Alan Catlin- A Poem

A Hot Date in Siberia or The Ballad of Mary Shelley’s
Monster and Sarah “The Governor” Palin

It was a movie like a Krazy Kat cartoon
on drugs, a dream with hallucinations
in it: Mary Shelley’s monster riding a one
man sled, mashing huskies, as he traverses
Siberian tundra during endless full moon night,
bemoaning his Fate as a sentient being/
quasi- human, Thing, dying for a mate
but he knows there is like No Chance
of finding one, like absolutely no way, Jose.
Not since Creator got escorted out of
town by a mob of peasants bearing torches
with a serious grievance against him.
He wasn’t going to make That mistake twice.
One black and white, bad ending, movie
of creator’s life was enough, thank you
very much. Still, the monster lives in hope.
Knows the best scenes ended up on the cutting
room floor, like the one in the book he
was acting out now, thinking maybe they
should make a new black and white movie of
His life that he has some say in. Everyone
who could see him now, knows he looks
more like James Arness in “Thing from Another
World” or, better yet, in “Them”, that cool
flick with all those giant, mutant ants running
amok in Southwestern desert, than that
Boris Karloff character. Seriously, he needs
lifts to make him look, even remotely tall,
though you could easily see him harming
a child the way he did in the movie.
Sure, it was an accident, he didn’t actually
mean to kill the kid, but this was like a whole
new experience. I mean who knew the kid
was that fragile? Anyway, you just know
Matt Dillon, the character, not the actor,
I don’t know about the actor, but The Arness
character would never harm a kid, intentionally
or otherwise. He was a Wild West lawman,
for crying out loud. Still, you have to wonder
about his taste in women. I mean, what exactly
was Miss Kitty’s job in the saloon, anyway?
And when it came to women, this monster
had some clear ideas exactly what he’d like
and it was nothing like Elsa Lancaster in a
fright wig. The ideal woman would look
more like this musher chick cresting a ridge
on her one woman sled, lost in some kind of
Iditarod dream gone bad, or maybe she was
checking up the turf for Ruskie neighbors
she could see from her back yard with a Hubble
telescope. Everyone has one of those, right?
Anyway, when she slows down for a confab
and asks some directions back towards the course,
she cops a real attitude, says, “I’m Governor
Palin to you, Chainsaw Face” “Well, excuse me.”
And off she goes when I barely had a chance to
ask her for a hot date in Siberia. It was like a joke,
dude, it’s a drink , everyone knows that:
Vodka Peppar, Everclear and a drop of Tabasco.
Warms the cockles of your heart, and you could
use that out here. So off she goes like a
furry bat of hell on her own personal Idiotride
to Archangel or wherever she thought she was
headed, Mary’s monster in hot pursuit with
Romance on his mind. They just don’t make
movies like this anymore but they should.