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DRUNK MONKEYS IS A Literary Magazine and Film Blog founded in 2011 featuring short stories, flash fiction, poetry, film articles, movie reviews, and more

Editor-in-chief KOLLEEN CARNEY-HOEPFNEr

managing editor

chris pruitt

founding editor matthew guerrero

POETRYI Prefer Not ToShloka Shankar

Drunk Monkeys
Poetry

Photo by Elisabetta Foco on Unsplash

The wordy gurdy stands
quiet in the middle of my head;
missing pieces [with just enough
shine] rubber-banded tog-
ether in a parodic coldness,
an emptiness with teeth.

Swirling dust-helixes
grow from the bottom
of my conscience with a brittle
xylophone sound. 

Walking in soft stutters,
the situation will clarify itself. 

 

Source: A remixed poem composed from select lines and phrases from chapters 5, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, and the Epilogue of Bag of Bones by Stephen King.

Shloka Shankar is a freelance writer from Bangalore, India. She loves experimenting with Japanese short-forms of poetry, as well as found/remixed pieces alike. Her poems have most recently appeared in After the Pause, Jazz Cigarette, Under the Basho, Right Hand Pointing, Failed Haiku, and so on. Shloka is the founding editor of the literary & arts journal, Sonic Boom.

Featured
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POETRY / The Oncelers / Austin Sanchez-Moran

He made it possible. He was formerly a fabulist. 
He was faceless, but he was ugly, graceless 
and he made everything disappear.  

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POETRY / Rubik's Cube / M. Benjamin Thorne

aligning 
as fingers 
deftly dance 

on checkered 
smooth plastic 
disco stage 

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POETRY / Darkness, Stillness: After All of Us Strangers, 2023 / David Hanlon

Adam’s countenance: beer cask-heavy 
his eyes: glazed shallots 
his smile: a split itself 

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POETRY / Bob Ross Making Minimalist Art / Kurt Cole Eidsvig

Now take away the need 
for moisture and the deteriorating  
qualities of autumn. The veins   

and stems will release as well.  
Take away the release. Take  
away the seasons.

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POETRY / Jetlag is a choice. / Julia Rapp

When Taylor Swift was at the gym in Japan  
she watched the muscled back of a man   

moving up and down a heavy machine 
made by other heavy machines for men.   

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POETRY / I was terrified as a kid / Victoria Nordlund

of spontaneous human combustion,  
of pictures with the Cherry Hill Mall Santa, 
of a stapler after getting my wrist stuck to my teacher’s green bulletin board, 

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POETRY / Very Delta EP: #%|{<?€*¥ Are You Alone In This Universe Like Me? / Andrew Ketcham

and on the tv 
a drag queen 
sharing her recipe 
for sun tea  

asks us if we want to  
watch her take a break 
and we take a break   

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POETRY / On the Border of Blaine, 1980’s / Zebulon Huset

Honeywell closed their Minnesota plant quietly
and the addition of warning stickers on album covers
would save the children along with D.A.R.E., Nancy
and Tipper directing the conversation, for some reason.

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POETRY / Childhood / Lina Buividavičiūtė

I read, I traveled, I, Lina, thief’s daughter, a discarded toy by the campfire 
at night, my planets – burned by sparks, 
burned by coincidences, in my eyelashes – stalagmites of ashes. 

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POETRY / You Still Owe Me a Dance / Marissa Glover

Because Phil Collins is for fools and old ladies.  
Because the ocean’s too wide a body of water  
for a commando to cross alone. Because gentlemen  
never kiss and tell, and soldiers never share  
their kill count. Because you teach the meaning  
of words like ‘amorous’ and ‘varnish’ and ‘leave.’  

NON-FICTIONFrom Frederick to Maxine: A Girl and a Family TransitionAaron Como

FICTIONClown CarsMichael Leal GarciaWriter of the Month
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