the historical batman in poetry

in a thousand years in ten thousand years
the priests and the scholars will still
have things to argue about in history
whether its in holograms or in hovels
in cave paintings or non-fiction novels
depending how many things get destroyed
by whatever lie between here and there
and they will debate
the nature of Batman

the priests will say everything was true
that’s their priestly job
that’s what they always do
the genies from the fifth-dimension
the clones and time-travel
everything ever mentioned
about Batman was undoubtedly true
that’s their priestly job
that’s just what they do

the scholars however will differ
the scholars will instead choose
to talk about the historical Batman
the one who must’ve really fought crime
why else would he so well remembered
but their suspension of belief
would be scholarly and tempered

“well of course he couldn’t know
a magical alien from Krypton”
they would say
“that would be just stupid
but the texts clearly state
that the historical Batman
definitely fought crime in
some way”

they’d be combing the ruins
of the northeastern Americas
looking for Bruce Wayne’s tomb
looking for a Bat-Cave that
was not so super-science but
was still a definite Bat-Cave
probably no robot dinosaur
but maybe a Robin costume
a Robin costume or two
they’d have dozens of
archeologists looking

“we’re exploring the gap”
they’ll say
“between the myth and the reality
so that we can better know
the actual historical Batman”

“we know there was Cat-woman
but was she just his follower
or was she really his lover
does there somewhere walk
among us their descendants?
the heirs to the bloodline
of the historical Batman?”
they’ll ask this and
oh God they will mean well
they will think that they’re
doing good work they’ll have no idea
there was nothing real about Batman
that he could be Just Made Up
the idea will be too ingrained
for them to imagine a world where
there wasn’t a historical Batman
maybe he didn’t know gods
maybe he didn’t have a Bat-plane
but there had to be a
historical Batman

in a thousand years in ten thousand years
maybe the scholars will find this poem and
they’ll hide it
they couldn’t let the world know
the reality of the real past
maybe a priest will read it first
maybe he’ll at least
get a laugh