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 darkin our original state*
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* 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.
