Progress casually pre-decided It’s three in the afternoon and there’s a thought
suggesting that everything happening
is happening at the same time.
[1] The emerald cockroach wasp is so named
for its incandescent blueish-green exoskeleton
and the unusual nature of its
neuro-parasitic reproductive cycle.
conclusions to be arrived at. You shouldn’t
pet a dog backwards, you shouldn’t
fear dying. [2] The wasp aims its hook-like sting
at the centre of dopamine production
or ganglia. Aware and incapable of triggering an
escape-reflex The sun opens like a sore
and the world keeps turning. the cockroach host waits
and gestates numerous, hungry offspring.
I’m seeing dark splotches out of one eye
and should I have started smoking?
Might’ve been beneficial to the image I was trying
to cultivate, could have been a kind of safety net.
I could say something like, “I’m down to a pack a day!”
to no one in particular.
Specifics [3] of the roach’s metabolic alterations:
you could sever my brain stem and I would continue
to regress in a linear fashion. It’s reflexive.
Put me by the windowsill, water me and call me Gus.
A friend once said that I value my time
over the time of others. And I have to laugh
when I remember. independent movement is almost
entirely suspended. The wasp instead relies on tugging
the roach’s antennae to guide the much larger insect
Of all things, the cornflower blue wallpaper, absence of
radiator key, cured linoleum floor receding over concrete; I can’t
stand to be here, especially at night.
slowly and reflexively forward.
I think when I die, insects will begin to fill
the recesses of my body. [4] once hatched
the larvae take particular care to consume non-vital
organs as to complete their maturation
Whole successive generations living out their lives
entirely unaware of the outside.
entirely within the body of their host.
I think when I die, insects will begin to fill
the recesses of my body. [4] once hatched
the larvae take particular care to consume non-vital
organs as to complete their maturation
Whole successive generations living out their lives
entirely unaware of the outside.
entirely within the body of their host.
Accept that nothing will ever feel right again.
Maybe this has all happened once, or even twice already.
I’d need graph-paper to prove it. But you can’t be wrong
if everyone else is dead.
Ian Goldberg is a poet, performer and the procurement head of abyssal content. At the moment he’s working with the Barbican Young Poets and tumbleweed-ing across the Hampshire poetry scene. He’s eager to discover the depths we can sink to – together. Follow him on Twitter @CoelacanthPoems.
Occulum 