Bride of Frankenstein Blues

In bars around the world, this scene from Bride of Frankenstein plays itself out like a looped nightmare. Lights, camera, rebuff. As with scenes from the original Frankenstein, what's so achingly hard to watch in this clip is the brutality of rejection distilled down to its essence. His pleading hands, and her "Get the f---- away" scream. Can't blame him for wanting to touch. She is quite beautiful but sadly, aloof. (Where is Madeleine Kahn when you need her.) Equipped with a little Andrew Marvell, "Had we but world enough, and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime", etc., I think Frank might have fared better. Hmmm. Frankenstein's monster as a master of Courtly Love?

Going back a few years, when I was cobbling together a poetry chapbook, I worked up this shortie using Frank's pain as a jumping off point ....

Bride of Frankenstein Blues

Consider the moon, my friend, how its absence
troubles this unromantic air. Here in the dark,
like slow lightning, smoke unwinds,
creeps; everywhere you look, mouths, small dark graves
chew on drinks.
This is no night or finding brides.
Still, you come, touch her wrist,
and spring the classic recoil. It begins in her black eyes, darting
like spooked minnows around her stark face
and jitters down her spindly arms as they jerk back
from your touch and clasp up
her breast sacs as that piercing goose hiss escapes
her lovely lips. These damn castles are cold.
Some nights, arms outstretched
on the stairs, you think you could love the torches,
anything to light you up.

Currently with a few e-zines for consideration. Eyes crossed.