Hic Sunt Draconis

In the dark shade of the trees

Grow monsters hooded like monks,

Just as beautiful as peonies,

Under the aegis of the trunks.

Innocent-looking krakens

In the manifold places of their birth

Appearing from cracked earth

In the security of the gardens

In the fertile soil at the foot of walls

Or where any form of decay falls.

The neophytes, never taught but warned,

Still drawn to their shapely form

Took windrows home

And their tables therewith adorned.

Souls once immaculate

Now to the wolves thrown

The hem of their habit

Locked in their petrifying hand

Unable to run away

Or join their hands to pray.

Sheep, undisturbed most,

Thrive and graze

Feeding off these

Unminding of the dose

Which would be lethal

In vertiginous fall

For many other species.

That which kills could cure

If that which would cure didn't kill,

As love budding and dying

Which, in so doing, does death instill.

First comes the tingling, the shortness of breath

Then the numbing and the heartache

At the hands of the quiet Goliath

The flesh so weak, so weak

The mind numbed

the heart stunned

If ye need be angry, poison,

In thy tyranny be quick!

Less innocent creatures feed

Now on these fatal flowers

Born in terror and in terror breed

More formidable their powers

More potent their poison

Turn reason into treason

Deepen the hell of these bowers.

For now basilisks and asps

At leisure among these flower fields

Reshape our confidence in maps

Turn quiet lands into battlefields

Ready to rear up and hiss

For hic sunt draconis.