Vicar-ious Verse: "Jacinto Meets the Wolf Man" (a sonnet)

"The lights went out and the magic began ... After the film I went out into the street in a trance ... From that day on Larry Talbot was my hero. I even recall that, on one occasion when my mother asked me what I wanted to be when  I grew up, I replied, 'A werewolf.' You should have seen the look on her face!"

--Paul Naschy, recalling his first viewing of Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man as a boy
from Memoirs of a Wolfman (Luminary Press, 1997, translated by Mike Hodges).

Where did it start, Jacinto? In the tomb,
the coffin stuffed with wolfsbane? Talbot's peace
disturbed when robbers bared him to the moon,
and fell before mad, immortal beast?

Or later, at the feast of the New Wine--
the cursed man's torment, never understood?
Or in the ruins of Castle Frankenstein
where legends fought and fell before the flood?

I wish I could have watched you--still a boy--
while monsters dragged your soul into the screen;
I wish I could have looked you in the eye.
I might have watched it start; I might have seen
the swelling of that childlike, boundless joy
that lived in you, and now will never die.


--S. Standridge
"The Vicar of VHS"