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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “A Door is A Door is A Door” Down in the Dirt, v189 (the 11/21 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Stardust in Hand the Down in the Dirt Sept.-Dec. 2021 issues collection book		get the 422 page Sept.-Dec. 2021 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

In the Valley of the Monkeys

Steven Pelcman

The Nile flows in waves
of flesh and sand
as an underbelly of the sun
and the image it carries
is a weight under the
shoe-less children that come
running through the streets
of Luxor bleeding in sunlight.

A monkey sits
on a windowsill
like an ancient god
and sees me as a slave
as coins are tossed
to little children
that are encircling
the way ants gather and

breed on wet leaves
and turn hills
into grass temples.
There are few differences
in the Nubian sandstone
temples that tell stories
in color as alive
as its history

and the voices
that erupt
by screaming children
begging.
Here, the dead talk
in secrets and in
hollow sounds
that filter

through sand
and tunnels
full of slave bones
jewelry and the scent
of camels.
The winds whip
through bamboo
and the long esparto grasses

find donkeys wandering
among date palms
and herbs and in
the distance green farms
appear as hallucinations,
but at night the cool air
is a dead body, silent
and mummified and waiting.

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