I found a flying striper
It minded it’s own business
So I asked my mother what it was

She said it was a bee
And that they could be dangerous
But that they made honey
And that some people kept them

I saw in my head a farm
With nets built into cages
To hold all the stripes
And I wondered if I could get
Used to bees
And
In time
I did

Their stingers are sunk
Deep under my skin

Anticipating the split between two colonies
Honeybees swarm to protect their queen

Encircled by her children
The swarm become one nervous system
Moving to the sound of rhythmic beats

I swallowed the swarm
Now safe within my centerpiece
Inside my muscular comb
They found new cavities to live in

i waited for you to

deposit bumble bees down my

throat with your mouth

they will safely disarm their stingers

and bring them all to me in a square envelope

‘shake it’ i tell you

the stingers become the poem i wanted to write

a really lovely one that tells you you’re a campfire warming my nose

that you’re pretty


it isn’t all roses though

it feels thorny somehow

yeah, i say, ‘i meant to take those out’


my throat and limbs are

fuzzy i say

but you find this, contradictory

I wanna smell like lavender and honey drops

I wanna be there when your heart stops

I wanna breathe in decay and out life

I wanna go to sleep and ascend to your side

I wanna return to dirt and become flowers

I wanna have honeybees in my blooms

Wages for the buzzing bee who works for hours and hours

among the drifting summer scent of honeysuckle flowers

I broke a commandment
and sat in the garden mid-afternoon,
so technically on the clock

every other life around me
lived
had a purposed buzz
and flap-winged damns to give
while mine were elsewhere,
somewhere

not gone, I guess
just hidden in emails
and dumb-watching other people’s
screen creations
from the follow/subscribe sidelines

and the industry of beasts
leaves me in a shade-corner
shamed by a simplicity
that my chosen complications obfuscate
poorly

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
by Michael R. Burch

Kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’
the bees rise
in a dizzy circle of two.
Oh, when I’m with you,
I feel like kissin’ ’n’ buzzin’ too!

Keywords/Tags: bees, kissing, buzzing, dizzy, circle, two, couples, coupling, attraction, ***, nectar, pollen, pollination