Hive

If the world becomes too self-absorbed and too complex, what will we have to proudly show future generations? I believe that sometimes excessive complexity can lead to excessive simplicity.

Hive

 

The broad way is scurrying in the desert heat,

Insects carry briefcases, locks to be freed,

Dressed in Ralph Lauren suits

With handkerchiefs folded so neat, so clean.

 

They dart from place to place

On deadened limbs, they limp

Purpose forgotten, all originality spent.

Might as well be on rails,

Domesticated from the tips of their noses

To the pits of theirs fluorescent entrails.

 

Of so much they are proud,

It needn’t be said out loud,

A great race retarded, reduced,

Counter-evolution, the natural cycle is abused.

They have forgotten the grass on the other side,

Greenery and vegetation have long since died.

What lives?

Oh so much lives, they would argue.

Skeletal rattlesnake tales shake in the hollows

Reptilian maracas warn of a meal to be swallowed

As the starving jack rabbits sit in silence,

Like miniature boulders lined in lichens.

 

The sun will set on the insects’ lives.

Nothing will they leave behind.

 

Ruin will lay waste to the towering hives.

No one etched a grave, for no one had the time.

 

 

Author's Note

This poem may focus on an ambiguous, broad idea, but it's one that means something to me, and perhaps me alone. Thank you for reading.

Reviews

[JimmyFlux]

This one intrigues me. It's somewhat cryptic like you said. But it's connotative in my mind of our accelerated and advanced race that thrives obliviously on its own self-destruction, in contrast to the natural world of more simple and grounded species, no matter how wild, that just carry through without disgracing themselves. It's as if we mimic the bees, yet they show us up. And as far as I could try to go with this, I'm probably too far off in my head to begin with. Thought-provoking read.

[Raven Starhawk]

Your grasp on metaphors is alluring.

[lleone]

I love metaphors in here. Good work. :)