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