Your SEO optimized title

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

POETRYAnother Side of the SunJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

Drunk Monkeys

people care
more about video games
on their cell phones
than cultivating empathy

and the cops will kill at will

as the masses press buttons of joy
hoping to not get caught in the crossfire
of this neoliberal meltdown

democracies fracture
empires end at the will of buffoons

and somewhere
something as simple
as an obscene hand gesture or a flat tire

will drive another person to murder

as i sit on the couch
burning in the embers
of another lost day

sucking at this second
tumbler of cheap vodka

staring out the window
looking for the answers to it all

hoping to catch a soft breeze
witness another side of the sun

than the one that burns
so hot and unholy

in the pale blue sky.

John Grochalski is the author of The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016). Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough. 

Featured
POETRYHere Comes HellAllie MariniWriter of the Month

with her balding bedsheets, 
August’s bitch, strung up on the line
her feet are bleached roots
    azalea eyes,  blue from the acidic dirt of Panhandle drought
POETRYThe Beast of BladenboroAllie MariniWriter of the Month

A whole town:     armed to the teeth, 
                             arming themselves against my teeth. 
She-cat of Bladenboro, 
                              I’m here for your dogs, 
                              your sheep,         your sons,         your blood.   
                  You know who I am, boys. 
POETRYFrom the Edge of the Deep Green SeaAllie MariniWriter of the Month

your candle burns too brightly
never to find another flame to stoke it: 
your kindling is out there. 
POETRYThe Southern Girl's Guide to Getting Your MRS DegreeAllie MariniWriter of the Month

first of all, let’s talk sweet tea. Yankees joke about the secret being sugar—& it is, partly—but the real secret’s in the baking soda. it takes the bitterness out of the tea & makes the sweet taste sweeter. just like you should be to your husband. neutralize all the bitterness & just be sweet as Southern tea. & don’t squeeze them teabags. you know what I mean, girl. 
POETRYAnother Side of the SunJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

people care
more about video games
on their cell phones
than cultivating empathy
POETRYGrace is GoneJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

and the old hatreds
have risen up from under their rocks
where they’ve been hiding

taking a new form
they ooze like stale bile
flowing out of sewers
POETRYTo the Guy With the Donald Trump Bumper Sticker on I-90 EastJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

i can feel your populism from here
in the cool confines of the passenger seat

your window is up too
we both got the a/c blasting, bro

because they sure make america hot these days
caliente or kalinatuh i’d say, much to your chagrin
POETRYThe Ex-PatJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

everywhere i turn
the orange-faced bloviating billionaire
with bad hair and a small penis
tells me that he wants to make america great again
for its dying minority
POETRYImagine Paul RyanJohn GrochalskiWriter of the Month

in his d.c. office cum apartment
three miller lights into it
spit shinning his portrait of reagan for the third time
making the sign of the cross
a chunk of wisconsin cheese in his hand
after a hard day of obstructive legislative work

POETRYA Sticky SituationDeanna PaulWriter of the Month
POETRYA Sticky SituationDeanna PaulWriter of the Month

We caught her
100 Acres from the Woods
wearing white, a cotton dress
with porridge stains, raisins
and honey on her breath,
goose feathers almost disguised
by her long golden locks. 

POETRY4x4everBill Lessard

POETRYPoliticsDouglas Cole
0