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.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

215
Sonnets From Other Lives: Lindsay

Fuck this—she says & clicks the train of x’s
that closes all the spreadsheets & Outlook
crap that she’s been slogging through. A text is
buzzing at her. She cries--I will brook
no more—shuts down, gets up, & draws a bath.
Next a heavy pour of cab-merlot,
before her inner raging psychopath
gets the upper hand. Step three: she goes
through her playlists. Chopin. Can she handle
a book? Sense & Sensibility--
if she can keep her eyes open. As candles
burn aromatherapeutically,
she sinks & sighs & would’ve been left alone
had she not neglected to silence her phone.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

215
Sonnets From Other Lives: Jerimiah

He’s positive his negativity
has driven her away, as he well knew
it would, because eventually
it always does. So why does he do
this? Sabotage relationships?
It’s just that he keeps noticing things &
he can’t keep his mouth shut. It slips
out. The flaw. The fault. The failure. Then
everybody’s beautiful illusions
burst like overfilled birthday balloons.
He’s come to the uncomfortable conclusion
he’s a drag to be around. He’s out of tune
with this culture with all that positive thinking
people do to hide the truth. We are all sinking.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

214
Sonnets From Other Lives: Alain

Outside on the street the wind bites shrewdly.
Alain tucks his head into his collar
& shuffles north into the wind. He’s rudely
reminded winter will be here. A scholar
of climatic prognostication,
with a specialty in arthritic barometrics,
Alain has had aching indications
that snow is imminent. He’ll need to get his
apartment re-supplied for the duration.
Golden maple leaves are swirling now
in the evening air. The tintinnabulation
of a rolling ashcan lid somehow
makes perfect sense to him today.
Everything will someday blow away.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

213
Sonnets From Other Lives: Marc & Luc

--Think back on the time before your birth.
Do those memories leave you traumatized?
--What transpired before my time on earth?
No I’m O.K.--not having been alive
at the time
…Marc pauses then adds—Der.
Luc goes on tho’—But that’s just my point.
Why fear death? It hasn’t yet occurred
to you you’ve more than cased the joint.
You’ve non-existed more than you’ve existed.
I’d think you could get used to it with time.
--I want my afterlife! Let me be lifted
out of here & into paradise!
--You are so egocentric, Marc. See you
can’t conceive of a universe without you.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

212
Sonnets From Other Lives: Mab

Let’s hand the painted room off to the night,
to shadows & to your imagination.
The amber ambience of the night light
& your mind’s eye’s iris’s dilations
open new doors to your REMs
as you inress into wondrous strange
states where gravity is optional &
things appear familiar yet changed
by memory & your free firing neurons
‘til at light you wake with vague nostalgia…
Would you could remember where you’d gone--
but morning funk, miasma & cephalgia
have set your memory on overwrite
& you’ve forgotten--you were out with me last night.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

211
Sonnets From Other Lives: Mac & Marti

Well that was awkward. Mac closes the door.
Gawd. What was she thinking? Marti sighs-
collapsing on the sectional. No more
dinner parties with that woman. I
can’t deal with the squirm factor . I try--
but when she gets so drunk like that & hits
on every hominid that bears a y
chromosome…
Tom laughs & goes & gets
the lone surviving bottle of red wine.
Here love. Drink up & tell us all about it.
Marti takes the proffered glass. I find
it all so bloody sad.
Then as he sits
down & starts to rub her feet, she adds,
All the poor dear wants is what we have.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

209
Sonnets From Other Lives: Murphy

Why is it some guys—they have all the luck?
--Murphy asks himself a lot these days.
Everything I do ends up all fucked
up one way or another.
You could say
it was the story of his life. In school
he was the guy who always would get caught.
Other dudes would pull stuff—act the fool
& walk away scott free. It’s like he got
branded at birth with a guilty leer.
Now he’s driving home at 3 AM
with blue lights flashing in the rear view mirror.
Aw shit—he mutters—here we go again.
& he just KNOWS the cop will find the drugs.
You're the windshield sometimes. Mostly Murph's the bug.