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Revision 1
Time to contract, to burn lower.
Beat the heart slower.
Stimulated skin peels
—stomach sours—
as the bee recedes;
yet smiles remain unfurled,
heated and female,
amped and aching.
Original version
Time to contract, to burn lower. Beat the heart slower.
Its stimulated skin peels and its stomach sours.
The bee has pulled out but it's still unfurled,
heated and female, amped and aching.
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(07-03-2016, 11:09 AM)lizziep Wrote: Time to contract, to burn lower. Beat the heart slower.
Its stimulated skin peels and its stomach sours.
The bee has pulled out but it's still unfurled,
heated and female, amped and aching.
Very nice - I was shocked to learn (while researching something else) that only female bees sting because the sting is a modified ovipositor. How dare Nauture be so blasted symbolic!
 Non-practicing atheist
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(07-03-2016, 11:09 AM)lizziep Wrote: Time to contract, to burn lower. Beat the heart slower.
Its stimulated skin peels and its stomach sours.
The bee has pulled out but it's still unfurled,
heated and female, amped and aching.
Hi ! I liked this very much....I love 'beat the heart slower'....and the alliteration is nice stomach/ sours, stimulated /skin, and in particular amped/aching.
I didn't know that bee fact either--how bizarre. But I can feel this little poem. It has pain. It sparks thought...
Great job! V
"Why do you suppose we only feel compelled to chase the ones who run away?" -Vicomte de Valmont, Dangerous Liasons
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Same thing in humans, stinging and reproduction amount to much the same thing.
Clever poem BTW.
dale
How long after picking up the brush, the first masterpiece?
The goal is not to obfuscate that which is clear, but make clear that which isn't.
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(07-03-2016, 11:09 AM)lizziep Wrote: Time to contract, to burn lower. Beat the heart slower.
Its stimulated skin peels and its stomach sours.
The bee has pulled out but it's still unfurled,
heated and female, amped and aching.
Title a mystery in both the religious and the common sense.
First line oozes sex -- I imagine two loving souls now finishing, now merging at last into the truth of their being, into the one divine hermaphroditic amorphous whole.
Second line oozes sex, although with stomach sours, there's a sense of something else going on, something more violent. I just hate the fact that there's two possessive pronouns there, my impulse to break things bugging me to ask for apostrophes -- isn't there a cleaner way?
Third line finally clarifies the image: now, sex is shown to be a memory, or at least a metaphor. But the first half is a little too clinical, with the relatively plain "pulled out", and the second half better shows the preceding line's weakness. Sure, the "it"s are unambiguous, but at this point, with everything else being so direct, they just feel like failures of the artist to find better words -- "it" may clearly refer to "bee", but it seems that for each use of "it", a different, if worded differently more interesting, aspect of the bee's existence is being referred to.
Fourth line, however, with its return to individual images, returns to brilliance. Now I see the unison of the first line being inverted, the subtlety of the second line being crystallized -- the title, ultimately, being revealed. My interpretation is that with this inversion of roles, with the female bee (always) doing the stinging, the language that constructed it suddenly betrays it, suddenly casts it out of paradise: however equal the female is in the act, still, if it is to be righteous, she must be below, as the male must be on top. Which is, of course, ultimately oppressive, in a way that destroys any true sense of bliss or righteousness in the act. Lovely, lovely poem.
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(07-03-2016, 11:22 AM)dukealien Wrote: Very nice - I was shocked to learn (while researching something else) that only female bees sting because the sting is a modified ovipositor. How dare Nauture be so blasted symbolic!
Ha! I had no idea about the female being the one that stings. That is interesting!
(07-03-2016, 04:11 PM)Vanity Wrote: Hi ! I liked this very much....I love 'beat the heart slower'....and the alliteration is nice stomach/ sours, stimulated /skin, and in particular amped/aching.
I didn't know that bee fact either--how bizarre. But I can feel this little poem. It has pain. It sparks thought...
Great job! V
Hi Vanity! Thanks for letting me know what's working and that it resonated. It always does my heart good when something I write has some staying power with people 
(07-04-2016, 12:52 PM)Erthona Wrote: Same thing in humans, stinging and reproduction amount to much the same thing.
Clever poem BTW.
dale
So true, so true!
Thanks for the compliment. Always appreciated.
RiverNotch: yes, the pronouns are bothering me too -- well received. I see that it's not clear whether I'm referring to happiness or the bee. Ugh.  This will get addressed in a rewrite, to the best of my ability. I usually try to wait a week before I do a re-write to let things simmer and gel, but I always come back to revise.
Thank you for letting me know what's coming across -- that's very helpful! Thank you.
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Ok, so I guess that worker bees that pollinate the flowers are actually female, it's true. I'm inclined to leave the bee/flower image as is even though the male/female element is gone. I don't know if it's actually breaking down the metaphor or not. 
And, I discovered this: "Should a drone succeed in mating, he soon dies because the penis and associated abdominal tissues are ripped from the drone's body after sexual intercourse." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_(bee)
Who knew sex could be so unsexy.
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Hello all 
New version is up. I'd love any thoughts on it.
RN: I tried to work on the possessives problem. What do you think?
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I always find four lines to be more complete (like perhaps that whole forty days symbolism in the bible) but everything seems alright. The rhythm kinda reminds me of one of those longish prosish poems like Whitman or Ginsberg. And yeah, the possessives ain't no issue anymore. A little bugged, too, by the semicolon, but as far as I know, the usage ain't offensive, so nevermind.
Still good stuff. I like how this ties with the next short poem you posted.
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(07-30-2016, 01:01 PM)RiverNotch Wrote: I always find four lines to be more complete (like perhaps that whole forty days symbolism in the bible) but everything seems alright. The rhythm kinda reminds me of one of those longish prosish poems like Whitman or Ginsberg. And yeah, the possessives ain't no issue anymore. A little bugged, too, by the semicolon, but as far as I know, the usage ain't offensive, so nevermind.
Still good stuff. I like how this ties with the next short poem you posted.
How does 3 not contain Biblical symbolism? 3 is the number of perfection! I think that belief goes way back, actually.
Mmmmm, I love me some longish prosish poems I'm actually a huge fan of Ginsberg. I'd love Walt too if he would stop talking about his virile, potent seed for two seconds Which is a strange double standard, because Ginsberg probably talks even more about sex than Walt.
What do you have against semicolons?
Hmmmmm, a connection. To "Original Narcissism?" Maybe because of the effort to self-perpetuate? I could link them together, I suppose. Do a little collection of epigramish thingies.
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