When Monkeys Feel Rhythms

By Michael P Amram

In French the word for my is pronounced mon. When Monkeys feel Rhythms taps chosen veins of humanity. The poems examine how relating to aspects of life has affected us, and how the topics Ive chosen to write about continue to confound us in spite of their power to enlighten us. For better or worse, some poems look for how far weve come from times when vines swung as means of transportation. These sixty poems share a common ancestral link. They chain together the primate mentality that follows those who have prospered in life and those that life has failed. The poems investigate relationships and indicate the advances that have been made since those relative connections were discovered. Monkeys points out the need to think and communicate, all the while watching those basic primal skills deteriorate.

Mundane aspects of marriage, friendship, politics, and technology are explored. When Monkeys feel Rhythmus peels back the layers of where humanity has been, what weve lost, and where we have yet to go. In Evolution Lost another Tale, a tether of technology is addressed:

do you ever re-think the calls you made to slap steering wheels as you raged the roads and bumpers were nudged sudden so your middle finger rose to convey simple thoughts?

This poem points to how a race of drivers has evolved. The poem shows the distance primates have come with the wheel they once invented. It says how the wheels novelty is worn out and communication can no longer wait until the trip to end. It asks when the need to communicate defeated the distinct possibility of fatality. It asks when people became so self-important that they would risk their lives just to be heard. It speaks of how technology has enlarged our heads, shrunk the world, and re-aligned priorities:

there were no distractions then there were no distractions when-- channels broke for truckers to handle their loads with a sense for humor that wouldnt talk fierce to rage the roads;

Metaphors often disguise malignancy. My poems find cancers in society. The rhythms shake; they quiver and flush out the benign. I invite you to examine what is peeled back. When Monkeys feel Rhythms will make you laugh. Some might make you cry. Others look for the moments you like to say a-ha. Some are bold, others are shy. I hope you find reading them as fun and enlightening as writing them was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490737737

Michael P Amram

I have been a published author since 2005. I first published a nonfiction book called, rhetorically, Would God Move a Ping-Pong Table? It is sub-titled “a cumulative analysis of faith and religion. No, I honestly do not think God would move a Ping-Pong table. But it was moved in 1988 in a dormitory at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and my Christian dorm mate still insists I attribute this act to my prayers to God.I graduated from the University of Minnesota- Duluth with an English degree and a passion to write. I worked full time jobs and wrote on the weekends. I even kept a journal for a few years. In 1998, from a series of short stories based on experiences working at a health club, an obscure Canadian publication published “The Den of Antiquities” under the pen name M.B. Moshe.I wrote. . .and I wrote. I filled 3.5 floppies with text; fiction and vast catalogues of poetry. I look back now and see how I got tighter (in writing). I see how my writing pecked for, and finally found that voice that is imperative. I am always improving (you judge), finding the voice that is me, but still observant of my audience and their accessibilities.In 2011 I began writing about an incident I observed in a small local barber shop. An Orthodox Jewish man entered with his young son. He instructed the barber to take a little off the sides for his boy. From that happening, ideas surmounted, culminating into my first historical fiction novel, The Orthodoxy of Arrogance. I looked at some indie publishers and decided on one. The novel came on the market in January of 2013.When I was a single man, I traveled. I’d go to Europe and the Mid-east brash and free. Sometimes I bit off more than I could chew. In the spring of 2013 I published Scenes the Writer Shows {forty-one places a poem can go}, many of which are based on those travels.Now, at 50, I consider myself part of the comparatively small family of writers who follow only the direction of their muse. I have few commitments. For the foreseeable future, I have no intent of going back to the confines of a forty hour work week in the corporate game of drones. Slowly, with each publication, each tweet mentioned or morning haiku, I like to hope I am getting closer to not being.I published a second novel and poetry collection in 2014. I am currently compiling a memoir about growing up in the midst of the DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) during the pivotal years of efforts to end the Vietnam War. I also published my third poetry collection in July of 2015. My published and unpublished work can be viewed at www.michaelpaulamram.weebly.com.

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Copyright 2014 Michael P Amram.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3772-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3773-7 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Trafford rev. 06/05/2014

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CONTENTS

I SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS

Meandering Up To Time

Timing Opportunity Right

Global Positioning

Sanity Of Butterflies

Pocketing Language

When Easels Fit The Galaxy

Trying To Shrink The Universe

Simcha Queened Iowa

The Epic Menageries

Internal Investments

A Centrifuge For The Bug-Boy

A Mid-West Manifesto

Toe Prints In August

Squeeze Play

In Any Event

God Poles

Her Network

II RELIGION

Hands That Fold Empty

Dover’s Ghosts

My Epiphany Was Heard

Guiding Banality

Expediting Greed

Dead Pools

Nasal Rhythmus

III POLITICS

Security Backfires (Every Time)

The Peoples’ Army

A New World Order

The Sixties Wolves

The Great American Novelty

Irony’s Women

Finding Discipline

Fifteen Minutes Of Easement

Frayed Ropes

Belt Loops

Canine Figures

IV FRIENDSHIP

The Floating Bridge

Limestone Ruins

Manic Concessions

Foot Notes

Searching For Blades

End Zones (For Aaron)

Hosting Perfection

V MARRIAGE

The Fear Of Mattress Nags

Sustenance

Balancing Trust

Her Lessons In Penuriousness

VI AGEING

The Pinch Slippers

Labors Of Fruit

Hibernation

Irritants

A Jump In Life

A School Of Gerontology

VII TECHNOLOGY

Bolder Realities

As Wheels Turned

Evolution Lost Another Tale

The Key Words (Were In Text)

If The Brain Clicks (Forget It)

System Doldrums

The Poetry Jar

To my wife Deborah;

To causal relationships

Tangent or benign….

To evolution’s breaths

That leaves air encrypted

To seed a poet’s mind

I

SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS

MEANDERING UP TO TIME

your cadenced swings

reminded me of a

pendulum hung to

swell the time

you spent pumping legs;

brilliant and measured—

a park swing cinched its way

around you;

image-1.jpg

pig-tails would follow you

and pass by quickly,

saluting greenery

of corkscrew

jungle-gym poles built

just to feel your glides,

dug deep in wood chips lain

thick to dare;

you to swing higher,

to jump and hug the sun;

or someone who could catch

baseball’s thrown

past the greens keeper’s

tractor tending his sod,

cleaning the mound for late

pitcher’s nods;

image-2.jpg

you soared over the

tanned concession house where

hot dog vendors gathered once

for the game;

now your sling’s hung low,

its chains are twisted so

that playground will know it’s

summers end.

TIMING OPPORTUNITY RIGHT

I feel my