An Aubade for Trilobites

~ qbit
This story, I’m walking deep in the moors
where even the deer become lost
and die of starvation		This story is an aubade for trilobites
their message in a bottle washed ashore
for lovers and horseshoe crabs
In this story, turkey vultures huddle
in their cage of wind and thicket		In this story, my hair
blows at right angles to my mind
In this story, you are at home,
still asleep		In this story, you are too long
gone from our bed. Trilobites
evolve when they are not observed.
Hello museOn s’amuse boucoup
The trilobite has crept
from your poem
into mine		You are welcome to it
they smell of the sea,
love, and dreams
triple bites
the hand that needs you
let the caged
ragged tagged
age old dream
split the difference,
split the tongue
let this
old bird sing
do vultures sing?
grunts,
hisses,
bill clacks
we are tasted
savored and
favored and
rawhide chewed
softened
to undo you
your hair
illuminated
smooth-a-nated
dark-o-rama dark as Rama
bury buried buries
my eyes and nose and
ellipsis
of scent
of sense
cat got your tongue?
yes
it wags, it shakes, it gets carried away,
a limp mouse
in grey fur
“A man’s character is his fate”“Nature likes to hide herself”

The Sunday Muse and Quickly

54 thoughts on “An Aubade for Trilobites”

  5. Probably as a compensation for hating giant tree roaches, trilobites fascinated me back in the days of natural history museums and plaster dinosaurs. And those last lines just brimmed with image.

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  6. I came back to this poem after reading it — or attempting to read it — too late and after wine. You reformatted it, I think. Or my laptop, or my headtop glitched. Anyway… what they said. I sense the free flowing stream of (semi)consciousness creating, sculpting, painting… and that damned trilobite earworming its way through to the other side (cue The Doors).

    Good stuff, Randall! (as always) 😛

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    1. Thank you! Gee, I thought it would have been *best* with wine, LOLOL! Yes, I changed the formatting from columns/verse to table. I found that the columns only worked if viewed on a browser. On a phone or tablet it only showed one column at a time. But then I had to give up some of the indentation. Oh well. Thanks for stopping by, and leaving a fossil on Morrison’s grave. Or something like that!

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  7. The formatting is like a collage unto itself – great mirror image of the artwork. Reading this in multiple directions is like unlocking a puzzle only to discover there are more puzzles.
    The section that grabbed my attention is “we are tasted | savored and |favored and |
    rawhide chewed |softened |to undo you”
    This feel like the center of the wheel, no matter which way it turns. Glad the muse showed up!

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  8. There is an odd little store next to a restaurant that we went to last week… sells fossils and stuff.
    There was a huge wall poster of trilobites on the wall. I think they reached out to you and your muse. 😉

    Sometimes going with the flow… well lava takes over.
    You’ve etched your own fossils of letters on the page to last into infinity. 🙂

    New word for me; aubade – thanks.

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      1. I remember reading somewhere about the things… (I’m not sure what you actually call them)… that clean your eyelashes when you sleep. They remind me of trilobites when magnified. 🙂

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          1. ohh… I found out what they are:
            Also known as demodex, each mite has four pairs of legs that make it easy to grip tube-shaped things — like your lashes. You can’t see eyelash mites because they’re only about a third of a millimeter long and see-through. All they want is to eat some dead skin cells and a bit of the oil that comes along with them.

            Fun to research stuff when the ‘web’ is at your finger tips. I say ‘Go for it!’

            I was poking around more an figured out why you stuck in horseshoe crabs… and these tid bits:
            Trilobites are Arthropods. They look like little hard shelled insects, and are often nicknamed “bugs” by fossil collectors, but they are not related to insects. Trilobites are an extinct clade of Arthropods (like crustaceans).
            Mites are not insects; they are more closely related to ticks and spiders. Most mites are visible to the unaided eye and usually measure 1⁄8 inch or less in length.
            While trilobites were, in fact, arthropods, the creatures appear to have been more closely akin to crustaceans and/or chelicerates (i.e. arachnids and horseshoe crabs) than insects.

            So full circle the mites are related to Trilobites! 🕷

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  10. So clever – “triple bites the hand that needs you.” “Let this old bird sing.” And sing you did. I love “in this story” with all of its possibilities. Ths was a wonderful read! So original.

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  14. In this story, the mind twists and turn with each word, tidbits of thoughts through an amazing labyrinth.

    In this story, my hair
    blows at right angles to my mind

    What happens if you do a 180 or 360? Does it change point of view?

    Interesting read….

    makes me want to go a fossil dig…lol

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  15. . . . and I have not forgotten that “a bird in the hand is . . .”
    I would call this a nice soliloquy about the merits of picking up bottles by the sea.
    ..

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  16. Just looking at this poem is art, then reading it I was pulled into the world of your words. “triple bites
    the hand that needs you” Love that line. Who would have thought a trilobite would carry you to such exquisite poetry. Thank you for giving your voice to my art.

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    1. Right??? Don’t trilobites deserve soft songs of love, promises from their lovers who leave them at dawn? I think trilobites have been an under-served population for love songs, and I for one aim to do something about it, dammit!

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  25. I could read this again and again and find another gem within it Qbit! Magnificent in it’s delicate excavation of the art of words and poetry! The formation adds to the wonder if it all my friend!

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