Living with the Monkey Mind: Poems and Other Shiny Objects (The Monkey Mind Poetry Collection, #1)

Living with the Monkey Mind is an attempt to craft a concise collection of poems that varies in topic, tone, and construct, creating a free-range landscape that shifts from the everyday to the abstract, the light to the dark, the personal to the universal, drawing on a variety of forms that include sestina and experimental verse. There is a conscious attempt to avoid linear or even logarithmic arrangements and embrace the disruption of the shiny object – all while trying hard not to sound like a pretentious jackass, which, after reviewing this description was not a particularly success effort. Please try to enjoy the work anyway.

The story of Rob Roy O'Keefe's birth goes that he was born in the same Irish cottage as his grandfather and in the same year, which lead to a time paradox so cataclysmic that he would never finish th
Fortunately, the truth is much different. Turns out he was not born in a cottage or in Ireland, but in a Howard Johnson's in Bayonne, which may explain his lifelong habit of ending each day with 28 flavors of ice cream.
In his twenties, he went through a period of crisis and self-doubt upon learning he was not named after a Scottish folk hero, but rather a mixed drink featuring scotch whisky and sweet vermouth. Years of counseling eventually enabled him to resume his place in society. That, and the realization that his siblings, Mojito, Daiquiri, and Gimlet, had it much worse than he did.
Rob made his way in the world as the inventor of several nonexistent colors and is living a life of leisure thanks to the royalty checks he receives for creating the descriptive names found on garden hose nozzles. His favorite is "Mist."