Poisoned Thrum - Flash Fiction v8

[FredFourth]

He thought back on the woman he could have loved,

her pulp so sweet, her taste so good to eat, flashes

of normality, powerful personality that overwelmed

his simplicity; then the horror, a realisation of her

diseased mind, her scheming ways, the urge to

destroy all that he loved: his friends, his lack of

malice towards anyone, her desire to wipe out all

trace of him. He likened it to the film 'Spider';

that poor crazy guy wrapped up, trapped in reliving

and killing, in sexual ways, the very people that

he loved, his mother, his lover and housekeeper.



His heartache in realising he was just another

victim to her, just a body to be sucked into her

sphere, suck him in and spit him out, the

fear she engendered that showed itself in

an irrational hatred that he loathed, and yet

her bite had triggered in him that very same

desire to kill and not just kill, other things,

some too terrible to put down, to tap out

things that could indite and lead to his

inaceration for ever. He tapped away and

worked it out on his word processor:



The spider scurries round the sands, a palp,
of thrum, a trace of pheromonéd air.
A sign from deep within her lair, he stares.
Beguiled, she meets his stance, he foils her clasp.
He moves into her burrowed den, he strokes
her hairy abdomen and plants his sac
into her gonopore. Tarantula
avoids so long, the lingering looking back.

30 January 2016

A spider scurries round the sands, a palp,
of thrum, a trace of pheromoned air.
A movement from within her lair, he stares.
Beguiled, she meets his stance, he foils her clasp.
He moves into her burrowed den, he strokes
her hairy abdomen, he plants his sac
into her gonopore. Tarantula
avoids so long, the lingering looking back.

29 January 2016

[Jesse]

Spiders mating. This is funny!!

[Billy]

I don't know Fredforth, this sounds like a description I would read in National Geographic except for the last line which the "so-long" trips me up. I figure you are trying for alliteration with ling'ring looking but it doesn't read smoothly.

[FredFourth]

Thanks Billy

[FredFourth]

Several layers Jesse.

[FredFourth]

Tarantula is a example of verse.

[FredFourth]

I was looking at your poem 'Winterset', your first lines are:

Your dwarf Tangelo
is frostbitten. . .

and those lines baffled me at first, and too me some time to figure out, and I loved that. I originally though a person by the name of Tangelo, not knowing there was a fruit by that name. I wondered how that came to you, or was it just written as everyone in the world knows there are plants of such a name or, which is suspect is the case, did you deliberately set out to make us think with a conundrum.

Your next line also confused me:

rigor brittles to a pulp . . .

and I had to think hard without understanding although the clue is in the title 'Winterset'. So after eventually understanding you are writing about a garden in winter everything came clear to me. The judge, Brian Appleyard said this: The first stanza is a showstopper. The first two lines signal at once that this writer feels poetry. Which agrees with my take on your marvellous poem.

[Michael (MV)]

 
Hi Frank,

what is the writing in italics about - who wrote-said what is in italics - is it a quoting - are you quoting someone else?

Thanks,

Michael (MV)

Tarantula is a example of verse, it has several layers than can be exploited by the reader
the epigraph introduces one element that the reader might enjoy by referring to a recent film
regarding a lunatic let out of an asylum for the criminally insane. The lunatic has experienced
great trauma in his childhood and carries that around with him. He has witnessed the murder
of his mother and the sexual behaviour of his father with his mother before her murder. He in
turn kills his step mother and his father, and relives the experience all his days, what Gabriel

Byrne calls his poisonous view. The poem deals with the mating habits of spiders, in particular
the tarantula spider which the female of that species has a penchant for eating her mate,
sometimes during mating. The male therefore steps warily into her den, something he has to
do if wishing to mate. Tarantula males therefore do not hang about after mating, after risking
so much they prefer to beat a hasty retreat not wishing to risk fate more than needed. So here
is murder and sex bound up in the poem, the film refers to the tarantulas mating and the
tarantulas mating refer back to the film in a kind of round-a-bout way. Each endorsing the
horror of sex and relatives mating and killing and in the one case eating of the mate.

The poisonous view remark made by Byrne referring to the poisonous view of the N. in the
film which is also pointing to the ability of the female to strike venomously. The thing that
drove N. mad was watching his father engage din sex with both mother and a prostitute. his
step mother to be and subsequent murder of his mother. In his thoughts all three women
look the same, his mother, his step mother and his landlady who he tries to kill. N. kills his
step mother eventually.

Regarding the tarantula we can only wonder at the horror of the male obliged by nature of
the beast to take such risks.

The poem contains, internal rhyme and some accidental alliteration. It contains an even
number of syllables per line in iambic meter which makes i verse. it is no mean feat but
is regular pentameter i.e. five feet,

Although the poem is a stand alone description of tarantulas mating the reference to the film
and novel translates the horror to us in human terms. And for those who teach and believe men
may somehow come back after death as animals then surely this is a warning of epic proportions.

One critic suggested that using the accent in pheromoned lair was cheating the meter, when in reality it is a guide to the reader on how to pronounce pher-owm-own-ed properly to meet the emter.

Similarly he suggests that Ling'ring is also a cheat, whereas I like to think of it as a point to the reader not to pronounce Ling-er-ing but as ling-ring. In giving these guides I use the well established English usage forms of punctuation. He suggests that in doing this I have introduced a 19th century style. The poem form is iambic pentameter so when he suggests an improvement that introduces a spondee to this form I have to thank him for his care but leave the poem as it is. Two of his suggestions are as follows, he dislikes the commas in the poem that make him stumble or pause in reading. This is quite deliberate of me as pure iambic can make the poem have a kind of sing song nursery rhyme flow to it. Whereas I want the iambics to show with stops and pauses.

He scurries round the desert sand, he seeks
/He SCURR/ies ROUND/ the DESS/ert SANDS/he SEEKS/

receptive mates, a pheromonéd lair.
/reCEPT/ive MATES/a PHER/omONE/ed LAIR/ iambic pentameter

his first suggestion would scan:
/reCEPT/ive MATES/ a PHER/omONE/RICH LAIR/
/iamb/iam/iamb/iamb/spondee/ - iambic pentameter

his second would scan (if I used it) as:
/recEPT/ive MATES/a PHER/omONE/STAINED LAIR/
/iamb/iamb/iamb/iamb/spondee/ iambic pentameter.

There is nothing wrong per se with his suggestions, I juts prefer it the way I have written it.

I do however appreciate the input, it is a welcome to get people to comment.

I don't know if anyone has seen the way these arthropods move, it is quite jerky, sudden dashes with a pause. I hoped the poem would reflect this movement.

[FredFourth]

No Its a sort of explanation of the poem and some marks on a critique, shall I take it off?

[Michael (MV)]

 
Thanks, Frank, for clarifying.

Sincerely, Michael (MV)

No Its a sort of explanation of the poem and some marks on a critique, shall I take it off?

 
 
 
 
 

[Michael (MV)]

 
Frank; Billy:

I'm much in accord with Billy's assessment here.

Sincerely, Michael (MV)

I don't know Fredforth, this sounds like a description I would read in National Geographic except for the last line which the "so-long" trips me up. I figure you are trying for alliteration with ling'ring looking but it doesn't read smoothly.

 
 
 
 
 
 

[FredFourth]

Fair enough Michael, thanks. I was hoping it was good enough for the IBPC.