The Flowerbed Phone

The phone had only been on a day

When the cranky calls began,

‘Nobody knows we’re on,’ I said,

When at first the damn thing rang.

I had to run up the passageway

To catch it before it stopped,

Then there was just an awesome hush

Like a tree before it’s lopped.

 

The line dropped out at the first ‘hello’

As if they would wait for me

To run the length of the passageway,

Expend all that energy,

I’m sure they laughed as they cut me off

Though of course, I couldn’t hear,

‘It’s dead again,’ I would rage and froth

‘Though it must be someone near.’

 

‘It better not be your stupid friend,’

I said to my wife, Diane,

‘The one that’s such a comedienne

Who annoys me when she can.’

‘It isn’t her,’ was Diane’s reply

In her testy, haughty tone,

‘She wouldn’t ring when she knows I’m here,

But wait till you’re home alone.’

 

But the phone rang every evening,

At the high point of our show,

Just as they named the villain, and

I nodded to her to go.

‘You go,’ she’d say, ‘I’ve worked all day,

And it really is your phone,’

I’d grit my teeth up the passageway

And rage at it on my own.

 

I finally let it ring and ring

And refused to pick it up,

‘I’ll teach them never to mess with me,’

As I drank a second cup,

A truck arrived in the morning and

It dumped a ton of twine

Blocking all of the driveway while

Some clown said it was mine!

 

‘I never ordered this blasted twine,

You should have come to the door,

Confirmed the order you say you had,

What would I want it for?’

‘We got the order over the phone

So we rang, with no reply,

Somebody said you don’t pick up

You’re such an eccentric guy.’

 

I always answered it after that,

And after the pig dung treat,

Fifteen tons, and the smell had hung

The length of our angry street,

We tried to tell them it wasn’t us

We said it must be the phone,

I know that I would have picked it up

If only I had been home.

 

We never did get a proper call,

One where somebody spoke,

I don’t think anyone likes me, and

That phone’s a pig in a poke,

I went outside and I cut the cord

To the world who scorned our line,

Then went inside where the blasted phone

Still rang, one final time.

 

I picked it up and I snapped, ‘Who’s that!’

And a voice came on the line,

It wasn’t a voice I knew, it spat

And it gruffly asked the time,

‘You’ve cut us off from the Internet,

I hope you’re feeling spry,

We live in your rhododendrons, and

You’ve made the fairies cry!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Celie Rose]

I liked your poem. Good theme and well expressed. Loved the ending, ‘You’ve cut us off from the Internet,
I hope you’re feeling spry,
We live in your rhododendrons."You’ve made the fairies cry!’
What an interesting twist. Well written

[Tomás Ó C..]

I had ideas of a stalker hacking the line, or even a poltergiest... but what an amazing and funny twist... a the wee folk.. the tricksters of the world...

[Barbz]

I so enjoyed reading this poem smiling from the levity therein. Actually, it brought back memories of the rascals we were in our early years as we randomly phoned a number many many times over a few days and asked if "Joe Blow" was available, to which we got the same reply time after time.."there is no Joe Blow at this number"!!! Finally we had my brother phone the same number and say "Hello, this is Joe Blow, did I get any messages"....I'm sure they were infuriated, but we cracked up!! I told this story to my children and made them promise not to ever annoy anyone like that! Of course, we had rhododendrons, but no Internet or Fairies to Cry! David, this was very nicely written, as usual...Barbz