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Bobo The Chimp Types - revised (2)

Posted: 16 Sep 2018, 07:56
by BobBradshaw
v3:

Bobo The Chimp Types


Bobo types in his smoking jacket.
Every few minutes
he pauses, as if critiquing his words--
grunts approvingly.

He drags his knuckles across the keyboard,
screams when the margin bell rings—
leaps atop the typewriter
waving his arms furiously

as if waving a stick
at an approaching leopard.
Then calmly he sits again, pecking
out an incomprehensible

language only Bill, his editor,
understands. Crates of writing
spill out into halls, doorways,
28th Avenue.

"What have you written today?"
Bill smugly asks. A couplet
that lacks polish, I answer,
like a pair of workman's boots.

Bill interrupts: "Good, good for you,
you're making progress...
but Bobo's vocabulary is no longer
an amateur's grunts and sighs...

he has mastered irony, his work
a study of the human condition.
Bobo will be a literary lion soon."
He sucks on his cigar.

"My boy with his rise in the literary world
will make King Kong
look like an underachiever....
a classic American success story,

from humble beginnings....yada yada yada.
Hell, he'll have twenty best sellers out
by the time you have one
thin book of verse ."

Bobo lets out another exultant yelp,
and Bill slings his heavy paw around my shoulder,
puffing heavily on his panatella,
halos of smoke wobbling skyward

like a steam engine's as it pulls away,
leaving me farther and farther behind


v2:

Bobo The Chimp Types


Bobo types in his smoking jacket.
Every few minutes
he pauses, as if critiquing his words--
grunts approvingly. He drags his knuckles

across the keyboard like a hard rain
sweeping a rooftop.
He yelps when the margin bell rings—
then leaps atop the typewriter

waving his arms furiously
like a conductor urging
his orchestra to rise as applause
explodes through a theater.

The hairs on the backs of his fingers
are black and wiry like Beethoven’s were,
and as he bends again over the keyboard
his big wrists and hands pound

the machine like the maestro himself—
the intensity of a rainmaker
coaxing a deluge down
with his own thunder.

His editor Bill declares Bobo
"the next Thomas Wolfe".
Crates of manuscripts spill into halls,
doorways, 28th Avenue.

"What have you written today?"
Bill smugly asks.
A couplet that lacks polish,
like a pair of workman's boots.

Bill interrupts: "Good, good for you,
you're making progress...
but Bobo's vocabulary is no longer
an amateur's grunts and sighs...

he has mastered irony, his work
a study of the human condition.
Bobo will be a literary lion soon."
He sucks on his cigar.

"My boy with his rise in the literary world
will make King Kong
look like an underachiever....
a classic American success story,

from humble beginnings....yada yada yada.
Hell, he'll have twenty best sellers out
by the time you have one
thin book of verse ."

Bobo lets out another exultant yelp,
and Bill slings his heavy paw around my shoulder,
puffing heavily on his panatella,
halos of smoke wobbling skyward

like a steam engine's as it pulls away,
leaving me farther and farther behind


v1:
Bobo The Chimp Types


Bobo types in his smoking jacket
as if he were Hugh Hefner.
His editor Bill declares Bobo
"the next Thomas Wolfe".

The chimp is obsessed with secrecy,
his manuscripts of encrypted code
spilling into halls, doorways,
28th Avenue.

"What have you written today?"
Bill smugly asks.
A couplet that lacks polish,
like a pair of workman's boots.

Bill interrupts: "Good, good for you,
you're making progress...
but Bobo's vocabulary is no longer
an amateur's grunts and sighs...

he has mastered irony, his work
a study of the human condition.
Bobo will be a literary lion soon."
He sucks on his cigar.

"My boy with his rise in the literary world
will make King Kong
look like an underachiever....
a classic American success story,

from humble beginnings....yada yada yada.
Hell, he'll have twenty best sellers out
by the time you have one
thin book of verse ."

Bill slings his heavy paw around my shoulder,
puffing heavily on his panatella,
halos of smoke wobbling skyward
like a steam engine's as it pulls away,

leaving me farther and farther behind

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types

Posted: 17 Sep 2018, 17:16
by Kenneth2816
Clever. Makes me think of Koko the gorilla. I like that I'm not sure if the narrator is a Bobo too. I like the carnival barker literary agent, and especially the close about the train leaving N behind. The setting seems to be in the 1920's with mention of Wolfe, the attire, trains.

Very other worldly

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types

Posted: 19 Sep 2018, 02:10
by IndianaDP
I love the oddity of this. I wonder if more of the chimp qualities might come out, you know less human more monkey. He hunts and pecks with the tips of his fingers, screams when the carriage bell rings.

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types

Posted: 20 Sep 2018, 10:12
by BobBradshaw
Lol... love the idea of the chimp screaming when he hears the typewriter’s bell

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types

Posted: 23 Sep 2018, 22:50
by BobBradshaw
Revised significantly...pls let me know what you think

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types - revised

Posted: 24 Sep 2018, 00:54
by Kenneth2816
A few things to consider:

You have "like a hard rain" then the duplicity of the rainmaker.

There may not be room in this poem for Wolfe AND Beethoven AND King Kong.

The risk is that the more you add, the more dependent on simile the poem becomes ( like a hard rain,like a conductor, like Beethoven, like thw maestro, like a steam engine. One oe two strong ones work far better








across the keyboard like a hard rain
sweeping a rooftop.
He yelps when the margin bell rings—
then leaps atop the typewriter

waving his arms furiously
like a conductor urging
his orchestra to rise as applause
explodes through a theater.

The hairs on the backs of his fingers
are black and wiry like Beethoven’s were,
and as he bends again over the keyboard
his big wrists and hands pound

the machine like the maestro himself—
the intensity of a rainmaker
coaxing a deluge down
with his own thunder.

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types - revised

Posted: 24 Sep 2018, 02:22
by BobBradshaw
Thx, Ken... I will simplify it

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types - revised

Posted: 24 Sep 2018, 15:17
by ElizabethSampson
The in innovation of the concept is done for the humans. The candidatures and writing australia is implied for the occupation of the tins for the humans in life.

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types - revised (2)

Posted: 24 Sep 2018, 21:01
by BobBradshaw
Simplified....let me know...best, Bob

Re: Bobo The Chimp Types - revised (2)

Posted: 25 Sep 2018, 19:13
by IndianaDP
Nice Bob, I like the added detail.