Noir Over Easy

an amusing poem

The following poem first appeared in The American Drivel Review (RIP) back in 2008, along with some of my other more drivel-worthy material. It captures a noir feel in the form of a poem. Not unlike my hardboiled flash fiction story “My Tommy Gun Ate My Slugs” a few months ago, this one is concluded in one short package.

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Noir Over Easy

It all started with a note
in a looping script with hollow circles
dotting all the i's 
and a photo of a man 
in drag.

No joke, I thought, and torched 
the frilly note with the hot end 
of a butt. Down at the river 
they were dragging the dregs, 
but the blue didn't approve of my mug
and cuffs aren't my type of fun.

Carla had the eyes of a mime
and the mind of a U-boat,
so it was no surprise
when the voice of a child
answered the buzz at her flat.
I'd find her at the laundromat
or down by the pier shaving
sailor's beards for a shaggy ending.
I could do without glass eyes 
in a foam soup, so I stayed away.

Quert never hit the cue ball,
but he played with a straight stick
and had the math down pat.
He whispered in a husk
to drop my hooks in a thug
down on Hurtly Street 
and feed him some line
till he leads to a shark.

I left my luck 
in the bottom of a flask in the back
seat of Carla's Buick under a stained
sheet. The thug wasn't as dumb
as I look. He jerked
the line and caught a fisherman,
and played a concerto
on my forehead with a brass
band in parade. I woke 
with an inflated ego and a personal
screech owl. 

I played my eight ball and prayed
for a scratch. The shark wanted Carla
as much as I wanted out, 
and I was the worm dangling
on my own hook. They pinned the tail
on the donkey, and let me go. 

Blue Codger shredded my missing 
person's and escorted me
to the coroner's. She had a dirty
blonde rug and a blank tag
round a hook toe I'd seen 
last March after a tall glass 
and a hard case of jitters. Carla
was never a hooker
but I told them it was her
and with any luck the pin
fell off the donkey.

It all ended with a note
and a scribble of a noose
and a goose in flight. It was signed
"sea weed in a tiger sauce" 
with a loop to dot the 'i'. 

She was always a killdeer in the gravel
squawking and flapping a broken wing
as I fried her eggs over easy. 
I dotted my own 'i' with a tobacco
burn and waited for the bite.

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