You are the clapping monkey
You are the restless throb of dusty city streets
You are the children running around after the school bell
And the stubborn tree that has lived in the neighbourhood for fifty years

However, you are not clipped footsteps of harried workers
Or the diligent, clockwork-like ebb of traffic
And you are certainly not tranquil duck in the middle of the city park
There is just no way that you are the tranquil duck

It might interest you to know that
I am the neat, color-coded filing cabinet
I also happen to be worn-out recliner beckoning in the evening’s light
And the ever-winding, deserted country road

I also happen to be the free-floating paper bag
But don’t worry, you are still the clapping monkey
You will always be that clapping monkey
And I am the enchanted audience.

A child did walk along the lake
On the other side
A monster did slowly wake

With claws that could rake
Blood and a hairy hide
A child walked along the lake

With soft hands that bake
Sugar cookies and intent bona fide
A monster did slowly wake

Repulsive cries that snake
Into dreams nationwide
A child did walk along the lake

Remarkable songs that make
Magic become applied
A monster did slowly wake

Joining together at sanity’s sake
Switching at the continental divide
A child did walk along the lake
A monster did slowly wake

She sat glorified
Among rotting leaves
On a rooftop ledge
Reigning over streets
Where children don't believe in "someday"

Each day, she greets the sky
With a painted pink smile
Her perfectly sized body
A taunt to adolescent girls below

Gusts of violent winds
Descent from that palace
Into the lap of a dreaming bookworm

These days she wears a torn dress,
Broken limbs splayed on a glorified bookcase

Day 1, I walked into the library
Day 7, I allowed myself to touch the spines
Day  10 I started on the first book
Day 20 I finished the 30th book
Day 39 I encountered friends more dear than real
Day 59 I leave,
Carrying the ghost-books.

Pre-nothingness, we created
A song of immense proportions
It entranced people until they died.

Nothingness, we created
Pictures worth no words
It created a vaudeville show no one escaped.

Post-nothingness we created
A blanket, white, wooly, slightly scratchy
It stretched over sleeping, hungry children

She didn't know anyone with cancer,
She was lucky in that way.
She knew people with diabetes,
TB and  heart failures

She knows people who live
Ten days, sometimes less
Streets where death is
a matter of daily life

She knows people poisoned
by lead, by hunger, by greed
She knows many people
who will not live until the age of 20.

"Who knows someone with cancer?"
asks the motivational speaker
Her hand is the only one down
She's lucky, in that way.

Paper unfolded is by far
the most beautiful possibility
Before it is folded
Twisted, refolded, untwisted
Doubled, tripled, bent and unbent
To be beaten into a form
A claustrophobic form.