Stirring the city streets is always relaxing.
Whether I'm on foot, or in a car, I move swift and watch.
I watch the spiders pull their strings and tighten and intertwine their intricate webs
Less so focused on any prey,
And more focused on not letting their webs plummet into a tangled mess below.
I walk and watch.
I drive and watch.
The street names become background noise
As I walk with scissors
Looking for the right spiders
To cut free.

Orb weaver
Of the gorgeous webs
By the courtyard gate
We don't go through
That way anymore
Respectfully
It is all yours now


NCL September 2019

She’s the spider on your shoulder
Holding you, cold and tight
She’s all eyes, slitted blue,
And the longest legs you’ve ever seen
With flaming locks of orange
Which burn brighter than the embers
Of bridges she’s destroyed in arson
And when she smiles, corner to wicked corner,
It’s not hallowed beeswax on her lips
Which gives them that crimson hue
She’s slow and steady wins the race
That your pounding heart
Is susceptible to losing to
Saccharine sweet with a smile to boot
She will have you licking hers
Steeped in honey, polite and courteous,
She spins you into her silken web
Not even of lies, but you fumble regardless
And then she eats you whole

suspended in the air
creations of your own kind of flight

wispy strands protect and feed you
the weary that are trapped by your game

crawling and weaving,
flightless yet flying,
ever graceful,

the spider and his web.

Bring out the lights
The ones that glow orange and purple
Slip on your black and white tights
And plant some spiders
We're bringing the aesthetic
Creepy glam and full face
If there isn't a pumpkin involved
I'm not interested
Let'***** Party City
And get this started
I can be Inigo and you can be Buttercup
Or I can be Noel and you can be Sandi
We can dress up as our favourite
Spooky characters
I'll go full axe murderer
And you can be a creepy doll
We'll hit the streets
As wasted teens
They can tell us we're too old
But what do they know
Collapse back home
To watch horror movies
Stay up all night
On fright and candy
This isn't just one day
It's a two month event
So let's get real spooky
And live while we can

there are spiders in my hair
building nests and killing flies
there are spiders in my hair
cobwebs in my heart, and fangs in my eyes
you don't have to do this, she said
as the lights flickered dim
and the rain started to fall
you don't have to do this, she said
i know, i said -
i know.

is named
for her practice:
she cannibalizes her lover to nourish her offspring.
Lives until their hatching
at which point she too is consumed for their lives.

You always thought it was beautiful that something could sacrifice so much.

When you dug yourself into the body of my father and tore apart
his entire being,
how could you know that I watched?

How could you know that when
I bit into your fingertips, calloused from toil,
I savored the flickering second of your breath?

My love,
You wove words into wool;
A spider, you strung sentences into works of art;
While I, blind and blundering,
Tried to find solace in the stitching;
Thread webs into safety nets.
Yet there was perhaps a fatal flaw I forgot to mention:
I don’t know how to weave,
And I’m really ******* scared of spiders,
And time, and loss and love and you and me and most other things.
(But mostly spiders - like heart-stopping-body-spasming scared)

So, my pretty Baby blue,
I wish you and I, a doomed arachnophobe,
Could exist between the lines of love poems,
Could spend mornings in bed with tea from our favourite mugs,
Could spend nights walking home from our favourite pubs,
Could be everything I wished for us.
But life catches on and time catches up,
So for now I’ll dip my tongue in sugared coatings,
And try to lick your wounds clean.
I’ll etch your voice into vinyl, and put your track on repeat,
An album of day-to-day complaints;
Awkward stories; and the reasons you’re always right.
I’ll sit content, and sway to the rhythm of your tune,
And watch you, my friend, my baby blue,
Move, and bloom, to the unique beat of you.
And maybe you in turn, if you wouldn’t mind of course,
Could teach me not to run from spiders,
Like I always seem to do