A Flash of Fire
From its lethal lair,
The disheartening dragon’s callous eyes stare
Sparkling like respected rubies.
Its touchy tail teeters,
Glancing off the ground,
Gold scales screech.
Gaping, the dragon divulged
its gold tusks;
rows of tight teeth
jut from rapacious jaws
prepared to crunch, munch and scrunch.
Crescent claws carve beef.
Bones lay sprinkled,
the most destructive of dice.
Wings, like an atrocious, ancient ship,
clang in the wintry wind.
The dragon’s scales seize
the sun’s freezing rays
in a flash of fire.
Noxious,
it casts the shabby shadows of grief,
the wind caught in its bloody teeth.
You have created some very powerful images, well done. I think describing the bones as ‘destructive dice’ works particularly effectively.
Fantastic ideas and word choices (the dragon divulged) – I love the way you are listening for the meaning and the sounds (crescent claws carve beef) – nice use of rhyme at the end that works well – Great work.
The opening lines gripped me and ensured I kept reading. I love your use of short phrases and even the one word parts. They create such an image and emphasise the danger.
This would be a great poem to perform. I can hear the eerie voice speaking in hushed tones placing each word carefully. Your use of rhyme with ‘crunch, munch and scrunch’ paints the picture in sound so we hear the dragon devouring its catch.
I think one of my favourite lines is, ‘it casts the shabby shadows of grief’. Is sounds so sorrowful but also meaningless in that grief is a powerful feeling but the dragon is not phased by that.