Shoot it if it rhymes

Mind the Monkey

Where does he go?

What does he touch?

Who does he bare
his sleaze-yellow teeth at?

What's his perch?

Rain-gobbled bark
of wilting mangosteen,

rotting leaves layered
with dead drying dung,

alabaster alcove, gilded spire,

driftwood dynasty
or mossy rooftop?

What does he hold?
Memories woven lazily
into gossamer globes,
luminous and warm?
Fear, singeing the skin
off barrels of wasted hope?

What does he speak?
Elegies bursting with manic laughter,
Sufi-words stranded as beads
on shiny rolling string,
incense swirling up, soothing
raw, ragged nerve-tips?

Mind, the monkey -
cageless, wanton, naked beast;
first to appear
and last
to leave.