dragon – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Strike – Six Sentence Story

Miriam’s mother, Jennifer, answered the doorbell to find Snaky, a dragon from the Land of Wormy Delights disguised in a tailored suit, asking her if he could borrow her daughter as a sacrifice. In a loud voice Jennifer called to Miriam, “There’s a nice-looking, young man here who would like to borrow you as a sacrifice to his lord of the 33rd something-or-other (degree) degree…lucywoosi (Illuminatus) illuminatus…?… (Illuminati) latiwhati…(palm slap)”.

As soon as Miriam heard the word “sacrifice” she grabbed the can of Dra-Gone! dragon repellant, the brand with the slogan You never know when you’ll never need it, and rushed to protect her mother shaking the can to charge it for a direct strike onto Snaky’s snout. As soon as Snaky saw the can he ran.

That stuff must really work, thought Jennifer, wondering if they might squirt just an itsy-bitsy bit of it as a test in the street in spite of multiple warnings on the can to never – ever – even think of doing something like that. After the two adventurous experimenters took deep breaths and Miriam gingerly touched the sprayer to release an itsy-bitsy bit they ran back inside gagging, bolting the door, sealing the frame with duct tape while the neighborhood dogs went bananas.

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Denise offers the prompt word “strike” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. This story is a continuation of Eruption – Six Sentence Story.

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I am grateful to Sammi Cox, editor of Whispers and Echoes, for accepting my very short story Confusing Confetti.

One-Liner Wednesday – Dragons

Don’t be that dragon some knight has to slay.

Linked to Linda G. Hill’s One-Liner Wednesday.

#1linerWeds badge by Cheryl, at dreamingreality646941880.wordpress.com/

Hero’s Journey

 
Tame the Dragon tossed by Moon and Sun.
Flames of falsehood torch dried truth to ash.
Defend us from ourselves until you've won.
Stop the raging waves before we crash.

Flames of falsehood torch dried truth to ash.
Keep your soul prepared like a sharp sword.
Stop the raging waves before we crash.
Beware what glitters in the Dragon’s hoard.

Keep your soul prepared like a sharp sword.
Others braver than you fought but lost.
Beware what glitters in the Dragon’s hoard.
Gather only pain as worth the cost.

Others braver than you fought but lost.
Defend us from ourselves until you've won. 
Gather only pain as worth the cost.
Tame the Dragon tossed by Moon and Sun.

Linked to dVerse Poetic Forms. Gina is hosting this month with the pantoum. The idea for this poem comes from M. Scott Peck’s Further Along the Road Less Traveled where he discusses “The Myth of the Hero”. Here is a quote from page 111-2:

The integration of our masculinity and our femininity is achieved very painfully. It is the struggle that the child goes through in the myth in the course of his or her growing up. But if we can go through this struggle of integration and learn how to approach the same problem with both our right brain and our left brain simultaneously, with both our masculinity and our femininity, then we too can be heroes. We too will be able to solve problems that the world has not yet been able to solve – a world that is desperately in need of heroes and solutions.

The Costs of Love — #writephoto

A sweet maiden frolicked in the fairy glen by its flowing waters swatting mosquitoes.

A brave knight saw her and halted his steed. “Fair maiden, you wander in the enchanted glen. Did mosquitoes bite you?”

“Many have tasted my innocent blood. Many have I dispatched to their fiendish hell. I trust, sir knight, you have returned with glorious kills from the Draconis Mountains?”

“That is true, fair maiden. The dragons who haunt those heights have breaths so foul they have long addled the souls of many a woeful warrior but I have succeeded where others have failed.” The knight dismounted. He reached into his bag and produced a bottle of Fairy Godmother’s Feisty Mosquito Repellent. “It’s the best on the market and it’s only $3.49 today.”

The maiden carefully scanned the many reviews on her phone. “Almost five stars and a better price. I’ll take two bottles.” She opened her bag and produced a bottle of Merlin’s Dragon Breath Neutralizer. “It’s only $6.98 today.”

The knight eagerly bought a bottle and they lived happily ever after.

I’m linking this to Sue Vincent’s Flow #writephoto. She provided the photo for the prompt.
I am also grateful to Christopher Fielden for accepting this as Story 158 of Lesley’s Nifty Nib-Nibbling Nonsensical Narrative Writing Challenge.

Shanti, the Dragon — #writephoto Twilight

The dragon watched the evening twilight darken the valley into deeper blues. He was well-known, but the only one who ever saw him was a monk who thought his cave would make an ideal retreat from the banalities of civilization–until he saw the dragon. Cautiously, the monk backed away mumbling, “Shanti, shanti, shanti.” The dragon thought that was his name and for the purposes of describing his encounter with the damsel that is what I will call him.

The villagers in the valley knew all about Shanti’s treasure. It was worth more than any wealth on earth because it also contained, besides the piles of gold, the Master Gem. This gem gave anyone who saw it twinkle in the cave’s dim light eternal youth–and all that dragon did was sit on it.

However, to get one’s hands on these treasures, one needed, according to legend, a pure damsel whom the hideous beast had to capture. One also needed a brave knight who, under cover of darkness, would lure the fiendish dragon out of his cave and save the damsel. These two, damsel and knight, would be legally entitled to take as much of the hoard as they could carry away before the cave closed forever.

The part about the damsel raised concerns. Youthful females, whose purity was not in doubt, did not want to have such a dangerous part to play in getting the gold. Furthermore many a brave knight wondered, “Why not kill the stupid dragon and keep the gold for myself?” Every now and then some fool would remind everyone else that no one had ever seen this dragon. No one had ever seen his gold, nor this magical “Master Gem”, except for a mythical monk who probably made up this tall tale of how to get the treasure. Most of the townsfolk felt such people could be ignored.

Given these stories, you would think many brave knights and pure damsels would have visited Shanti, but until this evening he had not seen any. That’s why he found it odd when she poked her head into the dimness of the cave and asked, “Hey! Are you the dragon?”

“I’m a dragon,” said Shanti.

“Do you mind if I stay?”

“There’s room for both of us.”

The damsel waited for Shanti to do something distressful to her, but when nothing happened, she asked. “Are you a real dragon or not? Can you even breathe fire?”

“You mean like this?” Shanti took a deep breath and exhaled a flame that lit up the cave. As he did so the damsel screamed and Shanti jumped.

“Help! Help! I’m being held by a fire-breathing dragon!”

At the entrance of the cave, Shanti saw seven knights with drawn swords. “Prepare to die, dragon!” said one, who, unlike the others, couldn’t see very well what was in the shadows. When Shanti stood up, he was over ten times their height and his scales looked harder than their swords.

The smartest of the knights countered, “We mean you no harm, dragon. Move outside the cave so we may tend to the damsel and we will depart in peace.” Shanti felt this was reasonable. Maybe they could convince the damsel to leave? He moved to the cave’s opening.

“Watch where you sling that thing!” The damsel scolded seeing Shanti’s tail slide a bit too close to her.

Shanti saw them pick through his treasure. One knight found a rusted bar of iron and discarded it, but the others found nothing more exciting than broken pottery. The hoard looked like garbage left by long forgotten peasants. The damsel noticed something sparkle, but raised it to her eyes in disappointment. She tossed it. As they left she observed, “Your treasure is a pile of junk. Loser.”

Shanti went into the cave and sat upon what he now knew was junk. He looked around for Sparkie, that stone the damsel discarded, and found him on the ground. Shanti held him to his face and smiled. The thought never occurred to him that someone might want to take Sparkie away. Why would anyone want to do that?

Sparkie scattered the increasingly faint twilight through the cave with soft playfulness. Those watching this scene, if any damsel, knight or dragon-fearing peasant ever had the opportunity of doing so, would have seen the twinkle in the dragon’s eye.

Linked to Sue Vincent’s Twilight #writephoto.
Photo provided by Sue Vincent for this prompt.

The Safe House

Most people are blessed with incorrigible ignorance. They don’t see the lion under the table. They don’t see the goblins in their chicken houses. They don’t even have a chicken house and so they can’t see the devil in his details.

I tell them. They laugh. I tell them again. They say they’ll lock me up. I tell them, “If you lock me up who will protect you from the fairy kingdom?” They lock me up. That’s exactly what I wanted them to do. The last line of defense had collapsed. It’s safer right here. By nightfall someone else can worry about those goblins.

There once was a dragon who knew
That damsel’s effectively through
With her knight on his horse.
They had run off, of course,
Since there’s nothing now either can do.

Linked to Saturday’s Image Write #6 hosted by Bekkie Sanchez and featuring Jacek Yerka.

Linked to imaginary garden with real toads Title-Tale hosted by Magaly featuring Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop: And Other Practical Advice in Our Campaign Against the Fairy Kingdom by Reginald Bakeley.

Part of the Confessional Poetry of Imaginary People series.

Tag: dragon

Strike – Six Sentence Story

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One-Liner Wednesday – Dragons

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Hero’s Journey

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The Costs of Love — #writephoto

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Shanti, the Dragon — #writephoto Twilight

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The Safe House

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At Least We Have Our Fairy Tales

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The Dragon Trusts They’ll Take Care of the Cave

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Why the Dragon Lives Alone

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