The Homeless Centipede (a lovely poem)

I shall dedicate this beautiful poem to two cat lovers, my wife Rosa Penaloza de Siluk, and Williams S. Burroughs.

The Homeless Centipede

Part One
(Unfairness and no sympathy)

Why do you love a cat, more than a centipede?
((My wife said, “They are scary, and have too many legs.”)
(Mr. Burroughs simply thinks they are ugly.)) —
So ugly and scary things get no consideration?
What has happened to your sympathy?

Feed mice to the centipedes, then call human
rights to get your sympathy pal!
It’s all over but the imprisonment!
This is what I think they feel.

Part Two
(All over the world)

All over the world centipedes are crying
to be let in —until they give up finally
and become homeless, hunted by humanity, with
silent ears! Cold and hungry and suffering
centipedes, what dread:
as they race under the kitchen table for safety
waiting, then racing again, to the living room,
hiding under the sofa blankets!
This is just a sinister death (with no hope left).

Part Three
(3-D, centipede)

Now I can see the centipede, he is a 3-D, image
he stops and looks at the master of the house,
old grandpa, looks him in the eye, stomps on him
“Smash!” –this invokes: rows of naked yellowish
muck—legs still moving in the rough…

Still I hear no pity, or sympathy!
What has happened to humanity?

#2330 (3-19-2008)


Note: When I was growing up, my mother was deathly afraid of centipedes, and she’d scream and grandpa would come and ask what was happening, and she’d screech out ‘Centipede’ and he’d stomp on it, and so here is a poem for the poor creature, perhaps I can make up for those bad days back in the 50s when grandpa killed more than his share.