Tarantula Love

This is a writing exercise I did in April.
It seemed appropriate for the time interval around Halloween with all its masks and costumes. The first poem is the original. The second is a poem in imitation of the first poem's style. Both were recited together. I'm becoming more of a fan of poetry read out-loud.

****

Tarantula
Charles Harper Webb

Time, from my burrow was a string of beads,
Alternating black-and-cold, white-and-hot,
Before you came. I was one of a trillion

Living tips of the spider vine already
Thriving when your ancestors first wriggled from
The surf. Then, one dawn – a rumbling

In the desert. A glow like the sun on a hot
Day. I started growing. My burrow
Was too small; I found a cave. I didn’t mean

To kill the driver of that scurrying black
Ford. My web was spun, fangs
Bloody before I could think. Yes, I could

Think. My brain was growing with my body,
Senses heightening until I looked down
On your world like a god. I saw it all:

Your frantic phone calls, the screaming
Blonde with her tight shorts and pretty legs
That made the square-jawed hero accept

Her “wild stories” as the old sheriff barked,
“Talk Sense!” To make him believe in me,
I sacrificed a farmer and his wife,

The way your old God used to. I pitied
You the way He must have as you fled
The monsters you always create.

No wonder He died! Who could live
With such knowledge? Your National Guard
Were weak as ant larvae against me.

I found the square-jawed one the others
Followed because he was handsome, and placed
The word “electrocution” in his brain.

I didn’t die the way you thought, trapped
With my eggs in that dark cave already
Grown too small for me. I led you there.

*****

*****

Your Old God
Tracy Lynn Mehoke

Time in your story began with light,
Alternating morning and evening, the first
Day, even before there was sun. I formed

Each star with what you might compare to
Fingers from my thoughts, back when space still
Had room to move. I made your ancestors

A Garden where love was pure enough
To Eat. They didn’t want that tree. They chose
Instead a fruit they asked to make them more

Like me. I cast them out, their lungs
No longer fit for breathing love without
Fear. The garden disappeared.

The ages turned like pages in a story
That never changes. I looked down as you
Spread out in a dog-eared world, wanting

Something bigger than yourselves. But you see
Only parts of me, which you insist on stitching
Into a Chimera. I saw it all:

Your wild stories, your chanting songs and
Curses in the names of gods you carved,
Sacrificed according to your demands.

I don’t blame you for running. I pitied you.
I wouldn’t want to be ruled by the monster
You make of me. I could not look

At my own Son when you cut his back to
Ribbons, marred beyond recognition
Of the beauty I asked you to remember.

My Son walked with you again, this time more
Like you. He said you were also my children.
What does it take to get your attention?

I didn’t die the way you thought, shreds
Of a man on a cross. You don’t understand
That behind your patched mask, I am Love.