<\/p>\n
Give the photographers no more
\nops like this denatured rhesus monkey
\nturned tragic clown. Jammed against
\na man-made wall, he would fade out
\nof his overexposed life,
\nbut a chain collars him to a bike;
\nneck and prop bound in motion\u2019s<\/p>\n
tug\u2019o war–he\u2019s screwed
\n in black and white. <\/p>\n
The trainee\u2019s eyes arc beyond the frame
\nat empty space where the trainer\u2019s cropped
\nface has gone. Only form looms\u2014a sleeve drips
\na taloned hand, the other floats a whip, set
\n to whale the air, to etch flesh.<\/p>\n
<\/em>Re-versed by life\u2019s circus run <\/em><\/strong>The ripped-off rhesus would opt for rainforest gilt– But the nightmare hovers, still. natural light, shutters again at the origin–the first link where–humans excepted–the quest Grant it, we humans are cagey lovers Now switch the mirror self-recognition trial at the living brain, marvel too In the span where city meets jungle Albert, the first monkey astronaut licks dew <\/p>\n <\/strong> I<\/p>\n Hot equatorial winds spiral, <\/strong>co-mix, currents whirl One-hundred million tons, offhand vortex of squashed cups, rush downstream, gush non-stop into weeks months years Left to our own ends, refuse all ends where life began II<\/p>\n High noon on too-calm waters what Charles Moore sighted reckless freight carriers struck running off with my peace of mind, a tsunami sea foam hurling up the aquatic dead flotsam roar curling into a death-mute awake from sleep\u2019s ringed underbelly strangling III<\/p>\n Work quick\u2014too slow\u2014tight-fisted The World Packaging Organization Morning breaks on blister-packed muffins Growth scents the air with doublespeak: Monkey Training for a Circus<\/strong>
\nthis old world primate\u2019s ancient name
\nevokes Homeric epic: Thracian King Rhesus,
\nat Troy, wrapped in gold and silver sleep
\nand the raider\u2019s night-work ripping away
\nhis sweet life as a nightmare hovered above his head. <\/em><\/p>\n
\nunruly hand-over-hand, would scale
\na braided rope of vined sun to lick silver dew,
\nthen flush with fruit and grubs run the holy wild
\n alongside Hanuman.<\/p>\n
\n A muse meant for play
\n scares<\/p>\n
\nan undreamed, human other\u2026..Begin<\/p>\n
\nforged. See Darwin\u2019s evolution
\nto closeted primatologist, his descent
\nto Yerkes National Primate Research Center<\/p>\n
\ngrants the vivisector licence. <\/p>\n
\nof hypotheses, crafters of neutrality
\nif the white coat suits as canny cover
\nthen self splits from method,
\nif the modus delivers a cold, hard, corpus
\nthen suffer not when we turn the monkey
\ninto a meta-cog in science\u2019s zeal.<\/p>\n
\n reflect
\nas you starve the abject subject to comply,
\nisolate the rhesus infant in Harlow\u2019s
\npit of despair<\/em>, breed infection–
\nextract the motherlode antigen.
\nWith end in mind, slice through
\nspinal nerves, crack skulls open
\n marvel<\/p>\n
\nat the rhesus clone, Tetra;
\ninto her twin artfully breed
\nthe jelly fish gene so under
\na giant glazed eye, cells glow
\n know
\nyour blinding cerebral brilliance. <\/p>\n
\na cropped head spies the bloody line
\nand feels its way back to body\u2014a gory grace
\nguides the genome home
\n as out in space<\/p>\n
\nfrom a star, as the fugitive EP13
\nwho flew over the cuckoo\u2019s nest beholds
\nYerkes in ruins\u2014overgrown, reversed
\nto wild\u2026..Begin<\/p>\nNorth Pacific Garbage Gyre<\/h3>\n
\nwhip round the North Pacific Gyre once an ocean dervish
\nnow a concentric garbage swirl<\/p>\n
\ncrushed bottles, bobbing Ziploc bags, fused six-pack rings,
\ntwisting dolls, balls, Bics, yesterday\u2019s plastic bits<\/p>\n
\nthe collective unconscious glut, caught in river\u2019s junked maw
\ndisgorged into pollution\u2019s Sargasso.<\/p>\n
\nin once-sane waters–on our aqua sea face we pitch
\nunknown, unseen, afar a new rubbish continent. <\/p>\n
\na manmade mantle bars the sun
\nthe autotrophs future darkens, I know
\nbut don\u2019t show me<\/p>\n
\n–no more pristine ocean, but a Pacific
\nvomiting endless plastic–no
\n don\u2019t show me<\/p>\n
\nby the storm\u2019s o\u2019ertaking wings
\n<\/em>the candy-coloured crate\u2019s sway and topple
\nquieten the jetsam<\/p>\n
\nof unliquidated Nike sneakers, rubber ducks
\nhockey gloves, socking the brain
\ndon\u2019t show me<\/p>\n
\ncrazy miles of branded bags\u2014salt-thinned
\nstrands that mock jellyfish and poison sea turtles
\nsilence the ocean\u2019s<\/p>\n
\nconch sinking, abysmal, beneath
\nthe whole caboodle–no lifeline
\ntomorrow I\u2019ll come around<\/p>\n
\nseabirds and in the wake of sail boats strung
\non the horizon, I\u2019ll find myself\u2014missing, at sea
\ndownhill from everything.<\/p>\n
\nincessant hustle; disposable suns
\ndawn as the world\u2019s poor pull chariots
\nof cheap goods across the sky. <\/p>\n
\ntakes the on-the go-lifestyle\u2019s<\/em> compulsive pulse,
\ngraphs the time-poor consumer\u2019s <\/em>steadfast
\nunconcern for environmental-cide.<\/p>\n
\nafternoon pops clamshell containers
\nhousing huge, flavour-looted berries
\n triple-wrapped evenings muffle trash bins.<\/p>\n
\nrecycle, rebuy, regurgitate, remember
\nthere\u2019s opportunity in the breakdown
\nof the sit-down family dinner
\nand while families break down
\nplastic is forever. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\n Give the photographers no more
\nops like this denatured rhesus monkey
\nturned tragic clown. Jammed against
\na man-made wall, he would fade out
\nof his overexposed life,
\nbut a chain collars him to a bike;
\nneck and prop bound in motion\u2019s
\ntug\u2019o war–he\u2019s screwed
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in black and white.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3111,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/3111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue23\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}