The Honey Jar

A thousand burly sages gather ‘round a kitchen top
Where the fruits are split and milk is spilt
And behind their greying eyes, there burns a long-lost golden crop
As one hand grabs a teaspoon by the hilt
A jar of plastic on the sterile counter of the buyers.
It glistens in the scorching summer blaze.
And its contents are the subject of the grey ones’ base desires
A source of their controlled, communal craze
Behold the sunken gaze, each desperate, folded, well-fed scar -
They want one final spoon of honey from the honey jar.

The spoon is shining, blinding, from the sunlight beaming down,
Augmented by the glowing plastic sludge.
The steel is losing structure, in the heat the people drown,
But the honey morsels left just will not budge.
The utensil starts to drip its molten sweat into the pot.
The wise ones sweat in tandem, wound and mocked.
Where has this honey vanished, when there used to be a lot?
If anything, they should be overstocked!
For now they feel the heat fermenting in a distant star -
There is no honey found within the slowly melting jar.

These well-dressed lumps are baking, as the wielder tilts the spoon
And twists the silver through the open ring.
The scraping slits abrase the ears, and tongues which must taste soon
What this infernal jar would always bring.
But still, the fluid ounces lack, the teaspoon shines so bare.
Another go, they croak with mouths agape.
The mercury ascends, but still the group are unaware
Just how the plastic jar is losing shape.
And though they dig and dig, the spoon can only dig so far -
And all that flows is melting plastic from the honey jar.

The sages start expiring, one by one they lose their will.
They’re hot and bothered, wet with thirst and pain.
What happened to their birthright prize? Why is it not there still?
That golden nectar sought after in vain?
A melted, plastic beaker drips around their blood-bulged meat,
Adorned in sparkles from the liquid spoon
And now the ones still conscious spare no thought to their defeat
Their honey, gift of God, must greet them soon.
There are no bees, no jars intact.
They melt, defiant of this fact,
For sun’s rays cannot singe their tract,
And so they wilt and die like weeds in heat from distant star -
No spoon can find their honey, not in any honey jar.