"primates" poems
In this world, this imperfect world,
So many problems are born.
Everlasting conflict,
Which as a collective species,
we are torn.
Do animals have rights?
Is there a God?
Did we come from primates?
Is the answer to the problems war?
Everyone just shakes and nods.
We deserve to know,
What's going on in this show,
That we call life.
Is it too much to ask,
To have a chat,
With the man behind the mask?
Please don't stall,
Cause I can no longer take,
This truth withdrawal.
None of us are thinking,
We are all brothers after all.
Everyone shares the same planet,
We all drink the same water.
Can't we just peacefully share this big blue ball?
Everyone seems to want answers,
But they don't know who to ask.
Pious fools pray for the knowledge,
Citizens look towards the government,
Only to get the answer from a mask.
We deserve to know,
What's going on in this show,
That we call life.
Is it too much to ask,
To have a chat,
With the man behind the mask?
Please don't stall,
Cause I can no longer take,
This truth withdrawal.
Too many questions!
Even more answers!
They believe what they are told,
And go back to their daily routine,
Like hypothesized dancers!
That's why I just say,
QTriangle3=Jesus,
Makes more sense then the other ******** you feed us.
QTriangle3=Jesus,
Why don't you believe us?
QTriangle3=Jesus,
Your political answers are just lies,
To protect the nationalistic demise,
Of our country.
QTriangle3=Jesus,
Just tell us the ******* truth!
We deserve to know,
What's going on in this show,
That we call life.
Is it too much to ask,
To have a chat,
With the man behind the mask?
Please don't stall,
Cause I can no longer take,
This truth withdrawal.
Aug 8, 2011
Aug 8, 2011 at 1:08 PM UTC
…*in every visible character man differs less from the higher apes,
than these do from the lower members of the same order of Primates*.
Charles Darwin, 1871
The Other claims descent from apes
then acts like a violent monkey.
It pillages, it loots and rapes
performing as Satan’s flunkey.
Its actions bear the mark of Cain;
brandishing cameras, smashing things.
We feel its proto-human pain
yet dread the urban woe it brings.
It tries to justify, with words
its primal carnage, childish rage.
With anthropoid designs deferred
it struts the Darwinian stage.
The higher primate government
rewards them well in ripe bananas
for wrecking their environment
(jungle as well as savannas).
Their mate selection (naturally):
a semi-simian solution:
intercoursing sexually,
to hasten their evolution.
The wombs enlarge—they drop their young
then text their friends while getting high.
They swing from tree-tops, fling their dung,
while down below the humans sigh.
Sep 17, 2015
Sep 17, 2015 at 7:00 PM UTC
This planet orbits a yellow sun like ours.
It is in the Optimum Zone to support life.
Sure enough it has a wide variety of flora and fauna.
Highly intelligent life has evolved in its seas and oceans.
Its continents, however, are dominated by a species of primates.
Over the past 300 of the planet’s years they have developed
Some fairly high technology.
But they remain carnivores
Who regularly commit genocide.
They cut down swathes of natural forest
To grow chemically protected
Genetically modified nutrition-sources.
And they mine their planet empty
Of its mineral riches.
The planet’s ecosystem is being rapidly destroyed
By them.
Socially and psychologically they remain primitive.
Yet they possess the means to blow their world
To pieces.
With heavy heart I have to advise
We sign this planet
“No Entry”
For the foreseeable future.
“Forbidden” indeed.
A planet we call MW Orion 8478-3
That its natives call
That ever so common name:
“Earth”.
Paul Butters
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:07 AM UTC
Ethereal and Base a harmony so diametric a solid.
Wisdom's forgiveness lands to the unyielding new,
white spray on black lava, merging
elemental minerals in salt water.
Life the mediator, yearns for compromise
algea harvests sunlight at the hard shore, grows into plants
fish munch coral creating sand washing up, a tree's foothold creating soil...
can rock become Earth any other way?
Mother's beauty, an unknowable generous smile
and confident grace from the sun.
Ages
sitting wrinkled and depleted to her waist,
beauty transforms
into unknowable generous laughter alighting graciously from wise eyes,
like a flock of Heaven's doves so close to home
stirred by her running children: daughter and son.
All the while all the yearning is unrequited.
For her children, Beauty is vertigo,
painful reality rooted to the shore.
Eyes long for the horizon, Vision Country
between sky holding its breath and water measuring out patience,
The heart spills out futile on the crystalline sea,
but Sadness, belonging to clear water,
lightly buoys lonely Ecstasy,
Completes the voyage.
The Vision pairs selfless love with unmet desire,
opposites' harmony the firmament,
but the sound breaks from tension and the echoes fade,
and the senses footing gives way;
vertigo with dove's wings tied shut.
Descending minuscule between dissipation
falling through molecules of bliss,
and diffusing atoms of despair,
to the last remaining positive and negative
and the tension's silver thin wire between.
It cuts tied wings free,
slingshots the dove's soul back up,
at the last second, the tension's iridescent thread tangles loosely on her foot.
She hurtles back up through the scales of size:
Microns, amoeba, minnows, birds, primates, people,
over trees, looking down at cities, mountains, yet higher
borderless nations, green and sand continents,
and again all the crystalline blue seas.
The silver filament draws taut, holds the dove's ascent,
wings slowing in awe as she views Mother Gaea
her intensely brilliant sphere accompanied by vivid tiny stars.
in a cold cold soundless night...
Grandmother teaching her children to fly;
Beauty's yearning realized complete.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 8:52 PM UTC
cracked nose &
watching moose beside the river,
on video,
he cocoons himself
in room and drug elementals.
boy pupa.
boy biking thru fog
& urban light.
city mystics, city-wet faces.
primates.
he works the grill and grins
in back. lollipop jar.
he pours grease into trap or teeth of great beast.
bucket cathedral.
corpse of bird,
decomposing in the alleyway ravine.
he packs luggage for the exodus
to northern california.
wicker owl
burning in the woods on a solstice
drunk, or moon.
the fire & the girl & his tongue to her neck.
bathe;
drain the dirt and blood of weekend off
to porcelain.
combed hair.
to appear in the lawn of withered fruit.
he wheels his father to the zoo. the old man
is bent beneath a blanket and tapping his fingers
for elephants.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 3:01 AM UTC
I am a certified expert in the sequential pushing of buttons,
this pushing performed, on a good day, in concert with the
expensively purchased, somewhat rare mental model of
the workings of a recently commonplace variety of machine
dependent at its core on the minuscule presence of increasingly-rare
earth metals allowing for the conditional flow of groups of electrons.
These machines, like their precursors, are further dependent on
the supply of slightly less increasingly rare combustible material
for which armed conflicts are routinely fought and many have died.
My interest in the machines began at an early age,
enticed by the illusion of control, and on the whole,
I think, motivated by the idea that these machines
processing information, the core mechanism of reality,
might be used to create understanding.
In the interceding years, it is increasingly apparent to me
that while some are used for this purpose, most,
like most things around me, are controlled and engaged by
multi-personed organisms concerned primarily with:
1) self-preservation AND
2) the collection of, and limited divestment of,
unit notions of rarefied value, insured by the
existence of another similar organism valued for its
1) self- and nearby-environs preservation AND
2) recent track record of insuring continued relatively easy access
to the aforementioned important combustible materials.
—it is generally considered to people's credit that this notion
of value is thus-derived and no longer as frequently derived by virtue
of possessing a metal which, while of certain non-combustible use,
is basically just pretty rare and really, really shiny.
I find myself again shortly in a need of convincing such an organism
that my button pushing is of sufficient quality,
on sufficiently frequent good days,
that it should consider me a temporary part thereof and divest,
of itself to me, sufficient units of value that I might happily
continue to push buttons on its behalf in the pursuit of further units.
I am, for some reason, somewhat less than thrilled with this prospect
finding it, despite its marketability, a maybe less than important enterprise.
I am existentially concerned by the idea that my whole value may derive
from my button pushing, and is thus further dependent on
the availability of rare-earth metal and also-rare combustibles.
In some delusion of importance amongst 7 billion plus similar primates
and a unfathomably vast universe,
I thought you might be interested to know
Jan 21, 2014
Jan 21, 2014 at 4:56 PM UTC
A beauty that causes awe, that's your aim,
And a defence, this strategy called "it's all the same";
But there are cells for the marrow and cells for the brain,
And to call them similar seems rather quite insane.
Cause it takes mind to understand patience,
It takes defeat to finally accept the loss;
For only when all is lost, all can be regained;
That's the price to pay to understand the cost.
And if I didn't have that pill to swallow,
I'd call it bang for the money first thing tomorrow.
Around they gravitate like you're a shining star,
To take part and implode and beg a mighty roar;
It's a science for the desperate — no it ain't no art;
A beauty for the primates more than a beauty of the heart.
They slide down the usual paths of expansion
While we swim against pale currents of fog;
With my renounce I won't pay this ecstasy a call,
I won't beg a mighty roar, no I won't beg no more.
But if I didn't have that pill to swallow,
I'd call it bang for the money first thing tomorrow.
Now twice-spoken idioms might ring a bell or two
Like missed phone calls in the middle of the afternoon
I've gone out of my way to move out of the road
But I know that your fake beauty's just waiting to unfold
It's too easy to cast the blame, too easy to throw a bone
I've seen lightning bolts fall, I know who's on the phone
The dogs always bark along when they hear the thunders roar
It shouts across a sea of life, it's calling from afar.
And if I didn't have that pill to swallow,
I'd call it bang for the money first thing tomorrow.
Mar 17, 2021
Mar 17, 2021 at 12:31 PM UTC
A bubble.
Form without void,
the time before time,
absolute inertia,
total resolution,
perfect harmony,
the bubble forming,
expanding,
like an explosion,
displacing,
creating,
The Birthing
of galaxies and stars,
planets in formation,
the universe
unfolding,
meteors crashing
into the atmosphere primitive,
amino acids
forming,
evolving inorganic
to organic,
microbes becoming
multi-cellular
--the race is on,
to and from
fishes,
amphibians,
reptiles,
birds,
animals,
primates
man,
consciousness and self-consciousness,
born and dying,
nothing meaning everything
time
and time again.
Awareness began,
both
with a bang
and a newborn baby's
cry.
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 8:23 AM UTC
The challenge of climate change,
Our atmosphere grows more deranged,
Weather patterns even more strange,
How can we protect our climates,
From multinational eco tyrants?
Big business still defiant,
How can we change our climate?
In defence of **** Sapiens, primates,
We need more than panaceas,
To save our atmosphere,
Heed and listen to constructive ideas,
To change our climate here!
Apr 20, 2016
Apr 20, 2016 at 1:41 AM UTC
You may feel about the planet what
you feel about a great baseball team or band:
that once there was a moment when, unknown
to us at the time, we convened
and lost and found ourselves in what we created.
Who should I thank for this day?
A fresh-mown lawn is a robin's repast.
A bear a black bear a rolling delicately dancing
graceful as silence sailing through the ferns and understory
unafraid and in no hurry.
My musician referral service, vacation rental business,
nonprofit management system, plant identification database,
great American songbook and anthology of poems. Coach says
in a thousand years back and forth games like lacrosse and soccer
will be played against genetically engineered primates
but baseball will be played solely by humans.
In a thousand years, amen.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 7:20 PM UTC
We were primates swinging from the branches of skyscrapers
And our cooing come ons lost in translation
Sharing body heat to keep us warm inside old office buildings
Where the ghosts of typewriters flit about the ground floor
And we let our blood vessels ebb and flow
We became cynical at the thought of falling in love
Like hard tack candy caught in the teeth of giants
We're getting older but our mouths still tastes like strawberries
We'll build our home on a mountain of shopping carts
Our children will be the hum of the generator
And the occasional sunburst we get through the grimy window
Can be the laughter of a family board game
Unconscious of our own bodies, not knowing our own
Only the ebb and flow you, the sky, that falls
Upon the roar of I, the wild ocean
With our bodies building a sanctuary for the sparrows
Will you still love me when the bomb turns the cities to snowflakes?
The sky is on fire but at least I know you're warm
Jul 8, 2010
Jul 8, 2010 at 6:51 PM UTC
Alien Nation
by Michael R. Burch
for J. S. S., a "Christian" poet
On a lonely outpost on Mars
the astronaut practices “speech”
as alien to primates below
as mute stars winking high, out of reach.
And his words fall as bright and as chill
as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro —
far colder than Jesus’s words
over the “fortunate” sparrow.
And I understand how gentle Emily
felt, when all comfort had flown,
gazing into those inhuman eyes,
feeling zero at the bone.
Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought?
For if he is human, I am not.
Note: The coinage “grok” appears in Robert Heinlein’s classic sci-fi novel "Stranger in a Strange Land." The novel’s protagonist, Valentine Michael Smith, was raised on Mars by enlightened Martians, and he often feels out of sorts on Earth, where he struggles to grok (understand deeply and profoundly) earthlings and their primitive, often inhuman, ways. Keywords/Tags: Mars, astronaut, alien, primates, stars, words, ice, crystals, Jesus, sparrow, Emily, Dickinson, zero, bone, arctic, thought, human, inhuman
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 5:25 AM UTC
So, it’s three in the morning
and a man in a gorilla suit
is running across my lawn.
Quigley runs figure-eights—yapping, yelping.
The light in McKevitt’s window flickers
on then off—he doesn’t see this ****
stumbling and slopping about the dark yard,
pulling at the plush love handles
of his unwieldy suit—its zipper
just visible in blue moonlight.
He’s trying not to step on the little black dog nipping at his paw.
I pace at the window hoping he will leave.
I pace some more and fumble
at the nightstand for a cigarette.
I beat my chest to scare this thing away
and though I feel foolish, I grunt.
I grunt and expect him to listen to reason—
he doesn’t and collapses near the shed.
Quigley watches him—curiously cocking his head.
He licks the rubber face with his pink tongue
thinking this monkey’s me—not well at all
and sopped in booze. I get under the cold sheet.
I toss. I turn. I curse the ****** ape well into morning.
I hit snooze until I’m sure he’s gone.
This has been going on for weeks
I beat my chest and show my teeth.
I pace the dark room—smoking, grumbling.
I consider buying a bigger dog, a bigger gun.
I send him death threats, then love notes. Nothing works—
I can’t shake this monkey from my back.
So excuse me for calling at this odd hour
to howl about my primate problem—the chimp on my shoulder.
or maybe a bonobo?
(you know, the one that made life with me so hard.)
In any case, he’s my problem now
and tonight he’s knocking at the door
May 10, 2010
May 10, 2010 at 8:05 AM UTC
Hie Yamaha Wegman ****** voyager, voted vonage valuable, unrepentant TIME Magazine subscriber. Spotify sportsman Snapchat smartly. Sleuth slenderman silences Shutterfly schvitzing. Saxby sassy Santander sais sage rues rudimentary router rotorooter.
Royale Rococco rigged remarkably regular referee reefers red reddit reeder recuperating. Reconnaissance recluse really rabid. QVC quotient quoting, quo quoi quivering quite quirky. Quisling quipped. Quintuplets quintessentially quiet. Quids Quicken questions.
Quartermaster qualified quaint quaffing quadrilateral Pythons. Pyrex pylons put purdy purposeful puny punsters punching. Pumpkin pumice publicized prudential protean pros properly pronouncing prolific prodigies.
Proletariats professors' problematic. Pro privileges prioritized. Principle primates prevaricate. Preppy pregnant, praying prattler possibly Porgie. Poseidon pooping poodle ponders poppycock. Plum? Polite poison pods ply pitiful pinterest.
Pinhead Pillsbury pillager Pi. Pigskin pierce petsmart pests permanently. Perdition percolates peppered PennState pedigreed PearlJam Patagonian. Pastor pastes passion passably. Papas' paginated orbitz okayed. Nutty node needs money.
Next netzero nee naugahyde. Nattering nationwide nabob Moxie Molly McGee. Monosodium livingsocial joyus je kickstarter. Identityguard Huffington GMO. Gluten Glutamate footloose fancy free footlocker. Fingerhut fetishistic fabrication Cingular.
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 9:47 PM UTC
The Universe is compelled to Upgrade!
Stars, Nebula, even Black Holes must be Improved!
**Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Sis Boom Bah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Sis Boom Bah!**
It is risen! It is risen! It is Risen!
Most marvelous, miraculous divine device!
Forget turning water into wine... Lame!
Forget Muhammed moving that mountain... Lame!
Let Lazarus flop back into the tomb... Lame!
This is Miracle as it was meant to be!
Oh grand glorious God of International Capitalism!
The triumphant product of American Genius manifest
in the work of many skilled primates' foreign hands.
Truly an event of Startling Global Significance!
And you have stood like a lemming on methamphetamine
many long hours in the rain to be possessed by its majesty
and now it is yours, yours, yours, yours alone
for only $649 dollars plus a few hundred monthly.
Let all the bells be rung! Let high Hosannas be sung!
A phone so smart it was beta tested on the lobotomized
and made them look like slightly scarred Steven Hawings!
The apps that are available will explode your existence!
They can provide *********** wipe your *** ******* you.
Yes! Imagine Siri willingly kneeling between your legs!
Oh, but what to do about that first important call or text?
It must be equal in loftiness to this Digital Masterpiece!
Perhaps command it to call Obama and implore him to gain weight,
or Alexander Putin to tell him a Polar Bear needs wrestling,
or perhaps God to tell him he is no longer necessary.
No, all of these are far too paltry for that first message.
Instead, tell Siri to search for the nearest Lunatic Asylum
and book as many cells as possible for self-obsessed consumers.
That way they can text and call in medically supervised bliss,
undisturbed until Apple provides them with the next Transfiguration.
It will probably only be six months from now... Suckers.
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 8:18 AM UTC
Heaven has fallen,
The angels are bawling,
God is cremated,
Jesus is hated,
His throne surrounded by bottles.
Lucifer rots,
His evil blood clots,
Hell freezes solid
The mouth growing squalid,
Where blue lips doth mottle.
The humans in the middle
Intellectually twiddle
Twaddle their minds
Waiting for times
Eras that will not come
Prophecies undone.
The rapture was never,
The primates glimpse forever,
But alas, once again,
The apes now turn,
Deeply fearing death,
To the lies
Religious yearn.
Aug 19, 2012
Aug 19, 2012 at 6:30 PM UTC
When humankind is out of control,
The world suffers a giant loss.
Threats of mass extinctions aren't
Difficult to come across.
More than half of the world's primates
Are on the verge of extinction due
To agriculture, logging, mining,
And hunting. Where's the hullabaloo?
Lemurs, chimps, orangutans,
And lowland gorillas are under threat.
When we endanger others, we also
Endanger ourselves, don't forget.
Habitat loss, climate change,
Wildlife trade…. Scientists fear
That if these are not halted, many
Primates will sadly disappear.
We're talking about numerous species--
A couple hundred, not just dozens.
What is wrong with **** sapiens?
How could we do that to our cousins?
-by Bob B (2-6-17)
Feb 6, 2017
Feb 6, 2017 at 9:47 AM UTC
I’m a weird, little guy
Bananas I like to eat
You know we primates
Like a fruity treat
I’m a monkey with stripes
A true oddity, I must say
A zebra might look at me
And yell, “What the hey?!”
So I’m pretty messed up
With a rip on my side
But what do you expect of me?
To go run off and hide?
And what about my ears?
So you want to make fun?
But it’s none of your business
That I only have one!
It is quite obvious
That I am quite a mess
And with all my monkey shines
I must really confess…..
That I ripped off
My very own ear
But one is JUST FINE!
Your yappin’ I STILL HEAR!
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 8:59 PM UTC
Eight billion people,
call this planet home.
Eight billion people,
all of them alone.
Arbitrary borders,
divide and define.
Who belongs where,
who's on which side.
Propaganda and lies,
hatred and fear,
accompany those borders.
"You're not 'From Here'".
They shout and they rant,
"Protect us from harm!
Protect us from monsters!
who work on our farms..."
Save us from humans!
That are really just the same,
but they look a little different,
or have a "funny name".
Every human is flawed,
We dig our own graves,
Eight Billion people,
Who do not want to be saved.
We have come so far,
but we have to do more,
to be better than primates,
looking for war.
Eight billion minds,
That think only of one.
And how they can prosper,
alone in their fun.
Religion and Government,
forms of control.
That tell you to fight,
for country and soul.
The heathens that march,
against the life that you made,
must be destroyed!
It's the only way!
Build us our bombs,
our weapons in space,
expand our borders,
war is a race!
Money and lead,
power and greed,
These are the things,
we are taught to need.
Complicated desires,
from animalistic wants,
pollute the whole planet,
by "draining the swamp".
We call ourselves modern,
With our dollars and glass,
but our future is as dismal,
as our most recent past.
A species divided,
is one doomed to fail.
And there's so much to lose,
with a world this frail.
Are we together?
Or alone in a crowd.
A decision must be made.
and it has to be now.
Dec 14, 2017
Dec 14, 2017 at 1:06 PM UTC
It’s December and my roommates and I are deeply into Christmas. We’ve got a little 3ft tall Christmas tree with about fifty-thousand little multicolor LED lights on it (LEDs because we ARE saving the planet). We’re in the ‘study period’ right before finals and It’s a lowkey Saturday night.
Lisa and I were pajama’d and gelaxing in our suite’s common room. She was in a tan easy chair and I was slouched on our red corduroy couch, my slippered feet up on a white coffee table. We had a Christmas playlist playing throughout the suite, a ‘Christmas lights of Paris’ Youtube video streaming silently on our TV and cups of Keurig brewed hot-chocolate with little marshmallows.
Leong came out of her room and joined us, taking a seat on the far side of the couch with me. After a moment she stretched-out, putting her head in my lap. I love her jet-black, cornsilk hair and it wasn’t long before I found myself stroking it, a gesture primates have been making since the pleistocene period. When Lisa glanced over at us and smiled, I started making gestures like I was looking for fleas in her hair and eating them - in a silly, momentary comedy lost on Leong.
We got back from November recess a few days ago. After three years together, it was easy, almost automatic, for us to fall back in our rhythms as roommates. On arrival, I glanced through my drawers, ***** clothes and shelves, taking a casual inventory. Everything was as I remembered it but still, everything had the feel of trivial leftovers from some lost civilization.
I got a new M3-iMac, it’s really the best platform for putting docs side by side. The first thing I did was hit ‘restore my setup’ from the cloud. I love futzing with tech - I can remember when that kind of restoration would have taken all day - but fifteen minutes later I could tell from the files on my desktop that everything was restoring nicely.
As I sat back on my office chair watching the restoration, I felt myself relax. THIS was real life, this was how life should be done. No matter what else I’d done or where else I’d gone - this was how my life should be - at school, with friends, facing those challenges. It was a peek-moment.
It was an illusion that my little iMac welcomed me back, like an old friend, as it finished restoring - wasn’t it?
Dec 5, 2023
Dec 5, 2023 at 10:30 AM UTC
This morn lazing in the winter sun
He said for us living is no fun
On the weather beaten roof
His voice was ominously aloof!
*Here I’m your unwelcome guest
A nuisance to you your garden’s pest
But one if not for the irony of fate
Would be today your equal primate!*
He spoke uneasy on the rough concrete
*My home is gone I have no retreat
God there played out to a devilish plan
Lifting one up from the other of his clan!*
He paused mournful in contemplative lull
*If only I could have been your equal
Would not have come begging on your door
Held captive in cage suffer agonies galore!*
He curled his lips showing yellowed tooth
*If I’m frank and tell you a bare truth
Right now I feel like slapping your face
To remind it’s for you I made no progress!*
Past his bushy brows I saw mirrored in his eyes
A reflection of me clothed in human guise
The one looking at other both ruing their fate
For being down the rung being the superior primate!
Jan 3, 2014
Jan 3, 2014 at 7:01 AM UTC