to see something nearly as clever.
AT HOME
It is a long time; I left home.
It was dark and there were no streetlights.
I thought to live better life far away from my home
And failed to come back.
My home was valueless to me
It looked like a village yesterday,
It is a simple town today,
And it will be like a paradise in the future.
The bees bit my brothers
And sisters when they were looking for the queen bees.
They worked hard to develop farming.
Yesterday it was traditional farming,
Today I can hear about modern farming,
Harvest honey from the backyard beehives
Without stressing the bees,
The drinkers start drinking real lemon juice
And proper honey in warm water.
At home,
Life is hard everywhere;
Living with the bees,
It is so hard.
Life is like the game,
Life is hard work, strength is life,
But the weakness is death.
It is better to die in the field – battle.
A man who does not remember his motherland,
He is a slave.
I feel shame to go back home;
I feel that everyone is talking
About me behind my back
And no one like me.
Many people heard about the development of
My mother country, and they wished them well.
They are ready to crown the first winner.
Many people compare me to a lazy man
Who abandoned his native soil.
Friends learn how to find
The hidden treasure
In your hometown.
"*******" and pork pie hats
white shirts, black ties
sweat stains under their arms,
even wetter, the pressed handkerchiefs that wipe faces and necks.
Father Abraham looks down upon his children
and sees the words "I am a man" over and over again.
It is hot, and white girls with beehives and Peter Pan collars
cool their heels in the reflecting pool. Images of a monument to a slaveowner look up at them.
Somewhere a song plays
on a transistor:
"I Can't Stay Mad at You"
shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo wop.
A dream is young at 50 -- compared to the kingdoms of Europe, that wall in China.
A dream at 50 won't die. Even now, it haunts the sleepless, promising a new birth of freedom -- to let men grow old together, hand in hand,
to let immigrants walk the hot streets of Arizona, work their lawn service jobs
and not fear being sent away.
Today, in the global freedom capital, tourists stroll clipped lawns and snap pictures of order and majesty, of white, doric columns, Greek temples.
They email the images back to starved souls in Odessa and Beijing.
That Skeeter Davis song still plays. You can hear it in the molecules of the air, the bits of history that have attached themselves to His marble feet, refusing to evaporate.
The wind carries a tiny echo about a dream and freedom
and America living up to its promise.
The hope of the world?
History is sticky, heavy ... like the sultry air of summer.
It won't go;
It lives.
It makes our hearts heavy
and haunts our minds.
On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me:
Twelve lotus pinching,
Eleven surgical gauzes,
Ten boxes of advil,
Nine cheating photos,
Eight tissue rolls,
Seven colorful beehives,
Six facebook dislikes
Five red sea snakes,
Four French novels
Three black roses
Two sleeping pills
And a pink round coffin.
(c) Glenn Sentes
"you are more than I deserve. It's a love I never dreamed I'd find. Happinesd like this is worth dying for..."
- Yasunari Kawabata-
Looking down, while flying midway between sky and earth,
I saw a dog on the grey tongue of an abandoned road,
Licking its genitals under summer-noon's hot slogan.
And I understood how badly I had drifted from your hills.
The hearth, that eatthen hearth, we often mended with butter-clay scooped out of a shallow river called "wahumkhra",
every time it cracked, pitilessly, after meals we managed to cook, sparingly though, will always remain as the only string that holds the chandelier of my fragile existence.
O that sweet hunger, how I yearn for it now.
The pallet of pine-needles stiched with old sacks,
on which we gathered dreams with smell of pine forests,
was no lesser than the priest's preachings on sunday mornings about His heaven's promised infinite sleep.
The narrow streets on which I doddered looking for work,
with constantly slipping away toes from outworn sandals,
while you waited for me with the blossoming seed in your belly, a future, full of honeyed beehives, over which I staggered drunk with restlessness of a beggar, for which I repent till this day.
I never knew, honestly, that I will become an irrelevant thread in the embroidery of jasmines on the hem of mekhala chaddar worn by a naiad, for the first time, shyly, when she attained puberty, and on the day of her subsequent gandharva marriage to an alchemist.
For the time being, I exist as a windless flag with no colors, neither white nor of any color known to mankind.
My soul and heart stay bled, like the butchered wings of Jatayu, but sweetheart, you will hear me flutter, sometimes, in the chuckling of a wounded squirrel and wailing of a cicada in the pine-hills where winds tease clouds, where you dwell reminiscing shadows of our silhouetting nonsenses.
Notes :
1. Mekhala chaddar, a traditional of Assamese women.
2. Gandharva marriage is one of the eight classical types of hindu marriage. This ancient marriage tradition from the Indian subcontinent was based on mutual attraction between to people, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation.
3. Jatayu was a vulture, in the hindu epic ramayana, whose wings were severed by ravana's sword, while attempting to rescue sita when the latter kidnapped her.
Rakhi to my brother
No distances can part
no bearing can breach ...
As tender strings of rakhi
I tie on my brother's wrist,
Send heartwarming wishes
to Illuminate those paths,
that we traversed together
Holding each other's hands.
He reciprocates with a gift
my fav he has always known,
Vows to stand by
In all thick and thin,
His pat on my back
and caress on head hearten,
Many nostalgic memoirs
recalled to brighten.
You my brother
I can always count on,
and lean on ...
Words fail me.
Those wonderful years
throughout my life,
spent in fun and pun,
Many blissful moments
some tears shed,
Laughter and scoldings,
Tiring little games
Homework giggles,
lovely vacations together.
Cute hard chases
around in the courtyard,
Climbs of mulberry
amidst beehives,
Winning brought cheers
while losing gave sigh,
Etched in souls
are memories so sweet.
You my brother
Rise and shine,
Wish be the best ...
bubbling as always,
Sparkle forevermore.
Written August 7, 2017
For my dear brother Vasu