Tag Archives: dragons

July 4, 2012 · 7:39 am

22. Reordering Salvation

an epic poem by Thomas Davis

I.

Ruanne packed carefully, then heaved a sigh.
The hunters would not willingly allow
Her presence as they braved the treachery
Of miles of snow now frozen on its surface.
They’d think she’d be a burden as they watched
For warring dragons and the wounded men,
But she was going if she had to travel
Behind them as they tried to find Ruarther
And Cragdon struggling back to where the village,
Tense, fearful, waited for a dreaded future.
She loved Ruarther even as he caused
The chaos threatening all that she loved.

Outside her cottage Reestor waited, looking
Exhausted, circles black beneath his eyes.
He shook his head to see the pack she’d packed.

“I knew you’d try to go,” he said. “A-Brimm
Will try to stop you, but he’ll not succeed.”

Ruanne smiled at the village leader, shook
Her head, but silently walked past to where
The hunters gathered as the morning sun
Threw blue, long shadows out from trees
Whose branches bent beneath their loads of snow.
A-Brimm looked carefully at her and Reestor
The moment that they left her cottage door.
She did not look at him, but looked toward
The trail they’d travel as they made their way
Into the slopes and fields that rose snow-bound
Into the mountains where the dragons lived.

When Reestor opened up the wooden gate
The grim-faced hunter shook his head and frowned.

“This trip is not a woman’s trip,” he said.
“I’ll not be blamed for leading you to harm.”

Ruanne glanced at his glare, then walked on past
And started down the trail toward the fields
Beyond the denseness of the forest’s trees.

A-Brimm turned, desperate, to Reestor, pointed
Toward Ruanne, frustration in the way he stood.

“You’re leader. Make her stop,” he said. “Who knows
What nightmares that we’ll face outside of here.”

“Ruarther’s hurt and dying,” Reestor said.
“We need her here if we can stop this war
Before it overwhelms us all, but I
Can’t stop her, so you’ll have to keep her safe.”

The seven other hunters mumbled, growled
To hear the village leader’s words. A-Brimm
Just stared at him, then grabbed his bow and pack
From snow and stalked to where Ruanne had walked.
The other hunters, voices cursing, scrambled
Into the trail Ruanne and he had left.

II.

Blind, stumbling, Cragdon felt his death
Beside him in the snow he’d walked for days.
His body jarred each time he forced his muscles
Into another step, another mile,
His eyesight blurring in the winter sunlight.
He’d lost the reason why he kept his legs
Alive with shuffling downhill toward
The endlessness of emptiness. His thoughts
Were haunted by the vision of a dragon
That flamed out from the fullness of a moon
With searing tongues of fire that made his flesh
Smell charred and sweet with putrefaction’s rot.
He kept on swatting at the empty air
And flinching as the flames shot out at him.
He thought he’d welcome death when movement
Became too difficult, and life gave out.
He thought he’d smile and take death’s hand in his
And feel relief that he, at last, was done.
He could not bring his wife or child alive
Inside his mind. It troubled him, but still. . .

III.

Ruanne walked from the woods into the fields
And squinted at the brightness of the snow.
A-Brimm, ten steps behind, stopped when she stopped.
Behind them hunters started leaving woods.
Ruanne then saw the figure stumbling
Toward them out of light, his head hung down.
Her heart inside her throat, she saw that Cragdon,
A man near death, was struggling alone.
Ruarther was not anywhere in sight,

And then she smelled a bear’s rank smell and felt
It rising up inside the forest, light
Cold-deep in red eyes burning hate and rage.
She saw it rise up from a fire’s dark ash
And hunch above Ruarther’s sleeping body
Burned raw by dragon flame and coal-black rage,
Its roiling spirit flowing like a stream
Into the rage that made him who he was.
The vision made her stagger, sending blackness,
A thin, sharp, liquid arrow at her brain.

She heard A-Brimm shout when he saw the man.
She watched as Cragdon stopped his movement, tried
To understand if he was hearing things,
And lifted up his head into the air.

She turned toward the village, away from Cragdon,
As all the hunters ran toward the man.
She could not see. The great bear smiled at her
And laughed its weirding as she fled its madness,
Ruarther’s madness, wondering how she
Could keep him safe from who he was inside,
A man who thought that he could kill a child
And bring a peace he’d purposely destroyed.

I should have known, she thought. Ruather’s strength
Was great enough to live through dragon’s fire.
Salvation layed in her and not in him.

To listen to this section of the epic, click Reordering Salvation

Note: This is the twenty second installment of a long narrative poem, which has grown into an epic. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 21 to read the installment before this one. Click on 23 to read the next installment and continue the journey.

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June 17, 2012 · 7:24 am

20. Inside a Furnace

an epic poem by Thomas Davis

He felt as if he was inside a furnace,
The brick kiln burning with a glowing heat,
His skin so sensitive it seared with pain
As if he’d touched a fiery red-hot coal
And spread its agony across his face,
Hours blistering into eternity,[1]
The fire from dragon’s breath a shroud he wore
That made each wracking gasp for air his life.

Inside this pain he still got to his feet
And gathered wood and kept the fire alive
As night turned day turned night turned day again.
He would not die, he said inside his mind.
He could not think, but still, he told himself.
I will not die. I’ll live another day.

A dawn rose golden over mountain peaks.
Snow sheened sky gold across the wilderness.
Asleep at last, arms twitching uncontrollably
As nightmares danced with fire and pain,
Ruarther did not see the bear rise from
The ashes of the dwindling fire so huge
It seemed as if it was the spawn of dragons,
Its dark, brown fur tinged gold by morning light.
Its smell was strong enough to have a whiff
Of sulfur as it shimmered, then solidified
Above the man who whimpered in his sleep.

The great bear wove its arms above the man.
Ruarther woke, his blood shot eyes wide with his fear.
The bear stood silent, waiting, coiled intensity.
Ruarther tried to gather thoughts from pain,
The shroud of heat consuming who he was.

“I have to kill the witches’ child,” he croaked,
His throat so dry with heat it hurt to talk.

The bear’s eyes gleamed and glared at him.
“Blood is a juice of rarest quality,”[2] it said.

“You are a spirit bear,” Ruarther said.
“You have the strength to take this pain away.”

The bear just stared at him. Light streamed around
Its massive form and shimmered as the sun
Rose up above the mountain peaks and golden light
Blurred deep into the blue of winter sky.

“I’ll feed upon your pain,” the great bear said.
“I’ll feed upon the pain your hatred burns
Into the human and the dragon worlds.”

The fire behind it blazed a dance of flames.
The great bear turned and seemed to sway with winds
Not felt within Ruarther’s winter world.
It roared, the sound so loud if shook a crest
Of snow and sent it plummeting from off
The ridge above Ruarther’s camp, a cloud
That stung Ruarther’s skin and chilled the shroud
Wrapped round his burning flesh and mind.

Ruarther gasped. He could not breathe. The cold
Of nothingness pierced deep into his bones.
He felt as if he had no eyes or ears,
As if his human senses had dissolved
Into a void where men did not belong.
The bear was in the void, a monstrous shape
That had no form, but whirled into a wind
That was no wind, but ash that heaped its blackness
Into a glittering beside a fire
That wisped with smoke into the freezing skies.

Ruarther’s lungs gasped air. He shuddered, gulped
The bitter cold into his lungs as if
It was ambrosia, life, unexpected joy!
He was amazed to feel that he was still
Alive, a human not possessed by spirits
That roamed the earth in search of human souls.
He touched his arm. His flesh was hot.
He flinched to feel the pain his touch could cause.
His weariness ached deep inside his mind
And made each joint and bone seem brittle, sore,
But he felt cold. The shroud of fiery heat
Had dissipated when the bear turned back
Into the ash he’d risen from to life.

What now? He asked himself. He was alone.
The fields of snow were blinding bright with sun.
He had to have a fire to stay alive.
The huge, black dragon dove out of the dark
Toward the boulder that he hid behind.
He closed his eyes and felt the wind of wings
That lifted blackness through the moonlit skies.
He had to end the dragon threat of war.
Inside his universe of pain he’d kept that chant.
He glanced toward his bow and deadly arrows.

The bear had given back his life and will.
He’d kill the witches’ child. He’d kill the child.
He smiled. He’d rest; then, with the coming dawn,
He’d start the journey to the meadow where
A cottage sat below the caves of dragons.
He’d drive an arrow through the child’s black heart.

1 This passage was inspired by Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “The Future Punishment of the Wicked Unavoidable and Intolerable,” delivered in 1741.
2 From Scene IV of Faust by Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe.

To listen to this section click Inside the Furnace.

Note: This is the twentieth installment of a long narrative poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 19 to read the installment before this one. To read the next installment, click on 21.

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June 9, 2012 · 7:47 am

19. Brewing Dragon War

an epic poem by Thomas Davis

Inside his cave Sshruunak’s dark thoughts unleashed
A constant storm that pummeled him with lightning
As pain and anger raged with burning hatred.
He felt a fire so fierce it made scales burn
Into his flesh and scar his spirit’s song.

He’d let the healers come, extract the arrows,
And wrap his bloody eye with salve and webbing
Designed to let a membrane heal the wound,
But then he’d sent long streams of dragon fire
To singe all other males brave enough
To bring their fury to his cold, dark lair.
He brooded in the darkness like the worm
The humans once had said described his kind
And tried to find his balance in a world gone mad.
He’d always thought himself impervious
To any human wile and could not understand
How two small humans had defeated him
And made him flee the battle like a coward.

When old Williama came and stood outside
His cave and called to him, he snorted fire
And rumbled with his incoherent rage,
But chasing elders off was not as easy
As threatening the friends he’d had since birthing.
The old, dark dragon waited for his fire
To spend its breath, then came inside, her eyes
So wild with whirling colors that she seemed
As potent as Ssruanne upon the dais.
She stood in light made by her eyes and curled
Her lips so that her rows of teeth gleamed white
Inside the storm of hatred that he’d brewed.

“You’re hiding from yourself,” she said, her voice
A whipping blade of anger. “Now you know
Why peace was made before all dragonkind
Was lost to history and ancient myths.”

Sshruunak let silence stretch and coil
Into discomfort as the elder stood
And stared implacably at where his eye
Was blind, her stance aggressive, challenging.

“This universe cannot let dragons live
While humans breed like rabbits in the spring,”
He growled at last. “We live; they die, or else
They live, and we become an ancient myth.
You used the words; I spit them in your craw!”

Williama’s eyes grew more intense. She snorted,
A puff of fire flared out to light the cave.

“I was a fool,” she said. “I heard the geas Ssruanne
Called from the ancient spirits of our race
And let my hatred of the humans crush
My sentience and send you out to where
You were as big a fool as I when I
Called for destruction of the human girl.
When Mmirimann negotiated peace
I thought he was insane, but we are thriving
Inside these caves where once our numbers fell
Year after year through centuries of time.
The peace has got to hold. It’s got to hold.”

He stirred. “The young will follow me,” he said.
“I’ve heard their talk outside the cave for days.”

“You think you are a leader then?” she asked.
“Like Mmirimann? Ssruanne? The ones who made
It possible for us to live our lives
Without the threat of arrows in our eyes?”

The blackness in him stirred alive a force
More powerful than any dragon was.
It overwhelmed his pain and blindness, swept
Aside the reason in Williama’s voice,
And roared into the cave so loud the stones
Above their heads began to tremble, crack.

Inside the universe of sound Williama
Stood still, despair a wailing in her head
That echoed back into the times when dragons
Were solitary in their greediness.
Inside the cave Sshruunak seemed like a nightmare,
Wings black, his spirit black as shining wings.
She stared into the storm of who he was
And tried to find his sentience, the key
That could unlock the future of his kind
And let them all avoid a dragon war
Where young fought elders as their futures waned.

“You cannot kill the human girl,” she said.
“Ssruanne is eldest. She has seen the song
That’s gathering inside our dragon hearts.”

The silence was so sudden that it echoed.
He glared at her, his eyes so strong they seemed
As if they had the will to hypnotize all time.

“The humans who were brave enough to send
Their arrows in my eye are dead,” he said.
“A single dragon’s not the force that dragons
Assembled like a human army are.
Ssruanne’s girl took away my dragoness
And made me silent when I meant to speak.
She’s just as dead as those two hunters are.”

“Ssruanne and Mmirimann will fight against
Your craziness,” Wwilliama said. “The elders
Won’t easily forsake the future of our race.”

“The elders battling the young?” he sneered.
His blackness seemed to stretch outside the cave
Into the winter cold and coal black night.
“The young will win,” he said. “The young will win.”

“We’ll see,” Wwilliama answered, sadness like
A pool of water covering her spirit.
“We’ll see what dawn and dragon hearts will bring.”

She turned and left the cave. Sshruunak saw deep
Into the universe and saw the power
Of rage engulfing all the earth in flame.

“The hunters and the girl are dead,” he said.
“And if the elders have to die, they’ll die.”

Ssruanne would never use her geas on him.
Inside the darkness of his cave he saw
His blackness leading as a hundred dragons
Flew massed toward a village wrapped in peace.

Listen to an audio of this section of the epic: 19

Note: This is the ninteenth installment of a long narrative poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 18 to read the installment before this one. Go to 20 to read the next section of the epic.

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June 1, 2012 · 7:04 am

18. Touching a Dragon’s Mind

Inside the cottage Ruanne sat as sunrise
Beside her loom and rocked the rocking chair
So slightly that it hardly seemed to move.
Old Broar and Reestor sat beside her waiting,
Their nervousness at weirdness burned
Into their eyes and drawn, pale hunter’s faces.
Ruanne let thoughts drift outward, fleeing light
Toward the mountains rising in the west.
The only time she’d let her thoughts drift west
Was when she’d been distracted or was close
To sleep and inbetween awake and sleep.
For years she’d forced her mind to shy away
From songs vibrating deep inside her bones.

As morning light intensified and spread
Across her flagstone floor, she saw Crayllon,
The witch, stare at the villagers as one,
And then another, picked up heavy stones
And threw them at her and her tiny child
Who wailed despair at rage and cruelty.

Crayllon had stood her ground, disheveled, rage
Distorting who she was, and held the girl
Behind her plain black skirts as she was hit
And bloodied on her arm and then her face.
Her husband newly dead, accused of forcing
A man who’d loved her all her life to die,
She’d stood as silent as the stones that bruised
Her flesh and spirit, cut her off from people
She’d lived with all her life. Her witchery,
Inherited from parents who helped to end
The wars for Clayton through their dragon-talking,
An evil that the village could not tolerate.
Grim words had sealed her fate through innuendo.
This even though her husband’s wounds had come
From dire wolves chanced upon while hunting goats.

He was too strong to die, his kin had said,
Their grief as bitter as their lives had been.
His wife had caused his death. She was a witch.
She had to die, and so they’d used their tongues
To brew a storm that led to men with stones
Hurled with excitement at a woman, child,
Themselves, their fears, the village’s ruined heart.

Inside her trance Ruanne lost where she was.
Her vision burned into her young child’s mind.
She’d never be a witch, she thought. Not her.
She’d be a village woman safe from stones.
Old Broar had been the one that stopped the madness.
He’d stepped between the witch and grinning men
And made them hesitate and told the witch
To leave, to save her child, to keep the village
From doing what would stain its spirit black,
And somehow, standing there, he’d backed the men
And women spreading lies into retreat
And let Crayllon flee to the mountain peaks.

She startled in the rocking chair. Chills ran
Along her arms and made her want to flee
Away from chaos pounding in her head.
The dragon song she’d felt before had throbbed
With harmonies that shimmered, colored dancing.
Fear, rage, regret, intensity, confusion,
Cold calculation, desperation stopped
Her rocking, made her rigid as a spire
Of stone shot up into a storming sky.

Old Broar and Reestor felt the storm she faced
And blanched, their fears alive inside of them.
Their bodies made them want to get up, flee
Into the wilderness away from what
Was pummeling Ruanne, assailing her.
They had to reach into their deepest selves
To sit and watch their young friend face her storm.

An ancient spirit felt Ruanne and stared
Into a human that she’d never thought would brave
The huge immensities inside her mind.
Ruanne felt fear rise up as if a stream
Had overflowed its banks and swept all life
Before it as it dominated earth.
The dragon seized control of who she was
And forced herself to calm and said inside
Herself, “We do not want another war.”

And then Ruanne saw where a long, dark ridge
Rose out of endless fields of drifted snow
And saw Ruarther by a fire, his face
So hideous with burns from dragon fire
She cried out in the silent room and made
The two men get up from their chairs, their hearts
Contesting wills to keep them in the cottage.

The dragons’ calm washed through Ruanne and let
Her feel herself again. She looked at Reestor,
Despair at what she’d seen so strong and urgent
She dropped the dragon song and felt a panic
That seemed to make her life irrelevant.
Her eyes were raw with tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Ruarther’s burned by dragon fire,” she said.
“The war’s begun. He made the war he wanted,
And soon its fires will sweep out of the caves.”

Old Broar looked at her frightened eyes and forced
Himself to smile. “You touched a dragon’s mind,”
He said. “You didn’t die. We have a way
Of telling them we do not want more war.”

Grim, Reestor moved and took Ruanne into his arms.

“We’ll find him. He won’t die out there,” he said.

Ruanne’s eyes filled with tears. “I love him. Damned,”
She said. “I love him even though he’s crazy,
Concocting senselessness endangering
The people that he thinks his deeds protects.”

Outside the children started shouting, laughing
As morning started up life’s old routines.

To listen to this section click on Touching a Dragon’s Mind.

Note: This is the eighteenth installment of a long narrative poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 17 to read the installment before this one. Click 19 for the following section.

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May 23, 2012 · 6:13 am

17. The Meeting of Wei and Ssruanne

an epic poem by Thomas Davis

I

Inside her dream Wei flew through skies so blue
They seemed to vibrate with a pulsing life—

And then she was awake, the fire stoked down,
Air frigid, dark intense, more night than night.
Her mother, gleaming, sat upon her bed
And seemed to look at worlds Wei could not see.
Wei huddled in the covers, warm, content
To see her mother in her life again,
But then her mother sensed she was awake
And stood, light streaming from her sudden movement.
Her mother did not speak, but stared at her.
Behind her mother in the faint blue haze,
Vague, other figures huddled, eyes unfocused.

Wei carefully sat up, the covers clutched
Beneath her chin, her heartbeats in her ears.
Her mother waved her arm. The room’s deep cold
Seemed colder still. Wei stared, afraid.
Each time she’d seen her mother in the room
She’d not felt fear, but now a warmth spread over
Her trembling body, banishing the cold,
And in the warmth she felt as if she’d lost
The little girl she was and found a self
Not made at birth, but forged from hands that waved
A spectral light into the night’s cold dark.
She felt as if she tottered on a cliff
Above a canyon plunging down sheer walls
Toward the River Lethe far below.
Entranced, she slid from covers, stood up straight,
Heart larger than her heart had ever been.

II

While moving from the conclave cavern out
Into the tunnel leading to her cave,
Ssuranne felt warmth beneath her scales, a strangeness.
She stopped and felt the geas come over her,
This time so powerful it seemed to seize
Control of who she was. What now? She asked,
Her two hearts struggling against the power
That flooded deep into her brain and made
Her want to leap into the air and fly toward
The human girl’s small cottage in the dark.

She felt the witch inside the tunnel with her.
In irritation at the urgency
She felt, she forced her legs to root themselves
Into the tunnel’s floor, her exercise
Of dragon will a force against the geas.

The dragon race was fading everywhere,
But here inside the mountain, where the peace
They’d forged had held a hundred years and let
Them build community now threatened by
Sshruunak’s rage brought about by how the geas
Had shot into the conclave’s fear, they’d thrived.
What madness shattered through a dragon’s will?
The dragons’ rage had violated peace.
The dragons’ center was disintegrating,
The evolution that had caused a burst
Of eggs and dragonets now close to failing.
She felt the sadness dragging Mmirimann
Back to his cave, the sense he felt at having
His greatest triumph turn to bitter ash.

What should she do? She asked herself. The geas
Was like a cloud that danced with lightning bolts,
So powerful it took away her strength.
She was no human who the spirit world
Could enter, forcing her to do its will.
At last she sighed. She walked toward the ledge.

III

Unwilling, Wei walked haltingly toward
The cottage door. She was not dressed for cold,
But as her mother moved her spectral arms
And light danced in the darkness, warmth surrounded
Her body, forced the winter cold away.
Beside the door she glanced back at her mother.
Her father, fainter than her mother’s form,
Stood just behind the light her mother cast,
The love the two of them had felt in life
Now emanating out toward their daughter.
Without a thought she opened up the door
And walked onto the path she’d made with light
Into the drifts of snow and looked toward
The mountains and the night’s black, bitter skies.

IV

The Old One sent a stream of steady flame
To clear a circle by the human girl
And flared her golden wings and touched the ground.
She felt the changing of the world she’d known,
The keening of a dragon as they fought for life
Against a horde of tiny men that shot
Their arrows further than they’d ever shot—
Their triumph singing songs of dragon death.
She felt the girl’s bright eyes, as calm as water
On pools without a breath of wind, sweep over
Her, soaking up her spirit, seeing past
Her scales into the beating of her hearts.

“You’re Wei,” she said, her voice surprising her.
The girl kept staring, drawing strength and power
From where her mother stood beside her bed.

“Ssuranne,” the young girl said, “your name’s Ssuranne.”
She sounded awed, as if she could not grasp
That she was standing in the winter snow
Without a coat or boots and hearing words
Said by a dragon only seen in skies.

The geas collapsed. Ssuranne felt free, but stood
Her ground. What did the young girl want? What caused
Her mother’s spirit’s restlessness and power?

V

Wei did not move, but stared, eyes soaking
Ssruanne into her memories and self.
The golden scale she’d burned into her arm
Pulsed hot and made her feel her blood spin back
Into a time when humans’ ancient power
Flowed through their flesh, their minds, their deepest selves.

VI

The girl’s eyes stopped their searching, glanced at ground.
Ssruanne looked at the girl and saw the dragon
Inside the storm of spirits in Wei’s spirit.
There’s something new upon the earth, she thought,
And with the thought she seemed to hear a chant
That flooded her with hope and dreams and love.
Fear coursed into her blood and made her feel
As if the human girl was part of her,
As if the penetrating eyes saw cells
Inside her body like they saw her scales.
She tore her eyes away from Wei and looked
Toward where dawn was brewing early day.

She spread her wings and lifted from the ground.

To hear an oral reading of the poem, click The Meeting of Wei and Ssruanne

Note: This is the seventeenth installment of a long narrative poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 16 to read the installment before this one; 18 to read the next installment,

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April 25, 2012 · 7:01 am

14. The Beginning of War

an epic poem by Thomas Davis

I.

Sshruunak fled high into the winter skies.
He left the concave as his blood raged fear,
Leaped from the nearest ledge into the air
And blindly flew toward the mountain peaks,
His black wings driven down so fiercely hard
He rose and rose until the air was thinner
Than what his lungs could gulp into his hearts.

His thoughts kept singing, Ssruann! Ssruann!
The dragon witch! The witch that ruled his tongue!
And made it so he could not think or speak.

At last, his head so light from lack of air
His dizziness buzzed weakness in his wings,
He wheeled toward the peaks, in moonlight, far
Below him, silver shining light on snow.
He drifted, thoughtless, like a shadow stained
In darkness of the dark beyond the moon,
Then saw, far off, long down the mountain slopes,
A fire built by a human fighting cold.

He did not think, but moved his long, dark wings
And let his rage stoke furnaces inside
His hearts. Humiliation was a fire
That violent death would turn to triumph born
When dragons ruled the earth with claws and fire!
He rumbled deep inside his chest and roared!

II.

Ruarther felt as if he’d fought a war.
He looked at Cragdon’s haggard face and grimaced.
They’d moved on crusts of hardened snow that caved
Deep holes they had to clamber out of shaking.
They’d labored upward, slow as creeping turtles,
Until they’d seen the ridge that jutted black
Against the blinding light of sun-struck snow.
Night cold had burned their faces with its knives
When, at long last, they’d reached the ridge and trees
With limbs that they could use to build a fire.
The weariness they felt was like a weight
That would not let them move their arms or legs.

When Cragdon saw the distant puffs of flame
That flickered all along the mountain’s slopes,
He only motioned as he pointed at the lights.

“What’s that?” he croaked, his weary voice half dead.

Ruarther forced himself to stand and stare.
He listened to the wilderness’s silence,
Felt strangeness make him grab his bow and crouch,
His eyes a restlessness scanned at the sky.

“Your bow!” he hissed at Cragdon. “Hurry! Now!”

He saw the dragon as it flew at them,
Its blackness huge inside the moon’s bright light.
He notched his arrow at the hurtling blackness
As Cragdon, suddenly aware of death’s
Black dragon hide, let go another arrow.
The dragon roared, its roar so threatening and loud
It made Ruarther tremble from its rage.
He turned and saw the space between the boulders.

“Behind the stones!” he yelled. “Our war has come!”

III.

An arrow skipped a half inch from his eyes
Off scales into the dark, but then another
Burned into his right eye’s pupil, sending
Gross streams of blood and pain into the wind
His body made as wings beat hard and fast.
Flame spewed into the dark toward the midgets
That tried to flee his might behind huge rocks.
He roared his rage and pain and soared as ground
Brushed hard and cold against the tip of wings
That lifted him. He hated humans! Death!
He raged. He was of dragonkind, a brother
Of death, destruction, hate, and ancient rage!
He wheeled toward the puny men again
And roared as if his voice was dredged from realms
Where humans congregated past their graves.

IV.

He would not be afraid again, Ruarther swore
Beneath his breath behind the boulder’s shield.
He glanced at Cragdon, saw the dragon’s breath
Had seared the bobcat coat he wore, exposing flesh.
The campfire burned its cheer into the night.

He heard the dragon turn and waited, breath
Forgotten as he tried to time his move
So that his strength could send a deadly arrow
Into the dragon’s eye and make it flee.

The dragon’s wings were loud. Ruarther moved
Into the open, saw an arrow buried
Inside the dragon’s right eye, drew his bow,
And tried to drive another arrowhead
Into the same eye spewing dragon blood.
The dragon’s flame enveloped him with agony.
He could not hear or see the dragon rake
Its legs into the surface of the snow
Or see a second arrow’s shaft protruding
Out from the dragon’s eye, blood staining snow.

V

Sshruunak’s pain flared as if the universe
Had disappeared into a blood red fire.
He felt wings drive into the freezing snow
And barely lifted from the ground where death
Was waiting. Claws extended, pain a haze,
He tried to rake the flesh he’d burned with fire.
But dragon will was not enough to let him wheel.
I’ve damaged both my wings, he thought. Both wings.
He flew toward the caves and thought about
Ssruann’s last words she’d used to silence him:
“The girl is one of us,” she’d said. The prophecy
A geas that led him in his foolishness
To court his death confronting puny men.

Click to hear an audio of this section: The Beginning of War

Note: This is the fourteenth installment of a long poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 13 to read the section before this one. Go to 15 to read the next section of the epic.

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April 18, 2012 · 7:08 am

13. The Substance of Light

by Thomas Davis

The frost upon the window melted, Wei
Stared out at evening skies and watched as dragons
Launched flight from caves in numbers greater than
She’d ever seen before, their colored scales
Dramatic in the sunset’s streaming fires.
She wondered what was wrong. They all seemed stressed,
As if they had to flee their underground.
She watched to see the golden dragon’s scales,
But if she flew, she flew outside Wei’s sight.
She watched until the shadows brought the night,
Then went to sit beside the fireplace fire.

In front of warmth brought by the cheerful flames
She felt half dazed, as if the day’s events
Had been too much, and now she wanted rest.
She looked down at her fingers, made a bar
Of light stream out into the darkness, held
It in the air until it looked as if
It was a substance rather than a stream of light.
She smiled, then stopped the motion made to make
The light. The light fell down and clinked on stone.
Her mind was suddenly awake; a chill
Made hair behind her neck stand up and tremble.
The bar was fading on the floor, the light
Bleached out, its substance round and strangely long,
As if its substance was not made on earth.

She put her legs beneath her, stretched her hand
Toward the substance made from light she’d made,
And gingerly, as if it might be hot,
Touched light congealed into a strange, long rod.
The rod was warm and seemed to still contain
A memory of light that it had been.
She sat back, saw the golden dragon’s eyes
Stare as it flew so close above her head.
She felt the darkness shift, as if her time
Was not the time where she was at inside
The cottage built below the dragon caves.

She made another stream of steady light
And welded it into the rod she’d made,
And then she made another rod until
She had a rabbit cage designed to capture
The meal she had not had for much too long.

She looked toward her mother’s empty bed
And saw her mother faintly in the dark.
Behind her mother, coaching her, his hands
So large they seemed as if they had the strength
To hold the world, her father, dead so long
She only had the vaguest memory
Of what his face had looked like during life,
Was pantomiming every move her mother
Was making as she sent the moves to Wei.

Wei gasped. Her mother looked into her eyes,
Smiled sadly, let the dark intensify,
And left the room to emptiness and night.
Wei felt as if she’d never move again.
She glanced toward the rabbit trap she’d made.
Her mother, from her grave, had made her daughter
As powerful a witch as ever lived.
She felt the song she’d sing to bring the rabbits
To where they’d find themselves inside her trap.

She felt so restless that she rose and walked
To where the window looked into the night.
Outside she saw the flames of dragon breath
Light up the darkness like the fireflies did
On summer nights. A dragon knew no fear.
Their largeness dwarfed the strength that humans had.
What madness made them fireflies in the dark?

She moved her hands, her eyes intent on where
She’d seen her father and her mother’s forms.
She concentrated on the golden dragon’s scales
And let her fingers shoot light through the air.
A golden scale, as hard as iron, suspended air,
Burned with a light so bright it blinded Wei.
She brought the scale onto her arm, singed flesh,
The smell and pain tears running down her face.
She felt so strange she thought she heard the stars
Sing songs of dragon fire into the night.
Her tingling arm felt like it was not her,
But separate, more dragon than a girl.

The light stopped flowing, made her gasp;
She slumped down to the floor, her consciousness
A dream she’d conjured from her mother’s grave.

Audio of The Substance of LightVN800015

Note: This is the thirteenth installment of a long poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers below to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 12 to read the section before this one. Go to 14 to read the next section.

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April 9, 2012 · 6:51 am

12. Weaving and Dragon Song

by Thomas Davis

Ruanne sat by the small triangle window,
The morning light a comfort past the storm.
She pumped the small wood loom and fed the strands
Of hair from mountain sheep into the shuttle,
Her hands in constant rhythm as she wove
Each row of heavy cloth into a rug
That metamorphosed howling winds and clouds.

She tried to concentrate upon the wisdom
Of Selen who, upon her loom, had woven
The weaving of a man and woman’s flesh
So human love could populate the world,
But all her efforts skittered like the beads
Of bear grease on a blazing, black iron pan.
Thoughts turned to images: Ruarther caught
By madness, storming from her life to wilderness,
Snow fields a glittering in morning light.

A knocking broke into her reverie.
She deftly tied the weaving so the row
Of gray and blue would stay in place for later,
Got up, and greeted Reestor at the door.
The old man looked pale, weary in the light,
His deep eyes ringed below white eyebrows sweeping
Toward white hair that covered half his forehead.
She smiled and stood aside to let him stomp
Into the cottage, cold around him biting
Into the room warm from the morning fire.

“You’re early for your rounds,” she said, her sadness
Surprising her inside her too soft voice.

Inside his heavy coat he looked more like
A bear than just a man, she thought. A wildness clung
To all the men who hunted for the game
That let the village live through winter storms.
She wondered if she ought to leave her cottage
And make the journey to the nearest town.
Ruarther was the one who’d kept her here.

But now? She smiled as Reestor growled as if
He truly was a bear. He shrugged his coat
Off shoulders strengthened by the years he’d spent
Outdoors before they’d made him village leader.
He walked toward the fire, put out his hands,
Then turned to look into her dark green eyes.

“I saw my father and my brother die,” he said.
“I didn’t live here then. I moved here later–
When Mother couldn’t stand the thought of Breenan.
Two dragons came upon the town all fire.
You seldom saw more than a single dragon then.
My father took his great long bow and hit
The older dragon, Pphhitin, in his one good eye.
The younger, Mmirimann, went wild
His breath so hot it fired the town’s wood roofs;
His claws sent dozens to their early graves.

“The great green brute not only burned our house,
But Mmirimann flung down upon my father,
The dragon killer, scorching flesh with fire.
He left the body black as smoky quartz,
So burned light seemed translucent through
The skull left bare without a shred of flesh.
The smell still visits me at night sometimes.
My brother tried to drive a metal spear
In Mmirimann, but didn’t have the strength.
The dragon swatted him away and speared
A broken rib into his young man’s heart.”

Ruanne stood silent, waiting. Reeston looked
At memories he’d long ago suppressed.
He suddenly looked up into her eyes.

“I don’t like kings,” he said. “The rich men live
Rich lives while those of us who find survival
In places where the rich would never live
Develop bonds much stronger than privation,
But Clayton’s Peace has given us good lives.
No human, or a dragon’s, died from war
For nearly all the years I’ve lived. But now…”

Ruanne still did not speak, but waited, spirit
So taut it seemed as if she ought to scream.

“We see more dragons in the sky each year,”
He said at last. “They have evolved, and we
Are still the humans that we’ve always been.
Ruarther’s craziness will stir their hearts
And bring about rage we have never faced.”

Ruanne let out the breath she’d held too long.
She shook her head. “I know,” she said. “But what?”
She paused. “The witch’s daughter shouldn’t die.
The children in the village shouldn’t face
The rage of dragon fire and raking claws.”

Determined, Reestor looked at her. “You know
The Dragon Songs,” he said. “You’ve heard them sung
Inside your head. You have to let them know
Ruarther’s left our village, lost his mind…”

“I’ve never said I hear the songs,” Ruanne said softly.

“I see it in your eyes, the way you shine inside,”
The old man said. “I’ve lived too long a life.
I hardly sleep, but still, you’re like the witch’s child.”

His words struck like a blow. She was a witch?

“Ruarther’s left me all alone,” Ruanne said.
“I’ve loved him since we both were children… babes…”

“He’s gone, Ruanne. You’ve got to let him go.”

“I’ve never spoken to a dragon, never…
They’ll never answer me… they’ll never hear…”

“You’ve got to try. The children don’t deserve
To die because Ruarther caused a war
That humans cannot hope to ever win.”

Ruanne escaped from Reestor’s burning eyes
And looked at where she’d sat upon the loom.
She shook her head. What could she really do?
She said a silent prayer to sagacious Selen.
She’d always forced the dragon’s songs away.
She was her mother’s child, not witch’s sister.
She’d known the mountain witch, but never once
Felt like they had a bond of flesh or blood…
She looked at Reestor, panic in her eyes.
She talked to dragons, villagers would drive
Her into wilderness, hate’s refugee.

The village children couldn’t die, not if
She had abilities that might protect them.
The old man looked past eyes into her heart.

Audio of Weaving and Dragon Song

Note: This is the twelfth installment of a long poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Go to 11 to read the section before this one. Click1 13 to go forward to the next section.

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March 31, 2012 · 8:18 am

11. The Dragon’s Conclave

Ssruanne’s claws touched the ledge. The summons came.
She did not hesitate, but walked toward
The tunnel that would lead into the mountain.
She felt the gathering that moved before
Her through the caverns, tunnels, endless caves.
The movement of the mountain dragons seemed
More powerful than any storm the world
Has borne throughout its endless history.

She blanked her mind from thought and dream.
She hardly saw the other dragons as she joined
Into a stream of colors walking through
The ghostly lights the young ones mined from veins
Of crystal near the mountain’s granite cliffs.
The thunderous noise of dragons walking through
The tunnel’s passageways hummed through her bones.
The young girl’s eyes kept flickering and shining
Inside her consciousness. It made no sense,
But in her blood she felt the young girl’s heart.

The dragons parted as she walked into the cavern,
The sea of necks and spines, the glittering of eyes
Electric as a thousand lightning bolts.
Mmlynn’s bright eyes watched as her mother walked
Into the storm of fear surrounding her
And flinched to see her mother’s absent eyes.
Her mother looked as if her nightly dreams
Had entered day and burned with unwilled fire.

Ssruanne walked up toward the round, black dais
Where nine huge elders sat, their whirling eyes
Upon her as she did not hesitate,
But climbed the nine huge steps to tower over
The conclave’s rumbling, restless energy.
Upon the dais she turned to dragons she
Had known from when she’d quaked inside her egg.
She was the oldest. Still, the nine had lived
Through years of war with humans, then the moment
When dragon isolation ended deep
Inside this cavern in the mountain’s heart.

Old Mmirimann looked deep into her eyes,
His dark green eyes a swirl of radiance.
He turned his head toward the dragon sea.
Ssruanne’s eyes swept toward the ceiling where
The spoils of other ages were embedded
In melted stone, then looked down at the silence
That had descended as bright dragon eyes
Stared in their thousands at the place she stood.
She felt the bristling of thought and fear inside
The minds behind the eyes, the wondering
That after all these years her dreams were powerful
Enough to bring them to this spirit place.

“You’ve dreamed. We’ve felt the prophecy of dreams,”
Old Mmirimann said, thundering in silence.

Dread rose like bile into Ssruanne, her hearts.
She felt the child inside the cavern, saw her hands
Weave light as if the light was more than light
As boundaries between the universes
That could not ever bridge were bridged and songs
Not of this world were echoed from the past
And future in repeating symphonies.
Her thoughts flowed out of her into the thoughts
Of every dragon there as long necks swayed
In rhythm to the storm her thoughts had made.
A moan rose from the gathered dragons strong
Enough to tremble rock inside the mountain.

Dismayed, Wwilliama, standing next to where
Old Mmirimann’s eyes whirled emotions dense
With fear into cavern’s echoing,
Cried out, “the human girl must die!” as males
Throughout the cavern roared assent and rage
The way Mmlynn had said they would the night
She’d forced Ssruanne to tell about her dreams.

The girl’s blood beat inside Ssruanne’s two hearts.
The girl won’t die, she said inside herself.
Her thought had power like the power burned
Into the light that flowed from young girl’s hands.
It cut into the rage and silenced it.
The nine old dragons looked at her, eyes shocked.
No one had ever silenced dragon rage
In all the ages dragons had existed.

“Your foolishness will bring about our doom.”
Ssruanne was shocked to hear her voice ring out
Outside the working of intent or will.
The voice of prophecy was in her words.
“New days are coming on all dragonkind.
The human girl is part of powers stronger
Than fire and claw. She will not, cannot die!”

The silence was intense, devouring thought.

“The males cannot accept your dreams,” Sshruunak,
The leader of the young males boomed into the silence,
His great voice raw and ugly in the cavern.
Black scales shined power from his whirling eyes.
His neck was rigid challenging Ssruanne.

“The girl is one of us,” the voice of prophecy
Said, slicing once again through strength and rage.

Sshruunak’s great head swayed, fear replacing rage.
He tried to speak, but could not speak, the geas
Of prophecy so powerful it shattered
His will and forced a silence in his hearts.
He forced his legs to move and bumped against
The male beside him, moving back toward
The tunnel that would let him find a ledge to leap
Into the air and stretch his reason into wings.

A movement vast as nightmares stirred throughout
The conclave, shattering community, the dragon
Society’s great unity a chaos
Of fragmentation, swirling individuals
Into the fears in ancient enmities.
The tunnels filled with dragons fleeing prophecy.

Dismay rose up into Ssruanne and echoed.
She felt the pain of times long past as steel
Brought death past scales to dragon flesh.

What was the human girl to her? she cried.
She was a dragon, not the mother of a child.

Audio of The Dragon’s Conclave

Note: This is the tenth installment of a long poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box to the right under The Dragon Epic. Click on 1 to go to the beginning and read forward. Click on 10 to go to the tenth section. Click 12 to go forward a section.

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February 15, 2012 · 7:34 am

6. The Old One’s Prophetic Dreams

by Thomas Davis

The Old One flew past layer after layer
In dreams so vivid that they seemed to smell
Of human sweat around a blazing fire
Inside the villager’s great meeting hall.
The hunter she had found out in the woods
Was pacing like a spirit bear whose rage
Had left the spirit world and slipped
Inside the human by the fireplace, hands
And gestures punctuating madness, fear.

“The witch’s child has stirred the dragons up!”
The big man roared. “The time for peace is done!”

The Old One twisted, tossed upon her bed
Of earth-warmed stone. The storm outside was raging
With winds so strong they moaned across the peaks
And slammed down slopes into the valley where
The young girl Wei slept quietly in bed.

She’d riled the hunter up, she thought. Infected
By fear she’d thrown at him with fiery breath,
He’d lost his sense of who he was and snarled
In desperation at his memories.

“Ssruann! Ssruann!” Her daughter’s rumbling voice
Cut through the layers of her dream and forced
Her from the village back into her cave.
She opened up her eyes and saw her daughter’s
Bright azure eyes above her in the dark.
The dream still heavy in her mind, she blinked
Before she spoke, then stretched her golden neck
Into the frigid air, her daughter’s eyes
Intense upon her waking, looking sharp
And piercing at her dissipating sleep.

Mmlynn has gotten larger than I am,
She thought, or else, she smiled inside, I’ve shrunk.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice so loud it echoed
Inside the cavern of the stone walled cave.

Her daughter’s eyes kept staring, making
The Old One feel unnerved by youth’s strong passions.
Her daughter looked away and glanced toward
The tunnel dug between the Old One’s outer lair
And caves dug deep into the mountainside.

“Your roaring woke the dragonlings,” she said,
Then paused… “and others in a dozen lairs.”

“I’ve been asleep,” the Old One said. “I’ve roared?”

“You’ve dreamed?” her daughter asked, dread in her voice.
The Old One looked outside into the storm.
“I’ve heard you for a month,” her daughter said.
“Tonight it’s gotten out of claw and tooth.”
She paused, her sense of dread so strong it filled
The air inside the cave. “Prophetic dreams.
You’re having dreams foretelling tragedy.”
She paused, then added quickly, “Everyone
Inside the mountain knows what’s going on.”

The Old One looked into her daughter’s eyes
And tried to find the words she’d have to say.
Prophetic dreams could stir the dragon spirits,
Unsettle life inside the mountain, force
Change, roaring, breathing fire, into the world.
She slowly got up from her bed and felt
The aches of old age deep inside her bones.

“We need to bring the human girl up here,”
She said. “I’m dreaming of the human girl.”

A tiny ball of flame puffed out of Mmlynn.
Shock stunned into her eyes and azure face.
“She’d die up here!” she said, her voice severe.
“No dragon’s ever let a human climb
Within a mile of any outer cave!
The males would murder her before she drew
A single breath inside a single lair!”

The Old One walked toward the opening
To look into the storm that moaned and raged
Down cliffs and plummeting, long slopes of rock.

“I know,” she said into the moaning wind.
“But change has come, and dragonkind will change,
Or else the village humans will become
Like ravers with a rage too strong to stop.”
She paused, her voice so strong it magnified
The noise the wind made as it swept up snow.
She turned back to her daughter, forcing down
The roaring in her voice. “The girl is strong,
But weak,” she said at last. “I’ve tried to stop
The dreams, but every night they’re more intense.”

Mmlynn kept staring at her mother. Dreams
By dragons who had lived so long, that came
From layers far below their consciousness,
Could never be ignored. Their prophecies
Came from the minds of all the dragons living
Inside the mountain’s winding tunnels, caves.
Her mother, even when she’d been too young
To be a dragon dreamer, had the dreams
No dragon dared dismiss if dragonkind
Could keep their ancient sentience and will.

“We’ll need a conclave then,” she said, her voice
So small it disappeared into the air.

Ssruann looked at the remnants of the dreams
That floated, pale with images, inside her mind.
“They’ll want to kill the child,” she said, her question
Of why she cared posed when the hunter fled
Still in her voice. “When frightened, every life
delivers death to try to stay alive.”

Mmlynn turned back toward her dragonlings.
“They will,” she said. “No matter what you say.”

She left. The Old One turned back to the storm.
How could the child survive? she asked herself.
Alone, a winter worse than any one before,
The village humans building rage against
A human child that they had never seen—

She turned back to her bed. What could she do?
She asked. What magic did the child possess?
What madness plagued her through unwanted dreams?

The storm would end, she thought. It had to end.
And then? The question settled in the cave.

Note: This is the sixth installment of a long poem. Inspired by John Keats’ long narrative poem, Lamia, it tells a story set in ancient times when dragons and humans were at peace. Click on the numbers to reach other sections, or go to the Categories box under The Dragon Epic. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Go to 7 to reach the next section.

The Old One Audio

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