The Dark Night Falls
In which we are introduced to our hero, take a left to the chin, rethink the floor plan of our evil lair and plan a lunar picnic.
She can fly, you know, if she wants to,
she could zock you on the chin,
she could punch right through three feet of steel if it should come to it.
She could blink and you'd be ashes
blowing in the breeze.
She could activate her Ultra-Beam and send you to Belize.
She's not afraid of kryptonite
(she spreads it on her toast).
If she wanted she could disappear and pass you as a ghost.
Her Hyper-Boots are comfy, and easy on the eye.
And though you think her suit would itch
she doesn't seem to mind.
They say she fought Doc Destiny
in his inflatable saloon, and left him crying
bent double,
from a swift kick to his runes.
The police sought her opinion on 'The Lowensteiner Case'
and she caught every member of those bigots The Master Race
(and, what's more, simply froze their secret Volcano Base).
She's impervious to bullets
mind-control
radiation from the sun,
and though no fan of brussels sprouts
she still eats each and every one.
She's got hair just how you like it.
A wonderwoman body too.
She's smart, sexy, down-to-earth,
yet she's walked on the moon.
The papers call her 'Astro Chick', 'Miss Mercury', 'The Red Pearl',
she's active in the dead of night:
The Amazing -
The Incredible -
The Deadly -
Dream Girl.
Originally published 2011. Artwork by Pip Bartlett.
In 2011 I gathered a group of artist friends from around Perth and asked for their help in illustrating my 5-part superhero poem Unmasked.
Originally, Unmasked was to be published as part of a series of zines by a small Perth literary magazine. Unfortunately, that magazine fell apart before our hard work got to see the light of day. I had a few copies printed and gave them to family and friends, but the full project was never fully realised.
Michael Burrows 
2 thoughts on “Unmasked- Part I”