Dramok in Flight
The Baby Dragon (poem)
Choosing a Pet (illustrated poem) Of
Mythic Beasts (poem)
Dramock (illustrated poem) Saphira
(illustrations)
Mama
Dragon (animation)
Other Views of Dramock (illustrations)
Rueben (illustrations) Dragon
Case(photo)
THE BABY DRAGON
Last of an Endangered Species
The spring sun warmed his infant shell-like scales.
He flexed his downy wings, not yet quite dry.
He raked new grass with slim stilleto nails
and sniffed black earth and herb scents. Cloudless sky,
swept indigo by winds, backed every bare
white tree. His breath steamed in the icy air.
The leathery shell, from which he'd clawed his way
at dawn, lay lost to dragon memory.
He switched his spiny tail in cautious play
to seek, by feel, his own identity.
Then clomping sounds disturbed the sough of wind.
With joy he knew his world contained another
who moved. His untried legs, well spurred and finned,
moved under him. He leapt to find his mother.
He saw bright silvery scales - made in a forge.
Exuberantly he romped to meet St. George.
By Phyllis Sterling Smith
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Sad little Freebie at left, the first dragon I ever drew, keeps getting thrown out of every adoptive
home because, in the heat of emotion, he sets fire to draperies and furniture. As you can see, he has
even let out an emotional belch of fire that set ablaze his "I am free" sign. The "free" on this sign
means "gratis" not "liberated. Horbul, the young dragon on the right, is intelligent, clever, and
amoral. I would advise you not to choose him as a pet. (See below)CHOOSING A PET
You really, really, really want a dragon?
Be sure it's not a chore of which you'll tire.
Their learning skills are not a lot to brag on.
Excited ones are prone to belch out fire.Housetraining's slow, but don't put paper down. I’ve never tried to trap a unicorn.
The dragon tries to please. He's not to blame
if you scold him and then you almost drown
dousing the room his papers set aflame.Feeding your pet should not bring you to tears;
it eats whatever you would like to eat.
They haven't devoured maidens for years and years,
but, still, a Barbie Doll's a welcome treat.With patience he'll become a loving pet,
affectionate and loyal, lively, fun--.
Some tired owners abandon theirs, and yet
a feral one can grow to weigh a ton.Australians loosed the rabbit on their land.
Galapagos islands suffer from the goat.
Should feral dragons menace on every hand
some folk would say, "I told you so," and gloat.So make your baby dragon a welcome one.
If he is lonesome let him sleep with you.
Of course he too will grow to weigh a ton.
Why are you asking, "Where's the nearest zoo?"
By Phyllis Sterling Smith
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OF MYTHIC BEASTS
It’s not more graceful, say, than a gazelle,
an earthly beast I’m sure would do as well;
and what’s so great about a single horn?
Nor have I tried to snare a horse with wings.
I’ve flown across the sky, but in a jet.
I see no earthly use for such a pet;
I’ll save my sugar cubes to sweeten things.But dragons! Ah, now that’s a different story:
great flailing tails that slither, thrash, and crash,
tough armored scales to hide the wicked core,
the iridescent wings a blue-black glory,
the knobbly claws whose talons rake and slash!
My favored mythic beasts breathe fire, and roar!top
That almost silent whoosh of air is Dramok,
prince of dragons,
dark body limned with luminescence,
riding the night sky
searching -- searching
for Trog, beloved bride,
she of the iridescent scales--
dead long ago.His dragon mind can't comprehend that eons have passed.
An ice age (not the last one)
felled him with its sudden chill, and he has lain
inert and dreamless, entombed in ice
until a chance event of warming wind, a ray of sun that angled
into the crevasse where he lay
thawed and wakened him.To him it seemed a single night had passed.
He longed for night again with orienting stars to guide him home.But now the very stars betray him.
Earth's slow precession had made of them
false beacons that lead to unfamiliar landscapes.And what of the stars below?
He remembers the sparse and scattered fires
of the hairy ones, small bipeds such as those encamped
within the entrance to the dragon cave, scorned but tolerated
by their noble dragon hosts. Their fires were pretty, like dragon breath.But now great starry clusters light the ground
or move in files, as ants do.A different world. Somehow
overnight
he was transported to a different world.An empty ache moves in to fill his dragon heart.
He longs for home and Trog
but would greet any dragon, even his greatest rival,
with open wings.On and on he flies.
By day, chameleon-like, he turns to green and rests unseen in forests.
At dusk he takes the darker colors of night.
Non-dragons share his sky, swift winged giants
whose roar could have drowned out even Myroc
fiercest of dragons. But where is Myroc now?Dramock's wings beat out a sad refrain: Where is Trog? Where is Trog?
To us he seems to be
only a shadow against the stars. By Phyllis Sterling Smith
and on and on he flies...
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Saphira (at left) grew from a pencil drawing (right) which I made of
a carved Balinese dragon.
The Balinese dragon carving was interesting in that it had a traditional
Chinese dragon face but
had wings, limbs that Chinese dragons never have. What's more,
these were feathered wings. In
my opinion dragons (the real ones that I believe existed - hence their
persistence in legends of many
lands) probably had membranous wings like a bat. Saphira's wings
are definitely bat wings.
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Other views of Dramock
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Rueben is a dragon of great enthusiasm.
He frequently indulges in unhealthy excesses, leading to his plight
on the right.
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Maybe this is a good time to introduce a few photos of my dragon collection.
At the center is the top tier of my dragon case, flanked at left by
a detail of the
kindergarten shelf and at right a detail of the top shelf
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