GHOST OF THE DRAGON - my lost poem

I thought this was a lost poem. Hadn't seen it in thirty years. Found it at the bottom of a closet in my parent's house.

I wrote it when I was thirteen so have some mercy. I present it here as it was originally written.

Note the nuclear accident near New Jersey which dates this to around three mile island time.

I remember the impetus for the poem was I had seen plenty of ghost stories, even ghost stories of animals and I wanted to do a ghost story of a creature that never existed, a mythical creature ghost story.

Enjoy.

THE GHOST OF THE DRAGON



Once upon a time
There was a dragon
The people of his town were fine
As long as they gave him a luscious maiden

But the dragon grew tired
The maidens grew in number
Then the dragon aspired
"I'll go for a slumber."

In his slumber,
Grief was this creature
It was his first fear
He could see no future
He knew his end was near

This creature who was not scared
Of men with swords a-slashing
Was now scared of something he couldn't mend
Even more than the cave a-crashing

He could not escape this
Death stood painfully like a blister or cist

No one went into the cave to slay,
Into the cave the dragon slept in
The dragon breathed his life away
And soon rigor mortis set in

A thousand years passed
A new age dawned
The dragon slept fast
And a modern archeologist saw
The possibilities of a dragon,
A dragon once strong

Everyone laughed hard
But still his trip went unmarred
What he said was sad
Because looking for a dragon
meant he was mad

Still he went
The night passed by
Then he found the cave
he let off a sigh

He would not be proved crazy, after all
He did not search in vain
He did not want to stall
To hurry up, he put on a strain
But finally he got into the cave
Not without pain

By now the sun had set
The crew smelled the smell of the dead
The smell of a decaying head
And the caves dank, dark wet

He brought back the dragon's body
Back with him to a museum
The body smelled so bad
It belonged in a mausoleum

The archeologist was happy
The money from the discovery became more
He had paid those laughing people back
He had settled the score

The dragon's body was dead
But not the soul
It had not been accepted into Heaven or Hell
It travelled the earth instead
He travelled it evermore

The dragon had taken maidens
And then he had been bad
But he had only done this
Because the other dragons had

The dragon had protected his people
From neighboring lands and dragons
That's when he was good, he was both
So he wasn't accepted by Heaven or Hell's wagons

The dragon had to stay with it's body
He had to stay where his body stood
When his body was taken away
It was his chance to do bad or good

The dragon was surprised
The dragon was deafened
They had taken his body
Now he was maddened
Finally they put metal pipes on it
To hold it up stiffened

The dragon was mad
The dragon was angry
The way they made him look
They must be crazy

He attacked the city without mercy
Attacked all around
He went on to New Jersey
The fire in his breath, the only sound

He attacked another city
A city that had had
a nuclear accident
This was a pity

The dragon's ghost died
The negative particles had dissolved
No one did shed a tear or cry
They just resolved
"Lets blame this on someone."

A terrorist group took the blame
But it didn't matter
The archeologist made his money just the same
And grew fatter

If the dragon had left
Well enough alone
His soul would have gone to Heaven
Instead he threw down
Brick and stone
And Hell was his only haven

The dragon ended up in Hell
But he was not sad
At least he went somewhere
His soul left glad