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 

A Pose Of Monkeybones

This isn't just a pose of monkeybones--
no one made of flesh ever willed a fever down,
or talked sense when fingers curled just so to make the nightstorms roll.

You might think I'm made of straw and stone,
a long-skull girl with marrow-eyes in every broken bone
so close to heart and beat and breath--
Mercy tangled in my hair, out of reach except
for the loud-strike, rain-shriek
inside these abandoned bones--
woman, monkey, open sky that shakes and moans
until there's nothing left.
_______

for Camera FLASH.

Harlow

"And see how the flesh grows back

across a wound, with a great vehemence" --Jane Hirschfield

Harry Harlow was her secret incubus. 
Oh, she would never admit it, 
and he probably Titanic-ed his pecker on the iceberg,
but he was there, always, 
a wire mesh cage in either hand.

My brother told me I fell out of a cereal box,
with Harry Harlow's research notes printed on the back.
Facts are sketchy and suspect when you're the youngest by nine years,
but the obvious
is the obvious
even to a monkey.

She knew what was truly valuable--
chairs,
linoleum floors,
gravy boats.
These are the eternal things, or should be.

One by one, the males swung off into the jungle,
except for the steadfast Harry Harlow,
who stayed up nights with her, drying her tears with a terrycloth towel.
One thing about her,
she was good data.

To protect the furniture,
she wrapped me inside of a good strong sack.
Harry Harlow painted a smiling simian face on the outside,
and then they swung it,
to the strains of a Benny Goodman record he had.
I remember the pulse of the percussion.

Harry Harlow's rhesus macaques were seriously fucked up.
They and I are sibling parcels, arriving via night terror,
our broken parts rattling alarmingly in the deliveryman's hands.
I have grown back well,
like a tree around an obstacle,
but the troupe is up in the branches, big-eyed and pissing themselves.

Harry Harlow was her secret incubus,
and together they proved what any imbecile knows already.
Pick me up, I'm a mess.
Swing me inside a tire, I won't know the difference.
Mama, be proud, I have never in my adult life broken a dish,
except in my dreams,
which cannot be logged by Harry Harlow or any other demon.
______

for Real Toads mini-challenge. Harry Harlow is known for his heartless maternal deprivation experiments on monkeys. Happy Mother's Day, Harry, wherever you are.

 

The Girl In The Gorilla Suit

The girl in the gorilla suit
walks on down that ole lonesome road.

At her side is her friend,
dressed as a giant banana.

"This is stupid!" complains the girl in the gorilla suit.
"I've never felt so humiliated!"

"Eat me," says the friend.
"You wish," gripes Girl-rilla.

Down the length of life and through the labyrinth of every day,
comes the overwritten,
the overwhelming,
the sublime and the simian.

Above the door at Danny's Coffee Shop,
a little bell rings.

Chloe the resident serial killer starts to say,
in a high pitched kiddie voice--

"Teacher says that every time a bell rings....
holy shit, it's a gorilla and a giant banana!"
Then she covers her mouth and giggles.

The girl in the gorilla suit starts to turn around to leave, but
Banana Girl grabs her arm and parks her in a booth.

"I'll go get us something," says Banana Girl.
"What'll it be sweethearrrt?"

"A banana smoothie." Girl-rilla is in a sour mood.
Fruit Girl looks hurt, pooches out her lower lip and lets it tremble.

"You're mean," she says with finality,
and spins like a yellow ballerina toward the counter.

Standing there, she is starting to get a headache.
Trying to decide, she puts her hand to her peel, and mutters, "God."

"Yes?"

God is general manager of Danny's Coffee Shop,
having worked her way up from drawing menu boards with chalk.

Sitting in the corner, the Succubus starts singing, very softly.
"Day-o. Day-ay-ay-o." With faux innocence.

God smiles at Banana Girl, to distract her,
and believe me, when God smiles it distracts the angels themselves.

"First one's free," she says, handing down the Good News.
"Cool beans," says Banana Annie.

Behind them, some guy wearing a turtleneck sweater and a beret stands up.
He whips out a notebook and reads from it through his sunglasses:

Wild whoop the twisted mask of political murder!
He lifts his finger for emphasis.

Bodies, carnal, knowing, floodlights of--
He is interrupted by a black panther flying through the air.

It is the Queen of the Vampires in black panther form, pouncing.
She drags her kill off to the coat rack and caches it there for later.

"Thanks, girl," chirps Chloe from behind her Rolling Stone magazine.
"Frickin' poets." She considers them almost as bad as golfers. 

The Girl In The Gorilla Suit takes off her gorilla head and sets it on the table.
She's got really bad hat hair, kind of like a spoiled pumpkin.

"You need to shave your legs and your pits, girl," says Banana Annie.
She gets smacked for her trouble, but doesn't spill their coffees.

The coffee at Danny's is the best in the world.
It can start your heart, raise the dead, save your soul, make your day.

Fruit Girl leans across the table and says, "Happy Valentine's Day, babe."
"Awww," says Girl-rilla, blushing. "You make a sappy happy monkey outta me."

All the Danny's girls pretend they didn't hear, but they're smirking,
except for The Queen of the Vampires.

The red hearts all over the place are making her catnippy and crazy.
"Down girl! chides Chloe. But it's no use; she'll be bonkers all day.
_________

Thanks to Mama Zen for the inspiration. She sees girls in gorilla suits!

 

 
 
 

 

Meat

The Meat Monkeys boomed death into my mother.
No more warm,
no more milk,
no more rough tongue.

They put the hard ring around my neck,
and pushed me behind the strange gray grass that cannot bend.
The Meat Monkeys taught me useless things:
Jump through a hoop.
Sit on a perch like a bird.
Go here, do that, learn some monkeytalk.

Whip. Chair. Hungry.
At night, I dream of forests full of loose dinner.
Here comes my Meat Monkey, strutting.
Meet my claws, teeth, anger.

Learn some tigertalk.
______

a circus tale for Mama Zen in 89 words.

Sock Monkey Consults the Ouija

The past is one thing--
it's always the same old quicksand,
but hold still, and enough suns will dry you loose.

On the other hand,
Sock Monkey has been moving up for years.
He never gave a big green shit who he had to screw in order to rise.
But now?
He's just hanging on.
The thing about the future is, that it's so uncertain.
Try the dart board.
Check out the Ouija.
Ex-Mrs. Sock Monkey cleaned him out,
took the kids,
the cash,
the floor beneath his soft round feet.

A lot of things can be overcome,
but some suck the soul right out of anybody.
Wood veneer crushes initiative.
Bad wallpaper encourages self-harm.
Ugly armchairs send anybody to the madhouse.

Behold, Sock Monkey,
suspended like a cartoon character, cliffside, with branch.
If he lets go, he lands on the desk of Edwin Albert Peach, CPA,
his future forfeit, himself, a debit never to be recouped.
So, Mister Monkey,
go wild,
ask the Ouija a question.
You'll have to let go, to touch the planchette,
but c'mon, make a leap of faith.
You are a monkey, after all.

See the future revealed.
YES
we have no
bananas.
NO
you'll never get her back--
Mrs. Monkey.
Day-oh
Day-ay-ay-oh.
Day, de light, and you'll never go home.
_____

for Mag 221. This whole scene, with its dreary browns and defeated decor, screamed 1970s divorced dad pad.

 


 

Mime

when you pontificate
from a to
z,
i seem to agree
if tacit-
ly.

when you decide
uni
lateral-
ly,
it never bothers
no, never mind
me.

i'm not a wife
who nags or sighs;
but don't think i'm
some saintly mime--

the officer asked me,
were you
here?
perhaps in
bed?
or even
dead?

far be it from me
to bend his ear--
and so,
I haven't 
exactly
said.
_____

for Kay's challenge at Real Toads
 
 

The Evolution Of Genius

The genius who treated us like shit
Stood ringing the triangle he wore around his neck in order to call himself to dinner.

A lackey brought a wheelbarrow containing the genius's ego.
Here is a riddle:
Why is it that, the more he ate of it, the bigger it got?

He was then taken to the local hospital, where demon doctors surgically attached extra thumbs,
Leaving him even more exalted
And superior to us vacant, slouching apes.
Wearing leather collars, we performed tricks which were never good enough.
We were given no days off.
We limped, stupid and miserable, in his shadow.

The asshole genius sat crunching the bones of his lessers,
An eccentric habit the authorities ignored because, hello, he's a genius,
And we are apes,
If kind apes,
Capable of love, and labor, and suffering.

The fuckface genius is always correct, and we accept that in our dim way,
As we accept his right to go strutting among the gods themselves
While we fumble and fart and fail.

The genius who treated us like shit had the world by the short ones,
Endorsed and indulged because of his brilliance,
Celebrated and hip-deep in sweet entitlement until it all went tits up one Tuesday in September.

A bearded single dude, homeless, probably a fag,
Climbed down off a tree and poked the dipshit genius in the chest and said,
"What you do to the least of these, you do to me.
Titles and talent aren't a ticket to treat anybody badly."

Since he joined the monastery, nobody has talked to the genius,
But we hear he has a funny haircut and
Washes feet and
Lives in a little stone cell like a zoo monkey.
______

for Flipside's word list #6: leather, triangle, thumbs, monastery, genius, eccentric, demons, correct, vacant, crunching, strutting, hospital, slouch, surgically, limped.