Anaphylaxis
Bundles of smoke creep
Like incense hives of
Overbearing exhaust smolder
Sticky as honey
Clinging to the rust
On armor and rivets
Stabbed by stingers
Lead identity to expire
When velocity dies
In fleshy metal divots
While bombs and bullets
Swarm like bees
No gas mask or hole is
Epinephrine enough
In trench gutter swamps
Golden fog of mustard nears
Sopwiths groan from above
And their payloads whistle
Carrying chemical misery
Which loves company
A zeppelin is queen
Protected by fifty caliber
Bold-chambered workers
Firing from the mouth
From air-cooled barrels
And flak spitting muzzles
To grind into ground
Peppering the land apart
A swarm the descending storm
War thunder booms and
Deafens the bees
Who pollinate flowers
In foxholes dug out
And pockmarks of
Muddy entry wounds
Of shell shock and awe
With every hellish buzz
Through a helmet two
Doomed workers die
Transplanted and pollinated
Beneath dirtied brass
Casings lead stung bodies
By only two in a storm
Of thousands of brass bees
