I was inspired to write this poem after reading J. F. Baldwin’s book—The Deadliest Monster: A Christian Introduction to Worldviews.
The duality of man
Dogears the pages of nonfiction.
Playing God,
A mad scientist
Creates Eden within.
But poised politicians
Are not what they seem.
The matrix of man—
Outwardly good,
Shockingly evil—
A tumor,
Growing larger than its host;
A scalpel inside a cranium boasts.
Change from within
Only helps the monster sin.
Metallic butterfly wings rust.
Trespasses buried under
Good deeds unjust.
True change is divine.
A punctuated moment in time
Inspires humility.
“Cursed is he who is hung on a tree”
For all humanity,
Commencing with the brutality of truth.
What then of Frankenstein’s golem?
What’s his religion?
Longing for acceptance,
By an act of kindness,
(Chopping wood)
He surgically removes
The knife from a villager’s head
Unaware of his own reflection—
The epitome of horror;
An experiment of the living dead.
With pride, he smiles.
A child’s life he saves.
Looking to be an honorary
Of human dignity and life,
This sentient chimera
Finds himself again
In fictionless strife.
Between his shoulder blades,
A thick liquid
Runs hot and red.
The knife sinks deep
No longer in the mind or sleep
But in the moment
A reminder of the sin we reap.
“What a fool I’ve been,”
Cries the gentle giant,
Feeling the cruel incision
More in his heart.
“Hope in hope has been my religion.
“My desire to drink from their cup—
A witch’s brew of superstition—
Only proved the death of humanism.
“I sneered at the story of Jekyll and Hyde.
I sighed and swallowed the lie
That humanity’s good—
Deep inside.
“My good works erased,
My good intentions debased
The moment their eyes
Fell on me from the outside.
“Fiction is a vampire.”
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