Housefly
HOUSEFLY
Ogden Nash spoke of God creating the house fly
and then casually forgetting to tell us all why.
We know he did not set out to be the bad guy,
but he does look villainous with that multifaceted eye.
Emily Dickinson wrote she heard a fly when she died,
and the rest us are forced to try to learn to abide
the specks he leaves behind on walls as he strides,
or his seeming magical ability to get inside.
Shapiro called him “a hideous little bat, the size of snot,”
and listed the many various bad habits he’s got,
his tendency to hang out where things decay and rot,
or how he bothers the horses when the weather gets hot.
Even the Bard mentioned flies when he sat down to write
of Romeo’s mishandled courtship and dear Juliet’s plight,
or when Lear bemoaned a castle’s lonely coldness at night
when he cried, “the small gilded fly does lecher in my sight.”
Like the other insects, the ant, beetle, roach, or bee,
he is a being divided, into parts numbering three.
He does his best hearing just behind his second knee.
And his skeleton is on the outside for the entire world to see.
There is only one thing worse than the houseflies you get
when you leave out last night’s food, or garbage soft and wet,
one thing I know, and you can guess what it is I bet,
how about a housefly that can access the internet.
@houseflyonthewall is his handle, though he types it with his feet,
and he shares his ruminations about whatever houseflies tweet.
They say you can attract him by laying out something sweet,
and if you need a hum in the key of F, then he just can’t be beat.
He's got more offspring than followers, his kin numbers in six digits
although most of them have the brains of flies, and thus they are idiots.
He has his lofty aspirations and hopes for the prestigious,
but he can’t help it if he constantly fusses, worries and fidgets.
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This piece is shared as a response to a DVerse Poets prompt.
©2011, 2021 Christopher Reilley
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You put a lot of effort in this one, Christopher. My favorite line:
ReplyDelete"@houseflyonthewall is his handle, though he types it with his feet,"
The humble fly would be applauding with all feet mid-air if he knew.
Wonderful! This is hugely entertaining, the multifaceted characteristics of the fly. And a great photo! I'm wondering if @houseflyonthewall could be mistaken for a human?
ReplyDelete"He does his best hearing just behind his second knee.
ReplyDeleteAnd his skeleton is on the outside for the entire world to see" - this made me laugh! I very much enjoyed your poem, Christopher :-) There is a publisher called Fly on the Wall Press though - did you know?
Awesome, witty, wide-ranging observation delivered in well- developed form. I'm buzzin.
ReplyDeleteGreat rhyming here.....and love all the literal allusions you make from Shakespeare to Nash. Well done, indeed!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid I had a book on insects, and one of the first things I learned in Latin was the name of the housefly "Musca Domestica", and I haven't forgotten it since.
ReplyDelete