Godzilla, Or Something Like Godzilla, Dead Ahead

Originally posted 2/21/2012; originally titled “Political Poem For Monster Movie Fans.”

That’s one bad reptile
standing between us
and the way out.

We’re going to have to walk
under his belly
to escape.
We’re going to have do it
consumed by fear
of him dropping lazily down
to crush us
or deciding to wheel down and about
and lap us into his mouth.

It’s going to smell.
It’s going to be dark.
We’re going to have to walk,
not run, for fear of him feeling us
galloping through.  

He’s so big, so swollen,
might even be venomous though 
he doesn’t need poison to take us;
our biggest threat may be
that he won’t even know we’re there
and our demise will be accidental,
a side effect of him
shifting his bulk. We’ll be 

a clutch of pointless, unremarked deaths.
When the case is laid out like this
the possibility
of us getting through
shrinks to not a prayer in this hell —

but then,
this is Hell,
already.  And 

Hell has never
stopped us from acting
on our desperate prayers — hell,
when has Hell
ever stopped anyone
who has nothing to lose?