Queen’s Worm
Oh, Worm! Why stay your venom at the last?
To your infernal appetite I cast
this vacant ache to which desire’s reduced,
this palace built of excrements and dews,
this ruined tissue.
Strike!
Why do you pause—
my shrunken kingdom clenched between your jaws?
One stinking germ,
these dreams that crown the Worm.
R. Nemo Hill is the author, in collaboration with painter Jeanne Hedstrom, of an illustrated novel, Pilgrim’s Feather (Quantuck Lane Press, 2002), a narrative poem based upon a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, The Strange Music of Erich Zann (Hippocampus Press, 2004), and a chapbook, Prolegomena To An Essay On Satire (Modern Metrics, 2006). His full-length poetry collection, When Men Bow Down, is forthcoming from Dos Madres Press. He is the editor of EXOT BOOKS.