"Anti" Chris Butler is an illiterate poet howling from the Quiet Corner of Connecticut. His 11th book of poems, "DOOMER", has been published and released by Ethel. He is also the co-editor of The Beatnik Cowboy literary journal.

Why Do the Bees Dream?  
  
Why do the bees dream,  
and not only sleep alone  
when the late day chills   
their exoskeletal shell?  
  
Why do the bees dream  
with restless legs   
pollinating colonies   
where their nesters are   
cradled in hexagonal combs,  
formed into homes    
of regurgitated honey?   
   
Why do the bees dream  
when their royalty   
is an engorged queen,   
conquering the flower   
with armies forced    
to feed the budding   
baby bee population?  
  
Why do the bees dream  
of low flying drones   
snorting pheromones,   
as their radar to drop   
a stinger cruise missile   
onto the nose of an   
incoming brown bear?  
  
Why do the bees dream  
when they’re smoked into   
peaceful unconsciousness  
like poppy Buddhists?  
  
  
Iceberg  
  
The rabbit, ensnared on a frozen artic block,  
set adrift to the blue skies and azure seas,  
begins burrowing a hole, incredulous in its   
desperate search for the safety of   
a warm, underground home, slowly   
slipping further down into the indigo deep,   
until breaking through into the endless   
dark abyss, silencing its death rattle   
by drowning.   
  
  
The Way Back Home  
  
The way back home  
isn’t on a cold road  
still shining with yesterday’s rain,  
when you’ve nowhere to go,  
alone,   
watching the tinted break lights  
cover you in a crimson costume,  
passing by your shivering thumb,  
for a hitchhike  
that will never come.  
  
My childhood bat cave basement  
was just a half finished rec room,   
with all the walls stripped nude   
of posters with bunnies in bikinis,  
all toys donated to salivating armies   
of dumpster divers’ deep sea expeditions.  
  
But within an hour of   
saying and waving goodbye,  
to leave my very first fortress   
with castle walls and moats  
for dirty pothole roads.     
  
The only way back home,  
into a warm bed with   
fabric softened clean sheets  
smelling of lavender detergent,  
awakened by that distant taste   
from the kitchen of flavors   
that momma used to make,  
  
was to walk into that road  
so the next driving passerby  
would hit and run. 
 
 
When insomnia has taken complete control of your restless legs and racing thoughts… 
 
you know it’s far too late 
when after constant commercials 
for bootleg erectile dysfunction pills 
and cures for balding heads, 
all of which feature the incentives of 
female models frolicking on sandy beaches, 
and you reach the end of the broadcasting day, 
watching a 4th of July fireworks spectacular 
in tandem with the national anthem.  
 

 
Trigger 
 
From today moving forward, 
Webster’s Dictionary,  
the grammar police  
and the unfree speech Nazis 
will begin deleting  
words from the dictionary, 
instead of adding new 
mouth sounds from  
the new Old English, 
 
in order to prevent 
our peers’ pressure 
from pulling 
my fingering 
of the world’s 
trigger.