For today’s prompt, pick an insect (any insect), make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: “Praying Mantis,” “Ants,” and “Grasshoppers.” I’ll even except other creepy crawlies, like spiders, slugs, and leeches (shiver). Sorry in advance if this prompt gives you the heebie-jeebies; feel free to use insect repellent in your verse.
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In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.
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Here’s my attempt at an Insect Poem:
“crickets”
as an adult, i miss the chirp of crickets–
familiar as a distant train whistle–
filling the void of midnight with white noise
in the same way fireflies illuminate
the early evening hour, crickets long ago
claimed a chunk of my childhood memory
so that now i hear them–both day & night–
when others hear nothing: crickets filling
the dark silence that threatens to smother me
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Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community and author of Solving the World’s Problems (Press 53). He smiles when he thinks of laying in bed as a child and listening to the crickets outside.
Follow him on Twitter @RobertLeeBrewer.
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BUTTERFLY
I am as fragile
As butterfly wings
My skin is paper
My bones are hollow
My brain is glass
Locust Acrostic
Labeled in the bible as clean to eat,
Only it and honey served as John’s meat.
Creature able to destroy a whole crop—
Used as a plague, God made Pharaoh stop.
Swarming behavior is its common scene,
Traveling great distance to consume green.
The Mosquitoes
Everywhere you go
You will encounter
Them.
Repellent does nothing,
Except make you
Smell better for
Them.
Repellent is known to
Be the Minnesota
Perfume because of
Them.
No one likes
Them.
Noisy things.
They can’t seem to
Stay quiet.
You can spend the
Whole night trying
To find
Them.
You will never find
Them.
They find
You.
Booklice
Wingless members of the family
Trogiidae, commonly found
in human dwellings,
these tiny authors
feed on scripts, spit
them out for tenants to find.
The Psocoptera evolved
from ancient scribes
but have lost all recollection
of manuscript keeping.
Poor eyesight and pen-
less, they communicate
using sound instead,
tap with the end
of their abdomens, using Morse
code in a faint ticking noise
and chewing to communicate
stories like that of
Violet Beauregarde.
After Amateur Etymologists’ Society (https://www.amentsoc.org/insects/fact-files/orders/psocoptera.html)
“Friends, Our Dragonflies”
The four-winged insect eaters zip around. High noon.
We picnic near the beach, down a slope from our farm and stream.
Mosquitoes attack from their strategic firmament,
with pinprick stings seeking blood. They occlude sunbeams,
or so it seems to us. Their military band of wee fiddlers bow away
off-key, such is their sound, a kind of scratching high C.
Our counter operatives dispatch from their cattails heli-port—
we’ve code named them Beautiful. Always with a capital B,
and not just because they help rid us of our state bird,
the skeeter. They’re sweet tales for our lake, our family mini-sea,
making us feel we each have a story iridescence, we’re merchants to a man,
a woman of who we are. We touch drinks, and a dragonfly lands on me.
—B Peters
Endwords, Emily Dickinson, “Two Butterflies Went Out at Noon”
COCCINELLIDAE
To me you are
Red with black spots
But you may be yellow
Or brown or even
Black, and outfitted
With stripes or not
One dot. All over
You’re known as
A good luck bug
Even though you
Are not even really
A bug, but a beetle
Whose spots don’t
Tell your true age,
Though that myth
Persists. What are
You ladybug? Ladybrid?
Sometimes named
God’s Little Cow or
Tiny Messiah, you fly
Through our lives
As we try to define
You, believe your
Black marks speak
Of Seven Joys or
Seven Sorrows,
But you just fly
On home, though
“Your house is burning
And your children
Are gone.”
Bees in marmalade jars
When I was young,
life was fun and easy.
I’d spend lazy summer days
collecting bees
in empty marmalade jars
with my best friend Helen.
We’d gaze at them in
amazement and wonder.
With stripes yellow and black
uncertain with their piping buzz.
Then we’d carefully open the jars
releasing the buzzing prisoners,
contented to spend the entire day
in our world of imagination.
I’d climb into my bed
as the clock struck nine,
dreaming of the next day,
eager to repeat it all over again.
© April 2018 Margo LeBlanc
Dragonfly
One summer day
on the lee side of Cherry Island
my canoe slipped through
blue windless water
rippled only by an occasional dip
of my paddle to propel the glide.
A dragonfly hovered,
poised above my wrist
on transparent wings.
An iridescent glow of
neon blue, electric lime, laser yellow
in the angles of sunlight,
a dragonfly hovered
for a sixty second minute
of mutual consideration;
I, in fascination of this fancied flier,
he, in hidden hunger to defy nature,
bite this human who
had invaded his space.
One summer day
on the lee side of Cherry Island
a dragonfly hovered above my wrist
for a sixty second minute,
then darted off
unaware he had alighted upon
a soul whose
heart yearned to fly free.
Lorraine Caramanna
Booklice
Amongst the musty tomes
of leather bindings
crackled and flaking with age,
lives a small bookish bug
who dines on fine mold
beneath the wooden shelves
of an ancient library.
He has breakfast
with Scott
and spends his days
crawling Shakespeare’s spine
and his evenings
nibbling on Hemmingway’s prose.
He has a lot of work to do
but he never waivers
on his task
for rarely is there a day
without a book
needing some company.
The Robertsville Cemetery
I found a grasshopper
on your headstone
in the freshly mown graveyard.
It made me smile to know
that it was you who saved him.
(For Ken)
fireflies
by Patrick J. Walsh
like rabbits that hop out
of magic top hats
when the magician
waves his wand
fireflies stringing lights
in the gathering darkness
make the chilly nights
seem a lot less scary
‘punching night
with light
& fiddling sticks’
Such great imagery here!
awww thanks Sarah!
insects lack heart
their blood
free flows
splashing
some weave traps
other roll sh*t
there are those
punching night
with light
& fiddling sticks
oh to be
one of the winged
but no
i’m bug-eyed at yoga
lurking into poses
all carapace & thorax
& after class
i click loud enuff
for his lady bug to hear
what’d i’d do
if i discovered
the route
to his honeycomb
heart
Mosquitoes
Mortal enemies of humans.
In Spanish, they are “little flies”.
Ninos y ninas
Only the mother bites.
She needs blood to make her babies;
fresh water for them to grow in.
Children play in rain water ponds
With her arsenal of weapons –
six needles sheathed in her proboscis,
two of them serrated –
she saws through skin searching
for the richest vessels. She drinks.
The people are starving
Mother leaves behind saliva.
Sometimes it contains parasites
and viruses, harmless to her
but deadly to humans.
Exterminate! Eliminate!
There is no immunity!
– Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
Love this!
Thank you for reading and liking, Sara.
For April 13 PAD
Driven Buggy Or A Driven Buggy—Weird, Huh?
By Bill Kirk
What is it about bugs that bug us so?
Their creepy, crawly nature perhaps?
Or simply that they creep and crawl
In so many places and spaces,
Leaving unwanted traces of where they have been?
And yet, bugs can be buggy or beneficial,
Both bothering us beyond measure,
Or making the difference in whether we will eat
Certain edibles we would prefer to not do without.
The world around there are bugs
Of seemingly endless variety and number.
Not that we have ever been overrun, mind you.
Well, with the sporadic exception of ants
Which, once they start—
First with scouts, to test the resistance,
Or perhaps reception is a better word—
Followed by hunters and gatherers
And, finally, by the housekeepers
If a long-term encampment is intended.
Yet other than a few memorable infestations,
Bugs have not been a big deal or a deal breaker.
They’re just bugs that either bug us or not.
Some folks might even declare a favorite bug
Of one kind or another, whether beetles or
Ladybugs or rolley-polleys that roll up into cute little balls.
As for earwigs and silverfish, I will pass.
And although centipedes, millipedes and spiders
Are not bugs in the strictest, six-legged sense,
They are interesting to watch,
Then catch and release….
Then there are roaches which,
To clarify early and often, you can keep.
They are among the creepiest, crawliest and
Speediest of escape artists in the bug world—
Appearing as if out of nowhere
Only to disappear just as quickly.
And if you didn’t think roaches can fly,
Just wait until mating season… Ffffdddddd, SMACK!
Oh, and last but not least? Termites,
Although apparently widespread,
They do seem to flourish particularly well in Florida.
I never paid much attention to termites
Before we moved to Florida
But in Florida, they are ever present,
Living in the ground or low vegetation by day,
Like ants or beetles or other crawly things.
Then they come out at night to play.
And did I mention their swarms?
You will see them during their annual spring cycle
In great clouds around lights after dark—
To the point that the best strategy
Is simply to turn off the outside lights
And hope they don’t find a way in
Through any crack or crevice around
Doors, windows and any other unintended entry point.
They are indeed insidious. And they will eat your house
If it is not properly defended.
As for dealing with bugs?
Deet! Spray! Glove!
The termites sound appalling. Love the way you wrote this, with a touch of humor.
worm splitting
it can’t be helped I whispered
as I worked my shovel
through layers of dirt,
exposed worms jumping
at the fresh spring air
like newly-caught fish
there are just too many
I told myself gently
desperately trying to forgive
myself and my shovel
for all the new half-worms
that didn’t jump along
Ants
Somedays I am just not feeling
good enough to get out of bed.
The point? The need? The Want?
Where are they and why am I
not smart enough to use them
to pry myself from comfort?
Acquiescence wins, and I get up.
I start the day. The wave of routine holds my head under.
I start
to make breakfast for other people.
I pour
hot water for tea.
I prepare
the food.
I
see ants. Well, one ant, really.
Not an uncommon sight in springtime.
“Where one perishes, two more shall rise”,
I think as my cocked
middle finger fires my discovery
to oblivion.
Two more didn’t rise. Contrary to most perceptions
my house is a lot cleaner than that.
I set about to accomplish my task and
I eventually make it to
my cup of coffee
without the realization that
there wasn’t much difference between
that ant and me.