[basil ransome-davies]

BLUEBOTTLE

The dark blot on my screen won't go away,
an outsize fly disrupting Film On Four.
I swear, get up and tip-toe for the door
to fetch the kitchen swat, not liking spray.

I catch it on a sill. As Chandler wrote,
it's 'shining and blue-green and full of sin'.
I strike, I miss. It has me in a spin
It settles on the looking-glass to gloat.

Ignoring it, I'm buzzed, as if King Kong.
Am I on its case or is it on mine?
Next it's invisible and mutes its whine.
I cannot stand this deadlocked pause for long.

I grab the aerosol at which I'd balked,
an ugly canister of gaseous pus,
and spraying wildly poison both of us,
not caring who's the stalker, who the stalked.