W. JOE HOPPE
Monster Poem
“You better ask my momma how to make a monster”—Lux Interior
Mention monster and my heart puts out a welcome mat
Godzilla as nuclear metaphor
(explained very early on by my mom)
Frankenstein’s Adam
vastly superior yet cast out by his maker
Grendel full grown
still living with his mother
Sweet Quasimodo
who never harnessed his fearsome appearance
Give me the least human of any superhero team;
Night Crawler, The Beast, Sasquatch, Swamp Thing
Iron Giants and Red Tornados
possess an undeniable otherness
I still long for
We Calibans
we grouchy Oscars in garbage cans
we consumers of cookies we huggable Elmos
Max’s Wild Things in continuous rumpus
protectors and guardians of Tibetan Buddhism
whose wrathful aspects of form follow function
Ratfinks and Weird-Os hotrodding the streets
lend our mythos to movies and energy drinks
Saturday matinee Creature Features
gave us sympathy for the misbegotten
victims were always normal people
but if we ever met those unspeakable things
that made the average citizens scream
we’d somehow be simpatico
because we know
we’re all just pretending
to be human anyhow
WCC POETRY CLUB 