Ascent

For a few days in the fall of 1903, the little town of Van Meter, Iowa was terrorized at night by an 8 foot tall winged creature. Nobody had a camera to take a picture but the story made the local newspapers, including The Des Moines Daily News. Journalists made fun of Van Meter’s citizens and declared they were creating a hoax or were the victims of a practical joke—or they were all crazy. But these were respectable doctors, businessmen, and bankers who witnessed and shot at this Thing which did not flinch from bullets. What was this creature? Was it something that came from Hell itself? In this epic poem, Matt Bialer, poet of the weird and paranormal, explores the possibilities of myth as a reflection of the human condition.