We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

21.4.18

Mistaken Identity


Poetry month, day 21

For Mythical Creatures at "imaginary garden with real toads"


Mistaken Identity

Enamoured I was, of his fiery breath,
the metallic clash of scales and claws
and those magnificent wings.

"No," said my friends, "he is reptile"
but I was blind to that point of view.
Perceiving no look of snake, I saw Dragon.

Only when finally alone with him,
I wondered why he chose, instead of sky
and glorious flight, that rock in the water.

He folded his wings and began to look like ...
could it be a lizard? Then he opened wide 
a huge jaw. At last I discerned the crocodile.

13 comments:

  1. Pity the zoologists, ever amending the bestiary to appropriate another aspect from myth and set it on the brow of reality. Beware the choppers of sea-dragons! I'm with you -- still mythic to me! Great response to the challenge!

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  2. Sometimes we come across people who can seem unpredictable.. I wonder how that translates when it comes to matters of the heart and brain. Powerful response to the prompt, Rosemary!💜

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  3. Ha, this sounds like some would-be dragons i have known.

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  4. OMG what a brilliant metaphor for the superficial

    Much🌼love

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  5. Very clever writing here. I like how the view point of the narrator shifts through the different types of animals observed in the lover. Viva la.

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  6. Beware the dragon, never better told than in your poem. I especially like your opening lines
    "Enamoured I was, of his fiery breath," That is how we get into trouble almost every time :-)

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  7. I have crossed paths with one two...great write .. you hit the prompt right on the sweet spot

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  8. Oooooh, nice! What a surprise at the end.

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  9. This was fun, Rosemary. I was wishing it would have been a dragon. Believe it or not, I belong to the World Dragon Day organization. On a lark I joined. It's not very active group.
    https://m.facebook.com/groups/617925391659630
    ..

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  10. Every reptile bears the mark of the dragon in the archaic parts of our minds.

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  11. In the end you see the crocodile... all mouth and no ears.

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  12. this is a really fascinating portrait - a deception in the writing, in the best of ways - with just the right amount of myth and spirit guides and oh, of course, the failure to see even if the gut is right and we are heart blind -
    in totality - this is wonderful and astonishing - I really like this Rosemary, well done!

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