They slurp the pollen.
The beehive is a space.
It’s not the bees thriving.
They collect.
Musty like a buzzing cave.
Bees have eyes.
Their world is a million orbs.
Each world is pollen.
And pollen in pollen.
A bee can only be as big as their pod.
Which is a sticky place.
Hive mind.
The hive gets destroyed for being on a playground.
The bee to choose their new home?
Gets the first bit of pollen.
He rolls all over the flower petals.
As if he’ll live longer than this field of carnations.
Ever have a song
Stuck in your head,
Saying you have thirst
For sound koolaid?
Koolaid, you know,
The stuff that controls
The body metronome,
Whether moving the mind
Faster…or stopping it altogether.
Fans become cultists.
Do you have Bad Blood?
Are you Never Gonna
Not Dance Again?
Do you imagine tacos,
Magical tacos, falling out of the sky?
At concerts, do brain waves
Become one wave,
While the masses belt it out,
Swaying lighters to and fro,
Predicting the beat,
Or repeat
What words have caught hold
Over you
And taken the moths,
Flying out of leather folded homes en masse,
Flapping wing beat to song.
A plague is afoot and hive brain has won.
Is that dope, or dopamine,
Helping me work, work out, love life, escape life,
Or take in a better or more macabre scene.
Flowers come alive,
buzzing big bee hive.
Color exploding,
weeds now unloading.
Spring is coming here,
all can give a cheer.
Spring's warming of the breeze
And the greening of the trees,
There's a settling in the hive
To the soft whispering of bees.
A burrowed beetle 'comes alive
To sate stomach's hunger drive,
While a newly structured nest
Assures us that the birds survive.
Yet there's no more time to rest.
Worker bees will start their quest,
While life settles in the hive,
Bees will bring back nectar's best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The city is a beehive~
hexagons stacked,
each buzzing with activity
morning, noon, and night.
Streets: wax-thin, sticky with footsteps.
Buildings: golden, leaning into each other,
their windows humming with fluorescence.
Every corner is a chamber~
workers trailing in, workers trailing out,
carrying briefcases instead of pollen.
The queen? She’s a rumor~
a shadow in the penthouse,
counting her hexagons,
her kingdom of glass.
And the honey?
Oh, the honey is the noise~
the honk and clatter,
the murmured deals,
the laughter pooling
in elevators,
thick as syrup.
We are all bees here,
dizzy with purpose,
lost in the comb.
poem originally written for and submitted to Ultramarine Literary Review for its urbanity contest, Febrary 21, 2026.
B = Be sweet as honey is what we are told
E = Every child as you buzz around so bold
E = Every adult no hiding in a hive as you get old
I do not wish
You the Best.
I often wish you,
Under Arrest.
I hope you have no
Towel when you Shower.
I hope you meet
the Night Prowler.
I hope when you pee,
there is no Toilet Paper.
I hope you never get paid
for your Time and Labor.
I hope your purchase is wrong,
when you Order Food.
I hope it's cold,
when you're in the Nude.
I hope you drive away with
your purse on top of the Car.
I hope love always
leaves a nasty Scar.
I hope every time you leave,
You step in Dog poo.
I hope when you're on a date,
you come down with the flu.
I hope you never
get Ahead.
I hope your hungry
And never Fed.
I hope everyone knows
You’re a Liar.
I hope you get bit by,
a Deadly Spider.
I hope you never get
A Second Chance.
I hope you never
Get to Dance.
I hope you have a flat tire,
when you Drive.
I hope you're stung by
every Bee in the Hive.
Turbo1904
Erato leads the mind right into the zone
To look for the sweet nectar sought by the bee
As it fills its sacs with light, colour and tone
Heavy winged ,replete ,it returns to its tree
There its delicate imagery to hone
Ere it is ready to leave and be set free
It's in that moment a poem comes alive
Emerging fully developed from its hive
Watch your step, so you don't end up here
Where people like you simply disappear
To be devoured like prey, they're on the hunt
Looking for their next victim for them to stunt
Beware of the snake pit, the ones who take
The ones who would drown you in a lake
Of their own selfish needs and desires
With a tongue forked in two, the best of liars
Don't shake the bee hive, you'll anger the queen
All of her minions buzz around free
Selecting their next target to sting
It could be you next, their reasoning is obscene
Careful of the lions' den, looking for a meal
They look mighty noble, but all they do is steal
With brute force they pounce on their target
The language of violence is the only one they get
So sharpen your knives, and ready your mind
You don't want to find yourself in their bind
They fill up this world, on every corner you see
Is a place where one of these three could be
In the arid grasp of a withered plant,
The hive appears forlorn, its dryness stark,
Yet within lies the nectar all relish and want,
Nourishing sustenance, a feast to embark.
A facade of chaff and wax, so unassuming,
A fragrant lure that entices the birds,
They gather eagerly, their beaks consuming,
Sputtering and squawking, their appetites spurred.
Satiated and vibrant, they clumsily take flight,
Leaving behind a fragrance that lingers in air,
Other creatures in spiral attraction alight,
Drawn to the honey, sticky and rare.
The bees, encouraging, they dance and they sway,
Surrounding the hive with a sense of calm,
Fire and vermin repelled, kept at bay,
As bees collect honey, sweet and warm.
But hidden within this cycle of bliss,
A web of relationships harbors deceit,
Surprising is the hive's ultimate abyss,
Its destruction revealed, a bitter defeat.
Confusion befalls the bee, homeless and lost,
Just like my love, once steady and pure,
Shattered illusions, a heart tempest-tossed,
Leaving emptiness, a love insecure.
In the hive, she is so well attended -
thousands of workers, all pleased to toil,
hundreds of soldiers keep her defended,
all for her, and her palace of soil.
But when it comes time, my queen, I'm afraid,
it will be just me bound purely to you.
No castle with servants, no knights to bade -
and I'm hardly a king; I must speak true.
I do not drink ambrosial nectar,
yet, somehow, with God's grace, I shall become:
worker, warrior, provider, protector,
merely a man, yet an army of one.
I must do it all, such pleasure to strive,
for love of my queen and fate of our hive!
24 March 2023
A SIMPLE POETRY CONTEST Poetry Contest sponsored by John lawless
The lavender haired princess was not used to living in a hive.
But weren’t you one of several children. “Yes,” she said “five.
But the others were worker bees, which is not the same.
They are training me to be queen, that is my parents’ game."
"Wouldn’t that be lovely?" Her new friends asked, feeling glad.
She was not sure that she wanted it, other plans she pretty much had.
Put fortune teller on your lap and concentrate suggested her friend Live.
Run away and live your drfeam life, honey, said the fortune telling hive.
Our spirit is the sole queen
Queen of the body’s hive as seen
Without her, all would be anarchy
Oh Queen, mercifully guide me
If she falls over and tumbles
The hive falls too as it rumbles
Both plunge to the dirt of the tree
Oh Queen, mercifully guide me
If she is sound and at pure peace
Honey will flow out without cease
Out of a fountain of honey
Oh Queen, mercifully guide me
Our very being comes from her
She’s the sole queen as all concur
As Barbelo in heaven’s hive
Barbelo, show grace as I strive
Then soon the climate migration began
when one they called Ian had ravaged our land
So fiercely he raged with his power and might
all would lay waist in the wake of his flight
So was the damage that Ian had done
the people were left but to follow the sun
Masses of people now needing a home
many left stranded to endlessly roam
Ian had not been the first of his kind
others had come with a furious mind
but his was a wrath leaving such devastation
attention to climate change gained revelation
People were leaving where temperatures soared
wells ran dry and fires roared
Some had to leave where waters were rising
all of their worlds felt the weight of capsizing
Suddenly cities and towns were outgrown
the people kept coming from places unknown
With resources slow to keep up with the pace
compassion would soon test the whole human race
Climate migration has only begun
The heart of the whole human race must be won
What other chance will we have to survive
than to trade in our sides for the mind of a hive?
~Jeannie Cronin
screams erupt in the morning
kids running everywhere
bee hive party
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