Fascination and imagination let loose
unicorns and dragons whirl amidst the stars
dreams conjured in the night
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2025
In the heart of ancient earth,
where shadows of giants linger,
whispers of fire and scale
dance in the dust of forgotten ages.
Each fossil a relic,
a breath held in stone,
cradling the secret of wings—
the pulse of a dragon’s dream.
From marrow and mystery,
scientists sift,
weaving strands of life
from the silence of bones.
In labs aglow with wonder,
they conjure the spark,
unraveling threads of lost time,
to breathe life anew,
in the shape of myths that soared.
Summer of the Dragon
No one knew where they came from
Some say from above
Others say below
Doesn’t really matter
They were here
The eyes, like two glowing embers
That was the worst
The talons and scales failed in comparison
It was always the eyes
The swoosh of the wings
Snap of the tail soon followed
By the napalm
They destroyed it all
Burn it to the ground
Until there was nothing left but ash
Then left us here to die
No one knew where they came from
Some say from above
Others below
It really didn’t matter
They were here
I
A dragon, platypus, and unicorn,
drank in a bar and soon locked horns.
The air was tense - would it come to blows?
The unicorn spoke, "Which one knows
a truth which he dares to conceal?
One of us is... disgracefully real."
II
"It's a sad state of affairs - is it not,"
said the dragon, "when one of us is caught".
Sweat broke out in little beads
on the platypus forehead of evil deeds.
In a fate worse than he had feared,
the platypus simply disappeared.
swatting dragonflies
the little girl discovered
no fire on their tongues
Heard my head screamin
My eyes couldn't see
Oh rum set me free
More flagons and mugs
But all my demons
Just won't let me be
So now all I see
Are dragons and thugs
For as long as I can remember
I've kept everything buried inside
For as long as I can recall
I stood on the edge, ready to fall
In the silence of foreboding shadows
I crawled on hands and knees
I searched for a reason to breathe,
ready to tumble like Autumn leaves
But Winter passed and then came Spring
Trying to find the right lyrics to write
But ghosts from my past chased them away
I was lost in the dark without moonlight
I crashed like waves upon the shore
When restlessness took hold of me
I need to find the way to gain control
Spilling tears of the dragon is not for me
Fearless, I must become
To change what I was, and move on
To discover within myself
the courage to be reborn
Time to leave the past behind
and the turmoil that I've faced
I need to create a new state of mind
The old me is ready to be replaced
I crashed like waves upon the shore
When restlessness took hold of me
I need to find the way to gain control
Spilling tears of the dragon is not for me.
Based on lyrics of Bruce Dickinson's 'Tears of the Dragon'
They say happiness is a flame,
brief as a match struck in rain.
I held it once—
a home, two sons,
a husband who smiled like promise.
Until his arms curled elsewhere.
Until his mouth tasted betrayal.
Until I learned beauty
was something I could not hold
no matter how tightly I bled.
The dragon woke in me that night.
Not scaled, not winged,
but clawed in grief,
fire burning holes through my ribs.
If he could snatch away my joy,
I would scorch his world in return.
My children—
his children—
became the tinder.
Their laughter, their small hands,
their faces shaped like his,
drowned in my fury.
But when the river stilled,
their silence came back louder.
My vengeance collapsed into ash.
I touched their lips
and begged them to breathe,
to forgive.
And when the willow trees bowed
like mourners on the shore,
I followed,
slipping into the water’s mouth,
hoping death would undo
what rage had done.
They say I weep at night.
They say I call for them,
cursed to wander, cursed to wail.
But tell me this—
what do you call a woman
whose heart became a dragon,
and whose bones still burn
with the tears she cannot shed?
Tears of a Dragon 8-18-25 Sponsor: Robert James Liguori Based on the song Tears of a Dragon and a Welsh Legend
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tears of a Dragon
Into a cave without a door
Abandoned dragons dormant lie
Without the warmth of a prophet’s sun,
Their fire sacrificed by the sky.
Stumbling to a well that weeps
The forge of darkness not denied
Bullied by the loss of magic
To emptiness songs testify.
With dragon tears in moonbeam hues
Thick elixirs of honeyed balm
Restless waves of healing dews
Bid youthful ghosts find calm.
Dragon tears, white opaque gems
Sleep in bottomless pools of dreams
For future days – called to rise
Enchanted rainbows of dragon daydreams.
Released from the unrest of the sea
With spiraling secrets washed aside
Each tear heals a bleeding memory
Where new magic now abides.
With dragon tears in moonbeam hues
Thick elixirs of honeyed balm
Restless waves of healing dews
Bid youthful ghosts find calm.
Tears of the Dragon Poetry
Contest //Sponsored by: Robert James Liguori
Contest Judged: 8/26/2025 11:56:00 PM
( 6th Place )
Written: August 18, 2025
I stood on the crag where the sea breathed fire,
its winds tearing at the very shape of my name.
The sky was a shattered mirror
each splinter a memory I had tried to leave high and dry,
but still they cut as they fell through me.
In the distance, the dragon turned its head.
Its eyes held storms I had feared all my life.
Its wings-- the weight of every road I never dared to walk.
I thought I’d come here, to vanquish it
But the revelation was, it had come to set me free.
Its roar did not strike me down.
It shredded the silence that had been my prison.
Tears flowed hot and unyielding
spilling the ashes of years into the waiting tide.
The wind rose, not to push me back,
but to carry me forward.
And when the dragon soared away.
Its shadow left no darkness behind.
Only a sky wide enough
for the first flight of my own wings.
I believed that darkness was all consuming
wouldn't dare look up and dream
Entranced by depths of a sea beckoning
bewitched ~ transfixed
I didn't believe the sun would rise
and shine for me ~ rather ...
I believed in the tears of the dragon
a monster hovering over me
I believed in the tears of a captive heart
beached wounded and lame
with flightless wings
But since I met you
I now believe
the sun may shine again
I can’t believe I once believed
that dragons could shed tears—
a time when my mind was robed
in the fragile cloth of childhood.
I wandered alleys where clouds bent low,
pressing their weight upon my skull.
Shadows snapped at my heels like starving dogs,
my heart swung loose inside my throat.
The tremor in my boots chained me still,
and every thought I birthed became a phantom,
scrawled in the dark, painted across the sky.
Those years were lived in trembles and fears,
each night a prayer for the ocean to come,
to wash me clean of figures
that crouched in corners,
that flickered like mirages where light bled thin.
How did those faces dissolve,
slipping from cloudbanks and corridors of shade?
How did they crawl out of my mind,
leaving silence where terror once nested?
Why was the darkness that devoured me then
locked away as a riddle,
a secret even I cannot untangle?
And those I asked only mirrored my silence.
Some still breathe the same trembling air—
fears childhood carved deep,
fears adulthood disguised.
But new specters gather around me now,
pressing their weight like tides unseen,
and once more I beg the ocean:
take me under, strip me clean.
Tears of the Dragon
I splashed water on my face;
the mirror cracked in half -
a reflection of fear and doubt.
It was dark in that cold place
of shattered scales.The sea -
rushing over that rusty sink;
and I can’t think about it.
My wings are clipped;
my breath’s dry sulfur.
I said my prayers;
the mirror just chortled.
Chilblains chatter, sore;
the floor, a horror show.
It was doubtful I’m standing -
what for.
Eruption of the mirror
dares me to peek,
but I’m six feet under
my sheets.
It’s Winter here; I drag my tail.
My sharp-teeth-grief’s unyielding.
Of fierce and fiery tears - there is no end;
unholy flames of years misspent.
A Dragon's Grief
My love, he sits on mountains cold,
His dragon heart, a story told.
Not of fire, but of a past
Where happiness could never last.
I watch him now, a silent king,
A broken bird with one less wing.
He fought for us, with all his might,
To bring the dawn, to end the night.
But shadows fall, and darkness reigns,
And all that's left are bitter pains.
He weeps a tear for what we lost,
A kingdom burned, a heavy cost.
He's not the beast I knew before,
Who'd rage and fly and soar and roar.
He is a man, a broken soul,
Who's lost his way and lost his whole.
And so I stand beneath the stone,
And weep for him who weeps alone.
My love, my king, my dragon lord,
He bleeds with me, with every chord.
Beneath the black sky’s heavy sigh,
the dragon curls around its own shadow,
eyes glowing like stars drowning in sorrow.
It has burned kingdoms,
tamed storms with its wings,
and swallowed the roar of a thousand warriors
But tonight, it weeps.
Each tear is a molten jewel,
falling slow,
cracking the ground with the weight of ages.
They say its tears are poison,
but I have tasted one,
and found the salt of a lonely being
that never learned how to be.
It does not cry for the death,
nor the kingdom turned to ash,
it cries for the lullabies
no one sang
to the child it once was,
before scales toughned
and fire replaced breath.
So I sit at by side,
unafraid of claws,
listening to grief echo through the grunt and bone.
And when it looks at me,
I see myself
a creature built for survival,
aching for peace,
pouring the world’s weight
into the dust
as tears of the dragon.
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