A Fly On the Wall

It seems I may not need to be
A fly upon the wall,
For so many folks are ready to
Reveal their all in all.
Innumerable tell all books
And gossip magazines
Are ready to print the stuff that once
Was kept behind the scenes.

You can go on line and whisper
All the secrets that you know,
Or show your private moments
On TV reality show.
For a trifle of notoriety,
There is nothing they won’t say.
If you want to peek in other’s lives
It’s not too hard to do today.

When I was young, the party line,
Was the local gossip’s toy.
If you mentioned something secret,
It would fill her heart with joy.
It would come back to you the next day
And would have been enlarged a bit. 
Your sad secret is much juicier
When someone else is telling it.

I would like to have been listening
To The Sermon on the Mount,
To be sure that Matthew had it right
In his remarkable account.
Or to have heard with my own ears
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
That’s something that an humble fly
Could not appreciate, I guess.

I am glad some human stood there
Who could write it down for me.
We have the written word to thank
For preserving history.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2011

Poem

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Guzzi Avatar
January 26, 2011 at 5:16 PM
I really liked this..was I nuts or did he say limerick only? best check dear! Light & Love
Mehta Avatar
January 22, 2011 at 2:18 PM
Nice memories of the past now you have aptly recollected in tranquility, Joyce
Dietrich Avatar
January 22, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Joyce, you capture well , always in your poetry, the pulse of society, be it in the past or today. This one captures both! Luv, Andrea
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