CHAPTER 2: The Beast Appears
ONE
DAY AN INDIAN BOY APPEARED,
who had years to go before his beard.
He told the Dragon Council: “I!
Yes, I will watch this deadly dragon die.
Enough these lands have feared!”
The
Dragon Councilors spoke no word,
as if they hadn’t even heard.
Then like dragon fire chuckling spread.
“Boy, go home,” a great queen said.
The boy dashed off just like a bird.
The Council’s thoughts again turned cold.
Snatchgrin made their hearts grow old.
The Indian boy appeared once more, shouted,
then dashed out the door:
“Here comes Borstal Bold!”
The council room began to shake.
The great queen saw a Greek vase break.
A crowd outside began to shout as
the Dragon Council sprinted
out.
A new tragedy, a great earthquake!
The Indian boy stood in the street where the main road
and the forest meet. He pointed as the forest shook,
and shouted: “Please now take a look.
Gaze at a dragon’s defeat!”
The queens and kings, the crowd, all peered
to see what through the trees appeared.
What sort of thing could shake the ground?
What kind of feet make such a sound?
A
monster surely to be feared.
A
final row of trees gave way,
a wall of flesh came on display.
Gray & ghastly with knots of hair—
never was this beast called fair.
But what it was noone could say.
Tall
as a ship, wide as a dock
each foot big as a hefty rock.
Sheets for ears, rope for a tail...
A fisherman cried, “I believe it’s a whale!”
Another one said he was off his crock.
“A whale has never been seen on land, and
its skin is as a smooth as the palm of your hand.
This beast, you see, is covered with hair.
I’d say it’s a giant long-haired bear.”
Both fishermen then chose to run, not stand.
They were not alone. Dozens more fled.
Not all were afraid they would be laid dead.
The beast had a stench foul as a sewer,
an odor that pierced the nose like a skewer.
It made you dizzy & dull in your head.
Most peculiar of all were the beast’s two horns,
odd as the mythical unicorn’s.
They stuck from its face a good six feet or more,
and curled and twisted and curled some more,
with tips quite as sharp as a rose’s thorns.
Not a whale, not a bear,
never seen anywhere!
Perhaps it wandered out of hell—
that would explain its terrible smell.
What could it be that was standing there?
“Examine the nose!” said
the queen, who had stayed.
Unlike the others, she seemed unafraid.
She turned to her jester—Vick Falco by name—
her dear confidante in the royalty game.
Falco knelt near her. The court jester prayed.
“Get up off the grass you cowardly clown!
I don’t think this beast threatens our town.
Look how it moves, slow as a leaf.
It’s true there’d be trouble if it moved like a thief.
Then it could trample whole regiments down.”
Falco
arose, made the sign of the cross.
Then said: “I advise you, Queen Junelilly Moss,
to beat a swift & certain retreat. The most
formidable weapon is always the feet, which
guide one away from the scene of a loss.”
“Falco, you know I cannot order my feet,”
said the queen, whose throne was a rolling seat.
She’d arrived in this world with useless legs,
but hardly had bothered with self-pity’s dregs.
“Are you saying, dear Falco, I’m beat?”
The queen rolled her throne along the ground.
Falco asked where she was bound.
“Maybe I’m wrong and made a mistake.
It looks less like a nose and more like a snake!”
Suddenly, there was the most horrible sound.
The snake/nose rose into the air.
The beast’s mouth let out such a blare
a flock of seagulls overhead
flew into the ground instead.
The queen retreated in her chair.
Falco
wheeled her quickly back
to the Dragon Councilors grouped in a pack.
All prepared at once to fly
in the face of the monster’s battle cry.
The beast failed to pursue the attack.
“Look there!” cried a prince. “It has trapped
a child. Call out the soldiers before it runs wild!”
Indeed, there appeared at the foot of the beast, a boy,
what a monster might find quite a feast.
Still, the beast remained quite mild.
Beyond any reason, beyond
any sense,
the child at the foot of the beast grew tense
and then leaped in the air and grabbed on its side.
Using its hair, he climbed up its hide!
“Poor boy!” Falco said. “Must be dense.”
The boy walked on its back and onto the neck,
like the beast were a boat and he walked on the deck.
He picked up two ropes attached to its ears.
“Od’s Blood!” Falco cried. “It’s a beast that
he steers!”
Toward the Council it started to trek.
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