And There Were Flies - Dan Tompsett (large ebook reader txt) 📗

~Fly~

I watch a fly bang, bang
its green butt
against the naked bulb.

"Goofy bastard."
I say out loud,

then return to my laptop,
and bang,
bang, away.

**********************


~In On the Outs~

Sundown moths,
thick as bees,
pounce, pounce upon
your lilac trees.
I miss

the horse
in your pasture.
Fish
in your pond.
Cow
in your freezer.

I stroll down Main Street.
Scan curb and sidewalk
for lost dime or quarter.
Do the pick-a-penny bend
while

sundown men,
finger-thick,
bang, bang your lilac bush.
Peck cheek. Tickle neck.

************************

~When Winter Went to Eden~

So the apples fell,
and Adam bruised easily
as the leaves first cracked.

Eve foresaw the grumbles.
The damn kids heave stones
towards the river, the birds,
each other, and she knew
there'd be days like this:

"But, at least there's seasons!"
She counters,

as the once obnoxious
snake of paradise
slithers west between her feet;
leaves the gate wide open.

***************************

~Treehouse~

If you were a tree
I would want to be the house
held in your arms, and,

as lovers climbed you
to enter me,

they'd hear the birds
sing in your hair,

and kiss
as their legs dangled
from my scrap-wood mouth.

*************************


~Prairie~

If you were the prairie
and I was grass,
married to your skin,

mustang and antelope
may press me into you
as they run wild over your body,

while the occasional fire,
born of lightning-charged
nights of merriment
burned me to ashes.

And though you'd feign sleep
as your body cooled,
your smile,

mottled with my black remains,
would expose your desire
for the dust devil's seed.

**************************

~A Chicago Picnic (1925)~

Seven mobsters
and one pigeon
spread a blanket on the grass.

Their basket contains cheese,
wine, and sourdough French bread
all the way from San Francisco.

"'Frisco fog,
Mr. Capone explains to the pigeon,
is the crucial ingredient of this loaf."

Then Bruno breaks
one of the pigeon's wings,
then breaks
the other one.

Louie the Face
takes the pigeon to the river.

Mr. Capone
walks alone down a narrow trail
into the trees.

"My father never hugged me."
He muses,
then picks up a stick,
to use as a cane,
although he doesn't really
need it.

*****************************

~A Glaring Presence~

The moon got huge
and erased all the stars
so you decided
we should leave the pool
and go indoors
to make love.

And as we did,
light and water
played like little children
in our back yard.

**********************

~Christina's Sow~

She skips the freaks,
all the rides, the dime-toss
towards the carnival glass prize.
She never gives the barkered games
of rings and darts a gamble.

Christina pines for the grower
of award-winning squash,
and would love to help
grow his crookneck
though she's never strolled
his stall of gourds
set beside the strawflowers.

She returns to straddle an up-side-
down tub beside the sow
she hopes the judge
deems fit for blue.

Her thirty-year collection
of runner-up cherryred ribbons
has faded to the pink tint
of her 4-H beast,
the rose cut and doomed
to a diary of squeals and wounds.

************************************


~Cloudburst~

All my friends
are falling from the sky.

The cats
don't like them,
and run inside.

**************************


~Haircut~

The plumage
of a rain-soaked crow
looks better
than the haircut I got
from a gay old man.

I think he was nervous.
The electric pruner
shook in his hand
as my hair
fell to the hardwood floor.

"I think you should go to a barber." He said.

"Yeah." I replied.

Two months have passed,
and I still haven't gone
to a barber.

No one seems to care.
I haven't heard anyone say:

"Your hair looks worse
than a soggy crow."

No one has asked:

"Who cut your hair? A nervous, gay old man?"

so I'm in no hurry
to get to a barber.

Someone did ask about the rent,
which got me to move
right away.

I jammed my clothes
into a bag
and walked to the bus stop
across the street from the apartment building.

The bus arrived
after about ten minutes.

After taking a seat
I noticed a fat chick
reading a copy
of Brautigan's: The Pill
Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

We began to talk,
and soon it was decided
that I would join her in the
cheap hotel where she was staying.

We got a bottle of Southern Comfort,
because that's
what she liked.

When we got to her room she started
to take things
out of her large purse.

The bottle of baby oil
caught my eye.

I wondered what the
good people
were doing this
afternoon.

Most
were probably
working
or getting an education
of some kind.

Boy, I thought;
how easy it could have been
for me to have become
one of them.

*****************************

~I Don't Want to Write a Bad Poem For You~

I don't want to write a bad poem for you.
One that is flush with forced rhyme
and passe ideas
scraped from the brain
of an unknown whose future
shall remain dubious.

I don't want to write a bad poem for you,
even though others have,
and others will hand you theirs
and you will love them
as I sit
and revise these lines
over and over again
while the muses
hold their stomachs
in laughter.

****************************


~Loners Don't Cause the Flower's Tremble~

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble;
it's the found who pick them
for the windowed home of temporary light.

Polished suitors hit the shops;
purchase them with plastic cash.
Sheathed or vased, the flowers wilt
where they're placed by lovers
in a rush to sheets and covers.
They die at the table's center,
the counter's rim,
the bedside stand.

Dimly lit tombs of finished symphonies
have claimed petal and stem, color
and scent, pollen and dew
to honor the composers who,
deaf when they died,
were still able to see and smell
the rose or wildflower on the grave.

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble,
nor unknown poets
and unrealized compositions
found dead on less than grand pianos.

****************************************
~Night Cloud Over Seattle~

I saw a clown,
and the moon was his belly.

He wore a wild smile,
but his stride was so long
his belly couldn't keep up,
so it was left behind.

His head wisped and spread
east east east
as his feet stepped west.

It's a regular circus
around here.

**************************

~Outsource Ours~

Please send this mundane job to India.
I don't want to do it anymore.
There's a tree limb that extends
out over a nearby lake
large enough for me to sit
and daydream from. Please

send my lover's work to China
so she may join me on the branch.
With her voice, my words, we'll try to sing
the philosophy of the birds. Please

send all the gold offshore. There's nothing
I want to buy. Automobiles and malls
frighten me and the deer,
and I think it would be grand
if the gross domestic product
of the United States of America
were to be happy people and beasts.

************************************

~Sky Aquarium~

On my back in the grass,
I look up and watch you sway.

There is a song in your head,
and you let a lyric or two
bubble from your lips
between smiles.

The blue/white white/blue backdrop
beyond your face
gives the impression
I am looking at a sky aquarium.

I want to tap on the glass,
but then you might swim to hide
beneath a ceramic bridge
set in gravel
by somebody else.

***************************


~The Morning After With Pancakes~

"I love pancakes." I said.

"I love pancakes, too." She said.

"Please pass the syrup." I said.

"Here ya go." She said as she handed me the bottle.

"I need butter first." I said.

"Yes, melt the butter on the pancakes first." She said.

"I need a fork." I said.

"Oh, yeah, you do." She said.

She got up out of her seat,
went to the kitchen,
and returned with a fork.

I began eating the pancakes. The butter
had melted superbly, and she poured
the syrup carefully, and my gut
got full, and the sun was out
and shining through the window onto
our breakfasts as though
the 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving,
and all the birthdays on Earth
were on our plates at the same time
and we were eating them
as one and they were
perfect.

*****************************

~View From a Starbucks~

Rain won't slow the cell-phoned suits
or pop-and-beer-can scroungers
while cardboard pleas for handouts
compete with potholes
sunk by the jerk and shimmy
of the city's non-negotiable fault.

The boom-bred girl of the corner knows
of no kind monkeys. The one she sticks
into her tattooed ankle
bites and twists. She tilts
back her head, open-mouthed,
tries to tongue drops
of junk-ill sky

as the sidewalk tune of the unknown minstrel
is blown or strummed towards Puget Sound
to be caught in the pigeon's filthy craw,
sucked into a cup of la-dee-da latte,
or falls to the crumbs
of another nice try.

**********************************

~Babes and the Badman~

Babes who hold hands with the badman
may become getaway drivers
or lookouts
or prostitutes
for the badman's interests.

And when the badman
is hanged
or burned
or riddled with bullets
the babe bleeds, too.

But sometimes,
when they are fortunate,
the babes are merely reduced to portraits
or songs
or statues
or a poem,
like this one.

********************************


~The Sun~

Crows are panting
like small feathered dogs
as Pedro's sweat falls on the handle
of his lawnmower. A local wino
shuffles along; his eyes meet
the sidewalk's rude but tidy glare.

The plague of dandelions
in the neighbor's yard
grabs rays while the grabbing
is good and creeps to his open door
as a witness to the mental beating
he gives his wife. He's

too starved for air to swing his hands
towards her face while Venus and Mars
scream "fire!"
as they circle the sun.

*******************************


~And There Were Flies~

Flies buzz kelp tossed aground
as brown eels monkey pool to pool
beneath the foam where broken creatures
churn and grind into mundane sand.

The cafe's dated tablecloth,
checkered white and blue,
is soiled from years of deep-fried fare
and the handfull of shells
you took to your dryland guy
with his basket of loot, sunny car,
and common sense.

I size