Best Centipede Poems
You got a hundred lovers,
including me
Every one of us
give you something that you need
But you really only need us after that,
when your fire starts getting low,
and your house gets cold
You only need us
when you need to feed,
when you need the body heat
You only want us
when you want to burrow,
when you want to give some sorrow
Give centipede promises of tomorrow:
Telling each one of us
how good it would be,
just you and me
Selling each one of us
this centipede fantasy,
that we’re quick to believe
You move so fast,
your heart can’t stay long
In and out you’re gone
Centipede feet always on the run,
having musical chair fun
Said you promise to be true
with the last sitting one
But, I know you ...
after all is said and done:
Your centipede heart
is gonna devour each and every one
Yes, I know you ... how you do
You be bugging when you creep on by,
with a hundred alibis
Saying so and so just can’t let go,
saying even though you told them no
Then as soon as I turn the lights down low,
your phone rings,
and your centipede heart gotta go
This I know about you ...
So tell that worm that’s fresh and new:
Centipede feet always gon leave,
just as fast as they met you too
Centipede heart always gon give you empty;
wiping a hundred feet on your heart,
getting you dirty
A centipede found its way into our home
My hairs stood on end for hours on end!
And while we tried learning about it on Google search,
in a dark and damp crevice it made its perch
All the cyber net did was to amplify my fears
It also yielded that our azure electric-blue vermin
was quite hot on the market
Making me wonder how people could fancy
such a nightmarish pet!
For this wasn't just any pest
This had hazardous venom
I fearfully wondered if they had
its antidote serum.
We couldn't just ignore
a pair of painful pincers on the loose
There wasn't way to rope those
like bull horns in a noose.
Here was a venomous predator
complete with stinging apparatus
Its bite portended pain
and complications humongous!
It did appear to have those rumoured hundred segments
but count scaredy me out from counting those myriad ligaments.
This insectivore when we tried then to shoo,
with lightning speed it zig-zagged out of view!
So now it lurks but we can't find it anywhere
and gosh its stingers triple their size in my nightmare!
besides leaving us with a proliferation scare.!
And but timid me thanked God once again
to my great relief how thoughtful of Him indeed
to create venomous creatures that inflict stinging pain
but atleast are unable to zoom in flying at us at flying speed! .
(a flyin scorpion, centipede wud have been far more terrifyin n dangerous eh) .
Centipede so tiny crawls
trekking on a fence
hundred legs, he never falls
I watch in suspense…
My two feet are bad, you see,
pain comes when I walk.
Should I be a centipede,
you would hear me squawk!
*Entry for Andrea’s 7/5 Trochee contest
I WISH I WEREN’T A CENTIPEDE
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS
I wish I weren’t a centipede, a lowly arthropod
I need a transformation into something much more mod
To obtain status, with a much higher species standing
Not be straddled with an enervating task so demanding
I get no praise for my control nor multiple coordination
None can match my velocity nor perfect synchronization
Hard work, sweat and practice, I never need to hedge
Only I can manage and direct hundred pairs of legs
There are numerous phoney imposters of me
The most common, of course, the millipede
We both scurry about after the sun goes down
I’m known as a deadly killer, he’s just a clown
And when he is frightened, curls up and plays dead
Me, when confronted, a venom I’ll promptly embed
He subsists eating dead leaves and rotting flesh
Me, I go hunting I like to devour my protein fresh
I’m really scary, so I stay hidden during the day
But at night is when I’m active searching out for prey
I’ve got a couple of pincers, positioned near my head
I reach out to find you, once located, you are dead
That’s my routine, residing in wet n gloomy sites
Venturing out at dusk to procure a couple of bites
I’m not a gourmet almost anything fits my diet
A mouse, a rat, an ant. If its warm I’ll surely try it
Each day mimics itself, an unremarkable occurrence
Repeating the same sequence doesn’t really make much sense
After due deliberation, I have decided to fill my day
With thoughts of being a condor and just aviate away
I will soar over the Andes riding endless thermal drafts
View the Nazca Plains, take in the mysterious graphs
Alas, it’s a pipe dream, that each night I’ll need to cede
I’ll scurry out, repeat the hunt, cause I’m just a centipede
When you touch me
I circle like a centipede
following to the rhythm of its coiling body
as you fondle hunger with your eyes
and I
feed you with my soft cries
the moon washed in the sky’s water
draped in the sun’s golden threads of ray
mind influence hands
to take care of an entire
body
with lust flooding in
marrying the hands of time
to painted white pillow covers
struggle
and
I breathe in
a fresh air of you
warm to the heart
and such memories old
still
survive in the soul
cold.
Form:
Took my centipede on a walk
We were only going around the block
And before long I knew
I circled the block once, he twenty-two
That centipede stepped on my toe
Hurt so bad I had to slow
Stepped on it not just once but again and again
Not ten times but ten times ten
After he trampled my big toe
Couldn't take another step don't you know
This is all he had to say
"If you cant keep up, get out of the way"
I came upon a centipede
whose family was in need -
sad news.
How, said I, can I assist?
Let's write a shopping list -
please choose.
There's just one thing
that, for us, you can bring -
that's shoes.
Sam the centipede’s arithmetic was bad
When counting to 100 it was so sad
Even though he had a 100 legs without dread
He found it difficult as an abacus to get ahead
For he would get to 50 and loose the plot
Having to start again was an infuriating lot
So Sam spent his days trying to work it out
With nightmares about it waking up him with a shout
So when you see Sam walking along
Lifting his legs in turn as a musical song
The wave of legs is Sam trying not to lose his place
As he does mental arithmetic in his head to keep the pace.
© Paul Warren Poetry
My mind's a snail's trail winding down my throat
Glittering triumphantly over the mountain peaks of each day
A fragmenting centipede of dead ideas several years long
Constantly chasing its growing tale, that's come full circle
Trimming a slimy scenic garden path of fear and doubt
Through a fragile shell left completely exposed to any soulless sole
A slippery slope to reach the top shelf of the trophy carbinet
Clinging instead to the empty spaces of the wall calendar
Your days are numbered, why not just surrender, but I'm a winner!
You can wrist some minutes of business success because, truly only time will tell
But personally, I would like to rest a tombstone and leave a blank memory..
Of the colourless selouhette of your insipid mind, what a dull thought!
Don't let the dust from my ashes blind you to who I really am or was
Let the blowing wind carry me, for I'm truly not worth your tears of flesh
I'll stroke and then poke your liver, to get you laughing, and choke you on your snigger
While dancing on the ceiling with you, my lovely dinner..
I’ll never forget the beauty of
a stare unabashed and
unwelcome in its own right
The public spaces in which
my mind unravels
from cords pulled tight
against hollow lobes
The centipede that stitches them both
together in the fading light with
tiny purposeful arrogant unwavering
masterful steps one at a time
With no guiding notion
other than grooves in the bark
of twisted branches
Though that very well could be enough
Please don't think it odd if I intercede
On behalf of the poor lowly centipede.
Though he does get the blues
When he has to buy shoes,
He's better off than his cousin, the millipede.
Multi-legs frighten me!
Centipedes and spiders make me jump on a chair-
up I flee!
Each of them scores!
Creepy legs crawl, then run- huge scare
deplores!
Fear streams
as my lungs blare
screams!
Multi-legs frighten me!
Creepy legs crawl, then run- huge scare
screams!
be as it may be
moving forward marching fleet
are the many feet
~
of allotted steps
march, March stepping steps walking
left right left stepping
~
it may be as be
moving forward marching fleet
of the centipede
9/16/23
written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2023
Don’t listen to that centipede.
That’s not something you need.
Pay attention to the earth’s surface.
Take a moment to look at their face.
Don’t eat corn on the cob.
It will make you sob.
Just like that small town ten miles away.
They just couldn’t keep them at bay.
Trick or take a seat.
That’s not something to eat.
Pantries are for evil things.
Do centipedes have wings?
If something doesn’t make sense?
And they charge you 50 cents.
Only pay a dime.
And they will pinch you one time.
A centipede runs very fast.
Their pinch hurts but doesn’t last.
Take a moment to let this insect grow.
That small town was all I used to know.
Take a moment to look at their face.
This is a being from outer space.