Howdie-Skelp by Paul Muldoon

Author:Paul Muldoon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

THE FLY

Surrounded as he is by the blood spatter

from the cut and thrust over an idea to which he was but briefly wed,

the fly is washing his hands of the matter

till the smoke clears. A wildcatter

on a rig still lumbering across the North Sea’s bed,

surrounded as he is by the blood spatter

and spout of crude, he remembers only a scatter

of crudités, heavy hors d’oeuvres, glasses, remembers seeing red.

The fly is washing his hands of the matter

now a meal in an upper room has once again served to shatter

his illusions. Overcome by the high hum of the dead,

surrounded as he is by the blood spatter

from the cruets of oil and vinegar, the fly is tempted to spray attar

of roses on the aforesaid

“fly washing his hands of the matter,”

if only because the internet chatter

points to a city about to cede to the forces of Ethelred,

surrounded as it is. By the blood spatter

you shall know them as you shall know a satyr

by its horse’s ears and tail. Instead

of washing his hands of the matter,

the fly might embrace an earth that is irredeemably in tatters

(a banquet of slivers and shreds

surrounded, as it is, by the interplanetary blood spatter),

might heed the pitter-patter

of unborn fly-feet on the stair tread.

But the fly is washing his hands of the matter

even as he contemplates a platter

complete with its severed head, now the centerpiece of the spread.

Surrounded as he is by the blood spatter

the fly is washing his hands of the matter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.