Never before posted.  Originally written in 2010 or so as part of a suite of poems I was planning to use to accompany some music Faro (the bass player for Duende Project) had written.  I ended up discarding most of it, but found a bad recording of this while cleaning up my hard drive.  Never titled.

We have
a problem here
that has many strong legs
and stony little eyes,
mistakes and poisoned prongs
wound round it
like barbed wire.  It’s bringing
the brine with it:
that flavor of soiled ocean,
that smell of sweat
on ancient bronze.
It’s going to be
one dirty night if it makes it
over the threshold,
and it’s coming in hard and fast.

Naming it won’t stop it.  
Connecting it
to something already named
won’t stop it.  
Shooting it, stabbing it,
gassing it, loving it — everything 
we usually do
to solve a problem
is doomed to fail.  

Strong legs.
Stony eyes.
A stink pulsing in the air before it
as it rides its rotten wave.

Our only hope may be
to tear down this house 
it was born to infest,
do it fast enough
to save ourselves,
and learn
how to live rough.

Originally posted 3/2/2012.

You exhort me to know and love
the natural world
of orcas and eagles
polar bears and honeybees

but tonight I must put in a word
for silverfish
spiders flies and
centipedes

who speed around
our feet and food
hang suspended in corners
behind the dryer

nearly impossible to
catch or kill and who
always have
the cellar as a retreat

Those are
the beasts for me
Unlovely
and universally reviled

yet thriving
So perfect
for the modern
broke household

I’m getting
tattoos upon me
one for each
shudder-making pest

I live among them
have learned
their habits
have prayed to become

good enough
to fake my way into
their good graces
as this world is ending

I know
the natural world
You don’t survive just by being
picturesque