The Monster Poem by Frank Halliwell

In the northwest foothills of the mount

That's known as Tamborine,

When the evening mists swirl up

In a surrealistic scene,

The landscape writhes beneath the moon

And black-lined, scudding clouds,

And in the swamps, the tea-trees

Wear their foggy, dripping shrouds.



When the purple shadows lengthen

On the flanks of Tamborine,

And the bleak wind wails in lonely gums,

Then races on unseen, , ,

The somber ribbet of the frogs,

The music of the night,

And suddenly a hunting owl

Glides by in silent flight.



Amid the high-pitched cricket sounds..

The lowing of a cow..

A hint of sound just past that dam,

The frogs fall silent now..

And even the cicadas cease

As if in deadly fear...

The world stands still...

There's not a sound..

A silence

you can

hear.



And then, a sobbing, strangled cry,

like someone sorely maimed..

The monster then, has struck again,

Another victim claimed.

It prowls around Maclean's bridge,

Verses dripping from it's jaws.

The locals live in terror

Of that huge voracious maw.



For years he's fed it bits of rhyme,

To whet it's appetite,

Then loosed it on a trusting world,

One dark and dreadful night.

The populace has vanished,

From this land of brave, bold men..

For Johnson's rhyming monster

Is upon the land again! ! !

o0o