[Sidenote: Wherein the reader is instructed in certain mysteries. He
acquainteth himself with the multiple personages of the little drama.]
Our kitchen’s full of flies an’ things,
A billion very near,
And though they’re tantalizin’ things,
At times they’re tantalizin’ things,
They give it atmosphere.
A kitchen is more kitchy when
The flies are everywhere,
And work goes on less hitchy when,
A hundred times less hitchy when
There’s music in the air.
When chilly their stupidity
Is really quite a deal,
They like the mild humidity,
They much prefer humidity,
It helps them uncongeal.
[Sidenote: With the advent of day a new life dawns—there is bustle and
activity and all the ether is jubilant with praise.]
It’s then they totter ’round a bit
And gradually relax,
Their wings begin to sound a bit,
To sizz and sing and sound a bit
Abaft their beady backs.
Anon the whole community
Is pulsing through the void,
Each purrs his little tunity
His titillating tunity
With pleasure unalloyed.
Some for the unwashed dishes steer,
They joy to congregate
Where fragmentary fishes smear.
Where frequent flecks of fishes smear
The surface of a plate.
[Sidenote: After bodily comfort and satiety a care-free spirit fireth
their souls to further conquest.]
And how they love to wallow in
A bowl of batter, oh
How they do love to swallow in,
To sip and sup and swallow in
Those drippy dabs of dough.
They’re happy and go-lucky and
They’re irresponsible,
They’ve predilections mucky and,
Most mushy-mush and mucky and
They gorge until they’re full.
Betimes they gallivanting go
To forage where they may,
With buzzy minors chanting low,
With chirpy chirrups chanting low,
They drone a roundelay.
[Sidenote: Imbued with an inherent love of cleanliness, their
antiseptic endeavors are pursued with almost a religious fervor.]
When one is very fortunate
He summons with his hums,
With thrumming most importunate,
Impatiently importunate,
His gummy little chums.
But when they’ve slaked their appetites
They pause a while because
The stuffed and wheezy happy mites,
The puffed and greasy happy mites
Desire to dry their paws.
They rub their front ones violently,
They rub them to the tips,
They rub them very silently,
They slip and slide them silently
Until they’re dry as chips.
[Sidenote: How love of family together with a wholesome disposition for
outdoor sports, tendeth to produce the ideal citizen.]
In manner quite identical,
They manicure with stress
Each tiny, hinder tentacle,
Each sticky, tickly tentacle
That’s draggled through the mess.
They’re fond of domesticity
And always striving to
Facilitate felicity,
A frolicsome felicity,
As all good flies should do.
Their games are often nautical,
They dearly love to plunge
In milk-bowl depths aquatical,
In quivery depths aquatical
With lacteal lurch and lunge.
[Sidenote: A wanton spirit of recklessness worketh dire mischief.]
But when the cream is thick enough
They dance along the top,
Their dancing must be quick enough,
Alert and spick and quick enough,
Forestalling any stop;
In which eventuality
Their limbs are soon involved
In struggling with mortality,
With miry, moist mortality
Until they’re quite dissolved.
And thus a woeful paucity
Of wits within their pates,
May, with their curiosity,
Their curbless curiosity,
Precipitate dire straits.
[Sidenote: How one who lacketh the art of divination yet abounding in a
foolish optimism, may unwarily enter into the very jaws of destruction.]
For instance they’ll go hovering
With lack-wit dawdling drone,
And near without discovering,
Detecting or discovering
A lurking danger zone.
Their kinsmen multifarious
Are strewn upon a sheet
In poses strange and various,
Vituperative, various,
With upturned toes and feet.
They read in big, black typing there
“USE TANGLE-FOOT FOR FLIES,”
They see their comrades griping there,
Grimacing, gripping, griping there,
And yet they don’t get wise.
[Sidenote: With unavailing penitence they rue the day of woe and
reckoning. Death and destruction hold the stage—the curtain falls.]
And they that were so cheerupy,
Who flew the air so free,
Now on that surface syrupy,
So sinister and syrupy,
Bemoan their misery.
They kick with motions panicky
Until they’ve quite unlatched
Their divers parts organicky,
Orchestral and organicky,
With feet and legs detached.
Until most penitentially
With slow surcease of toils,
Their souls float out eventually,
Evacuate eventually,
Their mangled mortal coils.
[Sidenote: The reader is admonished to a life of gentleness and
charity.]
And so I’ve tried to tune a verse
Or so, to eulogize
Our kitchen’s little universe,
Unique, unnumbered universe
Of busy, buzzy flies.
With measures lilting, lyrical
I’ve striven to describe
In ballad panegyrical—
In part it’s panegyrical,
This much despiséd tribe.
And if I’ve touched the heart of you,
Oh promise me you’ll try
To crush that naughty party of you,
That pugilistic part of you
And NEVER swat a fly.