I scrutinized the miserable wretch harnessed to the table
Polished my knuckle with his murk, malice, and fable

                             Placing a centipede on his stomach as it shuffled to his eye
Languidly impending horror as he begged me to die

                                I put pressure on his abdominal with the ball of my hand
Took a breath to my diluted lungs as the boy’s jawline ran

                          Tantalizing screams of dread, poor boy fastened on steel bed  
I protruded my hand deep and to his intestines, it fed

                                          My malignant clasp ripped and mangled as it went
Like the centipede too, itched and mangled as it went

                                 And as his entrails to, like sizeable centipedes they went
In a ****** stream of fluids crawling and sprawling as they went

I bound up with glee as my poor wretch lay be, and I swung him head-toe to a pit
Where billions of legs crawl, but human ones not at all, a realm where arthropods permit

A surface gleams its slick ripples,
Solid liquid covering varied depths,
Frigid water held strong to the reflection of sky.
Held steady in gray by overcasts,
That hide the blemishes on this day.
Crack a warning, glints of sarcasm pierce the eye.

Somewhere below live antique creatures,
Demons of yesterday encapsulated.
Slow with slime and cold with sleep,
They dream of spring, dream of a thaw.
When sunshine blasts the sound of life,
Screams an alarm none dare not keep.

The slow shift strains patience,
Green bubbles from woody mottled arms.
Here and there come the arthropods,
Beginning their feast upon new bounty.
Finding themselves delicacies to another,
The flying predator of the mighty worms.

Singing sweet songs that bring dismay,
From April to June sometimes beyond.
Summer arrives in time to sear,
Tears from this repressed eyesight,
The cold winter from the dark water,
Which breed parasites unknowingly to pester.

Teasing sanity of forest dwelling fauna,
To fester in the skin as a tick or leech.
Drawing life out into the open plane,
Whittling down strength for another day
As we lay out the bitter harvest,
As we find another season of complaint.

Reed Bass
January 5, 2008

There’s a boarding  house off the main road

Right by the park

It’s called The Roach Motel
And that’s where we had quite a number of our infamous get togethers

When it was occupied with Latin dance music and the stomping of feet, it was like a pulsating tumor on that side of town

The Roach Motel
Because you could drink till you blacked out and then spend the night on the floor as a guest with various multiple legged pests

Silverfish on the walls
***** dishes stacked well in the sink
Day old Chinese food in the table
And of course roaches weaving in and out of the crevices of the kitchen

Yet people always came back knowing of such dishevelment

Maybe it was the fully stocked refrigerator of at least four different kinds of ice cold beer

Or the vast array of liquors that were always present
Gin
Whiskey
***
Whiskey
Tequila
And the sodas and juices to mix them with or use as chasers

It may very well be the delicious, calming tobacco that was stuffed into the alluring green hookah with two hoses
One red
One blue

I believe it’s simply the vibe of it all

When you’re at The Roach Motel you feel free, you feel like all your worries are gone
And there’s always a drink in your hand and you’re always among friends even in strange company

Whatever it was we always found ourselves going back

The Roach Motel was owned by Venezuelan mother of six children who allowed these festivities to commence

And when word got out that there would be a party soon to come everyone spread that word all over like a pat of Land O’ Lakes on a warm English muffin

Kids from Bergenfeild
From Dumont
From New Milford, Palisades and Garfield

Drinking the night away with bugs and good friends

The mangy scruffy rat looking dog running around the whole party avoiding being stepped on
Unidentifiable arthropods crawling out the sink

Laughing uncontrollably
Conversing incoherently
Then passing out and waking up with a horrible hangover

I remember the time four of our friend puked their guts out there

One in the toilet
One in the bath tub
On in the bedroom
And one on the living room floor…there was corn in it

Two hours of comforting and clean up

I remember our 420 party
Where the legendary Quincy Valero ate his very first bud brownie and went on a trip he still to this day cannot replicate

I recall setting off fireworks off in the back of The Roach Motel and in my drunken buffoonery knocking over a lit mortar and nearly blasting the neighbor’s fence down but it was averted thanks to Quincy’s rare swiftness

This place is a backdrop of so many hook ups, so many good times and of course insect infestation

Although a great party pad it was filthy and you would feel itchy whenever you thought about how gross it was
I would never sit on a couch or on a bed
I had the fear of picking up bed begs and bringing them home

But despite that The Roach Motel was our own little slice of Dionysian Utopian freedom

It mirror all our rundown rugged ***** souls that just needed a place to unwind and fall apart and float down the bourbon river and just lose it

With a joint or an electric cigarette being passed around
And electronic music being blasted
It was always another night full of future stories to tell
The Roach Motel

brachiosaurs were tall,
so they got hit by meteorites first.
but ichthyosaurs died slowly in water that
isn't warm anymore, because a blanket
of grey hair (there will be mammals soon)
knocked out the sun in a prize-
fighting match. i took a shard
of space rock in my belly that
tunneled into my backbone (the ancient
arthropods died too) but you got frozen, by
that ashen sky, slowly, while
your ocean got colder.
the sand shivered too.

These pillows always sink
Into themselves,
Though you may thresh in vain.
Comfort is only
As far away as from here
To Rorschach,
From the drop of a coin
To the fall of a leaf.
The covers keep slipping
Up and past your feet,
Cold clings to porous holes
In 12 count Egyptian sheets.
Cotton sticks to skin,
Like the bristles of a crab;
You rub feet
Bunion to bunion,
Your hands clack
Claw to claw.
These comforts
Are only temporary,
Disposable,
Thrown from a window
Into a dumpster
And into your cave,
To pervade your oceans
With our human stench.
Despite caverns
And sky between you
And the cold city outside,
The shiver sticks,
Stays on your back
Like sessile sponges
On unsuspecting mollusks.
As the lobster
You rise from the deepest darks
Of night-time in the sticks,
To peer out with tentative antennae
At the messy alley you come to
Lie down in when sleep comes to
Take you away from
A life where the pillows never puff,
The covers never wrap,
And the comfort of your cave
Is always cold.

you will thrive in your own cocoon—
legless arthropod wriggling out
of its leaved shell, crunching
on the stem of a marigold’s shrivel.
you crawl up the leaves like they’re
the steps of a winding staircase,
circling and circling to one day
step out of your cocoon.

you are your own skin—
a wing ripped in figure
eights of formative tearing.
at the bottom of a
wind-leaned green tower,
you are torn down as if starting all
over again, away from the pace of
a hundred other caterpillar’d creatures.

you are not quite a monarch butterfly,
not yet the zebra-patterned black and white,
but you bloom in the form of a familiar marigold, a daisy’d curve—
thriving as a flower, swaying and alive.
you must visit the filial leaves and trace
their veins gently.

soon you will thrive in your own cocoon;
as those plant’d seeds will
soon leave legless arthropods wriggling—
for how would a caterpillar’s cocoon wither
without your leaves crinkling beneath it?

crawling centipedes
spiders scurry silently
basement bug barrage

silverfish slithering so,
reverting fearfully back

awful arthropods
disgusting diplopoda
infamous insects

holes in the ground, walls and floor
inhumane habitation

pesky perspective
look at things my way, big sir
seek shadowed shelters

horrifying is my name
scaring people is my game

big shoes, enemy!
fear me? unreasonable
boneless body crushed

ironic scare, you not me
exoskeleton demise

now you see me, now you don't
until next time my good friend

His head expelled rancid muck
onto the river bank moss
while I stood there peeking
behind buildings wondering
if the sun has risen.
I’m cursing the wind yet again
but this time its coupled
with sheer rocks that work
to extract blood from my
yellow calluses.
Downstream the fluids combine.
The ripples oxygenate them and
work them like arthropods
billowing towards their first meaning.
With him still face down
I wallow over his body.
Picture his last twitch.
Ponder neurons and
relations to souls.
We’ve only developed thus
far and I want to be
sure this relies solely
on an impacted min
instead of mystical authority.
I don’t want to be invaded.

all i've wanted is to sleep

to tip over and land
soak in distilled whiskey
like arthropods preserved
in amber, except me
lost in an extended
trance, dissolving
into resins, ointments
oils--

i don't want to feel trapped
i fear me leaving more
than anything else,
me leaving to beat
the traffic, catch the
train, board the bus
to Abilene
a roundtrip
god I'm
tired of tryin'
so
hard.

I wanted to speak out
in hindsight. Details were
of no relevance.

The consensual suicide
had an emasculating effect
on the passion, when-
the moon did not rise.

Privy to a hidden agenda
of age defying wrinkles on fore head.
I ask you, can you read
the dead's face?

You would say I cannot
live any more, like
arthropods you want to burry
in sand, hiding your lies.

You want to talk-
endlessly about getting
nowhere sitting with
giants of sin.

Where was god?

Stamens float above the stems
of all upended stalks.

Arthropods can crack their
old shells upon my rocks.

Tricky little fishes find so many ways
to out smart me.

With out my sunglasses,
in brightness I can't see.

you're only alone
when you club yourself with the
employees
the tgif-ers
the rule abiders
the girls groupchat from college

you're only abnormal
when you compare yourself to the
smalltalkers
the engineers
the doctors
the selfie people

you had this wrong the whole time

the miscreants
the artists
lone visionaries who pay
for their brilliant ideas in tears
before bed each night
one more day gone by
undiscovered

this is
the secret majority
making no noise

the arthropods of the world
running the talent show
after the curtains draw close

go.