Chris Corona Daly
monkeyfesto
I am a surf monkey
a phone monkey
an off beat/beat off monkey
a sometimes money-making monkey
a well-rested monkey with a running car,
good rubber & a gas card
a dangerous monkey with time
a marijuana monkey
a death monkey
a map monkey
a monkey alone
an abstract monkey
a paper monkey
a gorky monkey
a monkey from the past
a double monkey
a monkey coming on to a girl in the band
ultimately a stage door monkey like my father’s father though he eventually “straightened out”
a peace monkey
a photograph monkey
a monkey for shubert
an o’hara monkey, frank & mary
a monkey with a fear of heights
a drive-by monkey
a monkey with no suit
a depressed monkey though not clinically w/subsequent lack of lost vision
a science monkey wary of experiment
a monkey perhaps more fucked up in the early family stages than in society
a monkey-in-law even posthumously
the best monkey up in the mountains one year
an errant monkey
a shower monkey
a fantasy monkey in bo derek’s tarzan
a monkey in real life interested in two women with little resemblance to bo or each other
a monkey of letters
an angel’s flight monkey
a beer & wine monkey mostly
a play-going monkey
a leading monkey
a nose monkey
a jail monkey
a resume monkey
a cab monkey
a monkey of the coast
a miami monkey in that town’s earlier days as an exile capital
an unmarried monkey
a monkey business monkey
a monkey with a good right arm and a good left hand
a self-made con monkey still surprised when anyone is fooled
a news monkey
the monkey of the moment, the hour, etc.
a monkey who wakes to the sound of tin cans being crushed out by the dumpster
a monkey with a small 2nd floor poetry-laundering operation
a tv monkey
a monkey forever newly indigenous to the california region
a blue monkey
a published monkey
a monkey without a medical or vacation plan
a monkey without a wrench
a philosophical monkey minus the aura but plus the bullshit
a monkey of habit & habitant answerable only to jungle law
which is to say jungle lawyers & judges
a free monkey
a real monkey
a monkey with a cause
a darwin monkey & a freudian to boot
a lucky monkey with a working music box & shoes & no broken bones
a borstal monkey one night in covent garden
an ice chest monkey at old man’s
the monkey of aran complete with scary shadows
a regular monkey
a monkey of no grease
the monkey at the door
monkey, esquire
of the spheres
blunk blang blong bloonk
jaco was playing deep &/or
showy vertical and horizontal
wunderkind chords & 20,000
of us were listening LA-style
sipping & smoking & chatting &
in mid-set he pitched a fit
& we turned against him
though some of us were
probably booing the booers
& the mc came out w/o his cigar
and put an arm around
the pastorioso’s shoulder &
w/o condescension led him
off into the back of the white shell
hung like a working class dashboard
with black bunny logos.
so we were pissed saddened and
not shocked a year or so later
when he pulled the same shit
at a small gig in florida, and
like the consul in cuernavaca
before him got his soul tossed
into the barranca. tonight
my ear gloms onto his 3-legged
bass on joni’s restless daughter
album, then the epilogue of
mozart’s don giovanni
then the 2nd movement
of haydn’s 98th said to be in memory
of the newer musician,
a farewell to the future,
which one has outlasted, briefly.
my dick is not tricky
I quit wetting the bed
i quit school
i quit surfing
(I regress in all these matters)
i quit going to theaters
i quit driving cab
i quit things ok
i quit calling
i quit listening
i quit the sunday paper
i quit shaving
i quit an identity or two
i quit when i’m ahead and if not when i’m behind
don’t continue this on my account
pray undo this zipper
fast quit: i was a lunchtime b.t. at charlie
brown’s, nerd baby manager interviewed women to wear
waitress skirts up to their ass, one came straight from
the interview booth to the bar, i was leaving but heard
she stayed long enough to get corked enough to barely
make it out with the guy she picked up, i was inspired
by her example to get fired shortly thereafter
i quit capital letters if it suits me though
i seldom get back to e.e.
i quit the underwear
i quit the cough syrup
i quit the lsd
i quit breathing till i get back to the
surface of the water
i quit waiting for a good waiting for godot
i often quit keeping score
i quit sleeping straight through the night
i quit after the 1st 3 dropped $100 bills
(3 or 4 more I fought a drunken fare
to stuff back in his pocket what he
was determined to give away
in the joint he was about to enter)
the poor have not quit stealing from same
I’m only fair if not pure
on the way early to the barn
i quit burning rubber
you talking to moi?
“i’ve paid all my life for being
jewish and for being short. that’s
why i am like i am.”
“i’ve paid all my life for being
an exception to the woman’s role
and for being a cockney. i’ve been
in nine mental hospitals. look at me.”
“what about him?”
they both turned.
“manufactured,” they agreed.