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Frozen Possibilities

Sultana Raza

Looking at the high slopes bordering the fjords,
Powdered with unspoilt white, she wondered how anyone
Could’ve tracked the Creature down in such vastness,
Even though the earth was supposed to shrink
Near the North Pole.

Had the Creature ever made it to the Pole? Found his mate?
Had the Führer sent his minions to the snowy wastes
Of the Grand North to hunt for the Creature?
So he could assemble a race of super-creatures?

Did the Creature ever encounter any
Aryans from Thule (gold-strained or not)? Or any Hyperboreans?
Did they trade tall tales?

Did the Hyperboreans offer ichor-forming mead to the Creature
In return for his accounts of a cruel and indifferent
World that justified their retreat into another dimension,
Leaving humanity to founder on its own?
Or can two-legged mortals
Create their own paradise like the Hyperboreans?


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[Author’s note] The Creature is the created character in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He is supposed to have disappeared near the North Pole.

The poem is discussed in The Critics’ Corner in issue 1069.


Copyright © 2024 by Sultana Raza

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