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He the hairy-footed flower beegoes around comes aroundgingery brown buzzes a humover lungworts, dead nettles bumps from his shallow hollow nestto find a mate before he dieswanting a new humthat will wrap him in pollen far from humorous bravadoof wings vibrating the airwhich is what we want:a final hymn unembellishedContinue Reading

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Open the closed beehive,Conquistadors are lurking our world. Maps of destinies merging our florals. My past meets my present,My future meets my past.My present is the end.All interconnected. I meet another bee,Another dimension eclipses me,Entreated with a new queen bee, Just not the same bee universe… Usurped my wrecked world,ChoicesContinue Reading

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Nurse bees are a special breed of workershatched by some unknown alchemyinto nurturing roles. They feed the needybees’ bread, honey and pollen mixedwith royal jelly secreted by their own bodies.Nurses visit often, examinelarvae deprived of food, give moreto those who signal the most distress. Nurse sisters. Duty-bound by natureto sweetenContinue Reading

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The Scene: A small Bavarian town in the Georgian EraThe Players:Georgina, the youngest sisterPhillipa, the middle sisterFredericka, the oldest sisterThe Ants of a HillSome DucksA Hive of Bees and their QueenThree prince brothers, who all looked exactly alike Phillipa and Edwina laid on a blanket in a field overlooking theContinue Reading

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I peek into wherewe keep them too weak nowbut to lean in nearly kneelingat worship only cleared tospeak of them in these newsleaks & hearsay I’ve had to swearoff from honeyed lips Mark DeCarteret has been working at Water Street Books in Exeter NH for 10 years. Worked at StroudwaterContinue Reading

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Such buzz the honey bee:small wonder Miles Davislived in a bee-loud glenwhen he played his hornlet his wings vibratefrom bee balmto marsh blazing star. John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of Gigs and The Reservist. His work has appeared recently in DMQ Review, Iron Horse Literary Review,Continue Reading

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I walked in my house stuffed with honey…Those hands are filled with my own honeycombs… I filled my jars with my own orange marmalade. My beehive was swarmed with nectar… Their juice and nutritions are nothing,My bees love me but I was a mere hobby beekeeper in my heart… IContinue Reading

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I regret that I spent most of our yearstogether—over twenty-five—keeping scoreon a chalkboard, carefully recording each errorhe’s ever made. He earned the most markswhen he raged unfairly against our son—& I tallied with a heavy hand the coldcriticisms of my body. Callous, cruel.I knew as soon as the page filled,Continue Reading

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Cuppediatoris1 voce coloribusque bomboque corporis cum Helena paene defigebatur2, exsultationi tamen repugnabat. Monstrum erat sub ostentatione venustā, cuius nidus novacularum cruore madefactus in pedibus Helenae iacebat. Dubitet fauces eius incidere, si manum ei iniecit3? Duobus Helenae hunc horrorem spectantis cordis palpitationibus4, Cuppediator lodicem exuit.Cum fugere ex sinibus nitebatur, iacca diloricabaturContinue Reading

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Fascinated all my life by acrobatic bees,and honey-dependent, I wanted to writea poem about them, then realizedthat my elusive subject was right under my nose,literally, in and out of the hollow red cedar treeat the center of our Sarasota condo complex:a swarm of 150,000 bees moved in practicingtheir circus actsContinue Reading