Regarding last night's bug incident.

[persephone_kore]

O Centipede, you chill me to my core,
You many-legged fluid carnivore.

I hear you eat up other household pests,
The ant, the fly, the uninvited guests.

Your hairlike rippling legs are very gross,
But I will try to be a gracious host:

As long as I can't catch you, I will think
Of all the bugs you keep out of my drink,

And though I do not want to stock your meals
If you should find them, prithee, eat your fill.

You race across the floor and up the wall
And to the ceiling.. lose your grip... and fall.

And down you go, too small to make a plunk.
O Centipede -- I ask you -- are you drunk?


---

I'm not sure if I can blame the centipede for my bizarre dream about a bungee-jumping black widow spider, though.

Comments

[layrenelement.livejournal.com]

ROTF! That is the most AWESOME poem ever, I nearly inhaled my diet RC cola I was drinking when I started laughing...

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and apologies. I'm glad you did not breathe too much of your drink. Should I have warned for silly? *g*

[layrenelement.livejournal.com]

I would have appreciated one at the time :p

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

:)

[a-t-rain.livejournal.com]

This is clearly the best centipede poem I have ever read. (Of course, since it's also the only centipede poem I've ever read, you may or may not want to infer too much from this...)

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

*giggle*

I'm sure others must exist, but I confess I doubt it's a terribly busy genre.

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

I think I've read another centipede poem, but it was a very bad limerick, so that's still not much competition.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I could probably come up with a bad limerick...

A centipede over my head
Is something I look on with dread
For if he should stumble
And drop with a tumble
I fear he will find I have fled.

[kaesa.livejournal.com]

No, see that's a good bad limerick. This was one of those limericks that was written by someone who didn't understand rhythm, and it was baffling.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Ohhh. Gotcha.

[layrenelement.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!!!!!

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

I aim to amuse. *G* Thanks.

[nimras23.livejournal.com]

*gigglefits* That's brilliant.

And for the bungee-jumping black widow... I'd blame the centipede...

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

I don't know. The centipede might have contributed, but it's actually not that far off some of my other driving-related dreams.

[mustafear.livejournal.com]

*laughs with delight* I love it! I saw this the other day but didn't take the time to read it (I was scrambling to get ready for tf.n awards, IIRC).

I know that you just couldn't reach it, but I love the idea of "I will try to be a gracious host" -in fact, that whole stanza is my favorite. :D

When I was a kid living in Germany, I had the basement bedroom which was haunted by two huge black spiders. By huge, I mean the size of my hand. And they were FAST, so fast that I finally gave up trying to catch them and named them "Fred" and "George". From the moment I named them, I would get angry with my father for trying to kill them. My hesitation at killing them lasted several months and ended abruptly the night I woke up with one of the boys on my nose.

Now, I hate spiders. Especially bungee jumping black widows, I hear those are bad.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Gah. Spiders should not be on the nose.

Glad you liked the poem. I'm actually a little sad -- I haven't seen the centipede since it fell off the ceiling, and after going through all the mental adjustments to try to welcome it and look upon it as a sort of very leggy form of pest control, I almost miss it.

I'd still freak if it ran onto me, though.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Nice poem.

I had some Interesting Biological information to add, but then I decided: you'd probably rather not know.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

...I may regret it, but hey, go ahead.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Predator-prey populations move together: In order to have a predator, you have to have enough prey to make it worth while.

That's why, say, seeing a hawk hunting on your property is such great news if you've been trying to create small-bird habitat. There's enough prey to support it! (Besides, hawks are cool :-) Eventually the populations reach equilibrium as the maximum prey that can be supported and the maximum predators that can live off the max prey stabilize.

So, while yes, the centipede will certainly help control the popuation explosion of its prey insects, well... unless you interfere, you're just going to end up with an equilibrium state of both.

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, that I knew. But since critters do seem to wander in periodically no matter what I do, and I know about those. I'd just as soon the centipede have them. And if there aren't enough I'd just as soon he leave. (Come to think of it, I still haven't seen him after the ceiling. It's hardly high enough for the fall to have splatted him. *puzzled*)

If I start seeing more potential prey, I'll worry. As it is, I'm viewing the very occasional centipede (the last one was several months ago) as loosely equivalent to the inevitable spiders.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Okay!

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

If however seeing a centipede every several months indicates that there's likely to be a severe and very sneaky infestation of something else....

...Actually, I'm not sure what the heck I could do about it.