A blanket of cloud stretches
Obscures, keeps us blind
But I like to think there could be dragons
Flying just behind
Beyond the hefty, leaden skies
That endless cloak of grey
Brightly coloured reptiles
Might romp around and play
The weather here is usually
Dull and overcast
The valley stays in shadow
But if we could just see past
We might catch a glimpse of fire
Beyond that drab cloud cover
Dragons doing somersaults
Swooping with each other
There could be dragons behind the clouds
Maybe not, I wouldn’t know
Isn’t it nice to think
That they could be up there, though
In the Land of the Dragons
my grandfather sleeps -
a place of legends, castles and keeps.
In a magical land of gentle green hills
where new-born lambs frolic still.
Under a carpet of flowers
and the Holy Spirit’s dove
a paradise on earth
mirroring the heavens above.
In the Land of the Daffodils
my grandfather rests
at the old church of St Arthens
by the river Gwynon, that flows under the bridge.
At my grandmother’s side
my grandfather sleeps
together again, united in peace.
In the land of the bards,
where giants once roamed
back in the place,
the place, that is home.
Not the great compass winds, but the lesser,
the local winds, the mapmakers.
Odysseus once bagged them, but they escaped.
Anemoi, like the wind that de-horns goats,
or the Moorish, Melteme,
the ill-tempered one. Simoom, the poisoner
who fills throats with its tainted garments,
or Rashabbar the black wind
whose nocturnal wings blind all men.
Named, visible winds that chisel our faces,
as if we were cliffs at the edge of the world.
The Squamish, the Elephanta, the Williwaw,
time-swirling thieves. They steal the young,
the babes in their cribs and when we look for them,
a swish of a hem or a hurricane are the same.
The children return, a sculpted dervish
spiralling within them.
Tebbard, the fever wind, wanders through our bones,
a sultry doctor adding fuel to the heat
until a storm breaks, then as driftwood we are salvaged.
The Fever-bringer itself dies,
dry now as mottled kelp on carrion shores.
Winds that gnaw themselves into Chinooks and Mistral,
winds that shape and follow us
to the rim of the sky, where those celestial dragons,
North, East, South and West winds
dream fitfully of once being human.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your black carriage moves through perpetual gloom~
Ravenloft’s castle sits, perched atop Barovia’s bone-white crags,
its spine hunched over fog-choked valleys.
You sit alone in Ravenloft, tracing chess moves on dusty marble,
fingertips lingering where Tatyana’s pawn once stood~
writing names in your ledger, the ink brown as blood.
You are a silhouette of despair, swirling brandy in your amber-hued snifter~
the moonlight bruising your study’s velvet drapery,
the centuries calcifying the ache behind your ribs.
Your shadow clings to the castle walls long after candles sputter~
haunting notes of an unseen organ drift through the night,
calling lost souls to your eternal embrace.
You stalk the hunt that cannot feed~immortal thirst, forever starved.
Yet you smile and pour yourself another century.
Dragons don't cry, nor laugh-- not that they can't!
It's just exhausting, to accumulate
Years, wisdom, and gold: emotion they slant.
For all their beating wings, their heart runs cold.
To love, fiery? No. To mourn unto tears?
Again, no, they don't. And having lost love,
Laughter too is gone. Have you heard echoes,
Arumble in the canyons? Fierce laughter?
Dragons do not cry. They are too old, tired.
So let the ocean salt the wounds you bear,
And let your madness mount the dragon, ere
You see the dawn and dusk, the cloudy draw.
Soar, winged emotion, drown sorrow in tears.
But be not dragon, for whom the cold heart
Beats without laughter, tears of joy, nor grief,
Lives uncounted eons, born nether shadow,
Without connection, regret, love, nor loss.
No.
Laugh with the spring rain, Sorrow over loss,
And most of all, love. Love with tempest tears
Grieve with your short years, and be not dragon.
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.
I love the strange world of fantasy
where IMAGINATION is the star
and WHIMSY provides a canopy
as weird creatures fly in from afar
Dungeons, dragons, a Lady, a Lord
and sybils who DREAM all but tell less
VISUALIZATION colors words
purple, red, gold, darkness is the dress
Please don't say it's HALLUCINATION
MY REVERIE is true as the moon
I have known a few purple dragons
and I'm having lunch with two at noon
When and how
did we see chivalry last
or is it now
a thing of the past
and honour among thieves
is no honour at all
while beating my brains
against the wall
besting the dragons
at City Hall
am I wrong in thinking
it's my fight
or am I errant
as a roving knight
exhibiting gallantry
within a crowd
of apathy
indifferent
to the powers that be
outnumbered and outgunned
Sancho when needed oh where is he?
With apologies to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 – 1616)
'Write Thirteen Beautiful Lines' Poetry Contest: Sponsored by Constance La France (April/May 2025).
Where hills are alive
with imagination
carried by clouds
toward their destination
Lakeland fells and sheep
Liverpool of cormorants
Wales with its dragons
Yorkshire and terrier dogs
in Lancashire towns
of redbrick and cobbled folk
who worked with bare hands
to build a much better world
beneath these beautiful skies.
Dragons, fearless and bold/
Creatures of legend/
The perfection of fearlessness/
High and mighty/
Their eyes piercing and cold/
Breaths of fire, tales of power told/
Soaring to heights undreamt by man/
The most powerful in existence, they reign/
It was awe inspiring/
When Satan transformed into a Dragon/
His true form adorned/
Majestic and fierce/
Kings of the skies/
With scales of armor/
And wings that rise/
They are the true rulers/
The beings of lore/
In their presence/
I love them even more/
I thought, back then,
that what I felt for her was love.
Jack said it was just lust
and certainly nothing less.
He had a point, she stank
of pure pheromonal passions,
Together we had an alchemy of ardor
and odor.
We grappled at sultry flesh
and made it speak.
There were no soft whispers,
howls and growls
were our feverish cravings
our furious devotions.
Jack said:
he could hear us thrashing together
clear across town,
that we were always on fire.
Even strangers saw us
through a blood red sexual prism,
their eyes darkening
as erotic dragons danced before them.
Jack was a bit of a poet.
I was simply a raging animal
caught in a love net,
but of course,
Jack already knew that.
Slaying dragons
I sat in my den, trying to compose a poem
which is not easy for a pretender
a scream from the living room, she heard
something in the kitchen and sent me there
to slay the dragon
I found a tiny mouse, knocking over
an empty plastic bottle of water
I picked up the mouse it was surpassingly
supine, sniffed at my hand, since we
live on the seventh floor, it must have had
a long clime
I did what every brave man would do,
left the mouse in the hallway
I heard a scream from the sixth floor
a new hero was called for, I hope he didn't
kill the tiny traveler
droll dragon’s drastic dragnet drizzles droopily
dreaming drones drudge dripping drops of drizzle
dredging and drenching dragon’s drastic dragnet
droll dromedary drives drooping dragnet’s drums
Warning said her mother, if you are kind to dragons
they will never leave
This is exactly what Cindy wanted to hear
Because she wanted to keep her dragons
Her mother’s dragons had been gone for way too long
if you asked her….
beautiful creatures
dangerous if confronted
stay away from beach
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