Some Words on the Fly

There he goes or is it one of those floaters

roaming the outskirts of my eye?

He’s like my personal fly, a meta-vision,

possibly a preview of my next incarnation.

I can let it loose like a fly on the wall

who has tales to tell if only he could

or that one where the customer calls the waiter over

to complain about the fly in his soup.

I’ll stay with the one on the wall even if

this fly is enjoying his backstroke in tomato bisque.

It’s a short span for either one dodging swatters.

Flies are not fleas but life flees in any case.

Amazing what you find out in the course of writing.

I just looked it up and fleas don’t fly they

don’t even have wings but they jump a lot,

sort of like words…little black squiggles and smudges.

Back to flies, Bill Clinton had trouble with his.

Even now in his political after-life he can’t quite zip it.

I know this from my observation point on the wall

listening to his bumbling blather.

What a way to live. There goes another one.

I might be better off as the fly in the ointment
raising necessary havoc

from where I’m perched here on the ledge

salivating over the fruit bowl

which can use a bit of blemish and disruption

as I’m famous for in Dutch still-life, portrayed

on a pear or petal as death itself, not very

flattering given our mission in the eco-system

to feed on aphids, clean up decay and pollinate.

Where has it gone, my floater? Could be impaled

on that jagged right-hand margin of a poem.