There was a swarm warning...
As the Parish Tenor - bell of St Giles on the hill resounded noon
and a football sloped down gravel to chime upon a garage door,
you fell asleep head pressed in your hands.
Dreamt of bees pouring into your mouth and nostrils,
that then hummed in your veins and played out insect cinema,
a world observed by a thousand set of eyes, projected upon your black hair,
a motorway of beauty, humming accordions and light.
And there was dancing, orgasms in honeycombed chambers,
gentle awakenings of life in the dark warm epicentre of the hive,
Outside the nest, bumblebees were angels that shook apples to the ground,
as they hummed Mahler in the air of honey and whispered order.
And in the quiet chapel of your sleep, where gentility blew in from an
open-window,
a kind coolness ran down the nape of your neck, curled round your feet
in shimmering pools of light, until one by one,
the bees left your body, returning to Chaumont or maybe Meures.
Slowly as the humming grew more distant; a thunderstorm off to haunt
others,
you stirred into an English May,
lit a cigarette and joined me by the window...
counting bees, collecting pollen from the
honeysuckle, entwined with the outhouse roof.
______________________© remains with the author
A. T. McDonnell - Email quickspace99@hotmail.com
Born Kent 1977 McDonnell graduated from the Norwich Art School in 2000. He has
appeared in the Art Schools publication Birdsuit and the U.E.A anthology of new
writing 'Reactions'. He was short-listed for the Wells, Somerset, Festival of
literature, poetry competition 2001. He lives and works in Norwich.