Jul 19, 2020

Four poems by Robert Fleming

Wile e. Coyote blasted by TNT

coyote is falling down a cliff …

always falling,

with gravity,

never against gravity;

no-one puts a cushion,

at the cliff bottom,

for coyote’s bottom!

no viewer cares:

did coyote die?

resurrect?

redrawn?

all children root 4 road runner!

nobody shops Acme with coyote,

before the cartoon starts,

coyote, already has his hunting gadgets.

no children care that coyote loses,

nobody feeds coyote,

coyote ends,

each cartoon,

Hungry!

Wile e. Coyote Shopping 4 TNT

2 Acme coyote go

Acme website TNT bogo

get dynamite for my foe

bogo, 2 sticks for 1, amigo

red sticks not on sale

4” wick too long

green sticks, a quick TNT trail

2” wick, kaboom, dynamite gone

on prairie road winds blow out match

wind resistant match lights

wind > 20 mph, match not catch

wind resistant matches flame stays bright

at checkout, first aid kit on sale

buy roadrunner jerky for a snack

coyote blasted, bandaid, not save coyote’s tail

coyote chomp jerky, plan roadrunner attack

Acme loyalty card, coyote’s friend

coyote lives 2 shop Acme again!

Jack Warner visits Wile e. Coyote in ICU

coyote lights TNT wick

roadrunner meepmeeps bye

coyote’s cartoon fate is fixed

coyote blasted 2 the sky

coyote falls down a cliff

cell phone dials animal 911

coyote lies stiff

can coyote live?

Nurse: visiting hours r over. Its u Mr. Warner, go right in.

Coyote: (Lying faceless in a hospital bed)

Warner :

Where’s your face? I’ll have you redrawn.

Wiley, the Acme catalogue, page 5, a holiday special: red & green dynamite sticks.

Sorry, the studio didn’t invite u 2 the Looney Tunes Holiday Party –Bugs Bunny is afraid of TNT.

Sorry, no voice. Ill check with Mel Blank, Ive asked Mel 2 give u lines.

Sorry, Wile, ure spending 2 much $ at Acme. November, u spent $2,000. Sylvester chases Tweetee Bird, without gadgets, can u do that?

Sorry, your coyote action figure & tnt playset was rated as unsafe 4 children.

Sorry, Coyote your ratings r bad, but my son says Coyote, Coyote, Coyote.

Sorry, too much, you & that blasted actress Bette Davis

Sorry, Wile ure cut.

Coyote (presses up on the hospital bed button, bed rises. Coyote grabs his iv tubing, pulls it out from his arm, lunges toward Warner and strangles Warner with tubing)

Porky Pig; That’s all Jack!

notes became words

the chords made with guitar strings

are called letters.

If I loved u, id say G

Johnny Cash was the 1st

to put his thumb into a chord

& rasped, Down, dOwn, down,

into a ring of fire –

with Cash, its always Down,

y’all end up fighting, then in prison,

never uP Up UP, into a cube of ice;

Frost knew both fire & ice,

& foretold the earth would end,

but earth lived after Frost,

& i try to make a guitar B Flat bar chord,

my left index finger, at 10, was too short,

all I made was a B

B 2 U


Robert Fleming lives in Lewes, DE & is a member of the Rehoboth Beach Writer’s Guild. He survived writing for > 30 years. In 2019, he was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, as a contributor to the anthology Stonewall Legacy. He has been published in The Beat, Stonewall Legacy, Poets to Come, Poet’s Domain, Nova Bards,DE Bards, Spoonfed, Radical Fairy Diary, The Watch, California Quarterly, Dekalb Literary Arts Journal, Catalyst, & American Poetry Anthology. His poetry masters are William Shakespeare, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, Dorothy Parker, and John Berryman.

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