“In mask accipitrine...”

This sonnet struck the pages of the Olney Times like a bolt from the heavens on June 22, 1963. Arnold Schnabel was still staying at his aunts’ place in Cape May and apparently still deep in a course of intense close reading of his young cousin’s comic books. (Poem broadcast throughout the free world thanks to the continued generosity of the Arnold Schnabel Society.

“The Hawkman and I”

Or would perhaps I were the Hawkman, fitted out
With a special belt made of Nth metal
And a pair of wings allowing me to fly about
In mask accipitrine and an arsenal
Of ancient weapons and of course my wife
And partner the Hawkgirl, who shares my life
As Carter Hall, archaeologist and curator,
But secretly Katar Hol, a cop from Thanagar,
From which planet I brought the Absorbicon,
And with which I could instantly absorb
Every single thing known by every last human
Who ever lived on this spinning green orb,
All their fears and loves, all their final words;
I should also be able to converse with birds.

(For links to other weirdly weird Arnold Schnabel poems and to his previously unpublished memoir Railroad Train to Heaven, kindly peruse the right hand column of this page.)