chapman


Joseph Chapman

[These poems have been illusory]


These poems have been illusory

Why have you taken them to be real?

Here’s a pool of water

Let’s lie down beside it
in the dark

in our original state*

__________________________
* The repetitious Revenge of the Creature (1955) was followed by the more interesting The
Creature Walks Among Us
(1956), where the ‘gill-man’ is subjected to evolutionary surgery
to turn him into an air-breathing proto-human. Forced into bulky coveralls, the post-
operative Creature paces his cell, gazing out at the beckoning ocean.


     
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