Tall and Tailless:
Primate Pride
Darwin and Mickey Spillane,
Cormac McCarthy and De Sade,
nailed us, brother.
Apes indeed,
some of us more than others,
apes in suits,
apes piloting machines,
apes in love,
seventy simians marching
in perfect drill order, all
with their Space Odyssey
femurs on their shoulder,
at the ready;
apes on wall street,
under it, over it , in it,
apes on the subway
mugging the elderly,
apes in the park,
after midnight, wearing
motorcycle leathers
and carrying pink handkerchiefs;
apes in the desert, on the prairies,
holding public office,
writing those caveman ads,
apes in scuba gear,
in hard hats, climbing the oil
rigs in the gulf, smeared with
oil and blood and cash,
apes on the stage spouting
the classics unintelligibly,
apes on rollercoasters on
roller skates with no safety
belts, apes in the forest
growing huge and smarter
every decade, apes in the
ice, under the water grabbing
the big trout, bitch-slapping
beavers; apes in college teaching
all the classes, apes in tanks
spitting out irradiated shells
like peanut husks, apes in
the Air Force, in gliders,
in lighter-than-air craft,
apes in the police force,
the vanguard, the killing
end of the riot squads,
apes in the Vatican,
wearing miters and ravaging
choir boys, apes in the
Mormon Tabernacle
choir hitting the low notes.
Apes in my family, and in
my mirror, needing dental
work and hair styling;
and white apes in the
public libraries watching
porn on public computers.
Glenn Buttkus September 2010
2 comments:
Glenn,
Chuck Darwin may have influenced “Cormic” which is a tad comic for the heavy “Cormac.”
I like the swing-time or rock n’ roll of the poem. This is a good repetitive poem aping human social games and styles. Makes some funny images. I did get stopped, however, at the “roller skates without safety belts”—okay if you want the transferred epithets from rollercoaster.
David
I especially like that one.
Judy
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