Monday: Spiders
Orb Weaver by Rachael Ikins
Spider by Debbie Strange
a spider web
strummed by soft breezes . . .
we can
almost hear the song
of morning dew
Ephemerae 1C, Nov/18
-Debbie Strange
-Dr. Amy Evans Bauer
-Conor Kelly
Karner Blue
‘…a place called Karner, where in some pine barrens, on lupines, a little blue butterfly I have described and named ought to be out.’
Vladimir Nabokov
Because it used to be more populous in Illinois.
Because its wingspan is an inch.
Because it requires blue lupine.
Because to become blue, it has to ingest the leaves of a blue plant.
Because its scientific name, Lycaeides melissa samuelis, is mellifluous.
Because the female is not only blue but blue and orange and silver and black.
Because its beauty galvanizes collectors.
Because Nabokov named it.
Because its collection is criminal.
Because it lives in black oak savannahs and pine barrens.
Because it once produced landlocked seas.
Because it has declined ninety per cent in fifteen years.
Because it is.
– Carrie Etter
Early morning sailing
This ship of bones slips its moorings,
unslept, mapping wet
green currents
from porch to fence. In the east wind
of a new day all at sea, an orb-weaver
has draped her gifts; kind spokes
for my navigating. A dewed abacus, hawsers
struck with light – this vessel will hold
for one more day.
So if I ever tell you
‘I am tired of spiders’
their shimmerstring snares set
to catch the earth’s exhales, as morning
kicks open every sense
with the stupid magic of sailing bodies,
if I ever tell you this, know
there is a poet’s husk to plant –
stake out his ribs
for the finest webs.
-Ankh Spice
Tarantula Down Your Toilet
I’m the tarantula down your toilet
Your prowler in the pan
I want to bite and frighten you
Whatever way I can
I’ll nibble on your bottom
I’ll stalk you on the seat
‘Cause yes you’ve guessed
That human flesh
Is what I love to eat.
I’m the tarantula down your toilet
I’ve chosen here as home
Don’t linger on the loo too long
While playing with your phone
For when I’m feeling hungry
My fangs will make their mark
You’d better switch the light on
If you enter after dark.
I’m the tarantula down your toilet
You’ll hear me splash about
Prod me, poke me, push me
But I’m never moving out
I could live in your cupboard
Your kitchen, loft or shed
Yet in this bowl is where I roll
And where I’ve made my bed.
I’m the tarantula down your toilet
Who’s causing you dismay
Don’t get ideas to calm your fears
By flushing me away
My kingdom is your bathroom
Where I can wander free
So pick a new location
When you have the need to pee
-Neal Zetter
Arachne
Weave words into each web
Those that ask forgiveness for mortal misgivings
Lintel scaffold with hanging thread
A grim reminder of shame and pride
Athena’s touch brought life
But what life is this trapped in tragic tangles
Where snagged raindrops mimic tears
Their wet globes a shining taunt to eight dry eyes
Feel vibrations shimmer silken lines
Heavy with cocooned memories
Mummified bundles of what came before
And will now never return
Tapestries woven on two legs
Whilst fast fingers wound warp weights
Sunlight spun into yarn as it warmed skin
Wisps of cloud layered in to lighten fabric
With colours added from rainbow wild flower palette
Its joyous creation celebrated with birdsong
As nature marvelled at how such beauty could appear from human hands
And what beauty it was, enough to turn a gods head
That too much was said from those ungrateful lips
Challenge came and judgment passed
Loom lost to goddess’ fury
So now all that’s left
Is that daily task of radial construction
Abdomen’s endless thread guided by leg
to form hypnotic spiral
Hung out as a handkerchief
A catch all for housemaids curses
-Lisa Johnston
Spider
I am watching a spider crawl
in circles, anticlockwise,
toward the centre of its web,
meting out its sticky silk,
deft legs weaving the thread,
pulling the weft taut, letting it go,
while wind buffets the doily
of elastic lace,
an almost invisible spiral
against the grey-bright clouds
woven so tightly it could trap
the tiniest wings.
Two centimetres from the centre
the spider stops and leaves a gap,
weaves itself a little seat,
a transparent lily pad. I wonder
if it grew tired, on the hottest
day of the year, or decided
to weave some emptiness
into its web
to let the breeze
blow through.
(A version of this poem was originally published in Amethyst Review, Ed. Dr Sarah Law, 19 December 2019)
-Lucy Whitehead
Spider in the Bath
We have all known the context of its struggle;
Up through the tunnelling darkness
Towards the smallest mote of light.
How long it climbs
It cannot say, nor know anything of destination,
But it is compelled to move upwards to brightness.
And when it stands in the abyssal white plain
And sees nothing but the curvature of space and time,
The dumb blankness of the world it has inherited,
That it has earned from its journey through blackness,
What can it do but wait, stupefied by the truth
Of an existence that tilts on the presence
Of a fate that comes to scoop
It up and drop it out of the window, back to a world
Coloured with distractions, wrapped in the shawls
Of infinity.
-Colin Bancroft
-ZZZ
-Z D Dicks
Brotherhood of All Colors
With the advantage of two, antennae less,
With a desire for a journey to Antarctica
I, Loureedia Phoenixi just arrived from Iran
named after the famous actor villain ‘Joker’
For the Lord made me in the same image
with the red and white face, but black legs
I am not a racist spider, never would be, I
love all company, except ‘black widow’ and
‘Brown recluse’ both harm humans, both
live in the states, a family of Anthropods
‘hearing by the hair’ we velvet spiders are
charming and rare, collectively caring and
Community builders, striking a brotherhood
all colors, white black red white and brown.
Tiny but powerful, amazing in design and so
unique in action for three weeks on ground
You can see the movie Joker, but to see me
you will need a powerful magnifier machine
A spider with a strong velvet dress, a job to
contain the insects from devastating harvests
Discovering Loureedia spiders is challenging
for most of the year we rest in subterranean nests.
Anjum Wasim Dar
Copyright CER 2020
Eight Long Legs Adorned with Hairs
In corners of rooms and hidden under stairs
Under your bed , inside your shoe !!
Hairy ? , scary ? Monster ?
No it’s not true !
See me as your friend, a quiet housemate .
Won’t see me in the daytime , only when it’s late
=Jim Start
Pale Skin Over Bone
No muscle.
His arms a blackbirds legs.
With each visit his skull
more defined in hollows.
He says I have spiders
in my eyes even when I wear glasses
He asks for his specs cleaner.
and the blue plastic bowl
that blows.
-Paul Brookes
Bios And Links
-Lisa Johnston
is based in the West Midlands and started writing poetry two years ago. She enjoys taking part in local Spoken Word events and recently appeared at PoArtry for Wolverhampton Literary Festival 2020, There is No Planet B, World Poetry Day, Positive Poetry, MHAW and World Oceans Day. Her work has been included in anthologies and most recently as part of the Haiflu project, a national project recording poetic responses to lockdown. She currently works to promote arts and culture in her local area through community projects.
-Carrie Etter
has published four collections of poetry, most recently The Weather in Normal (UK: Seren; US: Station Hill, 2018), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, The New Republic, The New Statesman, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, Poetry Review, TLS, and many other journals and anthologies internationally. Her next publication is a pamphlet, The Shooting Gallery (Verve, October 2020), of two series of prose poems exploring the conjunction of youth and violence.
=Jim Start
is 39 from Cornwall. He is a lorry driver who writes poetry and is also working on an adult book about child abuse and a children’s book
-Amy Evans Bauer’s
recent and umbels (Jonathan Williams prize, Shirt Pocket, 2020) follows PASS PORT (Shearsman, 2018) as part of her at-sea SOUND((ING))S. Her poetry includes Stalking Gerard Manley Hopkins (Woodland Pattern, 2016), and features in Poetics for the More than Human World (2020), Chicago Review, Molly Bloom and elsewhere. https://goldsmiths.academia.edu/AmyEvansBauer
Brotherhood of All Colors
With the advantage of two, antennae less,
With a desire for a journey to Antarctica
I, Loureedia Phoenixi just arrived from Iran
named after the famous actor villain ‘Joker’
For the Lord made me in the same image
with the red and white face, but black legs
I am not a racist spider, never would be, I
love all company, except ‘black widow’ and
‘Brown recluse’ both harm humans, both
live in the states, a family of Anthropods
‘hearing by the hair’ we velvet spiders are
charming and rare, collectively caring and
Community builders, striking a brotherhood
all colors, white black red white and brown.
Tiny but powerful, amazing in design and so
unique in action for three weeks on ground
You can see the movie Joker, but to see me
you will need a powerful magnifier machine
A spider with a strong velvet dress, a job to
contain the insects from devastating harvests
Discovering Loureedia spiders is challenging
for most of the year we rest in subterranean nests.
Anjum Wasim Dar
Copyright CER 2020
Added to Arachnids. Thankyou, Anjum.
Thank you Sir I need to submit a poem on Bees, to complete the Challenge Week-will do so soon God willing
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