The Fear of Monkeys - The Best E-Zine on the Web for Politically Conscious WritingThe Brown Titi Monkey - Issue Fourteen
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The Brown Titi Monkey, photo from Christian ArtusoThe Brown Titi Monkey is a New World primate who lives in the northern Amazon rainforest of Colombia to Brazil and Peru. They have a head and body length of 23-46 centimetres and a tail which is longer than the head and body. The tail is always furry and is not prehensile. Diurnal and arboreal, titis predominantly prefer dense forests near water. They easily jump from branch to branch, earning them their German name, Springaffen (jumping monkeys). They sleep at night, but also take a midday nap. Titis are territorial. They live in family groups that consist of parents and their offspring, about two to seven animals in total. They defend their territory by shouting and chasing off intruders, but rarely engage in actual fighting. Their grooming and communication is important for the co-operation of the group. They can typically be seen in pairs sitting or sleeping with tails entwined. They eat mainly fruits, although they also eat leaves, flowers, insects, bird eggs and small vertebrates. Titis are monogamous, mating for life and the female bears a single young after about a five-month gestation. Twins occur rarely, having been documented in only 1.4% of all births. While the second infant usually does not survive, cases where neighbouring groups have adopted infants are known, suggesting that twins may be reared successfully under certain circumstances. Often it is the father who cares for the young, carrying it and bringing it to the mother only for nursing.

   


Lethal Injection

By

Frederick Pollack


The needle missed Diaz' vein. +24
minutes, still moving; licked
his lips, "blew." "Grimaced."
At an unspecified time, they found
the vein, injected
more "cocktail." Death
at 34 minutes plus change.

Conservative blogs joke:
"Go for an hour." Quote
a fictional guard: "It's gotten
harder since the ACLU
insisted that we can't perform
CPR. We used to push them
right to the limit, then bring them back.
It brought such joy to the families
of their victims."
More thoughtfully: "Screw the people
whining about the 34
minutes. Why aren't they pissed that it took
27 years for this murderous scumbag
to die? He took up
27 years of the people's money …"
"Maybe if Joseph Nagy
had been properly armed and trained, Diaz
would have been killed in the robbery."

You have to admire the on-demand
hate. Liberals
don't hate effectively, we
despise - the equivalent
of eros, love of an inferior;
hatred parallels
agape, the love of what's above.
Otherwise, it occurs to me
I began writing -
arcane, meditative stuff - the same year
Diaz visited that topless bar.

 


Frederick Pollack is the author of two book-length narrative poems, The Adventure and Happiness, both published by Story Line Press. Other of his poems and essays have appeared in Hudson Review, Southern Review, Fulcrum, Salmagundi, Poetry Salzburg Review, Die Gazette (Munich), The Fish Anthology (Ireland), Representations and elsewhere. Poems have most recently appeared in the print journals Magma (UK), The Hat, Bateau, and Chiron Review. Online, poems have appeared in Big Bridge, Snorkel, Hamilton Stone Review, Diagram, BlazeVox, The New Hampshire Review, Mudlark, etc. Recent Web publications in Gloom Cupboard, Blinking Cursor, Occupoetry, and Seltzer. Pollack is an adjunct professor of creative writing at George Washington University, Washington, DC.

 

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