We fed our souls on our internal monologues of anger and dislikes, rather than loves, more filled with wasps, than honeybees – Bees flying ‘round lilacs and lemon trees, sweetly, while the wasps make an ugly spit-mud cake stuck against the wall of the house, where there are empty rooms, and nothing grows. On these internal monologues we feed our souls.
About the poem
“Wasps” is a Binary Poem in which the humber of syllables per line are sequential binary numbers, either increasing or decreasing by a factor of 2 with each line, like this: 12-10-8-6-4-2-4-6-8-10-12. The form is meant to give equal weight to images – the bees and the wasps.
It is also a Shape Poem, which is a poem with a graphic shape created by the length of the lines, in this case, a simple crossed quadrilateral, or bowtie.
A crossed quadrilateral is the geometric form of diamond facets – diamonds, the symbols of love but also the hardest substance in existence, which says something about what sort of internal monologues these are.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
“Wasps”, from Soul Collective, by Marthe Bijman, 2nd ed. 2025, p. 16. Painting: “#47 WTAF?”, acrylic & permanent markers on acetate ©Image and text 2025 Marthe Bijman – No reproduction allowed
Wasps
We fed our souls on our internal monologues
of anger and dislikes, rather than loves,
more filled with wasps, than honeybees –
Bees flying ‘round lilacs
and lemon trees,
sweetly,
while the wasps make
an ugly spit-mud cake
stuck against the wall of the house,
where there are empty rooms, and nothing grows.
On these internal monologues we feed our souls.
About the poem
“Wasps” is a Binary Poem in which the humber of syllables per line are sequential binary numbers, either increasing or decreasing by a factor of 2 with each line, like this: 12-10-8-6-4-2-4-6-8-10-12. The form is meant to give equal weight to images – the bees and the wasps.
It is also a Shape Poem, which is a poem with a graphic shape created by the length of the lines, in this case, a simple crossed quadrilateral, or bowtie.
A crossed quadrilateral is the geometric form of diamond facets – diamonds, the symbols of love but also the hardest substance in existence, which says something about what sort of internal monologues these are.
About “Soul Collective”
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