Talking Monkey

 

I am a talking monkey--

I know this,

wearing the heavy suit of the corporeal. 

Please,

sit on the rocks of the ruin with me.

The stones have a warmth

left by the sun

 like a garland

around a young girl's head. 

Speaking as a glorified simian,

I love the pretty yellow

of the banana,

the seeded red of the strawberry,

and the deep rich purple

 of the plum.

Ill health, blood, bruises--

these bear the hues of these fruits

but theirs is a bitter course.

I am a talking monkey--

talking all the more, and most tediously

now that my tire

 stays still.

I used to swing on it, wildly!

like a chimp in a capsule

NASA's baby

headed for the stars!

Ah well, little pitchers have big ears--

never tell them the rotten truth

 about the circus

or the old hero peddling for the gawking crowd.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--

Music: The Rolling Stones Monkey Man 

Conversant Animals In Stovepipe Hats

 In those days,

the skies were closer--

God peered down from nearer by

still tinkering.

Animals had names

and wore stovepipe hats

or tam o' shanters in various shades

and could speak.

Why tell us this

now, when vipers emerge

from every apple, with tongues

hollow and stiff?

I wish to soothe

your two exhausted ears

and place fish there, in the waters

of your mind.

Here is the boat

and the cloaks of soft fabric

to wear on the decks on the sea on the sphere

spinning the tale

of us,

every moment,

even now.

_____

for Word Garden Word List--Immortal Poems

Music: Cream (lyrics by poet Peter Brown)  Deserted Cities of the Heart 

Sparrows

 

Love bloomed

like the green buds of the wild weeds

under the overpass.

She lost the thread

when her ears filled with dialogue

written by devils and idiots.

Her love, in wool socks and field jacket,

lost his libido in the war

but phantom desire lives in his memory.

It isn't being coy

to hold back what you cannot save

from the black nest of loss.

Is it dusk or is she going blind?

The robot doctor holds no cures,

just needles with tiny mouths, enthroned.

Under the overpass

there is a constant buzz of insects

who live in old yogurt cups

Singing their serene song

like an engine before the crash

lifting lovers into each other's arms

somewhere beyond the wreck, beyond reason, 

at the edges of sodium lights and night frights--

two sparrows sold for a penny

where crows and cats spend all night calling.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--The Beautiful Bureaucrat.

Music: The Doors Indian Summer

My Bear

 

My bear

has to be awoken gently.

(We've been through any number

of jarring alarm clocks, smashed to bits on the floor.)

My bear

needs to get up by April

or he's groggy all summer.

Wakey, baby,

I whisper in his cute furry ear.

My bear

is the super in our building.

His keys jingle like

Christmas bells.

He is jolly and waddles to the rescue.

My bear

gets dissed by some of the 

harpies on the top floor.

Then they go kiss

the apes and hyenas they married

who keep Cameros under tarps in the parking garage.

My bear

solves problems by waving

at them with his massive paws.

He groans offendedly

when this does not solve the problem.

Then he tries chewing on it or tipping it over.

My bear

makes the residents' kids

get out of the storeroom in the basement.

He gets up on two legs

and shakes his head no.

Some of them need to change trousers afterward.

My bear

is my bruin castle keep.*

We talk in bed and decide

that if we have a girl we'll name her Ursala,

and if we have boy he'll go to Boston

to play ice hockey.

My bear

knows that I will buy

his favorite fruit preserves

and real honey in jars, not the fake stuff.

We have twelve different

honey dippers

and each wear one ring.

My bear

sits back on his butt like a Buddha.

I wear a bucket hat and a thousand

cuffs and necklaces.

He huffs the air with his big fat black nose.

I sigh and smile.

It's a good life.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Help! A Bear Is Eating Me!

*this line is adapted from a previous poem of mine, "Our Bear."

Music: The Bare Necessities

Wild Garlic

 

wild garlic grows

between our teeth, those fallen stones

from the ruined church of our mouths.

wild garlic roots

are round and thin,

a lie we wear as shoes.

we waver, tall and gaudy,

our white flowers like lace,

seeding every time we prate our nonsense

no more significant than

the markings of wandering dogs.

we are legion, the first to appear in Spring,

a disease of the soil,

dying even as we conquer everything

even the air

with false plenty,

and the thoughtless vanity of pretty parasites.

______

image: The Muse Inspiring The Poet by Henri Rousseau

for dverse OLN

Ginger Bang

There is a fox wrapped around your eye,

his black front feet like lashes,

his back like a ginger bang.

They say a person with a fox around their eye

is shy but up

to something,

makes a poor pet

and makes you miss the morning,

caught like a rooster's neck in the charm of their 

quick and

toothy grin.

____________

Blood Bracelet

A blood bracelet is the best kind.
It is proof of life
and the ability to bear pain.

Before sleeping with you
in the big bed upstairs with the cuffs on the posts,
I spent six weeks living with religious lunatics
in the woods;
they had whips and crosses, 
thorns and theology.

Later, deep in the rabies dance of our mating,
I called upon the things they had taught me--
starvation without complaint,
dogma without tenderness,
and the acquired skill of animating bird carcasses with or without ceremony.

That was the key--the corpse cardinal, dead dove and rot starling,
all left on your pillow along with red script
from the blood bracelet your bite left
when you spoke to me
so ignited and
sure of redemption's need for absolute destruction as prelude.
_______ 

for bits of inspiration at real toads.

Encounter With Fans

The Jello-brained former football star
forgets which wife to hit,
and wonders why
grown men cry
at sight of him.

"You were my hero!" they say
as he goggles at them
before losing control of his bladder
again.

A perfect physical specimen, 
he was bought at auction by an owner
whispering, "Smile!"

Remembering, 
he does.
______

for flash 55