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

Cloven Foot

She looked at the painting for the first time. It rose from the wall, levitating in its massive form and monumental message, leaving its gold frame far behind on the white background. Small and open-mouthed next to its size, she gazed up at the man that was not a man, at the animal that was not quite an animal. The beast that was not on all fours, but wearing a tailored jacket and a small hat that had holes for his horns. His face was red and long and hairy beside the ears. He stood in the middle of two iron gates, held slightly ajar with the weight of his body. Behind him a city burned red and hot. His lips betrayed a small, sly smile. Half a dozen women with large round bellies were in various states of falling, some lay lifeless on the cobblestone streets. Babies lay in piles by closed wooden doors. Just behind the gate was a copulating couple on fire, streams of smoke rose from their flesh into the dark night. He stood at the gates of this mayhem. His kingdom or his punishment? His legs were long and hairy, with thin ankles and the strong thick thighs of a horse. His penis was long and engorged, sticking up like the black spikes of the metal gates. He leaned on one of the open gates, leaning just slightly on his right elbow in a gesture of satisfaction and contentment. A creature completely comfortable in the chaotic setting of smoke and dim, reddish lights and the smoking couple and fallen babies and women who would never be mothers. His left foot reached out to her, a cloven foot of gray with streaks of black. His other foot hung back in the shadows, five toes of a pale, reddish hue. The ground below him was a mixture of dirt and black ash, beyond was a barren landscape of dead trees and smoking bushes.
“This is us,” she thought. “Our lineage vilified and made shadowy and dark and full of horror. This is the full blooded fear of man. The fear of birth and death. The fear of sex and pussy and earth and the mushrooms which spawn beneath the visible surface. We have watched through centuries, as large skirts have given way to slips and then jeans. Watched as the fires burned flesh and the screams curled with the smoke. We have watched it all. The vilification. The quest turned to the dirty kiss. We watch still, knowing, just as the smile implies, that what we do will always remain in the realm of the mushroom and the roots. The fires will come and play with the land and play with our flesh and we will be of the darkened shadows and the red clouds. We are of one, of the other, of earth and air, stardust and bright light.”