The Illuminated Donkey runs Nancy Goldstein’s Monkeys, Donkeys, and Junkies today, as it has on and off for a few months. So far, each time it runs, I write some doggerel. Why stop now?

When the monkey of the east
precedes the sheep about the quarter
with the biggest bang upon, not gong, but street

showing value for your money –
not monkey – that is, also:
the biggest bang for your buck,
Hell Money dollars blow beneath the truck

And then the sheep, not you but ewe,
are all a-snooze beneath
the soothing eye of ass,
that is, the donk –

Whose mighty jawbone set
us upon the path
to Marduk and Ur –

always in the company
of donk and monk of course

(Please note
the mule, the ass, the donkey,
is not by any means a horse;
it’s thought, you see,
that as it sees the ewes
it keeps the monkey off the back)

And so we hairless apes
went stumbling down the dusty path
into our urban hives;
and in our fitful stumble
do we not weave and nod and droop?

We lean upon the donkey
and find the monkey on our back:
Like Rip Torn, if not on junk
we might imbibe and drive.

If on the road he rode
the donkey with the monkey
he’d not be seen as drunk
and we’d be less one episode
of monkey, donkey, junk.