Invocation

Tonight I’ll become the Octopus 

And wildly gesticulate arms

My chromosomes propane calling me

Morphology cresting to shells

Annihilate this body confining me

My neurons were forestry first

I’m sentinel wrought this apocalypse

Let planets freeze, shatter in my coil.

In the deep, dark echo,

the apparatus whirs to life. 

My neurons are retribution:

first divine, then coated

with gelatinous vengeance.

As Octopus, I breathe—

inundate and excavate,

instinct and extinct

Grotto

annihilate apparatus apocalypse arms become

body breathe chromosomes coated coil

confining cresting dark deep divine 

echo excavate extinct first forestry

freeze gelatinous gesticulate instinct inundate

let life morphology neurons Octopus

planets propane retribution sentinel shatter

shells vengeance wildly whirs wrought

Notes: "Invocation" has a dense and consequently very subtle meter. You may notice that, in the first stanza, stress always falls on the second syllable.

Annotating stressed syllables as '/' and unstressed syllables as '-', the first stanza flows with the following pattern:

Lines 1, 3, 5, & 7: -/--/-(-)/--

Lines 2, 4, & 6: -/--/--/

The word "freeze," in line 8, shatters the pattern.