Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock, American
When the Lumberjack Jobs Dried Up, Paul Bunyan Shaved His Beard and Became a Dermatologist, 1911
Oil on board
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Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, and in 2 pages of an online book, starting here, perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page.
/// Doctor Frankenstein’s “work”was notorious,
and creating a “Bride” was laborious.
He required the aid
of homunculi made
by the sinister Doctor Pretorius.
/// Can they see eye-to-eye? No, not really.
Girl and guy should be equals, ideally.
Here, she’s at his command
in the palm of his hand.
If she did give consent, was it freely?
/// The root source of the painting before us
is a tale writ by Gouverneur Morris.
On an isle Polynesian,
people die from a lesion,
like a tiny bite, bloody and porous.
/// This odd island is bare of all trees.
It has grasslands, which fill with unease
all the natives who swear
only fools would go there.
Mr. Graves thought, “I’ll go where I please.”
/// When a roaming biologist comes
to the isle, he and Graves become chums.
Graves had captured a prize
feral “woman,” (mite-size).
To this fantastic sprite he succumbs.
/// The homunculus, (she is called Bo),
seems to fancy Graves, so she must go.
Graves’ fiancée arrives.
To ensure she survives
for their wedding, she must never know.
/// Unnamed botanist holds up his glass
to examine the one foot tall lass.
Soon his hand starts to shake;
Bo has fangs like a snake.
Graves had found her Back There in the Grass.
/// The young woman that Graves had just wed
was attacked and from wounds she had bled.
It was clear that this critter
was the thing which had bit her.
The tale ends with gunshots— is Bo dead?