chase a monkey

Chase a monkey through your poem
let it swing through the stanzas to come.
Make it the piggy backing shadow
of your character’s dark desires.

Send it to the aid of an organ grinder,
where its dancing fills cups with coins
and keeps them in bananas and rum
lifetime friends, monkey and man.

With a bright moon rising
pursue your primate
through the dusty streets of Mysore
simply to conjure the heady scent of sandalwood
that permeates the hot night air.

When it stops to screech
or scratch its hips
with monkey fingers flapping,
screech back at it.
Dare to dodge
the tiny pellets of poo
it keeps flinging up
from beneath your words.

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Check out Big Tent Poetry, for excellent writing every week. This week we were asked to write a piece inspired by a favorite poet. Catch a Monkey is inspired by Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry, where he suggests dropping a mouse into a poem. A monkey dropped into mine.