![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/3ace6bf0e9f997c400b3dbdca66b498f.jpg\")
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The Trouble with Monsters<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Chris Norris<\/em><\/p>\n Quick way with monsters: send a hero out The point is, those old poets had it right, First Grendel, then his mother, she whose sheer We have our modern monsters, but they tend From every source these modern monsters spring: Our daily news, from the assorted fools But now we have new monsters of a kind To have their worldview, politics, and sense It’s monstrous emanations such as these, To all our deep-commingled dreads and fears, Our last real monster turned up nine decades Of street-thugs early on from folk bereft Now we’ve another monster on the loose, And infantile enough to blow us all We think ‘if only’, and routinely hold Like Bonhoeffer, as heroes with a claim Our current monster preys on all the ills Into the Twitter-sphere no matter if Yet it’s a case borne out by monsters down It up at just those times when all depends, That Mark One monster might have been dispatched To rid the world of one who, as things went That’s why they got it right, those epic bards, Not some resurgent Beowulf, to show <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trouble with Monsters by Chris Norris Quick way with monsters: send a hero outFor mortal combat: sometimes he’ll prevailAnd kill the beast, while other times he’ll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":464,"featured_media":12278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[2039,2040,2041,2042],"class_list":["post-12285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-beowulf","tag-grendel","tag-hitler","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/464"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
For mortal combat: sometimes he’ll prevail
And kill the beast, while other times he’ll fail
And it will be his death that ends the bout.<\/p>\n
Those Greeks, and Romans, and the guy (or guys)
Of Anglo-Saxon stock whose epic vies
With theirs as Beowulf goes forth to fight<\/p>\n
Brute strength and monstrous bulk he hacks to death
But only to yield up his dying breath
In the last act of his renowned career.<\/p>\n![\"cn](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/cn_beowulf.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
More often to emerge from some bad place
Within our home-domain, not some wild space
Beyond it where all codes and kinships end.<\/p>\n
From corporate culture, from the daily trade
In weapons of mass-murder, from the made-
To-measure ranks of lying hacks who bring<\/p>\n
And rogues lined up for a safe Tory seat
Post-Oxbridge, or from teachers keen to beat
The kids just like in their old public schools.<\/p>\n![\"CN](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CN_bj_20145_Boris-Johnson-wins-seat-MP.jpg\")
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Unknown in earlier times because their lair
Is deep within a psychic space they share
With fifty million others of a mind<\/p>\n
Of right and wrong conditioned daily by
The sorts of TV show that amplify
Bad vibes long quelled in reason’s self-defence.<\/p>\n
Rough beasts that slouch from all our TV screens,
Whose aspect takes us closest to those scenes
Of epic strife and somehow holds the keys<\/p>\n
As well as savage impulses that drive
The moguls and press-barons to connive
At each assault on decency’s frontiers.<\/p>\n![\"CN](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CN_adolf-hitler-reichskanzler-1933.jpeg\")
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Back and did all the usual monster-stuff –
Killed millions out of some long-rankling huff,
Laid countries waste, recruited his brigades<\/p>\n
Of money, life-hopes, pride, or self-respect,
And so, like Grendel, carried on unchecked
Till desperate remedies alone were left.<\/p>\n
One just as bad in many ways and worse
In some, since we’ve now further cause to curse
The advent of a president obtuse<\/p>\n
To kingdom come if goaded by some stray
Remark, or say ‘Just weather!\u2019 come what may
Of hurricanes by way of wake-up call.<\/p>\n![\"CN](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CN_dt.jpg\")
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Them in the highest honour, those who tried
But failed to stem the rising fascist tide
By monster-slaying, some of them extolled,<\/p>\n
To sainthood while so many others, known
Or unknown to us, left their safety-zone
To venture on a last and lethal game.<\/p>\n
Of ignorance, stupidity, and greed
That fed his viewing-figures and his need
To see that every whim directly spills<\/p>\n
It’s sub-moronic, apt to spark a war,
Designed to show a hapless aide the door,
Or his last shot in some crass \u2018fake news\u2019 tiff.<\/p>\n
From Roman times that they’re no less a threat
To humankind for being apt to get
Their kicks in imbecilic ways, or clown<\/p>\n
If not on their appearing wise or shrewd,
Then on their not indulging some wild mood-
Swing prone to make new enemies of old friends.<\/p>\n
At any time from nineteen-thirty-three
To forty-four, a fine thing \u2013 you’ll agree \u2013
Since who\u2019d blame plotters for a game-plan hatched<\/p>\n
In brutal truth, survived to leave his mark,
As will this monster if left to embark
On half the crimes that seem his fixed intent?<\/p>\n
About what’s best to do when monsters strike
And why perhaps, in special cases like
The present, it’s the role of bodyguards,<\/p>\n
The highest civic virtue and the sort
Of courage that inspired those long-ago
Folk-heroes to cut monster-stories short.<\/p>\n![\"CN](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/CN_Karl_Theodor_von_Piloty_Murder_of_Caesar_1865.jpg\")
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