the kind Dragon, the alabaster Tower and the lone Raven

It is a little know fact that Dragons are not malefic. Their breath, licked by flurrying tongues of flame, serves not only the combustion of the flesh, but gives theirs life. Dragon's blood is made of rubies, molten and pushed by their mighty hearts, each beat sending the blaze of life to their very fingertips where it dances round and about, almost leaving their hands as a halo of healing force. If a Dragon surrounds you in his colossal hand, fear nothing, his sweat may burn but not harm, drink up and your sadness shall shatter and, as tiny droplets of mist do, give rise to rainbow.

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Münchhausen: Byronic or Baronic

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen, hitherto known as the Baron, is Byron's lost progeny. Historical inaccuracy and the relative non-linearity of time come to my rescue afore critics even unhinge their mouths and unfasten their minds. As the Baron never once said, "It's much more than a fact. That's how it really happened!"¹

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No carapace

I more than once heard people say, often proudly, that their experiences in love had led them to grow a thick skin. I've never understood why others regard insensitivity as strength and, even more often, emotionality as weakness. My belief is that there is far more courage in growing keener with each joy and pain we experience, and to open our heart all the more when we know we may suffer. Here's the expression of this belief:


No...

Carapace.
Spartan shield shed into chasm.
Pachyderm.
Arduous tusks, scab scratched off.
Ivory.
Charcoal rooks flew pawning coins.
Adamant.
Trumped by hearts, piked, clubbed to ash.

I've naught to hide beneath my pelt,
all walls forswear and ribs unsheathe,
cerise hood lift: this heart must breathe,
admit caress and wild whip's welt,

my sweetest seed shall don no husk.
Though lids may moor, put out the lights,
I shall not fall to mourning nights,
this Spanish Don won't turn to dusk.

Lily in the mist

"¿Quién me ha robado el mes de Abril?
Lo guardaba en el cajón
donde guardo el corazón."
Joaquin Sabina


Draped in dew, befogged yet shrill,
night regards two strangers stride,
arms entwined, with cadenced glide,
dampened steps in mist hushed still.

Inside hearts, caged fireflies steer
sinews strong revealed finespun.
Lips unfastened, masks undone,
petals rustle in the clear.

Nightingales their tongues do twist,
mock the creole of the kiss,
while their twilit pupils miss
Lily melt into the mist.

The Sabre-nosed Hag

This is the artistic translation of an archetypal Ukrainian folk story written in the book "З живого джерела" edited by Упоряд. Л. Дунаєвська, and illustrated by Олександра Міхнушова. The black humoured ending of this tale is, again, typically Eastern...

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