Raymond Chandler had a farm…

NOTE: Recently, a friend of mine shared a link purporting to be a rejection letter from The New Yorker to a persistent author. The letter seemed unduly cruel until I realized that the rejected author has submitted a poem called “Ass Dicks” multiple times. What a great title! I’ve stolen it for this poem, which owes its existence to that rejection letter.

Ass Dicks (Part One)

It was Tuesday.
Farmer Johnson always
feeds me oats on Tuesday.
My stomach was full
and I was chugging on
a bucket of some grade-A
well-water when
she walked through the door.

The dame had legs so long
you would swear she was a horse.
Her tail swished a fly away,
but I could understand his attraction.
She was the finest ass I’d seen
since my ex ran off with that mule.
What was she doing in
my dank little stall?
I wasn’t sure, but I hoped it involved
stud service.

Her name was Clover.
She explained that
someone had been
eating her sugar cubes.
“Sweetheart,” I told her,
“I wish it was me.”
She snorted and
pawed at the ground and
said maybe this was all a mistake,
that maybe I wasn’t
the best ass dick on this farm.
I assured her that
I was the best dick of any kind
she was likely to find in this state
and I turned sideways so she
could see the proof.
She must have liked the view, because she bared her teeth at me
and said, “You’re hired.”

I asked her if she had any enemies.
She batted her eyelashes
and played dumb,
which is what she thought I was.
“Did you lay an egg?,” I asked,
“because you’re sitting on something.
I’m a bit too hard-boiled to
buy your sunny-side-up act.
I’d rather this case was over easy
so maybe you and I could
really get cooking.”
She cracked:
“Have you ever heard of
a rooster named Rufus?”

Rufus.
Of course I knew Rufus–
the bastard always crowed
about his accomplishments
like he was cock of the walk.
But if you spent time with him,
you knew he was henpecked.
“What’s your beef
with that chicken?,” I asked.

Again, she acted like
old Missus Johnson did
when she got near the peach jam:
she canned it.
“Never mind,” I told her.
“I’ll dick around a bit
and see why things are so assed up.”

Something about this broad
was rubbing me the wrong way–
and believe me, I wanted her
to rub me the right way.
Rufus was too chickenshit
to bother someone like her.
But why was she trying to
get him tarred and feathered?

My first stop was
the local watering trough.
The only creatures I saw there
were a couple of bitches in heat
just waiting for someone
to toss them a bone.
The older one, a beagle
well past her prime hunting days
let her tongue hang out
when she looked me over.
I didn’t return the favor.
“Know anything about a sweet ass
named Clover?, ” I asked.
Something about my question
must have gotten her steamed up
because now the bitch was panting.

“Poor little thing,” she barked.
“A widow at her age? That’s ruff.”
Seems my client
had been hitched to
a real jackass named Don
who mysteriously broke his leg
and found himself pushing up daisies
instead of being in Clover.
Circumstances were murkier than
a puddle in the pig pen.
The early morning, a sudden stumble
in a fog almost as thick
as smoke from the barrel
of Farmer Johnson’s 12 gauge.
At that time of day
there was only one possible witness
who knew what had done Don in,
and maybe he’d been
sticking his beak
where it didn’t belong.
Now someone wanted to
wring his neck.

I found Rufus strutting around
in the yard behind the barn
keeping to the shadows.
He looked like he hadn’t slept
since the McNuggrt’s invention
and come to think of it I didn’t recall
hearing him crow that morning.
This chicken looked fried.

I tried to talk to him
but he was too afraid
of being overheard
so he just clawed
some words on the ground.
When he was done
I tried to decipher his message
but reading that chicken scratch
was like my ex trying
to start a family with that mule–
impossible.

“Come on, Rufus.
Tell me about the accident.
If anyone knows about
the crack of Don ‘s leg, it’s you.”
He whispered something
so quietly that I got down
on my belly and
stretched my neck out
to hear him better.
“Repeat that,” I suggested.
His beady eyes locked onto mine.
He asked, louder now,
“You ever been donkey-punched?”

And then with a sharp blow
to the base of my skull
it all went dark.

(To be continued…)