Dragontongue

He sat upon a throne of hoarded gold,
Smelted into shape by fires exhaled,
A king without a crown,
But a coronation of horns,
He had the tongue of a dragon,
The scaled epitome of absolute authority,
A white-hot mailed fist,

And when he spoke,
Embers erupted at the sound,
The storms coalesced and yelled praise,
Mountains kneeled in thrall,
Forests shivered in their roots,
All beasts knew domination,
And even Men feared the shadow in the sky,

All under his wings was his domain,
Fields and seas and bastions,
Nations and borders be damned,
Such trifles are for lessers,
For he was a dragon,
Brimstone was his birthright,
And a dragon only understands submission.

The Golem

The man wasn’t born,
Never laid within a womb,
He was fashioned wholesale,
From mineral and clay,
A human form,
Standing above even the mountains,
Wearing nests and clouds as a shawl,
Dwarves would spelunk into his ears,
Searching for cerebral copper and iron,

His skin was the epitome of ore,
Diamonds and gems set in his eyes,
And Stalactites and stalagmites were his teeth,
His movements were tectonic,
Quakes shook at every footfall,
The man liked to tread upon soft grass,
Though he couldn’t tell why,
He would wander ad nauseum,
But did not know why,

You see,
He was just a golem.

Elementalist

There was a man,
Perhaps a wizard or some kind of fae,
Whose blood ran with lava and waves,
And whose voice was typhoons and sandstorms,
He had a face like a craggy bluff,
And his eyes shifted with the seasons,
He would roam like a glacier one cycle,
And a tsunami the next,

As the masses are wont to do,
Plebs would strike him with human issues,
Pebbles dropped in his waters en masse,
He’d snap back with flames,
A conflagration from his charred tongue,
A storm of lightning and pointed flurries,
As if the elements were beholden to man,
Just another tool,

His temperament was as changeable as clouds,
Full of biting rain one moment,
And an easing sky the next,
He was erosion and draft,
He was the bushfire and the oasis,
He had seen whole worlds life,
He was the elements four,
Submissive only to time.

Between The Pages

Sitting alone in your cradle,
Dross all around you,
A world in turmoil,
It’s hard to ignore the grey,
But did you forget?
You hold the solution in your hands,
A leather-bound saviour,
Pages upon pages,
Filled with worlds and invisible people,
It’s both a blindfold and portal,
An unguent for the world weary soul,
Hiding the monotony of the world around you,
While permitting you to traverse others,
Befriending all manner of secret friends,

My friend,
It’s a temporary respite,
But a necessary one,
There is no shame,
In sheltering oneself between the pages.

Komainu

Come in from the rain,
This is a shrine of Nigi-Mitama,
You are safe here,
We are protected by our Komainu,
Our stone canid sentinel,
Our leonine hound in pride of place,
He ever watches over these steps and pagodas,
Keeping yokai from our door,

In his mossy coat of armour,
He has stood here for eons,
The forest too accepts his stewardship,
See how the fireflies dance about his maw,
Daunting he may be,
His form is that of a predator,
But he is a guardian,
So kneel by his side,

Feel the fervour within his jasper eyes,
His glower won’t allow the dark to chill you,
His roars shall stifle even the tempests,
No evil spirit shall touch you,
His growls shall affright even them,
You are welcome here,
You may remain under his gaze,
Until the sun sees fit to guide you on.

Hoarding

Whether we intend it or not,
We hoard our memories,
Like a dragon in a fantasy story,
Within our cramped quarters,
They pile up in slipshod stacks,
Love letters and blueprints,
Photographs and macaroni art,

They call it an illness,
But to us it is treasure,
A different kind of aurum,
It is beyond valuable,
Despite the barbs and rough edges,
But I daresay,
To others it is more akin to copper.

Aurora

We’re taught that sorcery died out,
That all of the sorcerers burned,
But if you travel to the isolated places,
Those hyperborean ice fields and glaciers,
Away from the urban funk,
And look to the sky,

There you’ll see the most mystical of sights,
A sky bound phenomenon of green veins,
A jade dragon over the peaks,
A stroke of intangible mana,
As if conjured by some Nordic witch,
Nothing of man could compare,

And so,
This aurora casts a spell upon us,
A gift of sight mystic,
And if such an ensorcelling wonder exists,
What other spectacles may hide out there?
Magic is very much alive,

The sky tells us so.

Stormchaser

There was a girl,
Perchance a someday inamorata,
She told me of storms,
She was afraid of the thunder,
The primal sonance of it,
The unbridled decibel of its call,

I am no fighter,
But for her I’ll hunt tempests,
So I sally forth,
On to tornado alley,
To chase the rains and bolts,
To smite them in return,

Over stream and crag I clamber,
Battered by gusts and pellets of blue,
In tinfoil cuirass and rubber boots,
Toothpick blade and bottlecap shield,
An unrequited knight,
A banner of naivete at my back,

I nip at the storms heels,
The cyclone bellows in fury,
Neon glances all about me,
Burning the soil,
I am a flea to its authority,
But still I strike,

Just for her,
So the thunder ceases,
So she no longer has to be afraid.

Inner Child

Did you know?
Within each of us lies a feeble creature,
Our inner child,
Our youthful spirit,
He or she cradles our whimsy,
Our inner magic and imagination,
Our belief in flying castles and fairytales,
Our je ne sais quoi,
It’s a treasure we ought to protect,

But alas,
The poor moppet has a shelf life,
Wasting away year by year,
Diminishing in frame and power,
A candle slowly going out,
As the fumes of the world choke it,
It’s an uphill battle to keep it breathing,
But worth the fight,
If only to say you tried.

Land Of Giants

To be a poet is to walk among past giants,
To write is to scamper betwixt their footprints,
As they feast in their halls,
Subsisting on crumbs dropped from on high,
Vermin in their literary Valhalla,
A rat amidst their feet,

There is no beanstalk to their heights,
Shakespeare and Shelley,
Bronte and Poe,
Colossal wordsmiths and Einherjar bards,
They earned their places here,
I have not,

I came to climb to their zeniths,
Trying not to get stomped on,
Barely a flea in contrast,
To their elephantine labours of text,
My works are rock paintings,
Ink on seashells childishly spent,

In this land of giants,
I am but a neophyte,
I’ll likely never achieve the apex,
But why not keep climbing?