Best Wasp Poems
She vibrates, a chassis minus shock absorption.
A painting, the nude descends a staircase,
rings of Saturn etched in a vacuum tube.
Or Eniac of twisted cords and switchboards.
She isn't programmed to see light beams
spraying through the trees,
nor silver bearings of morning dew.
There are no bees plunging like pistons
in the flowers, no circuit board on the step.
She climbs the jamb as a bot returning to its task.
Monitors flicker as nanoseconds pass unnoticed,
but the galaxy ends at the lintel.
She's a child of Mir, suspended upside down
in a universe where falling isn't death,
but the failure of electrodes.
Then silent as a dead star she descends.
All drives cease functioning.
She is still as a scarab,
the light years casting sand dunes on sphinxes,
until legs spasm as though coding
a final matrix for iron butterflies waiting to be born.
We were replacing burned out outside light
bulbs at clubhouse. A wasp had built a nest
in the top of one of them. Two wasps bit my
thumb and it swelled all up. Here is my poem
related to this incident.
Willy the Wasp
There once was a wasp whose name was Willy
And some people thought he was really silly
Fluttering in between humming bird feeders
Thinking his food was measured by meters.
Had been some things unbeknownst to me
Where would Willy the Wasp possibly be
Some say after he had heard nature calling
Started playing around with all the pollen.
Willy would distribute it here and there
And ended up all over and everywhere
Results of his efforts had made much room
For fragrant flowers who wanted to bloom.
After all of Willy's history we would inspect
He helps keeping control of a certain insect,
And when you like us find yourself frugal
Can find insect name through use of Google.
Jim Horn
pale paper palace
hundred hexagonal cells -
deserted fortress
3/28/2017
He was an angry wasp, zooming around the kindergarten classroom.
Stinging other children with hits, smacks, pops and bites.
They were terrified of him within the first hour or so.
The teacher was losing her cool, her anger was showing on her face now.
Even the kindergarteners who had not been stung did not care for him.
They did not like watching him hurt others, and they saw the teacher’s face.
She hated him, so they would hate him too.
It was what he wanted. He liked the validation.
It proved that his parents were right.
He was unlovable.
Butterfly precariously caught in screened in porch
Desperately struggling trying to get out, held captive
Can see her frolicking friends through mesh that confines her
Her wings are fluttering faster, she is truly stressed
She positions herself higher, hoping there is a way
Fluttering is futile against steel mesh of screen
I drag a ladder and a glass jar to her jail cell
A wasp flies close to my face as I capture butterfly in jar
I carry jar outside and release her, into the wind
She lands on concrete, then flutters off, free
Wasp finds his own way out a few minutes later
Angrily flying toward me. I go inside.
Oh dreaded parasitic predator,
I yield to your flitting whim
and unannounced intrusion.
Innocently productive,
you carry on your quest,
unprovoked and unassuming.
But for your merited renown,
I take preemptive action
testifying to my regard.
The sport of a cautious hunt
prompts instinct and evasion,
no match for a well-aimed swat.
And with your final writhing twitch
I find a kind of sovereign triumph
in my gleeful, gloating grin.
A curious bee and a silly wasp were stuck in a cup of pee
The two insects begged the old man to set them free
“I don’t want to die” cried the poor pathetic bee
The ridiculous wasp said “I am trying to flee, help!”
Hours later, two tiny poos were floating in the acidic pee
Orange yellow gyroscope
Like hovering above nowhere
Watching moving obstacles
Adjusting to wind gusts
Looking like it
Would pack a punch
Ever so carefully
It maneuvers to get
To the entrance
The hole in the vent
Has been blocked
By some monster
Called human but
It finds a way round
And enters into
Its hideaway.
Once upon a time,
some ants lived happily together in their nest.
Birds, rabbits, frogs, and beetles
admired and envied their harmonic way of living.
One day, a wasp invaded their space;
it forced itself into their home,
with its dark, scary sting and body.
All the ants ran away for their lives,
except for one tiny ant - he stood
right in front of the wasp's sting!
The wasp was irritated and amazed
by this young insect's courage.
"Do you know you are no match for me?!"
the wasp scorned the young ant.
The ant was unshaken and unmoved!
"Together we can outmatch you!" the
ant shouted.
The rest of the ants felt the burning
courage from the young ant’s voice,
and rose up in arms to fight the wasp;
to fight for their home
to fight for their freedom.
The wasp’s sting was no match for thousands of ants.
He was carried and thrown into a bird’s nest,
where he became the birds’ meal.
The young ant, from then on,
became a hero. He was knighted by the Queen Ant,
and from then on he was called Sir Victor.
Pierced like a hot poker chip
plunging hard to the bone.
The angry wasp escapes
and I’m left with his lance
in my stubby forefinger.
Copyright © 2010 By Caryl S. Muzzey
First Place Winner ~ "Feel The Feeling” Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Paula Swanson
May 25, 2010
of the moment
solitary potter wasp
shot captured
A wasp flew in the room today
Before the class began;
It hummed through the fluorescent light
Then landed in my hand.
He walked around the inner palm
And whispered with his wings;
The creature tickled me with hate
And tempted me with stings.
I took the wasp and said to him,
“Now listen here, you beast.
If you can do one thing for me,
Consider this the least:
You fly yourself to somewhere else
And leave my hand alone;
My hand belongs to someone else,
So get, you dirty drone!”
The wasp sat still and didn’t budge;
If anything, it slept;
A slothful bug, to say the least,
And this I’d not accept.
I then heard footsteps in the hall
And heard my crush’s will;
“Hurry! Leave! She’s walking in!”
The wasp sat silent still.
She entered through the wooden door
And sat right next to me;
But as she reached out for my hand
That shook reluctantly,
She saw the buzzing, blackened beast
And screamed a deaf’ning shriek;
She ran back through the wooden door,
Her heels had left a streak.
I then looked down and thought about
The shot that I had missed;
It was then, I realized,
That I had clenched my fist.
I have a can of wasp and hornet spray on my desk
It says killer on it.
Do I feel guilty?
Not a bit.
Will I use it?
Oh, yes!
During the day the wasps hide out in cracks and crevices.
But when my computer is on at night, they creep out of their places.
Landing on my screen, startling me.
Like flying mice only more deadly.
When they land on my arm I have to resist the urge to swat them.
I have been stung before.
Most unpleasant.
I reach from the green can,
at the ready.
The sting of a wasp
Smacked me hard on the eyelid
Can't get rid of itch
Swollen, scrape is so awful
Wasp drove me nuts; I can't blink
Written: August 23, 2021
A Buggy Tanka Contest Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: M. L. Kiser
*** The Trapped Wasp’s Tale ***
Today I am a wasp in the room
Noticed when
Sights of light began the sounds
Of my tap-smacking
Head bangs
Trying to get through the glass pane
In the wall, for
Even I sense there is no where else in here
That hints of free flight
Or ever wants
A wasp in the room…
I belong flying through the ancient spaces.
I belong with the dinosaurs — who were
Always too busy to hear me sing, and
Too thick-skinned to feel my stings —
Before humans consumed the world;
Quite, indeed, very long after
The whole of Eden ascended.
I am more unwanted
Than an army of ants
Crossing through the kitchen.
I am frantic now to flee from
The force of human fear!
I seek routes aound the curtains
And over the sofa; moving
Unfortunately, irresistably
Attracted by the glistening reflections
Of light I see coming to me
From the tears in
The screaming child’s eyes.
I do not wish to bite.
I am furious for flight.
I am ripped apart by closed air.
I am swatted by hands
Behind the curtain folds.
I am attacked by heels of shoes.
I am perplexed why — simply —
The window I begged against
Wasn’t immediately opened,
Where, if there, I might even
Have hung on the screen
To feel a last, fresh breeze.
But, today
I was a wasp in a room, desparate
To flee. At the glass, in a gleam
Of hopeful light…
I was a wasp stuck in the room
Smacked by a magazine —
I died without flourish
Without a final glimpse of blue sky.
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(c) sally young eslinger 6/. /2023
Thanks be to God…