Talkin' Tarantula Blues

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Talkin' Tarantula Blues


There's a cobweb over my bed
that looks like an eagle.
Two dead spiders—emptied by the same life
that empties us all—claw at its heart.

And I want to write a song for you
like Bob Dylan wrote for me.



original

Talkin' Tarantula Blues



There's a cobweb over my bed
that looks like an eagle.
Two dead spiders—emptied by the same life
that empties us all—claw at its heart.

And I want to write a song for everyone 
like Bob Dylan wrote for me.

[Valerie Please]

I guess I'll give this one a try . . . what level of critique is this forum? Miscellaneous? I'll do a miscellaneous reply then:

Talkin' Tarantula Blues

OK, so right off, we are in the world of referential mash-up poetry. So, let's play "name those quotes" we've got Tarantula, the title of Bob Dylan's poetry book + "Talkin' World War Three Blues" - so we're going to get death, destruction, isolation, and spiders. Oh also, there's a nice alteration there, although I like to call it front rhyme.

There's a cobweb over my bed
that looks like an eagle. 

There's a pleasing sound to those lines, the recombination of vowels and frontal consonants in the first is nice and then the pattern of "l" in the second is complimentary. So the images? A cloud of death in the shape of an eagle. In conjunction with the content of the Dylan reference, for me it brings up the notion of a plane carrying a doomsday bomb, the way you think about a bomber casting a shadow over its target like an eagle casting a shadow over its prey.

Two dead spiders—emptied by the same life
that empties us all—claw at its heart.

Ok, let me take a swig of whiskey . . . so the spiders are caught in their own death cloud, seems significant that there are two. We're not getting the sound and rhythm from the first two lines here, but we are getting the notion of life turned inside out, life as a toxic force in and of itself. 

I'm going to need a second whiskey. 

Life is death and death is clawing at its own heart like it's still alive. But, I guess the upside is that the spiders are not actually alone, because:  

And I want to write a song for everyone 
like Bob Dylan wrote for me.

If you haven't perused the lyrics to the Dylan, the central idea of the song is that everyone is trapped in their own fears of death and isolation. So, the speaker in the poem is looking at two spiders trapped in a cloud of death, but just like in the Dylan song, they are together in their predicament. And he identifies with Dylan and is seeking to use poetry as a means of connection and solidarity. Solidarity, the antidote to solitude.

Thanks for the poem! If nothing else, it made me reread the Dylan song, which is also pretty good.

[Exit]

I guess I'll give this one a try . . . what level of critique is this forum? Miscellaneous? I'll do a miscellaneous reply then:

Talkin' Tarantula Blues

OK, so right off, we are in the world of referential mash-up poetry. So, let's play "name those quotes" we've got Tarantula, the title of Bob Dylan's poetry book + "Talkin' World War Three Blues" - so we're going to get death, destruction, isolation, and spiders. Oh also, there's a nice alteration there, although I like to call it front rhyme.

There's a cobweb over my bed
that looks like an eagle. 

There's a pleasing sound to those lines, the recombination of vowels and frontal consonants in the first is nice and then the pattern of "l" in the second is complimentary. So the images? A cloud of death in the shape of an eagle. In conjunction with the content of the Dylan reference, for me it brings up the notion of a plane carrying a doomsday bomb, the way you think about a bomber casting a shadow over its target like an eagle casting a shadow over its prey.

Two dead spiders—emptied by the same life
that empties us all—claw at its heart.

Ok, let me take a swig of whiskey . . . so the spiders are caught in their own death cloud, seems significant that there are two. We're not getting the sound and rhythm from the first two lines here, but we are getting the notion of life turned inside out, life as a toxic force in and of itself. 

I'm going to need a second whiskey. 

Life is death and death is clawing at its own heart like it's still alive. But, I guess the upside is that the spiders are not actually alone, because:  

And I want to write a song for everyone 
like Bob Dylan wrote for me.

If you haven't perused the lyrics to the Dylan, the central idea of the song is that everyone is trapped in their own fears of death and isolation. So, the speaker in the poem is looking at two spiders trapped in a cloud of death, but just like in the Dylan song, they are together in their predicament. And he identifies with Dylan and is seeking to use poetry as a means of connection and solidarity. Solidarity, the antidote to solitude.

Thanks for the poem! If nothing else, it made me reread the Dylan song, which is also pretty good.

Thank you for your comments and interpretation. 
The eagle might also represent America. Dropping The Bomb. The American eagle delivering some freedom to those "unpatriotic rotten doctor commie rat[s] ". But the spiders also built their own web.

[Valerie Please]

Yes, two spiders and two bombs. The thought wandered through my mind as well. 

Of course, we dropped them on Fascist Theocrats. But I guess they may have fallen on some Communists, too, we weren’t super picky after all.

Maybe solidarity poems aren’t your thing either. Have you considered writing a poem about division?

I guess I'll give this one a try . . . what level of critique is this forum? Miscellaneous? I'll do a miscellaneous reply then:

Talkin' Tarantula Blues

OK, so right off, we are in the world of referential mash-up poetry. So, let's play "name those quotes" we've got Tarantula, the title of Bob Dylan's poetry book + "Talkin' World War Three Blues" - so we're going to get death, destruction, isolation, and spiders. Oh also, there's a nice alteration there, although I like to call it front rhyme.

There's a cobweb over my bed
that looks like an eagle. 

There's a pleasing sound to those lines, the recombination of vowels and frontal consonants in the first is nice and then the pattern of "l" in the second is complimentary. So the images? A cloud of death in the shape of an eagle. In conjunction with the content of the Dylan reference, for me it brings up the notion of a plane carrying a doomsday bomb, the way you think about a bomber casting a shadow over its target like an eagle casting a shadow over its prey.

Two dead spiders—emptied by the same life
that empties us all—claw at its heart.

Ok, let me take a swig of whiskey . . . so the spiders are caught in their own death cloud, seems significant that there are two. We're not getting the sound and rhythm from the first two lines here, but we are getting the notion of life turned inside out, life as a toxic force in and of itself. 

I'm going to need a second whiskey. 

Life is death and death is clawing at its own heart like it's still alive. But, I guess the upside is that the spiders are not actually alone, because:  

And I want to write a song for everyone 
like Bob Dylan wrote for me.

If you haven't perused the lyrics to the Dylan, the central idea of the song is that everyone is trapped in their own fears of death and isolation. So, the speaker in the poem is looking at two spiders trapped in a cloud of death, but just like in the Dylan song, they are together in their predicament. And he identifies with Dylan and is seeking to use poetry as a means of connection and solidarity. Solidarity, the antidote to solitude.

Thanks for the poem! If nothing else, it made me reread the Dylan song, which is also pretty good.

Thank you for your comments and interpretation. 
The eagle might also represent America. Dropping The Bomb. The American eagle delivering some freedom to those "unpatriotic rotten doctor commie rat[s] ". But the spiders also built their own web.