not the beetle erupting
from the bitten apricot
core-stone
not the ant-shroud
crawling the fruit-cake
cooling on kitchen table
more the night cockroach
in the en-suite at 2am,
alerted by female shriek,
arising in Greek-sweat,
it darting stickle-legged
backed-up in defiance
facing each other,
both twitching sleeplessly,
perambulating bug-eyes
on cockroach eye-stalks
hunted, fearing death,
it values its foul bug life
of decay & filth, mildew,
rotten fungus & vile gasses,
occult subterranean
musty-stench, yet
avoiding extinction with
determined tenacity,
admirable, in its way
look, I say, be reasonable
we can talk this through
naked man to twitching bug,
we can resolve this thing
this is as base as it gets
life and death, but no,
I sense more, its words
in my head, in karmic past
& future lives we are bugs too
squish me, you splat yourself
but wait, I’ve read my Kafka,
seen ‘Incredible Shrinking Man’,
know of the evil
Insect-God Old-Ones
lurking outside space-time,
I know this interconnectedness
of all things stuff,
don’t bug me on this
but more, in this strange
zen confrontation set to
cistern ticks and plops,
crushed water easing the floor,
no, there’s one life, just one,
which endlessly recycles itself
through terror of being alone
through geohistory & cosmic time
thus, I am bug, or will be bug
or have been bug,
all this suffering you inflict
you inflict on yourself
peering up, a craftier prey
I’m trapped in storms of vision,
in apparitions in bullets of light
some moments are longer
than others, some endure forever
in small slight sounds
tiny tappings of shadow
in spattering and jangling
one in cold sweatiness, the other
iridescent beetle-shell bug-fetid
appraising one another, both
poised on time’s infinite abyss
this truth it vouchsafes me
this screaming vision of truth
we are god, both of us
we are bug, all of us
I tiptoe back to bed
by morning
it is gone...
from the bitten apricot
core-stone
not the ant-shroud
crawling the fruit-cake
cooling on kitchen table
more the night cockroach
in the en-suite at 2am,
alerted by female shriek,
arising in Greek-sweat,
it darting stickle-legged
backed-up in defiance
facing each other,
both twitching sleeplessly,
perambulating bug-eyes
on cockroach eye-stalks
hunted, fearing death,
it values its foul bug life
of decay & filth, mildew,
rotten fungus & vile gasses,
occult subterranean
musty-stench, yet
avoiding extinction with
determined tenacity,
admirable, in its way
look, I say, be reasonable
we can talk this through
naked man to twitching bug,
we can resolve this thing
this is as base as it gets
life and death, but no,
I sense more, its words
in my head, in karmic past
& future lives we are bugs too
squish me, you splat yourself
but wait, I’ve read my Kafka,
seen ‘Incredible Shrinking Man’,
know of the evil
Insect-God Old-Ones
lurking outside space-time,
I know this interconnectedness
of all things stuff,
don’t bug me on this
but more, in this strange
zen confrontation set to
cistern ticks and plops,
crushed water easing the floor,
no, there’s one life, just one,
which endlessly recycles itself
through terror of being alone
through geohistory & cosmic time
thus, I am bug, or will be bug
or have been bug,
all this suffering you inflict
you inflict on yourself
peering up, a craftier prey
I’m trapped in storms of vision,
in apparitions in bullets of light
some moments are longer
than others, some endure forever
in small slight sounds
tiny tappings of shadow
in spattering and jangling
one in cold sweatiness, the other
iridescent beetle-shell bug-fetid
appraising one another, both
poised on time’s infinite abyss
this truth it vouchsafes me
this screaming vision of truth
we are god, both of us
we are bug, all of us
I tiptoe back to bed
by morning
it is gone...