"arthropods" poems
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
Feb 17, 2014
Feb 17, 2014 at 10:34 PM UTC
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
Nov 14, 2009
Nov 14, 2009 at 3:06 PM UTC
Writhing, the screeching leviathan demands
And I cave to save the aching from tricky time slopes
Pained craving
Wavering but
Hit and
It’s all loosey goosey goodness
Sensing silent magma pulse, whoosh the tummy tingles
Droopy ears gape-face giggle no more nowadays
A stern turn in old age the silly phase of
Too bright, neon common numb tongue rambles
Secedes into introspective
Crowded walks, broken talks strung into threats clustered and
Flung like monkey **** at many-stabbed ego, Brutus?
Strangers will eat you
The professor thinks I’m funny because
I know the answers in class
The other day Dingus
And Whoseewhatsee tried to alley mug and hurt and end
And money!
No, rocked nose ran dude! Fine
Trying not to fear the outdoors, though
The arthropods and phantoms tell me ***** jokes
And not to eat my candy
Books melt into soupy mercurial elixir
I slurp them and belch
Educating myself in a barn ******* knowledge
On loud faces; empty meat
Where you can hear the jingly metal
Thing when you shake it, it’s dead no flower
They don’t always like me
But
I’ve got the jeepers creepers behind my peepers
And a million lightyears to burn
Truth is worth dying
Four **** sow
Izzeny thing these daze
Maybe it was a bust from the start but there’s
Always art
Quieting the plague that revealed
Not so good after all
Tiny thorns and all-consuming
Waves of red-get-out wrenching, gutted like a fish
Overcome, that never went away or found
A place to sit
Memories arthritic grind a grim gray whetting stone
Reduce with juice-cloud, grape teeth cough will never find a home
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 23, 2012 at 4:51 PM UTC
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.
Mar 10, 2011
Mar 10, 2011 at 11:47 AM UTC
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?
Dec 3, 2019
Dec 3, 2019 at 8:59 PM UTC
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
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 3:50 PM UTC
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.
Aug 18, 2015
Aug 18, 2015 at 11:23 PM UTC
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.
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 9:49 PM UTC