The world weary soldier,
And his motley band.
Set out one Sunday,
To visit the Nether Land.
He’d heard of tales,
Whispered in the dark,
Of a man who breathes fire;
And it ignited his spark.
His group travelled afoot,
In (some say) a vain quest,
For thirteen days and nights,
With only the merest rest.
Until, on the fourteenth morn,
They spied a pall ahead,
Where fluttering embers eddied,
Around a raging heart of red.
”This must be where it lives”
The weary warrior exclaimed,
And in his questing mind he thought;
”I wonder if it can be tamed?”
They set a camp, not too far down
the path, in a clearing wide,
And kept expectant watch,
Learning to skillfully hide.
And their reward came, after not too long,
When the sound of crashing was heard.
And into their view, stood not a man,
And none could say a word.
This giant beast, did walk on two
great muscly legs, with claws and teeth
the size of spears, and saucer eyes,
A plume of hellfire spouting beneath.
They did not run, or shirk the fight,
But stood, and in turn burned.
Until stood our leader, one man against hell,
Whereupon the dragon snorted and turned.
And did follow our hero, puny pistol aimed.
Chased down this fire-breathing man,
And all the while, thinking, in pursuit,
”I really don’t have a plan”
The lair loomed out of a clearing,
And the beast sat waiting for him.
In the centre of a ring of lesser beasts,
One taloned hand, beckoning him in.
”I go to die” our hero thought,
But the beast had other schemes.
A human mate for this wily foe,
To let him live it strangely seems.
So he disappeared from the life he knew,
Became the talk of legend in time.
A consort of the beast he did agree
to become, and with this he was fine.
He learned to fly on the devils’ back,
And saw more worlds than most.
Lived out his days as a dragons’ friend,
And the giant, now the genial host.
He thinks back some days, to a thought he had,
When he wondered if the beast could tame.
But instead the beast did tame him,
And a happy slave he became.
But on days when contemplation comes,
”To think it’s come down to this,
I have softened, am living and dying,
In the backdraft of the dragons’ kiss”
© M.H.
Marc's poetry and musings 