The Family Monkey

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1. The Black Monkey My Babbles has a nasty knack Of keeping monkeys on her back. A great big black one comes and swings Right on her sash or pinny strings. It is a horrid thing and wild And makes her such a naughty child. She comes and stands beside my chair With almost an offended air And says: […]...
2. All In a Family Way My banks are all furnished with rags, So thick, even Freddy can’t thin ’em; I’ve torn up my old money-bags, Having little or nought to put in ’em. My tradesman are smashing by dozens, But this is all nothing, they say; For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins, So, it’s all in the family way. My […]...
3. Touched my family Even from afar came shouts of recognition Joyful voices rang across the years disdained and Faces of our childhood unforgot fit instantly familiar names; Voices still the same despite the extra grey, the extra lines, Like sacred family metaphors not blurred with passing time. Uncles greeted cousins, nieces hailed their aunts in private spaces Kept […]...
4. The Family The dark things of the wood Are coming from their caves, Flexing muscle. They browse the orchard, Nibble the sea of grasses Around our yellow rooms, Scarcely looking in To see what we are doing And if they still know us. We hear them, or think we do: The muzzle lapping moonlight, The tooth in […]...
5. The Junk Man I AM glad God saw Death And gave Death a job taking care of all who are tired Of living: When all the wheels in a clock are worn and slow and The connections loose And the clock goes on ticking and telling the wrong time From hour to hour And people around the house […]...
6. Tortoise Family Connections On he goes, the little one, Bud of the universe, Pediment of life. Setting off somewhere, apparently. Whither away, brisk egg? His mother deposited him on the soil as if he were no more than droppings, And now he scuffles tinily past her as if she were an old rusty tin. A mere obstacle, He […]...
7. The duel The gingham dog and the calico cat Side by side on the table sat; ‘T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!) Nor one nor t’ other had slept a wink! The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate Appeared to know as sure as fate There was going to be a terrible spat. […]...
8. Manners For a Child of 1918 My grandfather said to me As we sat on the wagon seat, “Be sure to remember to always Speak to everyone you meet.” We met a stranger on foot. My grandfather’s whip tapped his hat. “Good day, sir. Good day. A fine day.” And I said it and bowed where […]...
9. My Cuckoo Clock I bought a cuckoo clock And glad was I To hear its tick and tock, Its dulcet cry. But Jones, whose wife is young And pretty too, Winced when that bird gave tongue: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! I have a lady friend Whom I would wed, For dalliance should end In bridal bed. Until the thought occurred: […]...
10. The Rose Family – Song 1 O flower at my window Why blossom you so fair, With your green and purple cup Upturned to sun and air? ‘I bloom, blithesome Bessie, To cheer your childish heart; The world is full of labor, And this shall be my part.’ Whirl, busy wheel, faster, Spin, little thread, spin; The sun shines fair without, […]...
11. Responsibilities – Introduction Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end, Old Dublin merchant “free of the ten and four” Or trading out of Galway into Spain; Old country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend, A hundred-year-old memory to the poor; Merchant and scholar who have left me blood That has not passed through […]...
12. Balloon I bought my little grandchild Ann A bright balloon, And I was such a happy man To hear her croon. She laughed and babbled with delight, So gold its glow, As by a thread she held it tight, Then let it go. As if it gloried to be free It climbed the sky; But oh […]...
13. Peekabo, I Almost See You Middle-aged life is merry, and I love to Lead it, But there comes a day when your eyes Are all right but your arm isn’t long Enough To hold the telephone book where you can read it, And your friends get jocular, so you go To the oculist, And of all your friends he is […]...
14. A Pastoral Just as the sun was setting Back of the Western hills Grandfather stood by the window Eating the last of his pills. And Grandmother, by the cupboard, Knitting, heard him say: “I ought to have went to the village To fetch some more pills today.” Then Grandmother snuffled a teardrop And said. “It is jest […]...
15. Three Balls JABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls. When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation: A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone, And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left […]...
16. Thompson's Lunch Room Grand Central Station Study in Whites Wax-white Floor, ceiling, walls. Ivory shadows Over the pavement Polished to cream surfaces By constant sweeping. The big room is coloured like the petals Of a great magnolia, And has a patina Of flower bloom Which makes it shine dimly Under the electric lamps. Chairs are ranged in rows Like sepia seeds […]...
17. The Family Hinemoa, Tui, Maina, All of them were born together; They are quite an extra special Set of babies wax and leather. Every day they took an airing; Mummy made them each a bonnet; Two were cherry, one was yellow With a bow of ribbon on it. Really, sometimes we would slap them, For if ever […]...
18. Tick-Tock Tick-tocking in my ear My dollar clock I hear. ‘Arise,’ it seems to say: ‘Behold another day To grasp the golden key Of Opportunity; To turn the magic lock Tick-tock! ‘Another day to gain Some goal you sought in vain; To sing a sweeter song, Perchance to right a wrong; To win a height unscaled […]...
19. Refrigerator, 1957 More like a vault you pull the handle out And on the shelves: not a lot, And what there is (a boiled potato In a bag, a chicken carcass Under foil) looking dispirited, Drained, mugged. This is not A place to go in hope or hunger. But, just to the right of the middle Of […]...
20. The Rose Family The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple’s a rose, And the pear is, and so’s The plum, I suppose. The dear only know What will next prove a rose. You, of course, are a rose But were always a rose....
21. The Rose Family – Song II O lesson well and wisely taught Stay with me to the last, That all my life may better be For the trial that is past. O vanity, mislead no more! Sleep, like passions, long! Wake, happy heart, and dance again To the music of my song! O summer days, flit fast away, And bring the […]...
22. Death in the Family They call it stroke. Two we loved were stunned By that same blow of cudgel Or axe to the brow. Lost on the earth They left our circle Broken. One spent five months Falling from our grasp Mute, her grace, wit, Beauty erased. Her green eyes gazed at us As if asking, as if aware, […]...
23. The Gift “He gave her class. She gave him sex.” Katharine Hepburn on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers He gave her money. She gave him head. He gave her tips on “aggressive growth” mutual funds. She gave him a red rose and a little statue of eros. He gave her Genesis 2 (21-23). She gave him Genesis […]...
24. The Legend of Evil I This is the sorrowful story Told when the twilight fails And the monkeys walk together Holding their neighbours’ tails: “Our fathers lived in the forest, Foolish people were they, They went down to the cornland To teach the farmers to play. “Our fathers frisked in the millet, Our fathers skipped in the wheat, Our […]...
25. 'Twas comfort in her Dying Room ‘Twas comfort in her Dying Room To hear the living Clock A short relief to have the wind Walk boldly up and knock Diversion from the Dying Theme To hear the children play But wrong the more That these could live And this of ours must die....
26. Clock-O'-Clay In the cowslip pips I lie, Hidden from the buzzing fly, While green grass beneath me lies, Pearled with dew like fishes’ eyes, Here I lie, a clock-o’-clay, Waiting for the time o’ day. While the forest quakes surprise, And the wild wind sobs and sighs, My home rocks as like to fall, On its […]...
27. The Jumblies I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be […]...
28. The Proud Farmer [In memory of E. S. Frazee, Rush County, Indiana] Into the acres of the newborn state He poured his strength, and plowed his ancient name, And, when the traders followed him, he stood Towering above their furtive souls and tame. That brow without a stain, that fearless eye Oft left the passing stranger wondering To […]...
29. First We Take Manhattan They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom For trying to change the system from within I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. I’m guided by a signal in the heavens I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin I’m guided by the beauty of our […]...
30. Almost taste the flavour It was a fat-tyred 4WD utility hard back, The sort of ute you’d expect a contractor To drive, except it was plastered with tacky Stickers, and no genuine subby does that. It snailed down the Range at 30KmH, girl-like, Braking every bend, the donkey driver Sending bad karma, wandering double white Lines again and again. […]...
31. When Dacey rode the Mule ‘TWAS to a small, up-country town, When we were boys at school, There came a circus with a clown, Likewise a bucking mule. The clown announced a scheme they had Spectators for to bring – They’d give a crown to any lad Who’d ride him round the ring. And, gentle reader, do not scoff Nor […]...
32. My Fathers, The Baltic Along the strand stones, Busted shells, wood scraps, Bottle tops, dimpled And stainless beer cans. Something began here A century ago, A nameless disaster, Perhaps a voyage To the lost continent Where I was born. Now the cold winds Of March dimple The gray, incoming Waves. I kneel On the wet earth Looking for a […]...
33. The Idea of Ancestry Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black Faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand- Fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, Cousins (1st and 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare Across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know Their dark eyes, they know mine. I know […]...
34. Recuerdo WE were very tired, we were very merry­ We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable­ But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table, We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon; And the whistles kept blowing, and the […]...
35. The Centenarian Great Grandfather was ninety-nine And so it was our one dread, That though his health was superfine He’d fail to make the hundred. Though he was not a rolling stone No moss he seemed to gather: A patriarch of brawn and bone Was Great Grandfather. He should have been senile and frail Instead of hale […]...
36. Fergus Falling He climbed to the top Of one of those million white pines Set out across the emptying pastures Of the fifties – some program to enrich the rich And rebuke the forefathers Who cleared it all at once with ox and axe – Climbed to the top, probably to get out Of the shadow Not […]...
37. Alzheimer's My grandmother’s teeth stare at her From a mason jar on the nightstand. The radio turns itself on, Sunlight crawls through the window, And she thinks she feels her bright blue eyes Rolling out her head. She’s certain her blood has turned to dirt, That beetles haunt the dark hollow of her bones. The clock […]...
38. Mrs. Kessler Mr Kessler, you know, was in the army, And he drew six dollars a month as a pension, And stood on the corner talking politics, Or sat at home reading Grant’s Memoirs; And I supported the family by washing, Learning the secrets of all the people From their curtains, counterpanes, shirts and skirts. For things […]...
39. Twelve O'Clock Mother, I do want to leave off my lessons now. I have been at my Book all the morning. You say it is only twelve o’clock. Suppose it isn’t any later; Can’t you ever think it is afternoon when it is only twelve O’clock? I can easily imagine now that the sun has reached the […]...
40. Where Shall We Go? Waiting for her in the usual bar He finds she’s late again. Impatience frets at him, But not the fearful, half-sweet pain he knew So long ago. That cherished perturbation is replaced By styptic irritation And, under that, a cold Dark current of dejection moves That this is so. There was a time when all […]...