hpn

Home Planet News Online
                                                               The Literary Review
                                                                          Issue 8

Page 45

                                                                                                                                                                                       Swipe left         Swipe down

                                 To Grinder Monkey Smiles

To all mothers

everywhere

Why do you part your legs
toward
the 21st Century
Didn’t you know
That this is our final station
Where the monkey sits and waits.
What you don’t know,
He was born in the middle of
The rat market
Where all deals are made
And all sales are final
No refunds.
The only price is all certainty
That tomorrow comes
At all.

This is the city where the projector always runs
Jokers inflict their performances
on indifferent audience
Who are too determined to feed at the feet
Of the imp of the absurd.

Maybe we should have planned our escape
Before the monkey smiled,
Instead of wandering like dumb beasts
That serve as an exhibit on some distant safari
Under the burning glow of
industry.

Industry,

Yes
it gave us the TV and black lung.
And
Yes
we should be grateful
What other system allows you to own a Statesman?
Or
Pay for the right to soil your water
Or
Blacken someone else’s?
How else can you explain the waters’?
And this century’s
Taste of curdled milk
That sits in some hoarder’s fridge
Waiting for the next great war.
Everything that blooms
In the forest where we once played
Is consumed
Immediately
Now a days.

On America
Which is the land of the disposable hero
And disposable victim
Where do you think your babes will land?
The hoarder?
The fool with a loser’s dream?
The second-story man
Who suddenly finds a good job beating tenants
For some cheap landlord
Whose smile hides a felony?
Or the industrialist who wallows in his moneyed hole
Or grows fat feeding on the blue collar?

Maybe the hero
will be torn apart for touching the wrong ass
Only to fade from the television
to reappear on those pages set aside for those who overstayed their welcome?
And did you think you could
Swim in this ocean of equations?
This is elemental my dear.
The only outcome when you try to defy these waters
Is a riptide that will pull you under?
What role do you really think you will play?
We all move like fish swimming in tumultuous waters
But too many of your babes think
Like a family stuck in heavy traffic
Crying that they are going nowhere.
This is where the deals are made to move on
and the monkey shits himself laughing
It’s called bad luck.

                                                     2

Mothers everywhere
Listen
The grinder box is growing louder
In the voice of antiquity.
Don’t you hear it over the gears of the midnight carousel.
The monkey won’t be moving from window
To window
collecting change
So, you better teach your babes to dance
And dance well
And accept their names
As born schmucks,
Or perish by them.
The role of the new grinder monkeys
Is for those born into an already spent life,
He still pulls those strings
Thick as rope
That tighten around the nation
Of the heart.

After all
All the celebrations have ended.
The holidays have been cancelled this year
According to the 12 O’ clock news.
The sold president claims we can’t afford them
And he suggests flagellation
As a replacement to a day off.
This is what happens when the doors to
Bellevue swing open
The lunatics cast their vote
Just before med time.
And this is why the birth you now inflict
On the spent generation
Is a celebration in itself
Of turning
Your sacrifice to the loaded hour
Where the party of martyrs
Continues.

© Zaadia Colón: Rothko Inspired 25" x 25"
             © Zaadia Colón: Rothko Inspired 25" x 25"




                                                     3

Finally
Under the sour winds
That blow in the coming shadow
Of the kakocracy
Nothing grows
But the desert
That brings
dry dreams of your children.
But at least your sheets are clean.

                                                        Matthew Abuelo__