Spider and it’s web
A spider worked hard
Day in and day out
And built a web
With it’s saliva
To catch it’s prey.
Little did it know
That it will get
Stuck in it’s own web
Counting it’s last minutes
And die!
Extraordinary feats by persons living in the flat opposite:
That time you pulled that thing from out beneath the carpet without moving any of the furniture.
One night I heard you hacking back that budleia growing out of your bricks with just a pair of kitchen scissors.
Your balcony barbecue was a blaze commmented upon by everyone in our Whatsapp group.
Your girlfriend kept up her screaming fit for two hours and you were not moved.
Awesome.
spider – #9
One day I walked carefree through woods
acred behind my childhood home, only to return
red-skinned with fast-moving blotches rising up
that morphed soon enough to full-body swelling.
I was immersed in cold water with baking soda
as my older sister gasped alternately
with laughter and disbelief at the sight growing
before her eyes across my body.
Not only was my walk carefree but apparently
careless as well: I had walked right through
a red spider mite nest, to which I am
obviously quite allergic. Ever since
when I encounter spider webs, I react
(overly, perhaps) by flailing my arms to release
the sticky threads that would cling to me,
with apologies for disrupting a day’s hard work.
swb
Post 10 – straight talking
Under remote control
The quivering train trecks of Westfalia
Are kept secluded
Long empty heaving writhing in
Gross indecency
Less amusing
Than if puppeteered in person
Indeed,
Find me
In the clocktower
Beside the rooftops of Sally Houses
And over the Pinkerton streets
Come find me won’t you,
Fishing for treats
It is a warm day to wear black feathers as
The rook of the raven’s nest
Who mocks the gibbet
Who takes up commanding esoterica
Who bandages unbroken kitchen drawer things
And stuffs them into guttering
Assuming gestures are followed correctly
Me
If the weather is good
And even the RSPB don’t know about it
Though they pursue me
Our grapefruits are ready
Damned if the bell doesn’t startle me still
I will bring forks when forks are needed
Even if I decide they would look nice
Forks to me will be special
Forks to me will hold a special place
Under remote control
I make an application
Under elastic arms
Poem 9 – 8 Legs Watching
8 Legs Watching
Under the floorboards and in the attic,
Demon insects with hidden agendas,
Creeping out at night whilst you gently rest,
The room is theirs whilst you’re asleep.
Spindly long legs with thin tickling hair,
Malevolently emerge from shadows and corners,
Gliding swiftly across the wooden floor,
Up the bed leg and up on to the covers,
Soft sleuthing footsteps, till he reaches your still arm,
That spider is closing in; he can feel your warm breath.
He pauses a moment and imagines the terror,
Of you waking to see him, the fear in your eyes
He towers besides you, mocking you dreaming he’s in control.
One more step on your neck and his breath on your face,
His strokes your chin with that slithery long leg,
The goosebumps rise up and you subconsciously know,
Something is there watching you stir, with a jolt you awake,
He runs for his life, back under the shadows and into the night.
poem #7 – stained
stretching
kicking
feeling his way through
yet untouched by human hands
but dirty still
born and shaped in iniquity
yearning to be born
then born again
Arachnid Fatale – Prompt 9
The spider –
visiting from our noisy neighbors –
spindled along our
CDs and DVDs,
not discerning
if she lingered
over a Criterion
or my boyfriend’s copy of The Wolfman.
The sun
filtered through the blinds
and she scurried
behind Kieslowski
lest she
blanche
in the light
like Gloria Desmond
next to
a screen
on which her younger self
seduces her prey.
Black Widow Teaches
Out here in the desert,
Everybody bites, pinches, or stings.
When my hound learned rattlesnakes were bad
(I was grateful for the fence between them)
My neighbor taught me to
Pin its head and neck with something heavy
Decapitate it with a shovel (don’t touch it because it can still
Bite) and drop it in the septic access pipe.
The hound was so proud of himself he
Bayed at the garden hose for half an hour.
I use a snake stick now if they’re too close to the house, and
Release those rattlers in their range.
I was a girl with a
Toad in a jar or a jar full of flies for my
Lizards, or a wild snake in my grubby hands
Gently returning him home after a some probably
Terrifying gigantic admiration.
We’ve got scorpions, sun spiders, Gila monsters, coral snakes,
Fire ants, kissing bugs, raccoons, coyote, and
Cougar (she was using the treehouse as a
Feeding perch and it took a pitched pile of rocks before she picked a better
Restaurant).
An honored guest
Tarantula lives in my basement and eats
Cockroaches.
So a black widow in the door jamb
Near the carport
Really didn’t bother at all. I said
Hi to her as I came and went to work.
But the mutual non-aggression policy
Failed when I saw that sack of eggs.
Bleach in a bottle was in easy reach, so I
Squirted it on the cocoon of her lives.
I figured, I figured…
It doesn’t matter what I figured because
Black Widow Mother sprinted to her eggs. She
Leapt back as she approached the stink. She knew it was
Poison; she walked a jittery circle away and back twice.
I figured, I figured…
It doesn’t matter what I figured because her
Frantic legs straddled drops of death clinging to her guy wires and she
Plucked up that sodden silk purse of destroyed hope;
Away she went, wobbling, slowing, absorbing toxic extermination
So she could save her babies.
Aghast, I watched her die, her body in death still
Clutching the corpse cocoon.
I figured, I figured…
It doesn’t matter what I figured because
I was wrong.
There is beauty in (2)
When I was three I
thought beautiful meant someone
who did not wear socks
Oh Arachnid
Oh arachnid, I bear you or your arthropod phylum no ill will.
You weave your webs of tales told, widows and recluses,
Daddy long legs of venomous myth, lies that weaklings tell.
Nature’s thugs, built for brutality, ghastly and creeping stalker,
(Like a few Homo sapiens I’ve dated), I’ve seen the hour glass.
Time ticking for the feeble, sick, old, young, and unsuspecting.
In Hawaii, your island hoppers take a running start and jump
Clinging to a pant leg or arm, terrorizing victims resisting a ride.
I give you this: your infinite array and your wily traps stabilize.
The ecosystem won’t eco without you, no Librium in equilibrium.
So here’s to you my eight-legged, fanged, funky frenemies galore,
Peace and abidance: I’ll ignore your dark watch; you do the same.