THE CRAWLER

Phil Roberts 1957 (Melbourne)



Acid trails pervade the town
Where the crawler has just been,
A loathsome mollusk-like being
A hideous bloated fiend.

Like a giant garden slug
The crawler dissolves its victim,
Within its acidic slime
Then slowly devours him.

Around a darkened town
The yellowish fiend slides,
Easing along its acidic juices
Like a Kraken in the tide.

Sliding across toward loners
Outside in the evil night,
Unaware the horrid crawler
Has got them in its sights.

Oozing up its startled victim
The crawler releases the acid slime,
Which quickly kills its prey
Dissolving him in good time.

The crawler is a throwback
From the dawn of time,
A mutant from some horrific past
Crawling from the primordial slime.

It oozes around the sleeping town
Like some giant shell-less snail,
Regurgitating human bones
Along its putrid slimy trail.

Returning to whence it came
Some festering, stagnant lagoon,
It's hiding from the strong sunlight
To reawaken at next moon.

THE END
© Copyright 2021 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

About this poem

Acid trails pervade the town Where the crawler has just been,

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Written on July 18, 2021

Submitted by PHIL_ROBERTS on September 12, 2021

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
2

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXXX XBCX AXXX XDEX BCEC XCXC AFXF XGDG XXX
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 975
Words 166
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3

Phil Roberts

I turn 65 on the 31st of January 2022. I love cats, rock music, and horror fiction and poetry more…

All Phil Roberts poems | Phil Roberts Books

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    "THE CRAWLER" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/109330/the-crawler>.

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