What it is

June 2010: In a desperate attempt to stave off senility, the monkey began writing a poem a day. By summer's end he'd begun to run out of versified political rants and philosophical bloviations. Then he hit on the improbable idea of writing micro fiction in the form of Elizabethan sonnets. Eureka. The birth of the "Sonnets From Other Lives" series. Two hundred plus lives later, he's still at it.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

11/30
Sonnets From Other Lives: Melinda


Melinda can’t leave well enough alone.
She’s going to have to somehow be involved.
These are—she reasons—matters of the home
& hearth & so the problem must be solved.
Her son—Marvin—is less that sure she’s right.
It is—in fact--his marriage we’re discussing—
his infidelity & not his wife’s—
but Mom is Mom & currently she’s fussing
over scripture—looking for the perfect verse
to inspire a reconciliation
through spiritually uplifting guilt & terse
syntax. Is it her imagination
or is Marvin too content on settling
on a strategy based on his Mommy’s meddling?

Monday, November 29, 2010

11/29
Sonnets From Other Lives: X

He reaches in his pocket for his keys.
Nothing. No key. No coins. No wallet.
No pocket. No pants. No identity.
This malady—whatever should we call it?
Aren’t there multisyllabic Latin names
for sudden total losses of existence?
Undiagnosed--he know cannot claim
compensation from his health insurance,
for it may be his condition preexisted—
& now he’s fallen into a relapse
where the fibers of his being came untwisted
& like a star, he’s suddenly collapsed
into the nether regions of his soul:
Event horizon. Singularity. Black hole

Sunday, November 28, 2010

11/28
Sonnets From Other Lives: Miriam


Harlequin ducks ride the swirling rip
tide as it boils around the point.
Connoisseurs of chaos—she would quip—
always at the ready to anoint
events with some reflected meaning—
hard it is to just let events be—
there she is out on the headland gleaning
phrases to put into poetry.
An eagle takes the wind into the west—
she’s wanting an abstruser metaphor—
freedom is too easy & at best
it’s just another hungry carnivore.
The sky is grey & flat. The wind is terse.
The air is cold & clear & free of verse.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

11/27
Sonnets From Other Lives: Anon.

The first death really wasn't hard at all--
at seven weeks he went to sleep & stayed.
But now he anticipates the fall
& catches himself measuring his days.
He once bled out at thirty thousand feet.
At other times he has succumbed to cancer,
meningitis, stroke, & HIV.
There are questions for which he would like an answer.
i.e.. Why the weird surfeit of memory?
How many lives can fit into one head?
Wherefore this circle of absurdity?
When is his next rendezvous with death?
He passes churchyards with a rueful smile--
denied the easy solace of denial.
11/26
Sonnets From Other Lives: Orrin

He had long suspected he could fly,
but never had his hypothesis tested--
but now he lifts his arms--begins to rise
& once the pull of gravity's arrested
he realizes it was just a lack of will
that kept him bound & grounded for so long.
Now the limits that inertial had instilled
in him were ineluctably forgone.
He set his course towards a setting sun
& glided silent & as swift as sound.
So now the great adventure has begun.
We can wonder at what wonders he has found
in that awkward existential silence later
after we'd shut off his ventilator.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

11/25
Sonnets From Other Lives: Bret & Britt

--The recipe calls for six ounces of wine,
but it isn’t for the sauce, it’s for the cook,
so I’m sharing—you want some of mine?
--Thank you yes. That’s really in the book?
--I wrote the book, so it says what I want.
When I’m in my zone, it’s jazz. Look at me as…
.. . A culinary idiot savant?
How ‘bout if you put capers into that?
--Too summer—see I cook with synesthesia.
I’m aiming for an autumnal sirocco--
an ancient villa outside Castellina..
--So if you spice it wrong we wind up in Morocco?
--Perfection! Preparations are complete.
Grab a fork. Dig in. Bon Appetit.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

11/24
Sonnets From Other Lives: Alden


Blow winds blow—a smile cracks his cheeks.
He’s leery of a too obvious pun.
The girls should be calling him this week—
they’ve had time to sharpen up their tongues.
He’s ready for his fortnightly berating—
looking forward--if you have to know.
The storm will blow in soon—the air’s creating
a modern dance of tree & leaf & snow
flurries that portend incoming drama—
fool he is-- he hopes he may persuade
his children to forgive him & their mama
for shattering their family in this way.
O this is freedom—every moment bleeds .
One must then grant nature nature’s needs.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

11/23
Sonnets From Other Lives: Old Dogg


I can tell you what is is –he says.
is is here & now & then & soon—
simultaneous coincidence.

He holds his hand up to a swollen moon
& squints & pinches it between his fingers.
Hell—it ain’t no bigger than a dime.
& for a spell his new perception lingers—
he wonders—was it ever thus? In time
someone throws more wood onto the fire.
This adds twenty new stars to the night.
Old Dogg thinks he’s do well to retire,
but then finds another jug of wine.
What is is—he says—see now I know
is is is as it was ever so…

Monday, November 22, 2010

11/22
Sonnets From Other Lives: Henry

Henry misses melancholia—
all the maladies of unbalanced humors.
Now the dark within him’s only a
pharmaceutically corrected rumor.
Perhaps a bit of bleeding would suffice—
a razor blade--a warm soak in the tub—
a cocktail—whiskey, seconal & ice
Eternity. Yes & there’s the rub--
He knows it’s all romantic falderol.
He’s riffing on bare bodkins, all the while
he might as well be posing with a skull.
He’s always had a certain sense of style.
He pours a drink & smiles sardonically.
Anything worth watching on T.V.?

Sunday, November 21, 2010

11/21
Sonnets From Other Lives: Nemo

On this malominous morning it was clearer--
another chance to master disappointment—
another confrontation with the mirror--
another horal egoist's appointment
with his dubious identity.
Who was this hoary-eared oblique impostor
who rendezvoused with him relentlessly?
How came this darkness to be fostered?
Clouds were boiling up somewhere outside—
burascoes building up bent on a burst
of impossibly bright agonizing light.
Oy –he thinks—come on then. Do your worst.
Whoever I am I am bound to be
the wind’s plaything—the disembodied leaf.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

11/20
Sonnets From Other Lives: Trent


& it came to pass that he would be called Trent.
Mother was so down with Nine Inch Nails
& heroin for that matter—she went
& chased that dragon all the way to Hell.
The first family taught him to love the Lord.
The second barely knew that he was there.
With the third he’d started to get bored
& by the fourth he didn’t even care.
The odds for happy endings would diminish
with every time the caseworkers would call
& every move led closer to a finish-
line that shaped itself into a fall
from a grace so less than amazing--
a life lived as an existential hazing.

Friday, November 19, 2010

11/19
Sonnets From Other Lives: Shanti


She decided this would be her meditation.
It would be all about right livelihood.
Checking groceries not as automation,
but as creation. Well, it sounded good.
To be here now there was for sure a challenge,
but Shanti learned to get in to her zone—
to put her mind into a perfect balance
between boredom and an infinite unknown.
She sang out PLU codes in her mind
as a kind of numerated mantra.
She practiced bagging groceries blind,
a sort of cross between Tetris & Tantra.
Shanti worked to keep her center still,
& somehow have a way to pay the bills.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

11/18
Sonnets From Other Lives: Sigg


& so once again the rains have come
to the coast of Oregon. This isn’t news.
He pushes back his chair—the chapter done—
& looks around for something else to do.
The morning’s downpour settles into mist.
He calls the dog—deciding on a walk.
To spark his lazy plot into a twist
he’ll listen to his protagonist talk
as he hikes between the halls of dripping cedar
& spruce to make his way down to the sea.
If the story tells itself he’ll take a breather
from all his anxious over-editing.
The tide is high. The ocean has its say.
He listens closely as it ebbs away

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

11/17
Sonnets From Other Lives: Aaron & Lia

With the last switchback they made the moraine
& looked down on the glacier far below.
Tahoma loomed before them as if framed
by the winter blue sky. They stomped down the snow
with their skis & sat & settled in to eat:
bread & cheese—a thermos full of soup.
Lia played St. Francis with the jays she
fed by hand—a kind of counting coup
with the mountain’s bolder denizens.
They stood & pointed their long skis downhill--
telemarking through fresh powder &
stopping now and then among the still,
& frozen sculpted trees until the ride
ended at the lodge at Paradise.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

11/16
Sonnets From Other Lives: Harry

He wouldn’t have it any other way.
He called it lack of imagination.
An ancient Airstream trailer, bags of clay,
a wheel and time to spend on the creation
of pots & plates & jugs & mugs & vases
in a shed that he’d thrown up months ago.
Retirement & widowerhood the causes.
The effect—a opportunity to go
out into a desert by himself
to put fistfuls of wet earth on a wheel
& mold it into something he can sell
that someone else can use—something real.
After thirty years in business counting beans,
he hopes for half a clue what it all means.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

11/9
Sonnets From Other Lives: Stakeout



By the third day of the stakeout, Lee was done.
--Really—he said—what’s the fuckin point?
You really think that Katt’s so dumb
that he’d look up his ex wife? Jeez, her joint
is bound to be staked out. I mean we’re here.

Axel couldn’t argue. Lee was right.
But the inspector’s orders were perfectly clear:
We’ll have eyes on the wife’s place day & night.
An old lady wheeled by with a grocery cart.
Some skaters in the street were hanging out.
A ragged, homeless guy came from the park--
limping down the sidewalk.
Axel thought
that the idea Katt was here was as unlikely
as that homeless dude’s shiny brand new Nikes.

Monday, November 8, 2010

11/8
Sonnets From Other Lives: Hope



Everybody says—What were you thinking?
As if thinking was in any way involved.
My excuse of course was we were drinking,
but there was a much more primal force involved:
The organism’s urge to replicate.

I’d told myself I’m not the kind of girl
who carries around condoms on a date,
& for that I’ve got the wages of my sin
growing in my sorry uterus.
What made me think that I would not give in
to the atavistic voice of human lust?
For all my meditations on the soul,
I never gave a thought to birth control.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

11/7
Sonnets From Other Lives: Simon


O crap—he thinks—I’ve got a fucking cold.
My head is full of Halliburton concrete--
the rotten kind—all crumbly & old--
that plugs you up before it starts to leak.
How many rhinoviruses are there?
I’d’ve thought by now I’d had them all.
For seven days he’s doomed, so he takes care
to spread the joy beyond his own four walls.
No way around it—gotta go to work.
They’ve made it clear—his job is on the line.
The workplace doesn’t offer many perks,
save spreading misery on company time.
So there goes Simon. Smiling. Shaking hands.
Right on—he says-- gonna stick it to the man.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

11/6
Wanda Ananda


O rest your weary head upon the cow,
for it’s five o’clock in the a.m.
& you are in a freezing barn right now
Because your turn to milk has come again.
The first squirts pings the pail euphoniously
but then the rhythm lulls you like a drug,
You can’t allow yourself to fall asleep
lest she’ll plop her shitty foot into the jug
& there you are with nothing left to show
for the courageous climb out of your bed.
Now there’s only one gallon to go
& so you go & rest your weary head
on her flank and listen to the mutter
of grass & oats transforming into butter.

Friday, November 5, 2010


11/5
How we met

On the 45th Street on-ramp the Hitchhiker
stood holding  up a sign that read “B-ham”
The girls had just pulled over to switch drivers
& there he was.  They let him climb in, & 
since they shared a common destination,
you could make a case the whole event was fated.
The  three of them were into meditation,
&  as the miles rolled by he related
that he was coming from a small farm in the Palouse,
which was really just a small yogic commune.
Then it turned out they all were going to
be going to college up at Western soon.
Funny thing about the vagabond they ferried:
In four years he & one of them were married.

Thursday, November 4, 2010


 
11/4
Sonnets From Other Lives:  Aster
 
There--a short-eared owl perched on a snag
that stood out like a watchtower on the heath.
Aster pulled her binos from her bag,
& focused on him.  Beautiful. When she
verified the species in the worn
Roger Tory Peterson field guide
her father gave her.  Now that he is gone,
she keeps his book & field glasses alive
with these walks.  The owl launches from his perch
& rides upon the weighted atmosphere,
skimming on the landscape in its search.
The first time that her father brought her here,
he was still a giant & she held his hand
and listened, though she didn’t understand.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

11/3
 Sonnets From Other Lives:  Margarita 

A thousand crows are swirling overhead.
Margarita stares upward—enthralled.
She’s stepped outside to walk off the regret
for the angry words exchanged when Stella called.
The wind is angry too, as are the birds
squawking in a storm of clouds & leaves.
Her daughter’s bitterness leaves an absurd
emptiness in her--for that she grieves.
The pictures she’s put up over the years
show a princess smiling at her mother’s lens.
Now it’s all regret, anger, and tears.
She knows she’ll never know that child again.
She’ll let things cool a week & then she’ll try
to call again. 
The crows can have their sky.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

11/2
Sonnets From Other Lives:  Nigel

What if everything’s a metaphor?
Nigel asked himself the other day.
I mean, I know I’m walking through this door,
but are there more symbolic layers yet in play?
Had he not slept through his whole freshman year
he might have heard of Plato & his cave,
but the funnest part of ignorance is your
elation at discoveries you make.
What does this sidewalk mean? Wherefore this bus?
Perhaps they’re allegorical alienation?
Is my life a metaphor?  Are all of us
just archetypes of god’s imagination?

Note:  Let MacArthur grant officials know that I
am a genius at philosophy when high.

Monday, November 1, 2010

11/1
Sonnets From Other Lives:  Ilya                                                        

This autumn weather, he is thinking, wants Ravel,
a double macchiato & a walk
around the lake, but what the hell,
his I-pod opts for Yo Yo & the Bach.
Striding through the gate & down the lane,
the Suite for cello number one in G
sparkles in his caffeinated brain
like the morning light on golden autumn leaves.
A cloud of starlings rises from a field,
reforms & darts—a school of airborne fish.
His mind seeks out the real in the unreal--
the strings of universes that untwist
in a revelation that he gets
as an equation in the second minuet