Dragon Song

 

Meeting the Dragon

 

I slip down into the wilderness –

I’ve traveled here to deal with dragons

many times before.  I think it is the

shadowed breeze that makes me shiver.

 

In the sun I find her sitting,

red anger and green scales falling

like maple seed helicopters in spring.

This dragon’s heard me coming and

 

she knows me.  “I want my voice,” she says.

“Let’s talk,” I say, as I shuffle

up a small tornado with my toe.

On my right a black widow spins her web.

 

Dragon strokes the scorpion dozing

on her knee and shrugs.

“I want my voice.”

A bumble bee buzzes my face.

 

I clear my throat.  A drip of sweat

drops down my neck.

“I’ll let you talk if you’ll be nice,

at least hold back a little.”

 

She yawns, inspects a talon and satis-

fied picks something fleshy

from between her teeth.  She spits:

“I want my voice.”

 

To my left three mantis females

bite heads off their mates in unison.

Far away black crows caw and

something in the bushes sighs.

 

I try again to change the dance:

“If I let you out, don’t rein you in,

will you stop when I demand?

Wispy blue smoke drifts in the air

 

Her tail twitches like a cat intent on prey;

storm clouds approach and a mourning dove cries.

“No compromise,” the dragon says.  “I want my voice;”

but adds, “Perhaps later we can speak together.”

 

Looking for retreat I turn to find

the path has disappeared.  Voices rustle

expectation into purple dusky air, and

heat lightening flickers across the sky.

 

Her familiar fragrance wafts beside me –

She is hot sand, molten glass and ashes.

“Should we warn them?” I ask.

She rattles her scales and smiles.

 

 

Song for the Dragon

 

Dragon by any other name

is angel –

Lucifer:  bearer of light

winged creature of the air

brave Amazon

 

You are fairer than children’s laughter.

Your spiced scent lingers long behind you.

You are strawberries and sweet cream.

I savor your taste on my tongue.

You are orange summer and blue ice.

My skin burns at your touch.

 

For you I unfold the hidden rose

parting the petals with trembling fingers.

I am shaken to the bone.

I am reborn beside you.

 

 

 

 

 

Here Beneath the god

 

And Mary said:  “Be it done unto me according

to thy word.”  The dragon’s reading

bedtime stories to help me sleep.  “Sanitized,”

she snorts and produces another version:

 

“Virgin.

It was my name.  You stole it.

Made it into taffy candy

and syrup

lapping it up

sweet apple breast sugar

claiming me as your own, pre-

tending it’s my idea.

 

Rape.

You raped me.  I’ll name it

and take back my power –

bastard child –

you were my consort not

my lord, laying at my feet

like a maggot the white bird

came to pluck.

 

Fucked me.

That’s what you did.

Gentled it over, called it love.

Set me up.  Made me Queen

of the carnival

while you, pale grub, groveled your way

to the seat and swallowed the throne.

 

Lied.

Liars – father lying

for the son, making virgin to whore

She

who can choose anyone

and is owned by no one.  I am

vengeance and I claim

my proper place!

 

Let there be crows black as piano keys to pluck your babies from the field like withered corn.

 

Let there be boots with heels spiked like punch to dance across your back.

 

Let there be pomegranates squashed like broken hearts, hot as hate, rotting in ordered rows.

 

Let there be blankets of bats to blind you.

 

Blessed be knives flashing like strobe lights in smoky caverns while you puke fermented wine licked from my thigh.

 

Blessed be hornets and scorpions stinging your skin to molten sun hanging in a bloodied sky.

 

May they strike and strike again.

 

Blessed be Eve, eater of apples, biter of Adam, consort of snakes, begetter of woman.

 

Here beneath the god

I didn’t like the view –

so I changed it.”

 

 

The Morning After

 

My dragon is in the corner

sitting and chewing her cud.

She’s eaten my leg for breakfast

and left me here

in the shower with steam and

soap and suds, the sun

 

streaming through the skylight,

me screaming into the fog:

“I’m all off balance!”

“Grow a new leg,” she says,

and licks her lips.

 

What day is this, what time is

it and how oh how did I get

here with a dragon in the corner dining

on leg happy as a kid in cookies?

 

In the corner my dragon grins.

 

I open my mouth to brush my teeth –

a dragon is curled on my tongue.

I take her and place her in the

tumbler, as she softly snores.

 

I comb my hair and three more fall

out smelling of sleep and my

vanilla perfume.  I hang them by their

tails among the hair ties.

 

I go to get dressed and there’s this dragon

big as a hippo sprawled on the shelf

and dreaming of frogs because

she croaks when I poke her.

 

I protest to my dragon who’s preening

green scales into place:

“This is too much!” “There are too many!”

“I only invited you!”

 

She eats my words in mid-air:

“You’ll like them” she says,

And kissing the space beside my cheek

Like a long lost friend she is gone.

 

 

Chaos…

 

lays at sink side

puddled round with water

 

I watch from the corner

surrounded by jagged teeth

purple mountains

and drifting scraps

of pink paper –

 

A chasm

full of cyclone swirling colors

spans the space

between feet and floor

 

cold air curls

up wet legs

like incense

brushes rounded belly

kisses sweat on dimpled breasts –

 

there are dragons here

 

with treasures –

 

come, join me.

 

 

Queen Dragon, the Dealer

 

She’s purple with foxglove scales;

she wears a garland of white daisies,

an orange hat with green fruits

and a veil spun by spiders.

 

There are thistles around her waist

pink and prickly.  She smells

of hay in the rain and dark wet caves

and I don’t know her.

 

Out of her pocket she pulls

ten decks of cards inky as

oil slicks on the open sea that should

be shiny but there is no sun.

 

We are sitting cross-legged in clover

and fresh grass, me on a hill

of red ants, and I can’t move.  She

chants in a voice like waterfalls:

 

“Decks are made to deal, cards are

made to choose, it’s time to play,”

and she points to me with her talon.

I remain quite still.

 

She’s all attention and poise and

we both know the power lies

in the game – the pick of the card just so;

I breathe: “Where is my dragon now?”

 

The Queen shuffles and waits while cards

start to stir on their own.  A locust sings

of heat and the song runs down my spine;

somewhere people are laughing.

 

Then she’s here, my dragon, inside me.

She winks my eye at the Queen

and picks a deck with my hand.  “I’ll deal,”

she says with assurance, and I smile.