A Composed Monster (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: More experimentation. ^_^]

A young poet decided

   to conduct a literary experiment in which

   she composed a horrible monster

      within a poem

       like a force of darkness

       kept inside a worded cage

The poet granted him six sets of lavender eyes

   on his face

  with a thin crooked beak for a mouth

  and a tall

    willowy form

      all the better to loom over victims—

       though he would usually stand

       in a hunched position

His tail was of a dragon

   while his forepaws and hindlegs

   were those of a rabbit

Then the poet gave him the ears of a fox

     paired with the small wings of a bat

She considered the poem completed then

    and stepped back to gaze upon her creation

       from a safe writerly distance

    until she noticed a tear roll down his cheek

“What is wrong?”

   the poet asked

To which the monster replied

  “I will be stuck in this poem forever

   because it is what you intend for me”

“But you are a monster”

    the poet reminded him

Then her creation shook his head

  “You decided I was a monster

      based on how I appeared

      rather than anything I did

        which has been nothing”

And when the poet took a moment

  to review her work

  she realized with dismay

  that her creation was right

    and he had done nothing

       for which he should remain confined

       within any kind of cage

In fact

 the poet thought with dread

  she was like a monster

  or at least a mad scientist

  who had locked up a thing

  she did not fully understand

So the poet apologized to her creation

  named him Gerald

     then amended her poem

           to open it up

               and allow him

                    to fly free

                         away to parts only he would ever know