"silverfish" poems
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.
Jul 2, 2013
Jul 2, 2013 at 9:28 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
Rays of the morning sun
Encroached the attic
From a very notorious
Broken piece of window
Exposed the little specks of dust
Suspended
In the rotting wooden walls.
Some sticking in the peeling paint
Some lying
On her mother's once famous cookbooks
Now being devoured
By selfish
silverfish and fungi.
The dust
Telling stories of her childhood
Settled upon the rocking horse
And her favourite little music box
And a carton full of holiday polaroids.
The dust
Such a dry commodity
Moistened some old memories.
Reminiscence.
Isn't it amazing?
Feb 10, 2015
Feb 10, 2015 at 1:23 PM UTC
Are we conducting a robot?
To write off our life slosh,
As we detach to explore...
Are you scared of the person behind you in dream décor?
The sweetness of them, supple, sincere and secure, I won’t turn from them anymore...
I want a space that suits my body, and a body that shapes my suit.
Drooping with these screens, we could be using our screen eyes and bodies...
But we’re biting on borrowed time. Focus on my face and timeline...
When we fully take over, they won’t stop these ache-numb, religious-atheist, vicious silverfish, who don’t think but spin beauty... Spill blood and **** feeling, chase silent moments...
If we lose our memory-doubt-history cycle, get lost and find ourselves in the deeper summer night cycle...
We are with the second sight phoenix heads, playing gold scores piercingly, growing as swimmer-dancers in wonder of the pieces of wild peace, new-vital...
Aug 20, 2025
Aug 20, 2025 at 6:22 PM UTC
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
Oct 26, 2018
Oct 26, 2018 at 12:03 AM UTC
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
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
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."
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 4:34 PM UTC
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.
Aug 17, 2012
Aug 17, 2012 at 12:41 AM 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
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
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
words that hang like shutters
from broken hinges.
words that hover like nurses
after surgery.
words that splatter like
thin remorse.
I heave with sickness
when they arrive.
I spring with ebullience
when they leave the ** dunk
parts of my mind.
these words
these ********* words
that show up in Pontiacs,
in Plymouths, in Pintos
these nonsensical,
satirical,
antiquated words.
they charge at you
like a dead bovine
swinging from a meat hook.
they crawl towards you
like a silverfish
out of the sink drain.
they creep up on you
like an old ***
rattling a change cup.
why? I ask myself.
why does this happen?
I don’t want this kind of ailment;
give me
bee stings
or bedsores
or steam burns
but not these words,
these words that linger like shingles
across the ribcage of burning torment.
I pray without ceasing
towards a signified God.
I pray for simple sacrifice;
I want suicide rather than poetry.
I want a cow without milk.
I want a statue without structure.
I want a woman without grace.
I can feel the floodgates opening soon
and I think I’m going to puke my guts
out all over this page again.
Nov 22, 2024
Nov 22, 2024 at 11:45 AM UTC
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.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 3:39 PM UTC
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
Sep 11, 2014
Sep 11, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
I woke up. And we were on some mission... Walking fast like dinosaur robots gentle.
All made of metal. The autumn red sun shone too strong...
We were almost bird-like steeples, foetuses tip-toeing along.
I kept trying to stare at your face but I couldn’t.
But now I get it... We were meant to be erasing something...
Still I Kept trying to turn my head, and it kept on hurting. Finally managed to twist hard enough, this giraffe neck with curtains...
Then saw them. Your silver slits twinkling, wriggling like silverfish or were they zig zagging...
Trying not to see me... set on the dream engineered *** of gold somewhere on our periphery.
I think... How did you turn your head? Did it hurt as much as it did for me... Do you feel as ageing?
Then we suddenly look deep into these dolphin-human souls, retracing our maze of complex inclusion...
As our senses are heightened, and our bodies implode, joining liquid time segments of something we hold...
Our spirals give out– as all broken cycles crash into a new spate rising spout.
Aug 20, 2025
Aug 20, 2025 at 6:45 PM UTC
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
Oct 5, 2016
Oct 5, 2016 at 9:54 PM UTC
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
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 2:13 PM UTC
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.
Nov 18, 2024
Nov 18, 2024 at 11:54 AM UTC
withdrawn from our colour
retreat to the basement
with unillustrated lives fled
reflush our pallor
and flesh out lily liveried
astray from the light
scarce
bottled mighty in our culture dish
and reinvent
look ** ;
to the silverfish !
May 12, 2020
May 12, 2020 at 9:54 AM UTC
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.
Sep 12, 2024
Sep 12, 2024 at 9:04 AM UTC