How to Survive a Scorpion Bite

Are you the type
of statistic
they mark with
an asterisk?

You know, the kind
of feat accounted for
but not acknowledged
as one who actually
lived?

Are you the critic
who judges movies when
you've only truly seen
half of it...

Type of person to
yell at a kid
when learning to read
but just hasn't seemed
to grasp the syntax
of syllables yet

force-feeding brilliance
children admonished for
shortcomings when they've
not discovered
what on Earth
is and is not
worth becoming


Are you the kind
of sub-human
to incessantly update
twitter or FB

statuses so neurotically
they send followers
into panics of cosmology
whirls of useless info;
shit noone but the author
themself could care to
hear repeatedly,
a self-obsessed
a-hole anomaly?


Make decisions so
wrong, and since noone
seen it, right? You can
wipe the scene clean
erase the happening
pretend it was some guy
No, not you, psshaw- no hay.

"Have you ever danced
with the Devil by the pale
moonlight?"
if Jack Nicholson asks this,
in a Gotham museum-
Prince boombox blaring
on sight- you should clutch
a gas mask, take winged cover
shit, run for your life!

Jokers don't travel far,
claims the thief in the night
but I crawl along the desert,
quite smooth.


A scorpion's known
to strike
only when it feels threat
you hope to resume
living, when arachnid-cornered
in dunes

If you cheat, steal, lie,
you'll see deeds
recyclically fly
back in your eyes
the kharmic payback
smack-dabbed in
your fucking face
twice.


Predators with venom
sting
quick-stab of the tibia
humans can't flee
when Metasoma hits
artery- it's curtains
spelling certain doom
neurotoxins occupy your
body like a womb

Since the time of
Babylonia, we coexisted
and they know if they
could just gain your trust
tactful arachnids
spin no webs
unless you let them
into your home, as such
they can wait long enough,
claiming shelter-
though rock hard
exoskeleton,
still soft...
somewhere past the
glands,
clawed manus
and poison
tip, somewhere still
misread- no 'aim-to-maim'
or Zodiac villain
just a small, wrongly
depicted as monstrous killer
he's just a little
creature with a
lonely heart.




(c) Paul LaTorre 2010