About this Blog

Perhaps the metaphor of a wire monkey has been overdone since psychologist Harry F. Harlow studied the effects of maternal deprivation on rhesus monkeys back in the 1950s.  However, it is still the best analogy I can think of to explain how inadequate attention to children in their formative years results in long-term, negative psychological effects.

 

Under this premise, this blog is for those interested in examining the insanities of life from the perspective of one who sees the world with eyes that have been formed by wire monkeys.  Whether the “hollow person” that has influenced you has been a mother, father, grandparent, sibling, friend, or lover, we all have our wire monkeys–those ill-defined people who take much more than they give.

 

 Namaste

 

© 2008 Serena Saye

Dirty Work

At first I crawled

Nails annoyingly encrusted with dirt

Through stuffy undergrowth

Thick and cutting as barbed wire

I could no longer see my hands

Struggling progress up vertical slopes

Tumbling into valleys

On sliding patches of mud

Dirty and bitten

Beaten and stung by little buzzes of perception

Living in squalor for a time

Functional necessities

Learning to make do

This year

Perhaps my head will pop up

Over the unattainable hillside

Gasping for air as if underwater for years

My eyes will see the sun

Teepees nestled along the river

Dark people

Daily life

Children laughing

Maybe I will come home

These are the days
Most without meaning
Tracking empty seconds
Watching passing cars

Looking
At what’s ahead of you
Behind you
Waiting

There’s emptiness about it
Filling your time
With ordinary tasks

The sun rolls across the sky like an ancient wheel

Trampling my moral fiber into clouds as it spins around

I am vapor

Formless and seamless

Floating about

So I go back again

Trying to patch the holes in my spirit

With whatever organic matter will hold it together

Rainbows and Booms

Among blue, rainbow

Stretched out, landing near water

On top of the boom

She sits in dullness

Backlit with sun through a café window

Saturated half with shadows

Somber with glints of light

Darkness is her calling

From the depths of hell

She shouts out

In myriad colors and circles

Lost somewhere between day and night

Serena Saye © 4/21/2010

I will not stoop and crawl to you
Prayer beads in hand
Worshiping you
Like others do
I’m done with that
I’m through with
You in your jaded stained-glass tower
Painting renditions of Pollack
Smacking of hate disguised as arrogance
Dripping of superiority in random ramblings
Who are you that you should hate me?
Paint and ink under your nails
Blood from your own pricked hands
As if you were somebody
As if you were Jesus
Your flock attending
Following
Sitting on a hillside
Hanging on every word
Waiting for a miracle from your lips
They don’t even know who you are
We are the same
You and I
What is it?
This hate
This blood letting
Theoretical
Dejected
Yet painful and real
Like a knife wound in the side
While hanging
Crucified
I’m done with that
I’ll not worship you
I’ll not worship you

© 2010 Serena Saye