A new poem commissioned for the Literature Festival from Kevin Cadwallender.
THE MONSTER MASH
I was working in the lab late one night...
(Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and the Crypt Kicker Five)
Stuck in Dr.Caligari's cabinet with my Elsa Lanchester hair
Got a hangover worse than Frankenstein in Nosferatu's lair.
I could hang around for Vathek but I think he's round the bend,
not me, I've posted a videotape to all my dear ex friends.It's like a Hitchcock movie down at the Bates Motel,
They'll be polishing the cutlery off and Janet Leigh as well.
With his mother in the rocking chair and those shrieking violins,
Wail until old Alfred cries cut! as the clockwise blood begins.I was waiting for the red masque in my 'Boris Karloff' trainers,
Bela Lugosi dentures firmly fixed by Transylvanian retainers,
There was Madeline Smith for starters and Joan Collins dressed as lamb,
I was waiting for Vincent Price to arrive, I like a bit of ham.
There's a party at Brenchley's red house, a vampire rabbit on the prowl,
Lon Chaney Junior and Jack the Ripper reading Allen Ginsberg's Howl
Why it's the deaf next door neighbour at 11 Rillington Place !
Peter Cushing has threatened to leave if Dr. Jeckyll gets off his face.Like Alucard without sexual repression, Like Buffy without a stick
Doctor Praetorius without his 'weakness', Linda Blair without her sick,
Like Cronenberg without the gore or Barker's acupuncture bloke,
I was put together from bits of the read and made as a bit of a joke.As Crowley looked like Uncle Festa, so the devil became Peter Cook,
We all bite the silver bullet and go for one brief morbid look,
At chainsaws, at 'Scream' masks, at Freddy and Jason's horror schlock
But without the release (as some Greek said) we'd all end up in the dock.Like Conrad without his helmet, like Fay Wray without her screams.
I was made from all the by-products of Eddie Poe's bad dreams,
As dim as an Ultima Thule, as oxymoronic as the Living Dead
I awoke to find myself half man - half wolf in Jenny Agutter's bed.Like Christopher Lee pre Saruman, like Van Helsing without a stake,
From dusk till dawn I stalk the form like De Richelieu at a wake.
And everyone is Jonathan Harker and everyone is Lestat
And we'll all die and that's the horror, not even Angel can save us from that!Oh Horror of horrors! A festival, with its demons both ancient and new
The Claypath Golem and Shelley's boy, the Mooning Demons of Peterloo,
And if the Ouroboros chases its own tail it was the catching that made us whole
Stories to keep the darkness at bay when it is half of the human soul.And Mummies are failures to preserve us and the dark gift is no gift at all,
And the zombies are not much for giggles and possession makes intellects small,
And I don't want to get too deep in the shallow grave of Twi-light verse,
but horror is best consumed as fantasy. I'm done, send for my hearse.© KEVIN CADWALLENDER, 2003
