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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

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Here is the light he was born intofragile green glowalready in wind and leavesday winding downTo open a tunnel of airTo hover above the cloverhomeless in lovewith the touch of earthTo waver in brush and weedsInvincible flit of flight John Davis is a polio survivor and the author of GigsContinue Reading

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“To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!” — Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass Ada is naked, kneeling among the fennel of their front yard garden. The Evening rises balmy, still, golden with pollen lit by an ebbing sun.Ada is toiling in their garden of fennel,Continue Reading

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—I am the spent Queen, this crown tarnishing.I’m aware you prepare to replace me.You see, I sense royal jelly stirringin the nearby cell, some lowly beesoaking in the bath, her body jeweledas she receives. How quickly I’m deposed.Since I can no longer produce a brood,my body shrivels to nothing. Disposed.Continue Reading