"larvae" poems
Barnacles begin their lives as free-swimming larvae, ebbing and flowing with the tide.
Most are eaten, some wash ashore, a few survive long enough to attach
with freakishly strong glue their minute larvae heads to a final rock- strewn home.
There they spend the rest of their lives with feathery feet poking out of a hardened shell, filtering the sea for whatever happens to come within reach.
Why the barnacle starts out free
and ends up bonded to some god-forsaken rock
to alternately dry out and be fed at the whim of the tide
is just one of life's many small mysteries.
While barnacles are meant to lead a primarily static life
human beings are not.
We are meant to flow
to settle and ground, uproot and travel
to seek
to speak well and listen better
to find meaningful answers.
We always have the choice to let go
of whatever safe, high ground we're frantically clinging to
though it will mean not knowing where we'll ultimately wash ashore.
Letting go can feel like being caught in a rip current.
What I know about rip currents:
They pluck hapless beachgoers from shore and pull them out to the ocean deep.
If you're caught in one and try swimming back to blessed land
you won't make any headway.
Eventually you'll grow tired and drown.
The only way to survive is to stroke like mad
in a totally counterintuitive direction
parallel to the solid ground you desperately want to reach
until you're out of the narrow river ******* you out to sea.
I've decided to unglue my little larvae head
from its rocky, self-imposed, falsely-safe perch.
Let the current carry me where my feet no longer touch the known.
It's up to me to swim in the right direction until I'm free.
Oct 29, 2015
Oct 29, 2015 at 9:47 AM UTC
The little life now grew
and all things thought to him
Of things old and things new
the norms and laws laid on him
And long before they know
the little man on his teens
In school and wherever he'd go
his friend and him like wearing same skins
The boy now has feelings inside
of which his parents lack guide
The feeling towards another lad
of butterflies in the stomach he had
Of his pink lips he keeps staring
of the way his eyes can captivate
Of his gentle giggles when laughing
and his smiles all problem alleviate
Of his contoured body figure
chiseled like a statue in park
Temptations he can't endure
it makes his heart spark
Then nobody surely knew
that the boy whom they gave birth to
Had grown and began anew
of his life and his secret TABOO
May 12, 2016
May 12, 2016 at 10:35 PM UTC
It was a hot summer day and freshly hatched flies
darkened your massive window bay.
Inside your decaying bloated carcass
millions of larvae are eating your flesh
they are eating you slowly away.
Your room had such a rancid stench
The New London Day gave it away
how long you laid all alone on the floor
four days old it was on your piano bench
out your body bag I saw a single fly take flight
in the embalming room that only leads to a big fight.
Rule is, turn out all the lights and open the door
Because they will then take to the air and bother you no more.
For a perfect viewing you must be purged of your infestation.
Step One, hook your nostril to a rubber hose,
Step Two, turn up the pressure so the water flows,
Step Three, push on your chest to break up there home, I call it their nest,
Step Four, Watch them all swim for their life as they exit out the other side of your nose.
I have a fetish for death I need to touch with my bare hand
slowly combing your hair with my fingers strand by strand.
I take out my Sterling Silver Mirror and then place it upon your frigged lips
and then I have to then put on a plastic frown when I see no BREATH!!!!
Dec 24, 2012
Dec 24, 2012 at 1:08 PM UTC
Death shhhh Come to me I am sleeping Beneath this Leaf Shhh Forget me Quickly Put my cold Smiling corpse Among The twigs And dry leaves Aim your Magnifying Glass At my breast Until the smoke Becomes flame Until the flesh Becomes ash The ants carry Me away burying Me in the belly of Their queen Breakfast to newborn larvae Maybe they will Find my rhymes Enjoyable for a while If one more soul Laughs with me! Laughing in the face of death I leave to you here My last lines It is not so serious Fall in love Climb the tree Scrape your knee Shhhh I love you Forget me
Apr 2, 2013
Apr 2, 2013 at 2:38 PM UTC
when i saw you hovering there
some little
brown thing
i thought of my nails
scraping across pink flesh
the amassing of skin under
their beds
know this
had I been born from some kind of egg
hatched as a larvae
thirsty for blood meal
the weight of the tortillas
might not have felt
so light in my hand
as I brought them to you
speed like colors
against a cabinet door
Sep 27, 2010
Sep 27, 2010 at 8:21 PM UTC
I could stare at myself in the mirror for hours.
It starts in my extremities.
a chill creeps its way into my abdomen,
and cements my joints.
The bacteria residing in my intestines
dine on my organs for supper,
they blow up my stomach until I'm
pregnant with air, my non-existent baby
forcing thick liquid out every orifice.
It tickles,
when the flies visit my rotted skin.
Their steps light and playful,
turn sinister, and force their way into my
open mouth to lay their eggs.
I wait, as the larvae devour
my brain tissue.
When I have nothing left to give,
I'll pull down my lower eyelid
and let the maggots slide out.
Feb 3, 2021
Feb 3, 2021 at 10:17 AM UTC
Three months have passed.
I can't say I'm still where I was back then,
but I can't say I've moved much further either.
You, on the other hand, are miles away from "us".
You've moved on, and so have I.
Then why do I still miss you when I go to bed at night?
Why do I think of you when I just wake up?
Why do I get butterflies in my stomach when we talk?
Well, not really butterflies.
Maybe moths or larvae since the feeling is no longer pleasant.
You have him. I have no one.
I have nothing but my pillow, my pen and my words.
They tangle up in psychodelic dreams and wicked poems.
None of them making sense, much like me in this world.
Illusion is broken. Hope far, far gone.
Our promises gone with the wind.
I drown in a mask I built for myself to hide from my demons.
If they don't finish me, this mask sure will.
There's no win.
So who wins in a breakup?
The one who moves on faster, or the one who does better?
Maybe the one who does both, and, dear, that's not me
because I've moved on, but I can't forget how to love you.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 1:56 PM UTC
The debate is on
I want to perform
but first I must
humidify my guitar
Ate dinner
now there's a lump in my throat
so I'm gonna sit here
drinking tea 'till I feel
paradoxically soothed and energized
hamburger and homefries
the summer dish
perfect for outside
but here I sit in my A/C winterland
conditioning myself for hats and gloves
The water's warming and rising
the mosquito larvae have won
Itching in Yellow Fever delirium
These grassy hollows
were once a worthwhile place
The new wonders are now
grotesque animistic anomalies
Today, face-to-face with rabid rabbits
Tomorrow, the white light angels
with hyper beam cleansing
they could no longer bear to watch
from porcelain obelisks
the human media screen
of indoor inexploration
fail to hide the sins
from the scale holding counters
Justice, the lucky one
with bandanna over eyes
still heard the profit wrenching semantics
get drowned out from screaming harpies
Responsible gods stopped their foray
in fear humans will survive
Dark matter engulfs all
in fear humans will survive
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 1:11 AM UTC
The lines have escaped me once again,
all buttered up and sliding under furniture
like cockroaches at dawn.
I was made with a different chip.
My heart, she dances to her own music,
a song with no words- just Gregorian chanting
and an amnesiac beat; she dances lonely.
My tongue is tied to the floor of my mouth
with fresh sinew that I stole from the belly
of the cat still steaming on the damp asphalt
beneath alien streetlights, streaming
unhurriedly past a new Mercedes,
seeming to fall in chunks down my throat...
neverlanding.
Every trip, every drip, drop, knife or needle,
only leaves me more alone when my imagination
is gone again, and the elevator panels
have ceased giggling as I tell them ***** jokes
between floors two and four.
My dreaming lover lies while I stare rudely,
washing his clothes and feeding him broth.
He wretches over and again, poisoned
by the arsenic in my kiss, the lead in my bowels.
Not this lover, nor any other, could survive
the rugged terrain where I insist to live,
where the well supplies me well
with replacement tears,
yea, even blood.
The mosquitos so strong there,
despite the heat and barren broken stones,
they lick me dry as I methodically flip the light
and lift the coffeetable and ottoman in the den,
finding the nests of my soulmates
who have eaten my lines slowly,
savoring the bitterness of cheap paper.
I refill myself at the well,
swallowing the unsuspecting larvae,
while the one I love drowns facedown as I watch.
His heart stops, and mine, she quickens her step.
She can hear the tortured tongue.
Tickled with every gulp, he's giggling.
I take a step forward, over the void.
The elevator disappears as I turn the corner
into the falling crimson sun.
Jul 11, 2012
Jul 11, 2012 at 5:40 PM UTC
I lap from puddles,
tasting of blistered bark,
teeth green from the moss
deer abandoned.
Fed the fire with Walden,
Its spine snapped
like a rabbit’s neck.
Ash branded my palms
with unread philosophy.
Soon it will be winter.
I’ll freeze stiff: a fallen carcass.
Unless poems hatch inside me,
larvae splitting bone from within.
Sep 14, 2025
Sep 14, 2025 at 6:42 PM UTC
Human Maggots
If ********** *****
From millions of seafarers
Over hundred years
Think if this floating loneliness
Had met up and formed
An Island
And up from its depth sprung
The unborn like larvae
Whose only contact
With mothers were what
The ******
Was dreaming of at the time
Not Atlantis re- emerging
But an island born out of tedium
And tired desire
Not on a chart
To find its existence
So be careful when dreaming.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 5:09 AM UTC
projection of disemboweled guts oozing blood
dripping entrails onto starched white linens
hung in pristine precision, poisoned into submission
my demonic parole officer has come out to play
from the dungeon of hell's seventh circle
i swallowed a hive of maggots with my lunch today
forked serpent tongue slurping slime and slugs
unholy satisfaction from magicking fantasy into
ghoulish, gory realities and ******* tears from deserted lungs
the lion's dinner watches his stomach being eaten
dull but forceful rock formations cracking and crunching
disembodied hallucinations, presupposing predilection
i am the grim reaper's prom date, predisposition
gussied up in cobweb tulle and glittering larvae
with a chloroform corsage, what generous perfume
the skeletal dance floor creaks under my spinning,
groaning of lives sped through on tranquilizers
dancing a tango with Death, i smirk in dizzy abandon
the band is beating their bones to chalky pulp
music made from desperate self-destruction
projectile ***** onto my pedestaled ideas
chunks of last week's insights stink the room
the bile which processed them to rejection
is sticking dripping off the untethered chandelier
i watch them both fall towards me
first, in slow-motion glimmering
and then,
all at once,
i am below them
and we are below the skeleton floor
in the cellar of the scorpion's dungeon
that i escaped from this eery morn
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 9:26 AM UTC
after the body has decomposed and decayed and is done being with being a body, the insects feast on the flesh, desperate for nourishment.
1. after: the close of
decompose: to separate into parts
decay: to decompose; to separate into parts; to rot
done: to be finished
feast: any abundant meal
flesh: the sweet, outer coating of a body
desperate: having an urgent need for nourishment: something that is necessary for life
First came the blowflies, then the maggots. They attacked you while you were breathing. They thought you were done: to be finished. They crawled in and out of your nostrils, through your gaping mouth, down your throat. Your body took the phrase "being eaten alive" too far.
2. maggots: legless larvae of flies
attack: to set upon in a hostile or violent way
nostrils: holes in a face that helps a body: the physical structure of a material substance breathe
down: on or to the ground
throat: the part where insects run through and burrow and live in the not living
You're imprinted into the ground now, your ribs a perch for vultures to peck upon your carcass. Your skull is laced with sand and other sedimentary rock as a nice garnish. Bodies are strewn here, peppered with dynasties of dust, ancestry of asphalt.
3. ribs: curved bones shaped like armor to protect the heart and other vital organs
carcass: a human devoid of being
skull: the bony framework of a head
laced: the lightly draping of a thing
garnish: the supply with; to decorate; to lace: lightly drape a thing
ancestry: generations and generations of sediment forming into people forming into lives forming into experience forming into decay: to separate into parts
~~a.s.f.
Apr 4, 2015
Apr 4, 2015 at 10:58 PM UTC
my female cicada
found way to lay eggs
inside of my nasal cavity
our larvae are
pupating
hatching free
screaming inside of my frontal lobe. maddening me.
and a swarm it swims out
every time that i sneeze
and i ask them to please **** me
with their disease
but they chew through my hyde
(and who knew that id
find the hard way these incestuous insects could tease
til they torture the swallowed man, hollowed inside,
empty,
wallowing,
died
(and now no mind to mind,
so i guess i forgive em;
their mess, as the walls of my mind are lined with em))
yes theyve blessed these
molested and
nested flesh pieces of me
and replaced em with feces and waste:
rest in peace.
guess a curse would be worse,
now i know that my family
makes our home in the earth,
and they take what they give;
they give Death to take birth
and take breath from each other to give to themselves,
and what else?
Fathers Brothers
and Sisters and Mothers
are Kissing cuz thats what lovers
do to lovers
before they enjoy their next meal made of ******
"Meat i would like you to meet Meat and Meat" cuz thats all that they are to eachother like i was to their second cousin and mother. and she was to me a sure way to become better father and son by means of becoming fully free of this Life, what a wife, giving me family at the same time as taking my life so i dont have to end it by sending a knife through my wrist or my neck, oh and lest i forget: well, i beckon to send you a message, my wife: "im so sorry that i wasnt there when our our kids started ripping and taring your body apart. Love i Swear if i couldve been there idve stopped em and started to chop em and never have stopped. but its over now. lover how lovely itd be if you were singing delicately next to me with your legs and then climbed back inside of my skull to lay eggs in my nasal cavity. the screaming and ravishing, pupating, oh its so maddening not be having these. hacking and wheezing and coughing and sneezing til my nose is bleeding and they can start feeding. i wanna feel feelings of them eating on my brainstem and the rest of my flesh and then hollowing out all of my bones and then make a home as they start to have larvae all of their own which then, they will then start to eat, from my head to my feet, and between, from my elbows and knees, im a death bed of meat which my family needs;
theres so many to feed cuz - theyduplicatein3's...
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 12:07 AM UTC
He took a shotgun out one night
'cause loosened teeth and injured pride
had driven him out of his mind.
He loaded her sat on a rock
while Douglas firs shook in the dark
and beetles crawled beneath the bark.
He laid the gun across his lap.
While beetle larvae squirmed in sap
he grunted once, and doffed his cap.
A slug of whisky stained his breath
yellow saliva flecked his teeth
stars shone upon the lonely heath.
A slug entered into his head.
When morning came, the sun had bled
into the clouds, and all was red.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 9:31 AM UTC
You ripped the wings off of her so suddenly that, **** I didn't see it coming.
Well, to make it fair, I wasn't there. **** that's so unbecoming
of you. Well, **** you. How could you?
She used to soar into her dreams a lot—her dreams that featured you.
You and her, together—storming all the weather, and all the idioms I have wronged before.
I'll be frank, kid, I've always known it was so much much more.
I'm a cynical ******* but I know beauty when I see one, recognized hope—
as hopeful as her hope could get, despite all the steep, slippery slopes
that could have, should have pushed her off the edge, but didn't.
Because she believed in you.
She believed in wrapping oneself in soft flimsy shell, and waiting for it to harden
until it can finally protect you—metamorphosis was what she believed in.
Like the monarch butterfly, she believed in it all.
She believed in larvae and crawling for the emerald pupaic goal.
She believed you'll grow wings one day, for you're only just a kid
She kept waiting and waiting, won't let you open the lid
of her jar. She loved her jar but she loves you more.
You love her, too, I can tell. Don't tell me otherwise.
I'd be insulted, little kid. Oh, but wouldn't it feel nice
to disprove my accusations, Mr. J the Ripper?
For months, you pulled her wings apart ever so slowly
So slow, in fact, that I somehow hoped you would stop and proceed to sew it back
But you never did—no, you ripped her ******* wings off, bones fractured with loud cracks!
YOU RIPPED HER ******* WINGS OFF, YOU ******* WATERSAC.
I've only seen the horrid wound once and I can still smell the ichor from her back.
I must commend you though, since decency was something you lived not to lack.
I just wish you'd grown the wings she wished for you to have.
But that cocoon must have felt cozy, so you never really left.
I'd like to be polite now so beware of your first steps.
You'll see the flesh whose skin you tore enough to expose.
You'll see her face everywhere, in poems and in prose.
(Now, I must bring my poem to a close.)
And like the monarch butterfly, dear, she will remember—
not just one, but all of it: all the pain you caused her,
hurt you chose not to lift—dreams that used to hold her adrift
Young lad, she'll remember everything
I assure you: She will remember every. Single. Thing.
(I wish your heart the heaviest of anvils, your mouth the tightest of zippers, your limbs the strongest of chains. I wish you luck, lad. I sincerely do.)
Nov 14, 2013
Nov 14, 2013 at 5:47 AM UTC
"Blessings to you for your prayers."
So thinks the sailor as he travels.
He thinks of his family, his friends.
He knows he loves them all.
The sea today is rough.
It shakes his ship like
the rumbling of lava
filtering fiercely
from a volcanoe.
The sailor thinks
he is not in fear.
He knows this is
only a covering he
employs
to help his ship to sail.
There are other ships
on his ocean. Other
sailors on the same
shattered journey.
Together, they form a
small fleet of larvae
hoping to burst from
the sea in a glorious
splash of redemption.
Ah, redemption. Strength.
That is the treasure the
sailor seeks on the
bloated waves of the
foaming waters.
His eyes look ahead.
His eyes looks behind.
His eyes look inside and out.
Searching as a single cell
the truth he needs to find.
The other travellers may
not be of any help to him.
They may be travelling on the
same sea, but they are
looking for their own
hoped for miracles.
Oh restless sea, let him be.
Free him from your
rocking and swaying.
Let his ship land. Land
back to the steady shores
of hope and positive living.
"Blessings to you for your prayers."
So thinks the sailor as he travels.
He thinks of his family, his friends.
He knows he loves them all.
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 5:37 AM UTC
a mouth full of words that squirm like earthworms
dug from a drizzly weather place in April –
that month is for scraped knees & children’s toys
not the name of a widow I once knew, she killed herself
trying to remember the adolescent she was
kicking dirt from below a fence she couldn’t climb
and I was too large to follow her descent so I still
spit my larvae onto her back lawn & become a raincloud
make more to cradle her bulbs left lynched by roots.
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 6:31 PM UTC
The first time I tripped,
It was over the shoe laces
of a boy with hazel eyes
and Venus fly trap lashes.
When he laughed,
I saw a thousand butterflies
leave his mouth
like a confetti explosion.
Captivated by this winged downpour,
I sought to release every single butterfly
from the cages of his ribs;
Until they filled the spaces of grey planes,
which followed every cynic’s footsteps,
and pollinated every flower
of a dying breed.
My world became a kaleidoscope
of time and colour
where I could no longer distinguish
sunrise from sunset.
Careless of the clock’s limit,
I took its hand and spun circles
within the butterfly boy’s garden
foolishly forgetting
that neither butterfly nor boy
were creatures for all seasons.
So when the first red drop of tomorrow
fell from a tree,
The swarm of colours flew south
taking with it, my kaleidoscope lenses
and the boy;
Still, with his shoe laces undone
and his insides
a nest of larvae.
Aug 6, 2015
Aug 6, 2015 at 10:32 PM UTC
Warm weather
Come together
Larvae grows in the water that collects
Underneath the house
I'm using you to,
Hate myself.
I feel like you might love me
If I choke on what you have to offer
Jun 29, 2021
Jun 29, 2021 at 8:09 PM UTC
She was a spectacular tree.
People called her the flame of the forest,
for she was obviously striking, vivid and classy.
I need not narrate the superlative majesty
of the flame – tree, for one time or the other
we have all been breath-taken by her peerless glamor.
What matchless artistry!
I am here to quickly share
my ruminative gloom for that lovely assembly
of flower, leaf and wood, which grandly stood
in a grove of possibilities, and possibilities can be
such a torment, such a calamity.
❋
For years galore, caterpillars of choices
had been steadily eating away at her core.
They came from different directions,
at different trajectories,
with varied objectives
and fluctuating proclivities.
Sometimes, they came rushing in as family,
and sometimes they came slowly,
a little formally, a bit watchfully,
somewhat officially.
At times they came in fiery fascination
and yet, ever so often, they were charged
with marauding indignation.
Many times they arrived as blazing ambition,
but more often than not, combusted the flamboyance
leaving behind an ashen illusion.
Oh.....those craving larvae
of oblique, wily opportunities.
❋
The foliage was feverishly guzzled
till photosynthesis was no more possible.
From my distant window from where I had once
watched her variegated flair,
I felt the Poinciana moan in simmering despair.
❋
With biting sensitivity, I still look on, a tad tearfully,
as she continues to tumble into conscious torpidity.
My words may slip and sway, as with each wilting leaf
after each withering floret, she progresses towards
an abject decay;
imploding methodically, and transposing gradually
from being the flame of the forest
to being a sprouting forest of flames.
Jan 22, 2020
Jan 22, 2020 at 9:11 AM UTC
I swat futilely at the moth
whose larvae happily eat
my bedroom carpet
here for my nightly ritual
antacid
teeth clean
bed
suddenly I wonder
at my own mortality
where is this all going
then I smell it again
odour of rancid sweat
only in one small area
but no mistake
it feels as though the moths
and someone have unfinished
business here
a carpet to eat
a life not long enough
to achieve everything
still hanging on
not quite ready to leave
so maybe we never have enough time
to be satisfied
still, no heartburn tonight
and my breath is minty fresh
(I can almost hear those buggers chewing
as I go to sleep)
Aug 11, 2021
Aug 11, 2021 at 2:00 PM UTC
I could tell that you had smoked a cigarette before I saw you because your
shirt smelled like smoke and your lips tasted like lung cancer. (I like to
pretend that it doesn’t really bother me I am a moth flying
into your flame.)
Your eyes are green like everything that burns, but your hands are strong
like those who fight fires without more fire. Sometimes I trick myself into
thinking that I can smell the backyard smoke of my father’s cigarettes,
cigars, marijuana, radiating off of you.
Do you remember that time when you told me that “everyone sins?” I do
not think that you took into account the amount of which we all sin. (All
sinners are equal, but some are more equal than others.) ((fire will always
destroy moths. You are burning my wings with your magnifying glass))
I think I am drowning in the gene pool. I think I’ve broken the bones of
three different people. I am terrified my dream catcher will stop working
and years worth of nightmares will catch up with me. Light my
nightmares on fire with your lighter. Turn my everything to smoke.
I spent my entire last year breaking wishbones and hiding them underneath my mattress for luck. I spent my entire last week getting
splattered with the blood of lambs that I’ve slaughtered in your name, in
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
We are lighting moths on fire and watching their wings burn.
There is a chrysalis I am building. I am not looking for change, I am looking
for the darkness and safety it will provide. When I hatch, listen to my wings
flutter. Wait for me to land and then squash me with your cigarette ****
Smoke me out of your house. If you love me, you will set all the bad
parts of me on fire.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 9:21 PM UTC
I am like winter’s bluebirds surviving
January instead of migrating
to Guadalajara with kin
to eat larvae & hover flowered
women with ***** feet who
breastfeed their
babies with gelatinous
eyes and coo
coo
coo, at the occasional
sight of the bluest
in flight.
Oct 26, 2016
Oct 26, 2016 at 7:56 AM UTC