Monkey Kings

Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness – as if happiness sat on the throne. Often mud sits on the throne – and often also the throne on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent.
Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul they smell to me altogether, these idolators.

My brothers, do you want to suffocate in the fumes of their snouts and appetites? Rather break the windows and leap to freedom. Escape from the bad smell! Escape from the idolatry of the superfluous!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Part II
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com

More Poetic Ass-Talk: Balaam

Hodja-on-donkeyAnd Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And God’s anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him. And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way. But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall: and he smote her again. And the angel of the Lord went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam’s anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff. And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam:
“What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” 

And Balaam said unto the ass: “Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.” 

And the ass said unto Balaam:
“Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever wont to do so unto thee?”

And he said: “Nay.”

Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face. And the angel of the Lord said unto him:
“Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me…”

Numbers 22:21-32 [KJV]

The Poet Speaks Through His Ass

hodja-on-donkey
“What did I just hear?” replied Zarathustra. “What wisdom in kings! I am delighted and, verily, even feel the desire to make a rhyme on this – even if it should be a rhyme which is not fit for everybody’s ears. I have long become unaccustomed to any consideration for long ears. Well then!” (But at this point it happened that the ass too got in a word; but he said clearly and with evil intent, Yea-Yuh.)

Once-in the year of grace number one, I think
The Sibyl said, drunken without any drink,
‘Now everything goes wrong! Oh, woe!
Decay! The world has never sunk so low!
Rome sank to whoredom and became a stew,
The Caesars became beasts, and God – a Jew!’

Thus Spoke Zarathustra , Part IV
Walter Kaufmann translation from evankozierachi.com

Strike the Prose

I wonder sometimes
why droll observations;
recollections of a personal and
sometimes confessional nature,
(interesting enough in themselves – if well-written),
get called “poems” when broken up by
weird line spacing. Nothing against
descriptive prose –
but I don’t think it is truly
Poetry. You can call it that
if you want; I don’t
mind.