Startled me, it did
With darting speed, a small arachnid
That leapt, then rested upon doorframe
Fascinated me all the same

I’d seen these as quite loathsome creatures
This one epitomizing their standard features:
Clinging and spindly, longly legged
Many eyes – quick death, they begged

So grabbing a tissue, I prepared for gore
Having slain these things many times before
I wadded the weapon tight in my grasp
When the spider did speak – and I did gasp

“You are, sir, a gentleman, I do so guess
And I will so die at your behest
But perhaps from me something you could learn
And my purpose t’would be duly earn’d.”

“Go on,” said I. “Say what you will.”
Disgusted by the thing I’d planned to ****
“My life is short,” the bug went on
“Spare me and I’ll still soon be gone.”

“That’s no reason to your company savor
Sounds like I’d be doing you a favor!”
But it stretched and displayed during my hesitation
All the merits of its creation

I watched with skeptical cocked eyebrow
The spider approach and grinning now
“You’ve already spent more with me this spell
Than any other bugs could have lived to tell.”

“All I wanted in this spider’s life
Is not strength, nor size, a man nor wife
But just to hear I’m thought of separately
From other spiders you’ve killed lately.”

“So, with our promise and the final ****
Bugs appearing, no longer will
And all creatures, then, that you will meet
You’ll happily choose to love and greet.”

The spider and I consummated this pact
And suffice to say, I committed the act –
Crushed the thing to death betwixt
Fore finger and thumb, with tissue affix’d

Since that spider, the abhorrent gnat
On the door frame never a spider sat
But since the spider’s vague prediction
I have new troubles, this strange affliction:

A hatred I had felt so sure
Simply isn’t any more
And I must tell everyone I see
Just how the spider baffles me

Your reader quakes like a ready reactor
Steady burn an incalculable factor
On your mark, we approach the next chapter

A quiet pen, without ambition
Keeps each plan from happy fruition
And pressure mounts, some new type of fission

Carve yourself out a space in time
Mark it well so it’s easy to find
History don’t repeat, but rhymes:

Solicitudes concede to style
Somebody just filed suit for libel
One more murmur to add to the pile

To be a made man is to be man-made
And so you dull your colors down a shade
The arsonists took over the fire brigade

Step outside of your burning home
Pavement stand, dial your phone
Ask whomever if We are Rome

The receiver will no doubt laugh a little
That is, if she caught the preceding riddle
Somewhere Nero bows the fiddle

Tell me something, if you please
About the world pregnant virgins see
Oblivious to a state emergency

A noble fourth, our D’Artangan
Has the sharpened instinct of a jealous man
Oh, you know him? And you’re a fan?

He’s wants a girl who drinks whisky and gin
Musket holstered, what a sin
Somebody asks, “What shape’s he in?”

One assumes he’s kind of tame
A lion, yes, but with a shampooed mane
He don’t play *****, but he plays the game

Shoes on, button up, wipe your glasses
Time to shake up contented masses
Donde hay educación, no hay distinción de clases

When it rains, it pours;
A downpour less frequently wet, sure
Dancing a shambling, ill-dressed manticore
Who has barely the strength to shake anymore
Find the only chagrin of the forecast is yours
But you bring some fine wine, a handle of Dewar’s
Your mind ascending from improbable sewers
Searing tomatoes, aged beef on skewers
Burned-off or absorbed during barhopping tours
With whom you lounged on Mediterranean shores
In your history head: Mongols, Turkmen, and Moors
It hits you again ‘til another drink floors you
Sleep on a sofa where bad weather ignores you
And somewhere inside a girl asks, “From who
Comes a voice (yours) at night ambling the halls?”
The friendliest ghost, not haunting at all
Who’ll likely come by if you give him the call
But leave in the morning before sunlight is tall
Out of fear of breaking some protocol

Despite this, you’ve certainly seen so
They keep you around as part of this scene, so
This is your life, just how it should be, so
Thank you my dears, my beloved Piso

A thought about our recent ******:
The oddly mean-spirited transgender
Who was a sort of dressed, but not very
Was the adorning maraschino cherry
Strange on a delicate ice cream sundae
Like which I melted early morning Monday