Random Acts of Poetry

Random Acts of Poetry

Child’s Monster

A monster once trolled our local scene,
big as a thunderhead, with brains of jelly,

looking for meat, belching a lava stream,
scorching everything with its anger.

Mad creature from a fever dream,
vomited out by a restless sleeper

onto the rocks of the palisade,
those serrated cliffs,

it stumbled through our landscape
roaring its hunger for vengeance

from its head full of toothy mouth,
ringed with tentacles.

But only a diet of trash could be found,
green slime, salads of kelp at the beach,

and clouds dripping sips of bitter tea--
an intolerable menu.

This fiend became ashamed of its ugliness,
the way it frightened the birds,

and soon enough it began to shrink, slowly,
like an old balloon.

It shook and raged as it imploded,
and began to resemble a heap of dead leaves.

The monster then went flat as a stepping stone,
and sank into our damp backyard

till only its face remained, turned up to the sky,
as if waiting for help to descend.

Today, we keep it hidden and confined
to a picture in a children’s book.
_