King Kong Meets Komatsu

Of course one thinks of Japanese sci-fi features -
Rodin and Mothra run amok to terrorize
the countryside and lay waste to the cities,
all the extras fleeing, their homes in flames,
their voices dubbed, as the animated creatures
move jerkily through the poorly edited frames
and some American scientist, in English, tries
to save the papier-mache Hiroshimas, Nagasakis

that trouble our collective imagination.
While we watch the giant yellow excavator
(named Komatsu) demolish our neighbor's house -
as close as we've come to the terror of nuclear
war first hand (and it's not very close) -
unthinkable wars wage elsewhere, in filmland.

- Ronald Wallace

© 1995.

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