bees hive of (brief) writing activity

[beeswax]

Index of poems.


1. December 7, 2013

The Mist Hangs Like a Soiled Dhoti

2. December 8

AS -- goat's dead

3. December 9

The Holy Child is an Elephant

4. December 10

Photographing Patupatinash


5. December 11

The Jungle Path to a Famous Landmark

6. December 12

Identifying the Body

7. December 13

Ten Influential Books




I was encouraged by reading a lovely poem that Dunc wrote.

January 7th 1. The Magi

January 8th 2. Rough Sleepers

January 9th 3. Letting Go


January 10th 4. Fairy Story

January 11th 5. Rumpelstiltskin

Jamuary 12th 6. Vespers for the Dead

January 13th 7. Slaughter

[beeswax]

The Magi

Love can’t be measured
so they brought him gifts,
transformed the stable
with perfumed resins
and lustrous gold.
They returned home empty handed
-- but love does not count
the cost, calculate the miles, the days
lost to travel, the hardships endured,
the sacrifices made for the sake
of the beloved.

[Sorella]

Bees of two Continents,
You know what you're talking about! (Me too, as a victim of / fan of long-distance relationships).
Terrific to link it to the Magi, timely too.

[5th column]

Love is an expensive hobby and unless you have the time to devote to attending to it, can leave you broke...

I enjoyed the spareness and simplicity on a subject beloved of verbal-diahorrea-ists

5th

[pepperedmoth]

I'm becoming rapidly attached to your religious poetry. Wish I could write it!

[Featherless Biped]

Bees, I'm a cranky atheist, but I enjoy how heartfelt and un-smarmy your religious poems are. (Is there a single word that's the opposite of "smarmy"? I don't have great use for such a thing, but I think it would fit here.)

[Dunc]

Bees

Lovely to see you in Sevens!

Nice poem, nice homily on love, nice deserty-Persian feel to it all.

Regards / Dunc

[new leaf]

Bees, you've chosen an apt analogy for the subject. It's a gift worth giving, whatever the cost.

[beeswax]

Thanks all. Yes. I posted the day after Epiphany, Feast of the Three Wise Men. I was a day late in taking down my decorations so the poem was a day late. I was thinking too of the 'sacrifice' fast approaching and (s others discerned) my own love life. Thanks to all for being tolerant of my religious slant. The calendar is in my blood like a disease.

[beeswax]

Rough Sleeper


Her hands flutter like the selvedge
of a silk sheet, float the threadbare
quilt onto my canvas-cot, settle
the lumpy pillow. She’s slumming
for Christmas, a posh Samaritan,
a seasonal tree decorated with bandages
and breakfast. She’s cake with white icing,
marzipan and silver foil. I would gladly
dive into her pool, retrieve her golden ball
if, in return, she’d lie with me
lip to lip, skin to skin.
Though dirt-ingrained I’m still a man,
a human, same as her, from the same
watery womb.

[billdozer]

I like Rough Sleeper very much, especially the in-line breaks. Lines 3/4 sound wonderful. I can't parse "dirt-ingrained" exactly, just coarse or something specific? But altogether a nice run.

[Featherless Biped]

Rough Sleeper is a vivid sketch of both characters. I enjoyed that surprise of a tree decorated with bandages and breakfast.

[beeswax]

Letting Go


Silk scarves; a small forgotten
stash of dope – I used to smoke –
the rose leather house shoes I wore
to save the strip oak floor All these,
and more, bits of me you can’t let go
lie stored in box and drawer.
I’ll visit for a week or more,
slip on the rose-coloured shoes,
sift through the layers.


Should I throw away this ancient stuff?
Stow it in my travel bag to carry off?
In my house, far away


your stuff is stored, layer
upon layer. The stuff
I can’t let go.

[beeswax]

Bulldozer and Rachel: thank you for reading and commenting.

[Dunc]

Anne

Ah, the Frog Prince is a Rough Sleeper. I see. Great idea for a poem, nicely done.

But as for Letting Go, no other human is entitled to tell N what to throw away and what to keep.

Regars / Dunc