MEANWHILE THE MONKEYS

Meanwhile the monkeys

Dropping

into our garden

like commandoes

Threaten

us

with memories of the time

we showed

up without pants

They pound

on the tabletops

until

banana cream pie is produced

Monkey see Mountain Dew

Screeches worse

than Niebelungen

Toaster, cat, bowls

and bottles

in a frozen

arc

of juggled

They come right at us,

teeth bared

like dobermans

Monkey say we people around

Laughing

at my minivan

Amazed by my bad

gas mileage

and this need

to carry around

more than one

good ant-collecting stick

They will

not even look

at the collection of clever bumper stickers

JD Frey -- August 12, 2008

PBR night in review: monkeys, rainstorms, yellow jackets and charles wright

 
Charles Wright, from Scar Tissue
 "Our lives, it seems, are a memory
                                               we had once in another place.
Or are they its metaphor?
The trees, if trees they are, seem the same,
                                               and the creeks do.
The sunlight blurts its lucidity in the same way,
And the clouds, if clouds they really are,
                                               still follow us,
One after one, as they did in the old sky, in the old place."

A sampling of Charles Wright poetry from the Poetry Foundation.
Mark Strand and Chuck Wright reading at the Library of Congress.

TOP FIVE Monkey titles this week:
All's Quiet on the Western Monkey
For Whom the Monkey Tolls
Honey, I Shrunk the Monkey
Monkeybusters
20,000 Leagues Under the Monkey

The Dogs Ate My Biscuits

Just a while ago now the monkeys
ate all the porridge so we’ll have to go
to storage to find something funky
to eat. In the eternal meantime
the monkeys are all frisky,
and leaving them alone
is bound to be risky, but I suspect
it’ll all turn out fine
as long as we don’t bother to much
about the monkeys, just focus
on our own internal flunkies,
try to gain satori
before your mother finds out.
In the morning I’ll slip away
ever so quickly
before the sun does its tricks
and the monkeys come out
to play.

peanut butter orange blossom cookies

Wanted to post this recipe for an unbelievably divine cookie - peanut butter orange blossom! I am in love-love-love with this blog, 101cookbooks.com, and have been looking for an excuse to imitate an orange blossom cookie I tried at the Pearl Street Farmer's Market nearly three years ago, so when this recipe popped up a few weeks ago, I dove right in. For a while, I thought that "orange blossom" was some magical spice I couldn't get my hands on, but after some digging I found that people generally just add some zest and juice to their recipe.

Here's the recipe for Heidi's Peanut Butter Cookies - to "Orange Blossom" em up, I just added the zest and half the juice of an orange in the last step (these are vegan and easily made gluten-free too, if needed). On the right, photo of the cookies enjoyed at the PBR session at Ginny's.

Ships Passing

We navigate along,
the way ahead seeming
longer than the one
behind. We don’t mind
the wind, the choppy
waters. We’re martyrs
of the sea’s breadth. Its depth
is no threat for us who float.
When we pass we wave,
drop anchor for the night,
bump up against
each other’s hulls till light
comes, then pull up
again, and sail away.
Our mast lights signal harbor,
keep the distance at bay.