The Organ Grinder Monkey

I ripped another page from the calendar hanging on my kitchen wall. We enter the month of May with thoughts of Spring swimming around in our heads. The sun is shining bright on the days it isn’t raining. The snow vanished into distant memory. This month I plan to explore a poetry style that reminds me of a trickling waterfall. Udit Bhatia created the Cascade poem. There are no rules for rhythm or meter. The layout is simple in that the lines of the first stanza are repeated as the refrain lines in the stanzas that follow. The poem flows like this ABC, xxA, xxB xxC. Add lines to the poem longer. Thus, you are making a cascading effect with words. How hard can that be? This Cascade Poem I titled The Organ Grinder Monkey.

Note: I will also be adding Black Out Poems as we go along the way. I plan to keep using this style until the book I’m using runs out of pages for me to play with to create these unique and visual poems. I might as well get started. I’m excited about jogging down this road.

The Organ Grinder Monkey

The Organ Grinder Monkey

I forgot about the organ grinder monkey
Before the ferocious bitter bite on the hand
Teeth and the stitches leaving a purple scar
The experience happened so long ago
Her distant memory surfaced out of thin air

A question on a blog post was the key
If you want to fully understand
Rooster and I were young and stupid
We needed years to truly grow
I forgot about the organ grinder monkey

The trade was unpredicted and unplanned
The suggestion was trifling and bazaar
Rooster thought he was making a great deal
But there were a few things he didn’t know
 Before the ferocious bitter bite on the hand

He brought the primate home in the car
Missy from the first considered me a foe
It was due to my black hair, you see
Her former family gave her a scare
Teeth and stitches leaving a purple scar

She sat down friendly just for show
She cocked her head a pet to demand
Once I had let down my realistic guard
Teeth plunged into my flesh, hard
The experience happened so long ago

The injury created a deep tear
And red blood began to flow
We could no longer live in harmony
The organ grinder monkey had to go
Her distant memory surfaced out of thin air

Who is Molly Shea?

Molly Shea is an accomplished fictional short story writer from Indiana who writes short stories and novels about a fictional town called Tecumseh.  To read more of her short stories and adventures, click here.

Be sure to follow Molly on Twitter!