amos the churchmouse: the monkey poem

amos the churchmouse:

a view from under the pew

Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hopping on a computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks – except hyphens and dashes.

the monkey poem

boss i can t help but

marvel at the mess you

humans often get into

just judging by the

stories in your

newspaper

it reminds me of a

poem i stumbled

across the other day

in one of pastor leroy

beetle s old sermon

illustration books

it went something

like this

three monkeys sat in a

coconut tree

discussing things that

are said to be

said one to the other

now listen you two

there s a certain rumor

that can t be true

that man descended from

our noble race

the very idea is a disgrace

no monkey ever

deserted his wife

starved her babies

and ruined her life

and you ve never known

a mother monk

to leave her babies with

others to bunk

or pass them on from

one to the other

till they scarcely knew

who is their mother

and another thing

you ll never see

a monk build a fence

around a coconut tree

and let the coconuts

go to waste

forbidding all other

monks to taste

why if i put a fence

around a tree

starvation would force

you to steal from me

here s another thing

a monk won t do

go out at night and

get in a stew

or use a gun club or knife

to take some other

monkey s life

yes man may have descended

the ornery cuss

but brother he didn t

descend from us

boss it looks like

humankind has been getting

some bad press - and

rightly deserved - would say

some of the rats snakes

flies and cockroaches

among us

however the great thing is

that none of us - neither

mice monkeys nor men -

is beyond god s love and

forgiveness both of which

leads to the point

of redemption

amos

p s - speaking of redemption

i ve told you this before boss

but life ain t easy under a

cushionless church pew

i went to redeem my

mighty mouse cheeses-of-

the-world-in-a-can coupon

at sara spider s underground

discount store but found out

it had expired two days ago

then i nearly expired myself

boss such a tragedy in my

life certainly makes me

grateful that there s no

expiration date on souls -

after all as one of our great

church pew underworld

philosophers used to say -

where there s cheese

there s life and

where there s life

there s always hope