Later the Loch, Sooner the Lack: The Lifecycle of a Horrid Man with Horrid Plans, by s.j. bagley

-.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.

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