"swatter" poems
same setting from a year ago...
i am not sure why, but
before the clock strikes twelve midnight,
my eyes would surely open
no matter what.
coffee in bed right now,
with a few cookies to munch....
my bifocals, where are they?
i need them now...i could vaguely see
something crawls on the carpet,
making rounds, circling my bed...
oh, no, it is hopping towards my comforter...
I stretch a leg beneath the pillows
something moves very near my toes.
i withdraw my leg, alarmed,
as it quickly disappears...
...then reappears! now stationary...
this is starting to annoy me...
I poke it with a pencil,
fear no longer present,
now, with my bifocals found.
but it hops.....and hops...
and hops into hiding
down.....down.....below,
somewhere inside my comforter.
In lieu of me, it is now the comforted.
it is taking too long to come out.
.....something i realized just now.....
could it be possible, could it remember...
i was kind enough not to use a swatter before....
why, i feel like i am being welcomed!
we are playing hide-and-seek,
a welcome dance it is!
here and now, just like before
from last autumn,
we are finally reunited,
my cricket friend and i....
S a l l y
Copyright 2013
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Nov 1, 2013
Nov 1, 2013 at 1:03 AM UTC
"I'd like to be a fly on the wall," you say.
Would you?
Would you really like to be privy to all
that drama and intrigue, without ever being noticed?
Sounds nice, I suppose.
But I'll let you in on a little secret-
That, my dears, is false advertising.
Truth is, people always notice flies
They just choose to ignore them
And lower their voices when you buzz by on sugar-spun wings of self-confidence-
Maybe it's just all in your head
Maybe you've misinterpreted things-behind kaleidoscope eyes
It always looks like there are more of them than you.
So you gain confidence
You hover on the fringes of their circle
And drone out a low hum of 'what've you been up to today?'
Or 'how're you?'
Or 'long day, huh?'
The response is offhand
A verbal flick of the wrist
Batting the ball back into your conversational court
Because coming at you with a fly swatter
Or a rolled up Cosmo magazine
Takes more effort than they're willing to give.
You buzz about some more
Hoping maybe the silence will entice them to engage
But no,
They can't hear your buzzing
Or they won't.
So instead you stand
Fly on the wall
Content with watching the light catch your wings
Repeatedly wringing your hands near your face
In a way they probably think is malevolent
I promise I'm not plotting-
I'm just juggling the weight of my loneliness
Maybe if I shift it from one palm to another
Somehow I will lighten the load.
Take comfort in this, little fly-
The sun makes your wings iridescent
And even though they'll never get close enough to see that, you can.
It's not a trick of the light
Your fractal eyes do not deceive you-
They are duplicate.
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 12:53 PM UTC
i've spent months like moths between poems
sacrificing gods for endless answers
but always losing the light or dying on a too-hot bulb
unable to comprehend infinity as a spiritual fly-swatter
but i'm learning how to surrender to silence
diminish into campfires
wash in busted fire hydrants
meditate inside the figurative dumpster of solitude
perhaps forever this time
but my attraction to her is raw
like the sun today at 3pm
burning away my anxiety and shadows
not fueled by selfish lust or vanity
but by surprising vacuum
she is frightening in her beauty
her mind filled with incandescent chaos
her voice a softly spoken flute singing in a canyon
her hair a delightfully suffocating gas
her belly, her smell, everything from
her nostrils to her feet marching
through my tingling limbs
she was from the far end of the universe
a dream of the temporal lobe
polluted by the spike-and-wave blips of computer music
halos around mouths chewing ecstasy pills
her mystic lips curled and eyes lightly fluttering
over a simmering can of cherry coke
my hands an unsteady inch away from
her heated and heaving rib-cage
my lips whispering breaths onto her ivory throat
after a 4am romp donald duck explains
childhood memories from a buzzing television box
the smell of man-musk and sandalwood
spilled whisky and patchouli thicken the air of the room
as weak dawn light streams in through philodendron stalks and fingered leaves arrested by the wind
Dec 1, 2014
Dec 1, 2014 at 12:09 PM UTC
A fly in his
Short life
Grew up, fell in love
And found a good wife
Flying, buzzing around
Flaunting their six legs
Proud parents of
250 eggs
Theirs was a life
You would think so
But wait till you listen
To their unending woes
All the fuss
About their buzz
Their lifestyle
Declared vile
And if that was not enough
To make their life tough
They were even called self-invited bore
And were detested therefore
And every time they tried
To go near a batter
They were stalked
By humans with a swatter!
Where ever they went
People were so curt
But I guess that happens when you
Live in so much dirt…
Jul 15, 2011
Jul 15, 2011 at 10:17 PM UTC
poor Man
was made in the image of God
(especially man, especially the he's!)
and so he he he must abide
with rules and propriety
and commandments and ideals
whereas I,
I am free to go
where I choose
to wing myself
(no doubt I fear the fly-swat
though I escape that mostly with dexterity)
ah, strange that it is a petty fly
just a common fly, a housefly
just me
that knows unconditioned freedom;
for I have no ideals to pursue
and am not judged nor do I judge
and can fly low and high
and no one cares if I feed at dung-piles
and sit cleaning my feet on most sacred altars
or run up the nostrils of most reverend masters
ah, to be a fly -
far better a short soul-less life
(ended perhaps by your fly-swatter)
of daring and freedom
than an eternal life of burning Hell
or eternal, unquestioning drugged obedience
poor Man
was made in the image of God
(especially man, especially the he's!)
and so he he he must abide
an eternity
of rules and propriety
and commandments and ideals
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 2:52 AM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 1:14 PM UTC
WTFreak... you again
this is my BBQ and I
know that an invitation
was not sent to you and
your tiny little friends
You bug the mess out
of me... no pun intended
and you just have to
touch everything when
no one is looking
Evil as a common fruit fly
I chase you with my swatter,
hand and shoe
Sorry, I had to do it
or did I?
You've flown in my ear,
eyes and nose... yes, you
have even tried my mouth
You fly close about my head
and I dis-like you greatly
You follow me around
like a hungry pet that
needs to be fed
Patience lost, I try to
end you with malice.
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 6:27 AM UTC
Squished Flies
I squished a fly once, with a huge,
what’s that word—
swatter. Its guts got stuck
to the wall, a wing or a limb poking
through the holes of my utensil.
No more buzzing, no more tapping—
soft tapping on my window, and certainly
no more flapping wings; I picked those
off the swatter—flicked them into the air,
nope, they don’t work anymore.
Moment of silence as I scrape the
entrails away (gross), they don’t smell;
but why does puke green ooze from their
wounds – radio-active
waste eating flies, soon to be larger than skyscrapers,
wing-span—covering the skyline. Hovering
in front of the sun; taking subtle revenge
for lost family members, past transgressions
where – the once dominant species – set fire
to each limb and base of the wings; shriveling
appendages and the smell of burnt matches.
I should start building a really
ginormous
fly swatter.
Apr 28, 2012
Apr 28, 2012 at 9:32 PM UTC
When I allow
Free thoughts to be
Written down
I permit
My true self
To be heard
Uninhibited by
Social back lash
Personal gain
Promises of eternity
I am truly set free.
Free
As the sun rise is
And the sun set
As the crumbling mountains
Of the East and the West
Unchained as wild rose buds thrown
Across a thousand naked wheat fields
Wet with the dew of the morning
Leaves spinning in a passion of turning
The mind wishes to be -
Simple and live
Simple and die
Simple and love
Regretting when thoughts are
Simple and Hate
Yet,
We push for equality,
Don't we?
We bleed and die
And thrash
And cry for equality,
Don't we?
And though we are
Bent over tables
Swatted with billy clubs
Like flies would be with fly-swatter,
Do we give up?
No.
We continue.
We know the pain is a part
Of the process.
Jun 28, 2013
Jun 28, 2013 at 3:06 AM UTC
There is a fly that keeps buzzing around my head
At first I just sit back and watch
But he gets more annoying as I'm trying to get myself feed
In fact this **** fly takes it up a notch
Now his circling down by my mouth, I almost ate him
Around and around, how does he not get dizzy
I have a feeling this is just the nights prelim
Won't this fly show me some pity
I'm beginning to feel like I have my own satellite
I can hear the buzz of his wings everytime he goes by
I'll find that swatter, it's going to the after life
For now that buzzing makes me want to get high
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 12:57 PM UTC
Be yourself one of the light
Be yourself one of the night
Begger or demander of the stars
Worker or waster of the hours
Difference is not when comes the end
The time of last is your judgment
All parts earth are mortal and will weary
The shepherds will turn restless to madness
Saddening the wise and smiling the devil
Slayers of kin they turn and find only loss
Bells will forever toll for the coming fire
The fire that will rain from the angry heavens
When the world halts in its fully aged shadow
All things earthly depleted for toxic luxury
Humans ceaselessly living in their dark arts
Winds from silent howl to rage do they roar
The ground thunders in nature's quake
Oceans and rivers of fire smother all to ruin
No more sinners thrive in power
As they flee like insects from the swatter
Their kin's blood stained on their souls
The world's blood spilt on their account
The sun's light shuts off and sight is only black
Almighty horror emerges out of the sun's corpse
Beyond the clouds of lightning is a portal
The gates to nothingness have been opened
The world has heard its call for the end
Into the void will creation be undone
And the fallen angels too will descend
Fearing the arrival of the Master Himself
All that has been has ended
But those that be with evil live
For they shall face the last judgment
Out of the endless void He comes
His voice utters terror inside the demons
And leaves them to rot in eternal naught
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 11:57 PM UTC
Poor fly.
He taps at the window
longing for his home
but he is stuck inside with me
and my swatter.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 2:03 PM UTC
Bye Bae!
waves..
Your so sweet your so kind.
Bye my boo.
always admire you.
aye aye.
waves and smiles..babe.
sorry you didnt want me around bae..
still smilin cuz in my face you seemed so sweet bae.
I'm walking with..
gentleness..
comforted in what I'm use to, my old ways of working building and creating it hasn't failed to keep me company.
a coat on my cold shoulder..
with it I've grown fonder.
At least now I don't have to wonder.
if its me..or if it's you.
who dunno what to do.
about the harmful ways we fall into.
sunlight so bright appears as a new connection.
a bright new friend.
I want to let its light in.
sunlight come hold my hand.
A glow..willing sweet without demand.
winks.. blows kisses my old boo.
wishing the best to you.
I've tied up gloomy and doom.
Tucked them up away in a locked off room.
Hope just kissed my cheek.
Loves dancing teaching me new steps at my feet.
Peace is feeding me dreamy new treats.
and doubt has fled from my door.
As I'm handed a broom to make sure losers can't enter any more.
Fly swatter in hand to chase out the pesty flies of despair.
Losing we are no longer a pair.
No worries ex boo.
I'm gettin over you.
Text me again.. bae just text me once more again..
Call me again just Once more again.
Never mind we'd just probably repeat the same steps all over again.
Destiny get a hold of run away desires.
Ropes tie away unwanted admirers.
Hey hey.
Bye bae!
selinasharday rose. S.A.M
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 6:41 PM UTC
The blue bottled fly flew trhough the window,
Just as the yellow flat swatter swung home.
The swatted fly lay gasping the fruitless air,
But chocked the lifeless cough almost at once.
Feb 8, 2010
Feb 8, 2010 at 11:23 PM UTC
Words fly in fly out
was there ever any doubt?
words fly out fly in
fall down wasted in the bin
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 5, 2018 at 3:04 PM UTC
"Sometimes I wish you were dead. All of you. I like you, but these conflicts are getting to me. Your needless, never ending, merciless complaints. My shortcomings. Exaggerated, overrated, pus filled pimples you are. You are annoying and one by one, as major and minor as you may be I feel like shooting each one of you down. Angry? Boom. You are dead. Yelling, crying, laughing, screeching, droning on and on and on like a black and yellow bumblebee under the harsh sweltering summer sun. SPLAT! Off with your head and your neck and your arms too. Black and grimy and disgusting on the fly swatter. Look at me! Whatever. Don’t look at me. Your eyes should be poked out. All of you should die. I want to be alone in this world without you. I love each of you ever much, but you no longer affect me. You walk around me, about me, over my head, under my feet, and through me but I will not hear you. I can not feel you. You walk like corpses, dead and mute, and I do not see you. I keep on walking, ignoring you. Forgetting your existence. I am in this alone and I will stay Alone. Devils eyes. Stop staring at me. Devils eyes. Rotting pig nostrils. Stop staring at me. Lifeless you, rotting in your grave, surrounded by worms and earthen colored bugs. Flirty, Flimsy, ***** Red Dress, Flaunting, Flapping, Backless, Strapless. Stop prostituting yourself, you filthy ***** Get off me. Cold, alone, hungry, unsatisfied. Alone only I can sustain myself. I need myself and myself only."
(A rant, more than a poem. Written at age 20- when things got too intense, and I was angry. Thought it couldn't get any worse, but today is proof that I was wrong. At least then, there was hope).
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 3:37 PM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 12:28 PM UTC
Dazed , slumber mode
Late hour aggravation
Defective diode , electrical -
brain imbalance , television overload
Book weary , legal philosophy -
theory , fly swatter Republican
county prosecutors
Night cars bound for work
Greasing the soul eating machines -
of our Corporate government
Press conference Lead Monster wannabe
students of Plato
Cookie cutter American PlayDoh
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 12:11 AM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Oct 8, 2012
Oct 8, 2012 at 1:27 PM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Feb 23, 2013
Feb 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM UTC
God gave out parts to play - so they say
that there has to be a lover, a villian and a mother
someone moaning, groaning and lost out to another
It was time, the curtain rose - never to fall again
Scene one saw someone taking a bite out of a fruit
the beginning and the end because evil was the root
Instruction was given to go forth and multiply
when it was realized unstoppable God gave a sigh
Scene two began with someone waving a fly swatter
relating stories and tales of when empires began to totter
God thought about bringing the curtain down quickly
he considered all of his work - what of the outcome finally?
The last act returned to the way everything was before
except that there was no tree with apples any more
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 2:12 PM UTC
When I was six my mama said
She’d pay me for each ten
Flies I got alive or dead
A penny.
So I wandered room to room
Swatter cocked to ****
Listening for the tell-tale buzz
Of a fly on a windowsill.
Whap! Would go the swatter.
Splat! Another fly.
Whappity-wahappity, WHAP! SPLAT! WHAP!
Die. Die. Die.
Soon the hunt was over.
Not a fly remained.
The windowsills were dotted black;
the swatter smeared and stained.
I collected all the bodies
To see what death would bring:
Mama paid me seventeen cents
(and some were only wings!).
Today at school we learned about
How baby seals die:
“Mama, did you make a hat
Out of all those flies?”
Oct 26, 2014
Oct 26, 2014 at 2:48 AM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Jul 16, 2015
Jul 16, 2015 at 9:46 AM UTC
The fly makes his way through the house.
Its tongue, like billions before, is tainting
All it touches. The fly has wings to spread
His mess, and though he has innumerable
Facets to his eyes he cannot see
The swatter coming.
The house surrounds the fly and is sacred.
As the great blue world beyond is sacred.
And the fly is spreading fast, flitting here
And sticking there trampling his own
Shelter, spreading pollution and excrement
With a rolling tongue
That spews and spits upon his own home.
And though he is happy while he soils
His house his eyes are two dead worlds
Barren and still, born to die by the hand
That flies even higher, so, the fly cannot
See the swatter coming.
Buzzing, like a burn, through the innocent
Air he dreams of vast minions rooting
His world with legion hands. The house was
A garden that led him in, he cannot
Wait for his seed to fester, all's he needs
Are God’s green plants
And clean water, some fresh air to conquer.
This house was made for him he would have
Himself believe. But when all has dried
And all is soiled the fly would wish to move
On, if only he could, trapped as he is
In the earth and wooden house.
He could taste it all, oblivious to oblivion
In God’s green wooded world— all spinning,
The sands are running in the sacred home
That he himself has always defiled,
As he has never shown any grace;
The swatters hand is His
Own hand.
Nov 5, 2013
Nov 5, 2013 at 4:14 PM UTC