On Swatting a Fly
The fly I hunted down is on a pane,
a window pane, where yesterday a swat
with rolled up, A-4 notebook left him slain
upon the glass, a splattered, lifeless blot.
I try to work, but how my eye is drawn
towards that ruined body and that splurge
of dried-up guts – for he, like l, was born,
and yet for him no stoic funeral dirge.
Was opening a window such a task,
to free him from my own restricted cell,
to turn a latch and shoo him, that he bask
in sunshine, in the midst of Life’s brief spell?
A penalty in conscience I have paid
when mercy, for an instant, was delayed.
Paul A. Freeman is the author of Rumours of Ophir, a crime novel which was taught in Zimbabwean high schools and has been translated into German. In addition to having two novels, a children’s book and an 18,000-word narrative poem (Robin Hood and Friar Tuck: Zombie Killers!) commercially published, Paul is the author of hundreds of published short stories, poems and articles.
You seem to be very prolific, Paul. I enjoyed your clever poem having had
such regrets but never quite for a fly.