Bee Man
By Charlotte Kerr
Hello everyone! What’s the buzz? I’m going to keep this intro short and (honey) sweet — not because this poem isn’t amazing, but more so BECAUSE it’s so amazing (and also my brain is fried from finals week… I just wanna join the hive mind… thinking beeeeee … turning into the bee man 🐝)
So here’s Charlotte with Bee Man / You are no God, though you drank the nectar (which first appeared on Going Down Swinging (Australia))
Bee Man
1. Bee Man spoon feeds you emergency pollen in the back room. You try to indicate that you’d like control of the spoon but he waves your hand away and you open your mouth. There are only 2 remaining jars from the season of bees, and some of it will be needed for the bees themselves. This makes you feel as though you are doing something wrong, but Bee Man says it is ok. Bee Man says, My English are bad. I know this. The pollen come from the beehave, the beehave where we keep the bees, the chambers inside the beehave where we keep the bees. Bee Man takes a spoonful to his own mouth. You both smile in yellow. 2. You dream about wandering barefoot through bee fields, up bee hills, along bee streams. The grass is a powdery sugar-paste. Lavender, thyme, oregano, and sage stuffed into one pocket, and a lemon stuffed into the other - all things you stole from Bee Man’s garden. It is cold in the darkness but you are cold too and this makes you comfortable because you know you are home; the low hum in your chest, the soft bristles on your arms, the flowers begging to be honeyed. 3. Not yet dawn. You wake to roam the Kefalonian olive groves. You are no God, though you drank the nectar. Thousands of bees hover around you like stars, frozen and silent. You spin round and round. You are no God, though you drank the nectar. The bees never move. The bees are fixed. The bees are the stars and you are the sun. 4. Returning indoors to rest and then waking once more, to a gentle spring morning. You open your front door. Bee Man stands before you in frame, with his yellow smile. 5. Someone asks you for the time but you do not know because you are a bee now. 6. You have not seen Bee Man for a while. Your fridge is full of olives and your pockets are full of sugar. You now live on this island and your best friends are Olive Man and Sugar Man. They are also best friends with each other. You think logically this must make you Bee Man. You must be Bee Man now. 7. You dream and dream and dream and you never stop dreaming and you never stop humming. If only someone could enter this dream with you. If only someone could hear you hum.
About the hot poet: Charlotte is a writer and performer based in Melbourne, Australia. She is interested in poetry as a lens for experiencing the world. In 2023 she was part of the Emerging Writers Program with SEVENTH gallery, and in 2022 was part of the Writers Program with KINGS Artist-Run Initiative. Her work often conversational in tone and concerned with conveying an attentiveness to the minute details of life.
See u next week!
🐝