Bees Poem by Kim McInnis

Every day begins exactly the same. I awake to a sharp beep, pulling me from the sea of dreams I forgot to have. Water pellets from my shower drum the tiles below. Synthesized sounds carry me through my routine. Black slacks, crisp shirt, a non-eventful tie. With hollow taps of footsteps I descend into the whirr of traffic. Time blurs as it shifts, ignored and untamed. Today the destination is different, but the journey is the same.

zzzzzzzzzzz!

My brother is quite slow to move
His legs, hands, mouth - all broken
His eyes stare blank and blind to light
His thoughts run dry, unspoken

There was a time he played, he prayed
He told his dreams to me
He had his hopes for peace, release
A grand community

But my brother's God now dwells not here
No nation falls on knees
No people live here anymore
The land is o'errun with bees.

zzzzzzzzzzz!

I don't go to see him very often. He's hard to reach, hard to handle. He doesn't ever leave home. He doesn't answer the phone. And it's a frightful part of town, beat up and run down. Not fit for someone clean as me, or so I'm told.

I remind myself (not without effort) : It's a short walk. Hardly more than a mile down the street, the street that throbs with the pounding of feet. I'm not alone on this road. Throngs of figures march on in my wake. They shuffle quickly past, fuelled by strings in each ear, fading but fast, escaping in fear. If I were to speak, would anyone hear?

I am alone on this road.

zzzzzzzzzzz!

The wind no longer blows.
The trees no longer sway.

Instead the air beats tirelessly
- rapping
- clicking
- humming
- buzzing

It's the vain beating of tiny wings
In the fight to flee the ground
The city dissolving beneath the bustle

We travel in swarms
- parading down the superhighways of ingenuity
- a quest for the sweet spoils
- to taste for ourselves
- then offer to our faceless queen
Her Majesty Progress
- we serve
- I serve
My self?

zzzzzzzzzzz!

His room is shut up on the eleventh floor. I knock on the door. Out steps a creature, once a man but no more. His face is too drawn, eyes too sunken in, his blonde hair is thin. He's devoid of all flesh, just a skeleton now. I wish I could touch him, but I can't think of how.

The apartment is bare and as wretched as he. I look in his eyes and realize I'm not seen. This thing of my blood cannot recognize me.

zzzzzzzzzzz!

We feed our eyes bright images
All while our souls grow small
Amid the storm of speeding limbs
I watched my brother fall

He slipped from high Society
Was shunned, snubbed, cast away
For in the palace of greed, there is
No room for those who pray

Lo, my brother's God now dwells not here
No Master hears his pleas
No people live here anymore
The land is o'errun with bees.

zzzzzzzzzzz!

I leave the building confused and without a goodbye. Why did I come? He is not who he was. I suppose neither am I. Cloaked in defeat, I return to the street. Looking up I see windows in neat little lines, a quaintly formed grid of curtains and blinds. The sight makes me smile, but why? I don't know. All the way up in the eleventh row I see a shadowy man watch the earth down below. My brother, against the glass, like a finch begging free.

As I studied his form I could no longer see
If he were the monster, or if it were me.