CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON

Roger A. Davis


When I was only four years old
This toddler dropped off at the theater door
Told to go in and find brother and sis
My parents drove off in the cold
I entered that movie house with checkered floor
Not knowing my life was very much amiss

First time in a theater looking in darkened rows
Looking for my sister and or brother
Finding instead terror only God knows
For you see, the Creature from the Black Lagoon
He seemed to really hover
On that big screen during a dark moon

Frightened and confused, I ran
Out into the cold and the dark
Who would have ever thought I would be a movie fan
Still with memories of fear so stark

An impressionable boy scared for many years
Sleeping after many tears
With mostly imagined fears of monsters
Witches and other TV foes

Until another family member takes an adolescent
To the movie, The Birds, and once again
The boy in hell-bound descent
Sought refuge in a bathroom marked ‘Men’
Oh my! They came from everywhere pecking out eyes
Hitchcock, you were my demise

So parents, grandmas, whoever
Never, never, never be so clever
To expose a sensitive child to the big screen
Because it is a true fact, I confess
No one was intentionally mean
I was a basket case, for years a mess
Knowing that the creature would find me

Or birds, sharks or rats, would dine
Now I lay me down to sleep, Lord
Keep me safe from the creatures of the deep
Every night, I sought the Devine

So horror shows I hate, give me martial arts
Or blazing saddle and the farts
But I can’t say it enough
Children are not that tough