Catfish McDaris Returns Us to Monk

copyright 2015, Ed Schelb

Tonight poet Catfish McDaris returns us to the Monk contest--with a little help from Ed Schelb's photocollage above.  Enjoy!

Elephant Tusk Boogie

Fingers chasing each other, notes

pouring forth like champagne

Horns blowing elephant love

feet tapping snapping bo bapping

Bass booming vibrating magic rhythm

crooning words of desire desperation

Monk said his mama looked like a

gorilla and he could  never find 

Her nipples for all the damn hair

at least he could bend a note on

His piano like a blacksmith making

horseshoes and all the girls smiled. 

Six Headed Dog

They stayed together way too long

like a rusty worn out El Camino,

they should’ve read the writing on

the wall and said it was all over

When she used a chainsaw on Monk’s 

piano that he’d written Round Midnight 

and Blue Monk and fed him dog food

for meatloaf,  that was the final straw

Theolonius caught a boat sailing for Cuba, 

where the mojitos were strong and cold 

and the tobacco sweet, and the women 

were vanilla and fantastically beautiful. 

Catfish McDaris’ most infamous chapbook is Prying with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His best readings were in Paris at the Shakespeare and Co. Bookstore and with Jimmy"the ghost of Hendrix"Spencer in NYC on 42nd St. He’s done over 25 chaps in the last 25 years. He’s been in the New York Quarterly, Slipstream, Pearl, Main St. Rag, Café Review, Chiron Review, Zen Tattoo, Wormwood Review, Great Weather For Media, Silver Birch Press, and Graffiti and been nominated for 15 Pushcarts, Best of Net in 2010, 2013, and 2014, he won the Uprising Award in 1999, and won the Flash Fiction Contest judged by the U.S. Poet Laureate in 2009. Catfish McDaris has been published widely. In The Louisiana Review, George Mason Univ.Press, and New Coin from Rhodes Univ. in South Africa. He’s recently been translated into French, Polish, Swedish, Arabic, Bengali, Tagalog, and Esperanto. His 25 years of published material is in the Special Archives Collection at Marquette Univ. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Let's see if I can dig up some more songs by Monk for you.  

Arturo O'Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra play "Let's Call This":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueJtoSak7HU

I can't believe that I haven't posted a version of "Straight No Chaser" yet.  Here is Monk in Tokyo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxdnQOs0BNo

I'll include "Bolivar Blues," also from Japan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTijrDIU-m4

The last clip is of Monk dancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJYeCYO-hA