In the calm still moonlit night
      she silently wove a silken tapestry -
          spinnerets spewing slender strands
      light as air but strong as Kevlar.

A silvery armature spanned the trail
    clinging to trunks and branches.
          Rappelling down from its pinnacle,
      she fixed radii to her deadly wheel.

Spiraling in from the outer ring
      she knitted her way to the center
          to await the tell-tale shudder
    of a fly or moth flown into her snare.

She took no note of the hiker
      paused alone on the trail -
          transfixed by the dew laden spiral
    shimmering in the rose-glow sun.

It mattered not to the spider
      that a man would find her work pleasing
          and it mattered not to the man
    that the web was not woven for art.

The ten commandments say nothing,
in the translations I’ve read,
against coveting my neighbor’s good
fortune,
timing,
intentions,
sense of style,
or the countless other intangibles
gifted by Nature
and our DNA's mischievous inventions.

I’m a strict constructionist,
when it suits me, and especially so
with documents carved in stone
by invisible hands
having no recorded fondness for the market.

I’d trade places with any nameless witch
caught cavorting in her coven’s canopied oases,
their cauldron-ringing capers
and care-free cackles cheered
by owl hoots and cricket song;

Or the smallish, self-sacrificing spider
who rather than a cigarette gets a close-up
view of his mate’s spinnerets dispensing
the silk sheets to wrap him
as a happy meal deferred.

I also envy their creepy hatchlings
who weeks later will climb to the tip-tops
of firry fingers, cast a single wistful thread
and wait for the wish-fulfilling wind
to carry them lifetimes away.

That’s how I could stiff this chill
that taps me on the shoulder, and chase
after a far-off warmth I’ve weened
since my weaning was done.

I count these covets no sins.

I just went to bed
left you on Read
I did it on purpose to mess with your head

Laid in gossamer sheets
tinged sickly red
with the blood of words
that went unsaid
hard to deny
who made the bed
who caught whom
in whose spinnerets

Distraught with rotting thoughts
locked in my own stocks
stalking twisted halls
the clocks have all stopped

Stuck in my head
kicking myself
with broken knees
and buckled legs
struggling to free myself
from myself

Entombed by one I never could deceive
darkness abounding when all that I need
is to catch the right light
and stop trying to fight
Oh, what a tangled web we weave

i feel
like
space
given
shape,

a web
crawler
whose spinnerets
spit out
time,

leading toward
something
genuine and
whole and

present.

fear does not define me.
i am energy,
incarnating

now.

things can be silly.
i can allow myself
to feel

joyous

without stressing about
capturing the moment -
enjoying things as they come..

i am density
in hand with
fluidity.

i am
river rock
and rivulet -
i sit, center,
pool,
eddy

and
swim off

downstream.

vagrant in black corners creep
complaining with darkest meaning
remembering the border  of commonness
or forgetting

she spins does life
the web we get so caught up in
wove into corners and kept for another day

complex as dark yes
no a minute to think
the spinnerets go on weaving

complex webs

Like minnows through trawler nets
They get by

Neutrinos stream in my head
All the time

A gross grip on spinnerets
Catch a fly

Where are you in the wakeless night?
Close your eyes

the creature has noticed me. it has thousands of broken legs on its face and keeps tabs, never wasting an hour without checking in, watching my home grow bigger in the corner. i am a long bodied cellar spider, suspended, inverted beneath the guitar case, just right of the bed frame. food is scarce, but i sense we share this hunger in the humid subterranean habitat. it takes on thinness, shakes at times, makes day into night, flips pages, tele-spells, turns night into day again.

micro-fibrous dust settles on my spinnerets, a twitchy sneeze draws attention, the cruelest of details. while unraveling undaunted one pseudo-day sort of night, a pulse was released comma intent to ****. it came like resolute qualia, something my eight eyes can’t see. the plastic cave, the broken allegory, all ghastly and converging. as soon as the web gets jostled, a switch will summon my stunning epileptic display. i am ready to give it a leg, but only from the calve. it has never come this close.

The web of despair,
dissolves with kindness.

Water bows lines of fear, weight of compassion
breaks spinnerets of distrust.
Believe in transparency.
Believe in we of community.
Compassion of people will heal.

Or simply despair -

A widow is waiting quietly,
On her porch near this den of thieves.
Can you hear the spinnerets clicking,
As she sits in her web and weaves?

She patiently sits and wonders,
Who will come to see her smile?
As a fly he trips and blunders,
When he should have run a mile.

Beware the widow dressed all in black,
In her home just up the lane.
There's a door at the front and one at the back,
And they open again and again!

She knows what is going to come about,
And she knows it won't happen by chance,
For she's laid her traps and set things out,
And she's set for the fateful dance.