Small section of Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch

Blogging A to Z

enharmonic – tones which sound the same pitch, but are written & named differently

NaPoWriMo

Prompt: “write a poem from the point of view of one person/animal/thing from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous (and famously bizarre) triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.”

PAD Challenge

Prompt: Write a trap poem

The poem

A Giant Leap for Lizardkind

I alone among my brethren prepared for this journey
asking my mentor, Queen of the spiders
to fashion me a coat,
a protective armor to guard
my water-born fragile flesh
from the ground

At first, I was weary
of the bright reflective color
my sisters laughed at me
and shielded their eyes
but she assures me that I will
blend perfectly with the
pale flesh of the groundlings.

She thought of everything
protecting my head and neck
hiding my tail
While she spun at the water’s edge
she told me tales of the beings
I will encounter upon the land
It is important to blend in
and not be noticed, she explained
for they fear the unknown and
will lash out violently

I try to lead the way
to test the ground
perhaps mitigate the potential losses
because they would not head
my warnings and yet
are determined to leave home
but they rush ahead
as if the water they have known
boils their tails

I watch in horror as the first
of my kin are skewered
I slip into a crowd of ivory bodies unnoticed
and watch as my familiars are roasted
and devoured
I pity them

I hear a whisper
the spider queen
lowers herself on her silk strand
above me reaching
she tugs a thread at the front of my hood
near my eye it cinches tight
and she drags me up
up into her web
There was more than one predator on the land
I had trusted her
and she trapped me with my vanity