These lines speak of a man who
wrote poems in his head all day long.
For this fellow, it was ‘twenty four seven’.
The poems were observations,
points of view,
not necessarily unique
or new,
but constant.
On one occasion,
a very large spider died and
hung from its web for
several days.
The season of year was fall,
one window was open yet
and the inviting web, with its weight
of motionless, fearsome body,
stretched across the centre,
displayed prominently.
As if required by
integrity’s law, under the subsection
regarding action of witnesses,
the man observed this spider carcass
and wrote a poem about it.
The spider loomed large,
lying as still in the poem
as it did on the sticky filaments,
created of a life’s labour.
One of eight crooked
limbs wiggled free at the brushing
of light breeze, causing
a lifeless, back-and-forth
swinging which gave
the illusion of further movement,
maybe future bug-killing.
The man noticed all of these
facts and wrote his interpretation
of them, in his head.
It was compelling,
so he then typed them into a concrete
shape, on paper.
The poem, as written,
edited and completed,
was about death,
how it hangs, voluptuous,
threatening, in the middle of
an otherwise gossamer, vibrant,
living web.
“Death…” said the poem,
in a matter of fact way,
“also stills the killer.”
Robert On The Air 