The Visiting Poet event is returning to WHS on May 2, with Michael Dickman as the featured poet. It will be held in the auditorium at 7 p.m.According to poets.org, Michael Dickman was born in Portland, OR, where he and his siblings were raised by his mother. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his MFA from the Michener Center for Writers
The following is Dickman’s poem “My Honeybee,” as it appeared in
The New Yorker.
Crying in the cosmos that doesn’t sound like you
Crying in our arms
in the cosmos in our
arms
Missile static and afterburn in the petals
Your yellow-
and-black stingers
A child’s drawing
Some riddle from before we were born that sounds like a river
and spreads on toast
And floats
from flower to
flower
The first needle
The honey in the pot
I have always wanted
to wake up surrounded by buzz and
fuzz
My head lifted by a furry crown set sailing into the late
drone afternoon drifting at the speed of sound
My mouth full of strange sunlight
Killer bumble honey
in the brain
Dusting the earth
Sail on
Sail on
I have always wanted to bump the stamen
and start the universe
swaying
Those ten thousand wings you hear coming for you are
yours my little honeybee
Burning in place
in space
Pinprick in the epileptic air
Or swept up from the corners
and wrapped in
banana leaves
Are you hungry?
Alive in the middle of the room
Alive in the flowers
Your white shoulders and white rump
Invisible death’s head
turning on and off
in the dark.