Secret Identity
There was once a young hero named Clark.
“I shall share my Kryptonian spark!”
he resolved as a lad.
“Revelation is bad,”
said his parents. “Keep folks in the dark!”
–Tom Riley
Wonder Woman
versus
The Dark Lord of Stratego!
(for Emmylu Lopez)
When Wonder Woman soars back into town,
The ordinary crooks return to hiding.
Even if she wears heels and evening gown,
She’s always more than ready for colliding
With guys like that. The super-crooks, confiding
Only to robots, are not quite so clear.
The course they’ll choose requires some deft deciding.
Will they take flight – or slug it out right here?
But I in my reaction am sincere—
Despite my status as malicious brain.
I head to parties where you are, my dear.
My minions urge me on to fight in vain.
Victory? I don’t really give a damn.
I straighten out my necktie. Golly, ma’am!
Love,
Uncle Riley
15 December 2014
Superman
(for Matt Thornton)
His greatest challenge isn’t kryptonite
Or Mr. Luthor’s latest ruthless scheme.
It isn’t falling from a lunar height
Or being on a troubled superteam.
For Superman, the challenge is to seem,
In a world full of weaklings, slow and frail,
One of us, not in any way extreme.
Clark Kent is always just about to fail—
And, if he does, then Terran types will wail
The lamentations feared by superears.
Broken by accident, they’ll rise to rail
Against him, supercause of all their tears.
The thanks I offer him are vast and free:
He hasn’t yet annihilated me.
–Tom Riley
Flammeus Gladius 