Out on my balcony I sat
With my writing pad and pen,
A summer's afternoon, quite warm
And the urge to write again.
I'd finished there my ice-cold beer.
Stopped watching young ladies gait
And turning took my pen in hand,
New poems just couldn't wait.
But, to my despair, sitting there,
Lick cleaning itself all o'er,
Stood a fish fly, spied by my eye,
Using my sheet as its floor.
I recall its buzz just because,
Just over me, it flew about,
Zooming, buzzing and diving,
Ever since when I came out.
I caught a sight, just to my right,
My newspaper not yet read,
And tightly clutched it in my hand
To swat that damn fly instead.
But, as I held that paper high,
Ready to descend on it,
I thought about my younger years
And just couldn't swing it yet.
I had been given half a chance
On a day when hell did call,
When I could have felt shotgun blasts
As my wife and I recall.
So, I twiddled my thumbs as time
Slowly went crawling by,
Sizing up ladies who gaited
Close sidewalks outside my eye.
Seemed an eternity later in time
That black fish fly arose
Taking to air, buzzing my ear
And zooming close pass my nose.
I wrung up my fist at its flight
Letting it know I was mad
To have waited to write my poem,
Losing the thread that I'd had.
As I started writing my words -
“On my balcony I sat” -
That fly flew past as if to say,
“A poem about me, eh Jack?”