The Truth Is Out There

Maria Cecile

Congolese pygmies tell of mkele mbembe,
a living specimen of the lost brontosaurus
lumbering through the African jungle;
Tibetan sherpas speak of Yeti,
the Abominable Snowman hidden in the Himalayas;
Fijian fisherman believe in mermaids,
sirens that lure helpless men into the sea;
Scotsmen talk of Nessie, the beast of Loch Ness
that sometimes comes ashore in the moonlight.

The skepti-West sniggers:
Ignorant natives,
superstitious natives,
duplicitous natives pandering to tourists.
Elephant, wild bear, dugong, boat wakes,
lies, fantasies, hallucinations, fairy tales.

Monsters,
the need to see monsters,
manifests suppressed anger, discontent,
a desire to escape reality.

Modern Western Science
sits atop a concrete mountain
chanting its mantra of
supercomputerized quantitative technopsychologibop---
gloating over tanning booths,
pasteurized processed cheese food,
and thermonuclear detonators
while, in the darkness
on the other side of the mountain, Something
laughs back.

Illustration by Mike "Warble" Finucane