Delphic
such plants stand out/ the muses who bestowed
the sacred enthusiasm of the
logos sending bees to annoint the poets
/ curious lore may represent a sort
of mythological/ pursuit of wild
honey/ against a background of extreme/
biodiversity/ ate liberally
of honey found there/ lost their sense/ wondrous
/ prophecy/ giddiness, delirium and excitement
sensations of flight/ a toxic/ human
/ no other is allowed to prosper/ in
fabrication of their ritual/ of
hollow-log hives/ follow the bees to the
nectar/ wild animals/ encounters
NB: The source of this found sonnet is an academic article: “The Delphic Bee - Bees and Toxic Honeys as Pointers to Psychoactive and Other Medicinal Plants” by Jonathan Ott, as appeared in the journal Economic Botany, Vol. 52 (Jul. - Sep., 1998), pp. 260-266. The text has been reproduced exactly as appears in the source, with the exception of the removal of punctuation. Slashs indicate where each extract begins and ends.
Life of the Bees
B: The source of this erasuresonnet is the article “The Life of the Bee - Paintings By Microscope Reveal the Busy World Inside The Hive” as appeared in Life magazine, 1952.
ZACHARY BOS is an alum of the MFA program at Boston University. He is editor of New England Review of Books, and publisher of Pen & Anvil Press. His writing has appeared recently in Written River, Lotus-Eater (Italy), Istok (Serbia), Public Pool, Written River, and Fallujah magazine. He blogs at thewonderreflex.blogspot.com, and tweets occasionally as @zakbos.