"centipedes" poems
We dug up the soil today
Thousands of insects rushed out
Centipedes, beetles, spiders
A crumpled grub writhed in the sun
Too weak to do much else
I’ve always hated agriculture
Fingers tearing plant roots
Sap soaking flesh
A neighbour walked past and said ‘looking good’
And it was the saddest thing I’ve heard all year
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 10:02 PM UTC
i would like a pizza topped with cheese
then sprinkled with some gnats or fleas
some centipedes and slimy slugs
and other creepy, crawly bugs
i want to add some fingernails
and oyster ooze and crunchy snails
and chicken bones and spoiled meat
and smelly socks from ***** feed
i want it topped with lots of mold
and gooey boogers that's not too old
a lot of snot, a little spit,
and guts with grainy grit
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 8:30 AM UTC
Dusk!
With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!
Bats!
Glowing red eyes and glistening fangs,
These unspeakable giant bugs drop into view.*
Fibrous wings furred like a moth,
Big ears are just a membranous extension of antennae.
Flying in search of a flower’s pollen laden froth,
Silent except for the hum and squeak of echolocation.
Trap bats in attics, butterflies in nets.
No rabies feared, no bedbug bites to itch.
Clawed feet ****** and grab like praying mantis pincers;
Bloated stomach slopes like a pudgy beetle.
Jaws manipulate like an ant, excise like scissors;
Soft hair rustles like a wooly caterpillar.
They live in darkness, centipedes do too,
Come out at night like cockroaches tend to.
Skittering through the night like daddy long-legs,
Noses snubbed like bumble bee faces.
Wind turbines endanger bats,
Like fans endanger lightning bugs.
Only one percent of bats are vampiric,
Like only a small percentage of spiders are poisonous.
Dawn!
With a creepy, tingling sensation you hear the fluttering of leathery wings!
Bats!
Bats are bugs, aren’t they?
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 5:04 PM UTC
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
Palest orange, a watercolor
wash slips in behind
bared branches
variegated,
rustling leaves.
You slumber,
down in the cellar,
fearless of the spiders
and centipedes.
Awakening me
with your roar
my sleep vanishes,
trading places
with blessed warmth.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 6:19 PM UTC
she exists now in a dream state
unaware of the horror and the passage of time
wind rushes through broken panes
moaning mournfully
floors creak and door hinges speak
announcing her presence
this was her house
once a place of light and love
full of family and friends
cotillions resonating with music and dance
and lively conversation
a grand kitchen to prepare the feasts
of pheasant under glass
a gazebo for laughing in the rain
arbors for moonlit meetings with owls
a pond for lilies and croaking frogs
gardens for picking her favorite peonies
a nursery for her children
all this now nothing but ruins
from happiness to a home for bugs and bats
crawling with silverfish, centipedes and black widows
shrouded in cobwebs
drowning in dust
suffocating in stench of rotting wood and desolation
decorated with 100 year old bloodstains
she never saw her killer
never saw the spurting of her arteries
never heard her children’s screams and death rales
she sees her house as it was
and every night she roams the rooms
calling her children’s names in long, haunting whispers
Oct 26, 2010
Oct 26, 2010 at 9:12 AM UTC
Nearing great compost pile,
that steamy heap,
insatiable hunger hits guts.
And I know fortitude for journey
is contained in wealth of
centipedes, predatory mites,
rove beetles, ants,
nematodes, protozoa,
and **** of wriggly worms.
Virgil waits for me, as he did Dante.
He takes form of a sowbug,
but with whole of worldly wisdom.
Shows me circles to which I will fall:
organic residues,
primary consumers,
secondary consumers
and further tertiary consumers.
An ancient pyramid decompositional
processes the scaling down
before the rising up. Each eating
excrement of another before them.
One I become with slugs and snails.
Invertebrates shred meat from bone.
Flies make airborne my bacteria,
carrying me off to feed birth of
future fungi.
I am reborn over and over.
Never more have I known
anything more Godly.
Intestinal juices of earth, enzymes
and other fermentation
taking me down,
pushing me out,
transforming trash of my existence
back to Eden.
Mar 25, 2016
Mar 25, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
What a strange title
When I went to Aden (South Yemen) in 1964
It was to fight infiltrators from North Yemen
How to spot where mines had been laid
Where ambushes could take place
Trained in how to **** at long and very close range
But nobody mentioned the bugs
Camel spiders almost four inches across
Now they gave us great fun because we would catch them
Then bet big money on the outcome of a fight with
Another spider or a big scorpion
Most times the spider would win but would then die
But by then the bets had been paid
Stephen E Yokum and Jonny Angel
And thousands of American and British ex military
Know about bugs
Centipedes 9/12 inches long and stinking like you'd never believe
Get one of those crawling on your skin and pull it off the wrong way and bingo
You end up with a permanent tattoo
Because their feet dig in
We did have the good ones though
Chameleons, we would keep them in our tents
And feed them crickets and in return they would keep the flies down
We learned to live with BUGS
Oct 4, 2014
Oct 4, 2014 at 4:21 PM UTC
several snakes spiraling
hissing a message in her ear
telephone is dialing
waiting for a call from someone dear
(on the velveteen tangerine)
roller skated through the town
laces strangle each other like constrictors
gravity is upside down
the pair of skates are like twin sisters
(on the velveteen tangerine)
ivy climbing legs and boughs
stemming into leaves and flowers
time is spinning backwards now
the clock has been gone for hours
(on the velveteen tangerine)
cream and sugar sweet
share a cup of tea with company
friends talk about their week
lounging in the leafy canopy
(on the velveteen tangerine)
eyes stare at the strange sight
unattached and independently
moonlight shines on glades of green at night
trees blend into starry scenery
(on the velveteen tangerine)
citrus spheres hang from tree limbs
peel the hard rind to make it nice
pick one or a dozen at your whim
drink sweet juice or swallow a slice
(on the velveteen tangerine)
beware of seeds and centipedes
but take a chance and you will dance
with delight around midnight
on the velveteen tangerine
May 2, 2019
May 2, 2019 at 10:57 PM UTC
Proudly self diagnosed as non compos mentis , the gallivanting hermetic of Hill Country , walking barefoot this evening , scantly clad , joyfully whistling beneath astonishing skies of blue , fields of clover , clear running creeks , copious woodland greenery ! A fickle , fanatical , fervent lover of every creature the forest has to offer ! Rolling hill , pasture and homestead , Wood duck , blue jay , otter and crawdad ! Every rooster , wild turkey and dairy cow ! A boisterous , benevolent , painfully reverent disciple of Earth and sky , lover of cascading brooks , placid lakes , the cool breeze , bumblebees and centipedes , bobcats and chickadees ..
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
The Devil is alive
I hear its suffering
Burnt out eyes and vacant lies
Which whisper in my ear
He snakes a hand across the chest
And lies on glowing embers
To writhe like centipedes in Nyx’s hair
He walks into the kitchen at half-past five
And takes my honey jars
With scabbed hands and bleeding tongue
He licks the sides and cap
Transforms into my wildest dreams
And rearing back at ecclesial verse
Lies with me while I nap
When the bodies are buried he returns home
In the sewer marked with rotting pheasant
Three feet in, light fades and dies
But shrieks of anguish always faint
He bids goodbye and leaves me here
To stand in purest morning cold
Still holding crucifix to die a saint
Apr 30, 2011
Apr 30, 2011 at 7:01 PM UTC
at a young age, my father taught me to love
insects.
instead of killing, my father would capture spiders,
centipedes, beetles in empty pickle jars.
he would show me the anatomy, let me admire
the different colors, the shape of the pinchers,
how each one moved.
we had a praying mantis hung up on the wall,
it scared my girlfriends.
we had a hairy tarantula encased in a glass orb,
guests could never stare at it for too long.
i compare these insects to my father.
elegiac, with pinchers hidden but
present.
like the insects, i could never understand my father.
when he disappeared for days, reappearing with nothing
but a frown and the scent of beer,
i imagined him with the wings of a beetle, and he had
to fly off to a faraway kingdom.
i compare these insects to my father,
beautiful, but threatening.
his scorpion’s tail was his hand with a bottle,
his poison was the amber liquid squishing
his blood.
i compare these insects to my father,
fragile, unwieldy.
as a butterfly glides through spring, it is similar
to my father discussing his favorite things,
or deep in thought in a novel, or how his eyes
glint when he sees me after a long
absence.
but my father is far more exquisite than
any butterfly.
i still am intrigued by insects, yet i do not
admire them in empty jars.
i set them free, imagining if my father ever longed
to escape his own
jar.
Jan 17, 2014
Jan 17, 2014 at 11:13 AM UTC
I
Aspiring to reach the solar rabbit hole eclipse
--climbing up the well,
the photon test tube
sodden and crusted on the outside
by angsty
adults
snorting obsession
through The Manhattan Project straw.
The pirate boy wanted to be named
Skip--so determined Alice named him,
Skippy, conqueror of blueberry mucus
--he reminded her of sidewalks
she found far in the misty woods
--no one walked
the unexpected like him.
Each placement of a pore: a bat cave
a depressed skull
a hollow exploit
a lame *** joke
a mildew plop
Almost certainly this cadaver matryoshka doll
would be human by the time
the two runaways
were born again Hallelujah! The dish breaker is crowning again
back to the galleons, rotting awkward candles.
"Leave what is human in
inhumane
places." the well speaks.
Skippy tears the corners of his lips
to his ears. Alice turns her temple to the sharpest part
of the monumental
test tube
and cracks her childhood back to the bottom
--back to Euphoria. light poles open
up faces and throw their lights to the ground.
Both of the thrift store
lovers continue to climb--ripping off purchases
to the beggar's tin cup.
II
Severed hearts beat without metaphor
as the empty vessels that hold them.
Spines sing of freedom like centipedes
facing fan blades. Pirate boys mock the smoker's language
of mutiny.
Devalued skin,
dirty armor
casted,
lowered,
teased, by the cadence
of tumbling blood. Marking territories other brother's can smell
Obediently, we see what
gods are doing to them. They're paying
for drawing the different suits of God
on the cave wall. Hit jobs--vacuum spoils,
sucker punch postage stamps
--revenge from a peaceful creator
forcing the two to climb/climb/climb
back to a speck
where dandelions grow
from the revolution fetus and graphite,
& tongues, & lips, & nerves, & veins &
wolf spiders pour down/red matter clusterfucks.
Mar 5, 2013
Mar 5, 2013 at 12:10 PM UTC
By Alexis & Arcassin
:::AW:::
When the arch of my back doesnt fall lower then London bridge
The tip of your fist meets my skin, breaking the bridge, breaking my skin breaking my heart and
Leaving broken pavement under my skin you call
love marks
Hickeys even
Bragging saying you ****** the life out of me"
Yes Indeed you did the moment that bridge collapsed with our love
Leaving two hearts in a Comanche,
:::AB:::
Centipedes crawling on their way to salvation, I hope you reach the top,
For which you came,
Spirits grabbing and pulling,
I see you found the love huh?,
Don't want your feelings to be caught being futile,
Wind through your sorrows and not through your hair,
I swear I got to steal a moment when you only,
Dancing in the Moonlight,
The churches bright lights,
Not knowing that devil dances with you,
A spirit gripping and pulling,
Did you reach the top yet?
Almost selling souls,
Like it was a cockpit.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 9:21 PM UTC
in the wild, there is nothing mild,
oh sure, there are sedate centipedes,
bobbing butterflies, owl calls that
echo along forest walls, even the plants
can supplant your will to live,
but today
a different sort of experience,
they showed their teeth,
the puffed and snorted,
I didn't dare retort,
and did not make eye contact,
then on the streets,
some physically assault,
some slink in shadows,
take out hockey moms,
and eighty year women
with purses, curse these cowards,
but today,
surrounded in a confrontation zone,
my heart beat wildly in my chest,
my arms and legs felt heavy and tired,
I prayed for protection in this test,
of wills, they flex their muscled limbs and
are not alone, while I flew solo,
at ground level, staring bared teeth,
and territorial ownership at stake,
I was looking for two dumbbells to finish
my work out
©DWE012014
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 10:39 PM UTC
Secrets of Wysteria flow in the vessels of my brain
And so I do not hear, nor comprehend the calling of my thought’s train
Vowing to never be held again in constrain
Eradicating the rotten fingers pointing to my disdain
Muses of bruises, callouses, and roses
Excuses the clueless, hung in ruin’s nooses
Flagitious tongue sharpens itself with sprawling centipedes
Rusted teeth from perilous mandibles bleed as it feeds
On the oozing, ****** veins of the wicked ****** as it pleads
Maybe these are too much for one’s avaricious needs?
Mindful, careful, piercing the syringe of refrain on plump flesh
Yeuking as the substance flows on blood so raw and fresh
Amid all, the past and future gather in Sheol’s pavilion
But missing is the presence of present in emblazing vermillion
Yet fleetly missed as the siren descanted her composition
Somber statues of ivory pretense witness with volition
Saints and snakes tear each other’s throats in a languish cotillion.
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 8:15 AM UTC
...centipedes underneath big rocks in the dirt.
...worms on the pavement in the rain.
...rotting roadkill you drove over today.
...maggots writhing inside of dead brains.
...rainbows in great puddles of oil.
...fakest person you'll ever ******* meet.
...weeds and crabgrass polluting the soil.
...reason I hate humanity.
...nightmares preventing your sleep.
...dreams making your knees weak.
...scab you can't stop picking.
...ulcer you can't stop licking.
...spider in the bathroom sink.
...shakes you get if you don't drink.
...doubt whispering inside your mind.
...lies you've been fed all your life.
Apr 11, 2015
Apr 11, 2015 at 5:59 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
today I did nothing only
stamped down tears
dropped naked
trusted hand’s slow
planned present enmity
drove a pair of strapping green centipedes
bursted into death
broke my home into several
scrapped subjects
wondered how are you
refused
Jul 6, 2017
Jul 6, 2017 at 8:23 PM UTC
today is a day in autumn poised somewhere
on the toasted bread color spectrum
except wetter and chewier this morning
the gold light found me solemnly dancing
in the mud among the cypress knees
digging down to the bone to pass
this skin deep writer's block
the sun seemed huge and flat
when it sailed over the evergreen hill
misty on the beak of a warrior owl
but like me it's burning on the inside
tingling the tip of my spine causing
the blood in my arms and legs to buzz
beneath the unshockable woodpecker
with his tremendous hammer where
the monarch butterfly holds court
my skin becomes streaked with brown
as my bare feet slap the water face sending
slow elongated ripples through the swamp river
when the sun begins to spray tie dye off my shoulders
i'm haloed like a young madonna among the
jabbering leaves and whinnying branches
last night there was no howl at the moon cliche
as i let the hungry rain eat me i burped out
a victorious purple bird-sized butterfly
fighting in a gossamer heap from my tum
for my own confused psychoactive salvation
i'm still splashing and swooping
by the adenoidal afternoon
as the wild fox whimpers on the hill
the angelic chorus kicks in when
an ethereal forest nymph emerges
with her hair washed fresh
by the crisp autumn rain
out of the long trumpet gun barrel
of an orchid and dips her silken tongue into
the blue gray puddle of dew collected
in my bare navel
her skinny fingers flit between
the woven strings of an autoharp and
my arms fall limp like the branches of a wind
bent pine toward the fuzzy backs of centipedes
my chest glistens with perspiration
and my lips begin to quiver nostrils aroused
by the organic mating smells in the
daisy and dandelion clusters i
absorb through my open pores
like clear clean shining light
honing priming myself
into a glorious monumental
semi ***** pustule
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 11:09 AM UTC
Blissful through primal, damp pines, she wandered,
her youth like a pollenous flower dumbly bloomed
with petals seated deranged by the ravaging of the bee,
in trusty shoes she roamed the spiders and the leaves,
in light blue jeans she found a trail leading who knows where,
away from her mother's house, no longer home.
And rain and mist settled on the town,
an early morning storm passing by,
and the trees didn't care by the murderer's house,
as his garden happily bloomed,
he still lay asleep beside agony
dreaming a tub full of centipedes.
Feb 15, 2014
Feb 15, 2014 at 11:02 AM UTC
wet earth
curled between small white Toes.
puddles of light
dance between
dead leaves.
spiders
and centipedes
crawl out of your ears
and into mine.
like a spider web
between dimensions
coating
in
a thick layer,
solitude,
and loneliness
are the
palate of
a friendly mind.
Aug 11, 2011
Aug 11, 2011 at 8:16 PM UTC
And the spiders will never stop dancing
And I am twelve years old again
In the summertime
Dragging sharp objects across my hips
And pen is just not the same
And I feel the stares
Of all the people
And I feel my blood rouge my cheeks
And I am fifteen years old again
In the wintertime
And the bedroom floor feels too familiar
And I’ve been sleeping for fourteen hours
And my lips are always chapped
And he looks at me like I’m a diamond
And he’s a pretty good actor
And I crumble under the weight of his eyes
Which are not unlike diamonds
And my hand begins to cramp
And the spiders are taking a break
And their little legs still move
And I don’t know where this fear of centipedes came from
And I am a gutted pumpkin,
A Jack-O-Lantern in June
And my hair is turning white
And I can see my breath
And he stares at me like I’m an anomaly
And I am anomaly
And my ribcage is broken
And there has been a burglary
And my stomach is being pumped
And I am lying on the shower floor
And my head just missed the edge
Nov 26, 2014
Nov 26, 2014 at 9:56 PM UTC
Inspiration
Doesn’t come,
Doesn’t last long enough
Doesn’t do her job.
Those Muses
Lived long ago and still think
about visiting
Or should
But don’t
They laugh in beautiful sounds
like singing from a choir
“You can’t write”
they say, “you know nothing,
Of life
Of love
Of desire
Of ecstasy”
But we know
We are blocked,
but we still reign over this
plane of our words
here we find comfort
we find life and existence
we don’t need their control
Humanity stumbles here
Searching for purpose but
We’ve found ours
Us writers, us sunshine seekers
As the pale moon hangs
And doesn’t wholly fade
When the light breaks the east.
We are in two places at once
All the time
We see
Centipedes as steeds
A dandelion
Is a universe
We find hope in the mundane
No need for patterns, seek them anyway
Because the gum on the sidewalk
Is a boat, sailing some sea
Somewhere in a depth of our
imagination
And that is inspiration.
May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 at 1:18 PM UTC