The Monkey Emperor
Every attempt to make us uniform, biologically, emotionally or intellectually, is a betrayal of the evolutionary thrust that has made man its apex. J Bronowski - The Ascent of Man
The Monkey Emperor
Closed his eyes
And ears
And from his mouth
Came ignorance
And dogma.
In awe
The other monkeys
Opened their minds
To propaganda
Became regiments
Of robot monkeys.
They had programmed themselves
To march and sing
To the Monkey Emperor's
Dogma
And that is the tragedy
Of Monkey Emperor arrogance.
But then one day
on the edge of error
one small monkey
stopped
and tried to think
and then he lightly touched
a fellow
gently on the arm.
It was an almost human act.
_______
gw 2009
good one Gwilym
ReplyDeletejohn
thank you, John
ReplyDeleteGood one. I like monkey poems. Do you know Monkeyland by Sandor Weores
ReplyDelete(as translated by Edwin Morgan)? Here's a bit:
With monkeysupper memories
the monkeyouthouse rumbles, hums,
monkeysquaddies start to march,
right turn, left turn, shoulder arms—
monkeymilitary fright
reflected in each monkeyface,
with monkeygun in monkeyfist
the monkeys' world the world we face.