Jungle Monkeys

It is a monkey
a monkey with a veil,
and when I finally manage to grasp
just a little piece of white lace,
I catch a look in the mirror.
There is a gasp,
coming from someplace within.

A wide face, hair covering my cheeks,
black beady eyes stare back, blinking every so often.
There is hair,
coarse brown hair
both above and below the veneer of pink skin

I have seen otherwise
all this time.
Looking through the haze
of human,
and different,
and other.

But in these eyes
I see an animal,
a machine,
eat, sleep, and breed
programming.

There is nothing else.
No desire beyond the obvious,
No emotion
beyond empty gestures
and thin words.

This is me, it took a sleepless night to see.

It took all my life.
It took the allies.
It took a gentle hand to discover what I was

What I have been
What I am
What I will continue to be.

I am not now, what I could be.

Flying,
moving through dark space,
arriving at clusters of exploding stars,
Talking to beings with no mouths and eyes.
And we talk, and they share, and we merge,
Dancing as one fleck of light

Dancers among millions
on the dark stage of the universe.

The body is gone
The concerns of the body
The worries of the monkey

Eat
Sleep scratch
fuck
Clothes
warmth
Food
hunger
Anger
Jealousy
Hatred
Envy
Desire

It is all gone
Discarded with the old skin
that lays like a crumpled laundry bag.
And now I travel
I reach for a hand in the darkness,
Finding light

I am not now, what I could be.

I am still chained to the circus tent.
I perform my tricks
I ride a red bicycle
Circle after circle
Decade after decade
Lifetime after lifetime
I like my dress
with tiny blue polka dots
I like my bed,
My sleep, my endless state

I am a monkey
And I see my reflection
sitting in the park
with a sandwich,
In the sports car
Waiting for a bus
Walking on a sidewalk
millions like me
in a forgotten human jungle,
in a place that lacks vines and trees,
but I can hear the shrieks,
if I look
with just the right eyes.

We are not what we could be.
What we could be
What we could be
What we yearn to be
What we yearn to be

Never Too Late

When I looked at the birds, I saw the wind. I saw the moment of freedom that cannot be truly savored unless the cage has been experienced. There they are, way up there, specks in the blue canvas of a sky that knows no bounds. Blue turns to the speckled expanse of black and I am unable to watch.
But some can fly. Some without wings. Some without a body. We just need to learn. Whatever this body does. It might teach and eat, it might build or destroy, it might sit at an object they call a desk, it can learn to fly.
Just don’t get too caught up on the image of flight. Flight is not just a wing, not just the taste of a summer breeze tinged with jasmine, not just the rush of movement.
You can learn, but will you? Will you cry when the new nubs sprout at the place you knew as shoulders? Will you shout as the homes you knew melt into the shimmer of lakes?
A new freedom comes with the turning of a new moon. We watch from a balcony and howl in unison.
It is not too late, but we must shout and sing.
It is not too late, but we must dance, we must move.
The launch pad awaits a sure step. We await ourselves, or the thing we know as self. It does not come cheap, nor fast. But it can come.
It is never too late to learn to fly. The portal can open, deep inside that lump encased in bone. The door can open, deep in the beating organ known as heart. Steps are not always needed. Skips, jumps, hops, they will all do.
It is never too late. And so look to others that have gone before. Look for the keepers of the way…their dust is gold….their eyes a black that writes poems and sings to hummingbirds and worms alike.
For to fly is to transform knowledge. To fly is to learn and to learn again. To have learn how to learn. To learn to transform.
It is never too late. This is the sprouting of wings without feathers, flight without distance, sight without eyes. This can be the beginning. The real. The wind. The moment. There is nothing to believe, because there is no faith. But there is the taste of jasmine stained wind and there is the hurried laughter from a morning of narrow escapes.