I’m scared of silverfish
and you know
it’s the only bug
that’s made me jump
on a chair and actually
start to cry.

Pretty embarrassing.

And I don’t know why they scare me
so much
when they can’t hurt me
but they do.

And your perfect lips upturned in a
smile.  Laughing,
all the while
I’m standing on this chair
and you’re standing over there,
still laughing
–but trying not to
‘cause you know
I’m scared
so you hold me.

And I like when you do.

The feel of the cloth of your vest on my face
as I lie on your chest,
relaxed and I wait.

This is fun, huh?
Nice
like this.  
You ask me what I’m thinking
but I can’t say,
just keep blinking, and
all I muster is, "I don’t know."

you glide across the floors
of my imagination with the
gait of a silverfish and
a name just as deceptive.

and i sweep you beneath
the rug or erase you
with a stamping of gilded feet
or bury you beneath heaps
of discarded memories
until your features fade
and you are nothing more
than a lost relic,

a watercolor portrait
too beautiful to keep.

a dragonfly settles slow on languid-fingertips..
can they smell my heart melting?
there’s a super-cracking inside this geyser
soon to crack some more


1.
I hold a tree inside my palm
you can’t actually tell where its roots really grow
veins don’t fade easily.. just the eye won’t see it

blackest bull-dogue waits behind the silverfish-caravan
who the heck knows why it waits in saliva’d-chains
but it lurks there, in silent-rancour

one eye flicks inwards and gets inverted
licks at all the flies inside
there’s a buzzing to be *felt from miles away

touch-tone insignia keeps calling and calling
screaming off its ugly provided-head
demanding eye-scales which cannot fall

black-stockinged nuns profess utter-diligence to duty
hide their want within the deep-wells of darker-veils
while rosaries are fever-fingered with reverence

keep swinging that twig under my scissored-wishes
you may just miss once
and catch my whirring 'copter-feet


2.
man, if you jump high enough and not fade.. away
you may never have to feel that wicked-thud of landing
one click onto the nebulae and you’re truly home

at the young boy’s feet, they lie
a host of little beings.. not breathing
that jokers cannot understand

as sang in epic-tunes of yore
better to burn out than rust
stay forever young..


reach out with seeker-arms in pin-striped shirt
yes, push mercy down upon its sweet-cheek
and sense the reek of discontent in neat patterns.. waiting to fall
no use looking at poverty crying for a way out as blood runs down its head
tell yourself it’s only paint.. meant for a well-researched lesson on another day


pick up your chair, poet.. and ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnn!!
while feathers fall onto the heads of sinners who sack the fading light


and mind you don’t trip on your way out
your head..




aches





S T – 4 nov 13

these thoughts are skittering katy-didn'ts
seizing and disjointed like twitchy smother-ees
sometimes i look at death despairingly
as a vacation i can't afford.

i only write poems to practice my prose
so i have fifteen minutes to write this down
and i can't hear anything with the bells in my ears
clinking together like our silver tongues.

march never seems real year after year
even when i explored your tan lines
while the upside-down sun scorched my hair
and we measured the various states of abandon.

i'm never as morose around other people
as i wish i could be, sincerely.
they are a mirror to remind me, cruelly,
that i am a sentient meatbag.

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

I hate things that creep, crawl, slither, and sting. But of all these, I hate spiders the most. Why? Because they’re just all … they’re all YUCK! That’s why.

Spiders are one of the worst kinds of insects (arachnids but whatever) because they are the only kind that purposely tries to **** with you. See, unlike ants, or caterpillars, or even nasty-old silverfish, spiders don’t care whether or not you know they’re there. These monsters don’t bother to hide from you. Nah, they’re all like, “I know you see me motha’ *****, and I know you ain’t gonna do nothin’ ‘bout it ‘cause you know I’ma just go **** and end up in yo shirt!”

One of the most common things that people who aren’t afraid of spiders say is this: “Kevin, you shouldn’t **** spiders.”

Me: “Why not?”

Them: “Because they eat other bugs.”

I think what people don’t realize is that … I don’t care! So what if spiders eat other bugs? I’d rather have the other bugs than have those god-awful things creeping around my house. Whenever someone reminds me that spiders eat other bugs, I honestly wish I had the power to communicate with insects, because as far as I’m concerned we have a common enemy. I would join forces with the flies and ants or whatever to **** every single spider in my house. Then I would betray my new friends and **** them too. Case solved.

But, as I think about it, it’s not just spiders that people tell me not to **** because they “eat other bugs.” Now that I think about it, every single thing that “eats other bugs” is also ten times more ******* scary than the things they’re supposed to be killing.

Have you guys ever seen a “house spider” sometimes called a “house centipede"? If not, google it right now. That’s the kinda’ thing people tell you not to **** because it eats the other bugs. But just looking at its picture I’m like “holy ****! I’ll take a few mosquitoes over that **** any day!”

See, what people don’t realize is that I don’t hate spiders just for the sake of hating them. I hate them because when I see one I want to burn my house down and have it rebuilt from scratch. If I fail to **** a spider and the thing runs off, I will not sleep until my target has been apprehended and killed. I will literally sit near the spot it disappeared to with a flashlight and a can of windex until it returns to face its crime of entering my room.

O.o yep.

The silverfish slips

away after exploring --


the floor, which is cleaned.

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

You've killed us with sword, and you've killed us with bow

Killed us by dropping us down far below

You take our remains and use them for crafting,

Now, Minecrafter, we have questions for asking.

Which of us 'mobs' do you the most fear?

Who makes you shake when our name you do hear?

Answer us, Notch-Child, answer us well

Your innermost fears to us you shall tell.

Is the Creeper, the camouflaged one

That scares you the most (Even in the Sun)?

For whenever he sees you, he flashes in white,

And will, lest vanquished, explode in the night?

Maybe the Zombie, who travels in hordes,

Attacking Testificates, breaking down doors?

When the terrible moan comes forth from his throat,

Do you despair, do you lose all hope?

Perhaps a Skeleton, wielding his bow,

Is he – do you think – the most terrible foe?

The ****** that sees you, wherever you are,

Draws back his weapon and kills from afar?

Could it be a Spider, eyes glowing red,

That climbs up the walls, does he fill you with dread?

Perchance it's his brother, down in the mines,

With poisonous fangs he waits, biding his time?

Perchance the Silverfish, hiding in rock,

That swarm and attack should you break down its block?

Is it them you fear whilst exploring the caves

Faced with them, can you call yourself brave?

Or the Slime, living far underground

That scares you away with its odd shape and sound?

The small ones can't hurt you, that much is true,

But the largest ones bring harm swiftly to you.

You've crafted a portal, and think yourself clever,

But can you withstand our dear friends in the Nether?

They dwell in a land full of lava and fire

Do you fear the ones in the burning mire?

The Zombie Pigman, needing no explanation,

They protect one another, an undead nation.

Are they the ones that you find most frightening?

And appear in Overworld when a pig's struck by lightning?

Is it the Ghast, silver tear in its eye,

That scares you away and makes you cry?

It really is best not to get in one's way

If one shot at you, would you run from the fray?

What of the Blaze, whose body burns bright,

Guardian of fortresses, that sets you alight?

Maybe it's they who send you running to

Your home where you dream of the water deep blue.

We're nearing the End of our little game,

Our question, however, is always the same.

Are you scared of the 'mobs' in the land full of void?

Or maybe, perhaps, you're just vaguely annoyed?

Fear you the Enderman, standing so tall

Him do you fear, the most of all?

Look not to his eyes or he'll teleport near you

And **** unless you swim in water clear and blue.

Or the Dragon, whom to leave the End you must fight,

That heals himself with pillars of light?

He flies through the air, majestic and black,

But face him you must, for there's no turning back.

You've killed us with lava, killed us by drowning,

But now whom the most fearful one are you crowning?

You've killed us, even, with your bare fists.

For now, questions answered, we retreat to the mists.



Which mob do YOU fear?

The old man
A broken down factory
Sagging within the crumbled graffiti of his skin
Sits and stares out the window

An anachronism
Out of place among the smooth
Modern hospital walls
The man sits in his wheel chair
The thrown of landless kings
Carrying all the memories of his years
Like a net
Hauling in the silverfish of his stories
Though many have swam away
And in his hazy recollection

He remembers the feeling of bare feet
On summer grass sprinting
The shotgun of a ball exploding
From the barrel of his bat
The hush of a spring storm
As it dresses him and some lover
All the shades of wet

Staring out the window
The old artifact
Wiggles his proud toes
Following them back to
The night clubs in Chicago
The handshake of the president
And the feathery wings of jazz

In his feeble arms he catches
The kick of a rifle
The whisper of a bullet
As it reaches out to bury itself
Into the lullaby of his bones
The dirt of war in his teeth
And the smell of burning hair

But most of all he looks back
On the empty picture frame
The days that have blurred into
Darkness and smoke

What did I do on all the days
I have forgotten
This question hangs like the last petal
Still clinging to the branches  
As the winter wind grows bold

It is unfair he thinks
And looks out among
The dogwoods in full swaying dresses
That line the hospital

I am a barren husk
Of bark and bone
But this world blooms so brilliant

Lean back in his chair
The old man thinks
I am so happy I got to see
The trees laughing with the wind one last time
And smiles like a toothless sunset
His soul swallowing and swelling
On all the beauty he has ever gathered
Behind the cameras of his eyes
So full of life that he can no longer hide it inside of him
It must go dance with the blossoms

When the nurse found him
The tears had not dried off his cheek
His mouth frozen into a smile
Like a sunbeam burning through the clouds
A single dogwood flower folded in his fingers

As she looked upon the hallelujah of his death
She wondered
What secrets did you take with you
You old geezer
What was so beautiful
You smiled so hard your heart broke
When you saw the other side
Did it have dogwoods

The honeybee delights in her perch
Crooning ageless songs to the tussore silk petals
A low thrum in the sweet saffron ****
A brush of honey around her entrance
She is the fae
Moth, too
Stumbling to reach the pendulous light in a drunken merriment
Dancing shadows over dry walls
A thin imitation of butterfly
Who is fae, too
Centipede and silverfish
Body full of a thousand darting eyes
Cautious, careful, carried
On the tips of toddler's fingers
Crawling, cradled
In the impregnable hands of a careless child
Wingbeats like a dreary applause
In the dew-soaked trellis
The labyrinth of gossamer thread
Arachne is prideful.
Escape, escape,
There is a minute sound of a spider weeping
Dry, Like sand through an hourglass
As she wraps the children in viscid cloth
Drier still are the ghosts crackling as tiny feet
Navigate the cicada grave
Skin grows tighter and tighter
Summer is over now

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

The kitchen is quiet
dust visibly swims
in the sunlight

I pour a cup of coffee
and start constructing
a to-do list for the day

I finish my cup of coffee
in the bottom of the mug
a dead silverfish

I knew you
I knew you when we were young
our roots barely held us in the loamy soil
our pale green leaves gently, tentatively unfurling
toward the sun
toward each other
but now we're old
and decaying

With each year, we shed our skin
sloughing off bark
dropping our brown withered leaves
slouching into winter
we hunker down

And each spring
the call to bud and renew is quieter
our trunk and stalks creak with the waking effort
we decay

there is no escape from entropy
and one day the loam and humus that birthed us
that even now feed and lift us up
will reclaim us

button caps will push their tendrils into our flesh
forcing apart our fibers
to let silverfish crawl within

You took your suitcase with you when I told you goodbye, and I think now of how much we argued over how it had never been unpacked.
You wore the same skin from that autumn night on my birthday, till the last breaths of winter had passed from my bedroom.
What do your garments look like?
Even as you are, you're forever changing in my eyes and that is my gift to you: new clothes, fresh from a calm wind on that drooping line and ironed by the sun.

inside Elvis’
digital pompadour
there’s a
constitutional oligarchy
and a harelip
and
you watch
from the corner of
your eye
as he scratches
deep inside there
and sniffs at his
fingertips
and
turns to his
girl and says
how it’s
oh so redolent
of the eggs
of silverfish
and that Evel Knievel’s
cologne
was never
so sweet

a silverfish once
crawled
into the side
of my mouth
when I was asleep

the eggs she laid there
glistening
and plentiful

her children filled
my body cavities
invaded organs
turned them
to black tar
and hot maroon
liquid

and still I
move forward
zombie-like

not caring

Fro and yaw,
I've taken on water,
Jamming the frequency with static.
A strange adjustment of ratchets and pawls.
Hot Cherry, bane of my life,
I get your final comedown.
Some feely f#€k encounter,
**** the story,
It's here,
And here, and here.

Moonlit, the silence of dirt,
I've got to tear down these walls,
You swore it was Heaven,
The way the carwash was lit
With the last of summer,
A blip on the cosmic calendar
Wanderlust.
Everything pales in the plain,
Silverfish run under the streetlights,
Put it all on dust radio,
And it comes down when it **** well pleases.

It all pales in the noon,
Some obscure ghosts,
Brandy Alexander's in the moonlight,
Practiced Pretty Boy nod off
At the bar,
Some swimming nighttime dark Enchantress,
Vexing succubus, Waking
To the stench of smelly sheets
Drawing in this manifold nightmare,
Red toenails and blood wisp at midnight.

Like a hollow drum I pound,
Pierced and yellowed
And worn clear through.
There's a fog along New Gloucester
And a monster prowls the highway,
Running along darkened trails,
******* what light there is.
It has some fact and form,
It's mostly obscured by clouds,
Hiding in the scrim of a bare field,
It moans the hour of waking.

Suffer the children to come to Thee,
There lies the Kingdom of Glory,
While I bide my time in this Habit,
Cinched up tight for your disapproval.
I may mire and muck the proceedings.
I'm like a train wreak at noon
And a wheel turning in the sun.
And I'll mercy your begotten Laury,
And ****** away the light.

Weak words like tea in an old woman's cup,
There here amongst the clutter,
Perhaps in this room with a broken clock,
An old wristwatch,
A dusty beer bottle stood on end.
Broken records with pirate songs of old,
More a distant cry,
A mournful calling.

O sure, I've spent time on the Du Da Ranch,
Dreaming potato pancakes,
A Denver with coffee.
Who said time would sneak up like this,
Nipping at our heels?
Stealing time like a thief.
It's a swan in the lake,
A spider in the room,
Shoeboxes of old photos covered in dust.
A rusted ***** stuck in the jamb.
Bleak moments in the rain,
Holocaust survivors in grainy images.
Here comes Herman Goring
Dressed as Santa,
All smiles and candy for the children.

It's a mad dash for the Happy Trails Back Home.
Venus, my baby, tell me
Something on this naked night?
Good God Night Love,
Grab the rails.
It's a dinosaur running the highway,
Overloaded from Michigan
To Indy City,
Funky info to nowhere.
I got another Disco Mania Movement
All drew up in my mind.
Nothing in the pipes, no matter,
No more pizzazz along the avenue,
Kinda lay out and lay low,
Get my drift,
While I pick dead man's bones one at a time.
I got 209 of em-
What's your story?

Before I woke this morning
this title was peeking through the cobwebs,
eventually waking me before dawn.

Now with Bernstein’s Grofe Grand Canyon Sunrise
is playing before first light, violins barely audible,
mules waking up with their weird wail
ready to hit the high trail.
Those magnificent odd beasts.

My old body still  dull,
my left hip protesting the early wake,
my brain puzzling with this title
me saddling the mules
for their trudge down the curvey canyon walls,
young adventurers on their old swaying backs.

Here I am looking out over the trees beyond the back yard
into the gray dawn.
I write with the thought of visiting my old friends
on the poetry website,
they probably wondering where I’ve been for the last several months
with  nary a word posted there.

Last night, the Beatles’ White Album played,
those young shaggy heads
awake with popping images
tunes and words tumbling from John and Paul,
they  too, like me, oblivious of where the trail would  lead.

Put me back together.
That’s what the Great Spirit is trying to do
between my synapses
while they still stir up there in the attic
among the dusty old books and broken furniture
and the all but forgotten dreams there
among the silverfish.

Recently Moses was trying to teach me and the new generation
in Deuteronomy
before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land.,
his old body still holding on in the mountains
where he would finally be laid to rest.
I  never thought I would get anything from that old book
but Moses had one more old mind to reach.
I am grateful his words were preserved
for me before I too make it up
beyond the top of the mountain
finally put together.

Spent silverfish, massed on black
whippets at        the end of the track
cracked nut shells, lying
inflated balloons, dying.

Steel mosquitos that    tattoo poppies
shot up cartridges by    the school gate
in new mown grass    that stinks      the street.