‘The Snare Drummer’s Plight’ and Other Poetry by Martin Elster

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The Snare Drummer’s Plight

The highlight of the evening is Bolero.
The snare drummer begins the famous beat,
the marrow of the land of the torero.

The players, who have sprayed themselves with Deet,
ignore the insects swarming in the light
or lighting on the scores. The music’s bite
and lyric passion build each bar, with singing
strings, winds, and brass—while buzzing bugs seek meat.
One gently touches down and starts to eat
blood from the snare drum player’s nose. The stinging
clings like a picador’s sharp lance of worry.

How can he stop to scratch? His part must never
cut out. Time’s poky arrow will not hurry.
Bolero! May it live—not last—forever.

previously published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily

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The Group Mind of Bees

While the scout drones and dances in the dark,
__her sisters’ palpi mark
__her every sign like Braille.
Who hears her hum her “B” will rarely fail

to find the food, too far to spot by smell
__or sight. She yearns to tell
__the others its location,
impatient spy in a covert operation.

What’s in the flower of a common weed
__can comfortably feed
__the queen and all her hive,
allowing the whole living thing to thrive.

You may conclude when speculating why
__a drone must always die
__minutes after mating
that, when the matter deals with procreating,

each part is for the good of the collection.
__Those giving it protection,
__who javelin your skin,
must also perish so the group can win.

Is Earth a hive? Observe it from a plane,
__watch moving specks. You strain
__your ear, yet cannot hear
the chatter of the people on that sphere,

as you cannot discern the conversations
__of insects, whose relations
__are always tête-à-tête
to us, whether a date or a debate.

Do bees and letter carriers look the same?
__One organism’s aim,
__to stop at every box,
the other’s to alight on hollyhocks,

whose nectar’s dried on tongues. When tongues of ice
__hang down, it will suffice
__to feed the colony,
more durable a creature than the bee

who, three days by her lonesome, will expire.
__What does she most desire?
__Working for a mind
whose nature’s still a puzzle to mankind.

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Martin Elster (born 1954) is an award-winning poet with a background in rhythm as a percussionist with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Martin has won four Pushcart nominations as well as Best of the Net and prizes from the Science Fiction Poetry Association, Poetry Nook, and Rhymezone, among others. His most recent book is Celestial Euphony (Plum White Press, 2019).