Carl Saegen,
Your billions and billions of stars,
Particles of cosmic dust from alpha explosion,
Originating from point unknown,
Could this free floating trash
Have truly carried the stuff of life?
Did your big bang beget the cock roach?
Noah, Noah, why did you save Them?
Surely you were taught about evolution in school!
Did they manage to sneak onto your ark?
Or for forty days and forty nights
Did they just float about
On rafts of twigs and wood?
Darwin,
Survival of the fittest,
A cruel legacy indeed!
Think of the implications!
Adaptation being the master key.
Since the dawn of man
They have been our constant enemy.
Crawling on our food,
Spreading all manner of contaminant
And disease!
We have killed billions and billions
And billions of Them.
We have sworn oaths,
Dedicating untold resources,
Including rolled up newspapers,
Brooms, mops, thrown shoes,
And a hundred deadly pesticides.
Dedicating each to the sadistic ideation of their
Complete and absolute annihilation!
Entire corporations conspire against them:
Orkins, Terminex,
And the ever-toxic
Dow Chemical tribe.
They mix their brews, man their hand-pumps,
Fumigators and applicators;
It’s more than war,
We’re talking global genocide!
And yet,
Our dogged attempts to exterminate
These seemingly indestructible
Nocturnal insects
Has resulted in only one
Nightmarish outcome…
Roaches have surely become
The Supreme Beings
On our big blue planet!
Consider the creature.
A roach has 2000 lenses in each eye.
It sees in all directions
And perceives every shade and color but red,
And who needs red in the middle of the night?
Right?
Every roach comes equipped
With built in antenna, front and rear.
Early warning systems far surpassing
Our best electronic surveillance gear.
Damn, we could have asked Them
Where Saddam’s WMDs
Might have been concealed.
As a spy network, with all those
Sensory connections,
No matter where or what was hidden,
All would be revealed!
They are similar to us in one way, though,
As omnivores they can eat almost anything!
But even in this regard,
The roaches’ digestive system
Far surpasses ours.
It includes a detoxification component,
Allowing rancid, rotting things long dead
To become a banquet fit for a king!
And speaking of dying…
Its brains are everywhere!
Cut a leg here,
A head there,
It lives… It still lives!
And if its heart were to cease its beat
It’s like trying to stop a zombie!
Who designed these things?
A battle-bot skeleton on the outside,
Where it does the most good,
And most models come equipped
With wings!
The Catholics have nothing on roaches.
They breed to live.
They live to breed.
We simply cannot compete!
No matter how cold the winter weather,
You may have noticed
The roaches return, each Spring,
Bigger and badder than ever!
They invite themselves over using any excuse:
“I thought I left my car keys.
Some one said you were having a garage sale.
Mom said Uncle Jessup used to live here…
Isn’t this the free clinic?”
But don’t let them fool you,
They only want one thing…
What a romp. And to think the little buggers are actually part of a scientific study and experimentation to implant some bots in them and actually use them as a war weapon. Yeah. Just what we need. The common cock roach leading the charge. Informative, entertaining and a continued foreshadow of what's inevitable.
Reviewed by RWE SAYS BYE (Reader)
Reviewed on August 24, 2013
Ha! . John: every cat is an heir to Schroediger's cat... so it is with the roach, more dead than alive, yet somehow managing, as your pithy poem suggests, to thrive not just survive... I like how you begin with your pantheon of veritable legends lending ubiquity to this species from the most unlikely bedfellows... history makes them strange, yet all pales in comparison to the eccentricities enumerated herein...
I'm so glad you're reposting these gems. Somehow you've managed to cram information and humor into one of humankind's worst dilemmas… What to do with, “La Cucaracha.”
I fed my little Pomeranian, Jazz, nothing but a geriatric dog food and a daily milk bone for his teeth. Do you know what Jazz thought roaches were? “A snack.”
The only things I can think of right now are a few experiences with these perfect little ugly products of natures ingenuity. I once worked on a boat that was infested with them. A huge nest resided in the bulkheads in the galley. The only thing that finally got rid of them? The boat sank. When they raised it and rehabbed it, the roaches were finally gone. With all their accomplishments, they just haven't gained the secret of swimming. I definitely know how nasty these things can get Michael. Bob
Early Works is an exhaustive compilation of the first decade of the poems and stories of Z.B.McClure. Included are family photos, rare personal photos, photos of 1st draft manuscripts of many of his early poems. Also some biography and memoir materia
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Roger
I fed my little Pomeranian, Jazz, nothing but a geriatric dog food and a daily milk bone for his teeth. Do you know what Jazz thought roaches were? “A snack.”
Ron
Too Funny!
JMD
L