Augie March Bee Gone
‘Be gone', the words that sent me out into the day
As though I were an actor in a play
A silent green midsummer of dismay
Where I did not see a bee, an Apis failed to fly
Espy did not my eye, no bee
No anthophile today
I wondered were they on a holiday?
And where do they all go when they're away?
But then I thought perhaps the queen was dead
And all the workers fled
The royal jelly bled, O dreadful, O!
No flower would be kissed upon its head
No strawberry or bean roused from its bed
And all of destiny is gathered in a garden
Darkened by the sun who's sulking up behind the shed
Be good, be bad, be here, bee gone…
‘Be gone!', is what the Mother's really trying to say
‘Get out of me and kindly crawl away…
You have a very parasitic way
Of taking everything and rarely paying
The worker bee has only just one sting
But you are like the wasp you poison everything
And it's only in defence she has to choose
To fatally abuse the spider in the tree
The clumsy lover's knee
As blissfully she comes in clover'
When all you want to do is get it over
And leg it up the dirty money tree
Well it isn't any great surprise no bee
Has buzzed before my eyes or that
I should surmise that we should disappear
And be gone
Be good, be bad, be here, bee gone…
