NaPoWriMo April 2022 (Day 26)

Click the NaPo button above to open today’s prompt page with links to more poems.

For my twenty-sixth daily, prompted, voluntary assignment, today I was challenged to write a poem that contains at least one epic simile. These (Homeric) similes extend and develop over multiple lines with decorative elements that emphasize the dramatic nature of the subject. As suggested, I chose to write a complete poem as one long epic simile theme (salted with some metaphor) to carry the poem.


Flying Like Dragons

Like unleashed frightening awesomeness,
like giant thundering flying dragons with
massive wings lifting us skyward, roaring, breathing fire;
my brain blends with this pestilent machine, as if I’m guiding
an iron plague with deafening noise to wreak death,
to pour vengeance down upon their wrongs, a bane
to my enemies, a scourge of fire-for-fire. Flying
at invisible heights, with a sharp stinging tail, breathing
radiation into electrons, as my stealthy flying monster
seeks annihilation of the unjust.

Like a beast, it sees over great distances,
it smells its enemies in total darkness; then skillfully, silently
we approach as offensive defenders with hidden talons;
without emotion or fear, as if by kismet we destroy our prey
with automatic, irreversible, unmerciful curses.


Look both ways to see what is nearby but accept the limits of sensory perception.
Mind the gaps and trust your dragon’s instruments.

Poetry: Sammi’s Weekend Prompt: Draconian

***

My heart sank into deep depression when I saw
sitting in front of me, blocking my way,
between self, freedom, and happiness,

Draco, the symbol of inequity, of unfair
rule, of the man, of draconian reality,
life dulls when the dragon appears.

He has all the power. I have none.
Draco must be who and what Draco is,
a cancer, a deadly error of nature.

The dragon does no harm, it looks
without emotion or caring, without malice,
Draco kills from silent idleness.

Nature serves an onerous messenger—
truth, there is no life without death.
The dragon cares nothing about how I feel.

***

Look both ways and mind the gaps, but
if you see the dragon nothing else matters.