Ned Balbo The Universal Monsters
Orphaned for three long weeks, under the eyes
of aunt and uncle in a house not mine
I'd wait: you always visited on Fridays,
vermicelli boiling, varnished pine
of basement walls surrounding us, black line
of satin cape, bared fangs....What did I hear?
The door-latch, brothers' greetings, all the fear
I'd worked up vanishing. What could I know,
a five-year-old cast off that far-off year?
Where are the Universal monsters now?The movies ran on Chiller Theater,
New York's Channel 11, Karloff's turn
as man-made monster far superior
to stiff Lon Chaney, Jr.'s. Both would burn.
Once-bitten Larry Talbot thought to scorn
Maleva's gypsy warning, he a man
still pure at heart, who prayed. Despite the wolfsbane
blooming at full moon, the beast below
his skin would surface, howling in the rain—
Where are the Universal monsters now?The days dragged on. Too young, I stood outside
the hospital, searched for my mother waving,
sash raised high, pane glinting, reckless slide
of traffic, squawk of gulls. She called down, moving
hardly closer. When would she be leaving?
'Not yet.' I felt something had attacked me.
Window shut, ward closed, you could distract me,
offer peanut brittle, bend down low
to brush the crumbs off, feed me, or protect me—
Where were the universal monsters now?You'd bring one every week, Aurora models
of the classic misfits, jumbled pieces
rattling round in boxes. Thin enamels—
glossy, flat—gave color to the faces
gray on screen. Glue dried in crevices.
The doctor's scarred brute stalked across a grave—
where he belonged, no doubt. As if to save
Ann Darrow, Kong (a stray from RKO)
clutched her too tightly, hopelessly in love—
Where are the monsters we assembled now?Six days you'd live alone, drive back and forth
from job to hospital, a plumber's labor
bowing you. Gray-haired, you broke the earth
of ancient basements, sulphur, stale vapor
clinging fast. What creature rose in stupor
as you worked and worried? In the night,
eyes turned from darkness, slimmest line of light
along the door-frame, I'd imagine you,
scaring off what I'd conjured, what took flight
to summon universal monsters. Now,I almost wish they'd come. The day I left
your brother's house, I felt you'd lifted me
from some long-cursed sarcophagus adrift
in sand and catacombs. I knew that three
leaves raised a heartbeat in the high priest's lackey
Kharis, long-dead sleeper, nine gave life
to walk the earth despite his lasting grief,
lost tongue, and hidden face....Today, tomorrow,
back at home, my mother and your wife,
freed from a universe of monsters now,resumed her life. New crutches left to stand,
we led her to the den. I clutched her hand,
the black-and-white set's blue light in the window
whirled and flashed—we watched. How would it end?Where are the Universal monsters now?
Note: Among the films to which 'The Universal Monsters' refers are Dracula (1931), Tod Browning, director; Frankenstein (1931), James Whale, director; The Wolf Man (1941), George Waggner, director; King Kong (1933), Merian C. Cooper, director; The Mummy (1932), Karl Freund, director, and its sequels.
The monster fad of the late '50's and '60's began in 1957 when Universal sold the rights to fifty-two old horror films to TV stations around the country. Noticing the films' popularity with a new audience and generation, Aurora Plastics introduced a line of glue-and-paint-them-yourself monster model kits in 1961, to great success.