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The Talks by Holly Voigt

1 comment

Johannes Jakob

Jul 15, 2010

Unfortunately we misprinted Holly Voigt’s poem, ‘The Talks’, in Voiceworks 81 Birthmark. We failed to include the last few lines of her poem. We apologise to Holly, and have already put systems in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future. Please find her excellent poem below, in full.

The Talks
by Holly Voigt

a writhing heap on the street
with no hive
the noise made me see them
the bees

to crush them into the grass
with my feet would have been
sweeter than watching
but I hadn’t the guts

the bees knew and they talked
walked meetings over each other
and under
hissing to each other with their feet
hands all touching
small hairs brushing

the last one uttered
deft eulogies by the gutter
whispered lies about flight
to his high pile
of dry bodies
like yellow leaves

they speak to breathe
and all speak is breath
and they spoke that night to death.