-.egg.-
lapsarianism,
or something like it,
come to town,
this town, that town,
on the whisper of
the morning’s mournings.
.
-.larva.-
we cannot repent
nor repeal and release
ratify and rectify
what we cannot regret,
no matter whose door is darkened,
face bruised by blacklight.
.
-.first instar.-
he could remember his mother,
or something like her,
dripping with brackish water,
staining the pale floorboards,
calling forth notions of bismuth,
memories of worse days,
brighter days,
filled with the light of burning lime(s.)
.
-.second instar.-
(and | now | we | have | waited.)
.
-.third instar.-
he was a queer boy,
cracking his knuckles
and skinning his knees,
all in order to impress
the other queer boys,
but they neither came nor came,
so he moved to the tops of the pine trees,
sulking,
all a’glower,
tearing the pages out as carefully as he could,
hiding them where
,only,
the birds could find them.
.
-.pupa.-
a street,
paved, partitioned,
with expertly carved marble cobbles,
and o! how they gleam
in the afternoon sunshowers,
washing away the pigshit
of memory, degloved.
(or maybe a whistle through the thistle is more to yr liking.)
.
-.imago.-
a quiet simmer
behind dirty spectacles,
he hates the professionals
(all of them, and the electorate be damned!)
he thinks of crawling,
not strutting,
a peacock with its guts entwined with silvered feathers,
a series of numbers upon some old radio,
abandoned by the seaside,
along with his henbones
and mothers’ milk.
s.j. bagley is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, critic, and philosopher whose work can often be found in the irregularly published journal/zine SOFT TEETH. also! the editor and publisher of THINKING HORROR: A JOURNAL OF HORROR PHILOSOPHY, they live in a feral cat colony. in the woods. near the ocean. in rhode island.
