Anum Sattar
Anum Sattar is a sophomore studying English at the College of Wooster in Ohio. Her poems have been published in the American Journal of Poetry (Margie,) Off the Coast, The Wayne Literary Review, Tipton Poetry Journal and Wilderness House Literary Review. She won the third Vonna Hicks Award at the college. Whenever possible, she reads out her work at Brooklyn Poets in New York City. She would like to thank her parents and her professor Daniel Bourne.
Published 05/22/17
Published 05/22/17
"Solon's Drone "
Call no man happy until he is dead —Solon
Rather than try to join the diligent honeybees
who toiled away on the pink tipped flowers
to store grains into the pollen baskets on their hind legs
while thrusting their shimmering reddish brown proboscises
and sucking the golden liquid from the innards of the blooms
the idle drone bee was glad to feast on their royal jelly
before he lifted up to fertilize a virgin queen on the wing.
And though he did succeed in mating with a monarch
the other bees still resented him for having emptied their honeycombs
and before he could gorge more on their precious bee bread
the whole swarm of bees came streaming into the straw skep
to condemn the parasitic bee by stinging him without pity.
"The Courtship"
The bashful lady swan tucked her head underneath her wing
as the cob glided with such grace on the rippling water
that she thought he had descended from the heavens
for he surpassed all the other oafs in their mating displays.
She finally gathered up the courage to fly out to him
and lowered herself for him to clamber onto her snowy back,
but though he gripped her long neck with his knobby beak
the clumsy girl lost her balance and toppled him over.
And though she opened her throat to tempt him once again
the swan realized that she could not hold his fleeting attention
for he slowly drifted towards a more experienced neighbor,
while she schemed against them from behind the shriveled rushes.
"A Natural History of the Blind"
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind — William Shakespeare
Rough are the ridges on my splintered bark
by all your boring on my blistered trunk,
but I am fond of you, o my downy woodpecker,
for you pleasured me with your constant pecking.
And though I was aroused by the tingling feeling
of your chiseled beak carving into my soft sides
in the end you chose only your own kind to mate with
and I was left behind to cradle the eggs in my hollow.
Grief stricken I was until the fledglings flew!
Then soon I encountered a well-chiseled lumberjack
and had him strike me again and again with his double-edged axe,
so that once again my feeble heart would faintly beat.
Call no man happy until he is dead —Solon
Rather than try to join the diligent honeybees
who toiled away on the pink tipped flowers
to store grains into the pollen baskets on their hind legs
while thrusting their shimmering reddish brown proboscises
and sucking the golden liquid from the innards of the blooms
the idle drone bee was glad to feast on their royal jelly
before he lifted up to fertilize a virgin queen on the wing.
And though he did succeed in mating with a monarch
the other bees still resented him for having emptied their honeycombs
and before he could gorge more on their precious bee bread
the whole swarm of bees came streaming into the straw skep
to condemn the parasitic bee by stinging him without pity.
"The Courtship"
The bashful lady swan tucked her head underneath her wing
as the cob glided with such grace on the rippling water
that she thought he had descended from the heavens
for he surpassed all the other oafs in their mating displays.
She finally gathered up the courage to fly out to him
and lowered herself for him to clamber onto her snowy back,
but though he gripped her long neck with his knobby beak
the clumsy girl lost her balance and toppled him over.
And though she opened her throat to tempt him once again
the swan realized that she could not hold his fleeting attention
for he slowly drifted towards a more experienced neighbor,
while she schemed against them from behind the shriveled rushes.
"A Natural History of the Blind"
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
and therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind — William Shakespeare
Rough are the ridges on my splintered bark
by all your boring on my blistered trunk,
but I am fond of you, o my downy woodpecker,
for you pleasured me with your constant pecking.
And though I was aroused by the tingling feeling
of your chiseled beak carving into my soft sides
in the end you chose only your own kind to mate with
and I was left behind to cradle the eggs in my hollow.
Grief stricken I was until the fledglings flew!
Then soon I encountered a well-chiseled lumberjack
and had him strike me again and again with his double-edged axe,
so that once again my feeble heart would faintly beat.