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.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: R.F.

Lately R.F. has had trouble sleeping.
He’ll wander through the mansion’s twenty rooms
brooding—trying to struggle with believing
that it all could fall apart. Who knew that doom
was buried in the fever of those deals?
(Well some folks did --he fired them of course
for telling him the numbers were unreal
fantasies. He hated negative reports.)
Then three trillion dollars worth of pension funds,
retirement accounts, personal savings
evaporated. Though he still has millions
stashed in his parachute, he’s craving
absolution for believing it so long:
I’m paid a million bucks a month. I can’t be wrong.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Cole

The song kept ending with no resolution--
just hung there in the air & putrefied.
For the life of him a viable solution
eluded every chord change that he tried.
Myrra called last night, so of course he
is suffering the old heart burn again.
Her with her flirty ambiguities...
Yes? No? Now? Not now? OK then when?
He got up from the piano--made a drink.
Why did he let her get to him? Why couldn’t he
just let it go? These days he couldn’t think
straight. Why should it take so long
to write an ending to a stupid song?

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Walter

Walter kept a twenty dollar bill
in his wallet--hoping it would reproduce.
(In self-help books the world bends to our will.)
His wife told him that he had a screw loose.
He warned her that her negativity
would queer the process so she just kept quiet.
Positive thinking really works. You’d see
yourself you know if you would only try it.

Sure enough the wallet filled with money.
(Mostly change from random cash transactions)
His wife secretly found it pretty funny.
But the joke fell flat as she watched his reaction
to his diagnosis--how he tried
using happy thoughts to fight the cancer ‘til he died.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Dean’s Advice

Why’d you have to tell her she was wrong?
So she was--so what? You needed that last word
so bad? OK--it is a stupid song.
You can think it--just don’t say it. Der!
Text her right away. Apologize.
Play it like the whole thing is your fault.
Look at her with your Sad Puppy eyes
& wait her out. Eventually she’ll call.
Just avoid being an asshole for three days
& she’ll get all nostalgic for your good side.
Then you can go back to your evil ways.
Trust me. Everything will be alright.
But having said all that I find it kinda scary
that you’d fall for someone who likes Katy Perry.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Virg

He’d kept up with the horn long after high school
jazz band--not well mind you--but still playing--
mostly for himself--laying out cool
lines of lazy blues. So watch him swaying
to Bird who’s ripping up his radio
as the old car rumbles through the prairie night--
grooving on the way the man can go
into time itself & somehow fight
his way back out again alive (Bird Lives!)
He’ll need own that record just to hear
the song over & over ‘til it gives
up a few good secrets & his ear
can lead him to the Bird that he can be
(minus all that virtuosity

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Freeze

That joint used to jump back in the day.
Cats be blowing jazz you wou’n’t believe.
Chicks so cool you freeze yo lips, OK?
Man--those sounds--those cats--those nights--that scene..
Cat I knew then could out Mingus Mingus.
He DROVE that bass like it was some hot rod.
I’d just sit there starin at his fingers..
Cats like that--you know they touched by God.
He could have been great but smack took him down
before he could become the next big thing.
That scene is gone now--nobody’s around
no more. Just tourists & them kids & their nose rings.
I’d go back there but fuckit what’s the point?
So help me out man--spare a cat a joint?

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Alyss & Kurt

He runs by the cafe every Thursday morning--
6:15--the highlight of her day.
Making coffee drinks for six hours can get boring--
then--right on schedule--he’s coming her way.
In her mind he’s naked as a kouros
long hair riding the air--those monk-like eyes…
A brief moment of mental rigor mortus--
if just once he stopped & came inside…
But he is in his zone--bound for the bay--
along Marina--the Presidio--
then home & shower--start his working day.
He’s thinking--Thursdays, running by Roma Espresso
he keeps seeing this cute girl at the bar.
He should stop in--but hasn’t yet so far.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Sonnets From Other Lives: Thanh

His father looked up from his magazine
& checked her out. He lingered on the boobs
too long for her comfort. She could see
that it would be a long night. Was it too
late run away--make an escape?
His mother called out from kitchen, Donny
come & getcher girl a drink. You got here late
& now you got t’ catch up.
Before long she
had had two whiskeys but they didn’t help.
Resentment & an alcoholic funk
slowly filled the room. Why dintcha tell
us you was marryin a gook?
His father’s drunk-
en question lay there like reeking turd.
Don said nothing. She knew then it wouldn’t work.