Showing posts with label 29 Aug 23. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 29 Aug 23. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Certainly Love, Certainly Salt

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Eighteen or older.

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Responses, please.

What would you like
To read about
More—emotions,

Wisdom, the moon,
Motherhood, loss,
Injustice, trees,

Or none of these?
What comforts you?
What’s truffle-like,

What’s a tasty,
Wafer-thin mint?
What’s poetry

When you think of it,
When you think that word
And what lurks in it?

The Honey and the Venom Are the System

Blaming a life for being
Unlike its art’s a bit like
Blaming a bee for being

Unlike its honey. Minus
The honey, complications
Are all that’s left of the bees--

At least for you consumers
Of that sweetness—buzzing, stings,
Frequently unpleasant things.

But never forgive bees’ lives
For offering you honey.
Bees don’t offer anything.

Bees pollinate the flowers
Of the world, a mutual
System of exploitation,

And the honey’s not for you—
It’s just good, so you take it.
What steals bee’s honey shapes them

As bees shape pollination.
Pollen and honey are good,
So their sources defend them.

The flowers trick with nectar,
The bees come armed with weapons,
And you come take what you can.